It was barely seven in the morning when she was again parked at the gates with the big chain and rusted padlock. Maybe if I sit on the step again. She was done crying. She wanted so much to be able to go back, but had virtually convinced herself it had been nothing more than a dream.
The concrete was smooth and cool. There were four steps. She sat on the second one and laid her folded arms upon the fourth, which had her head resting against the burnt doorframe. There was nothing, so Anne closed her eyes, and suddenly she couldn't breathe. Her lungs burned, and she sat up coughing and choking for breath. She stagged back from the steps, shocked and horrified.
There was a shimmer of light, and the house formed as an image, but it quickly faded and vanished. A hot, dry gust of wind assailed her. It carried the smell of smoke, but the air was clear.
Anne took a calming breath and cautiously approached the burnt remains of the house again, touching a section of wall and feeling the charred wood. She broke off a piece that crumbled in her hand.
Surveying the scene, a flash of colour snared her eye. She picked her way across the yard. Bending, she touched something hard, half-buried in the dirt. She scrabbled until it came free. Her breath caught. A long strand of grubby pink beads emerged, crowned with a heart. She stuffed it in her pocket.
It had not been a dream. This place was haunted, but it didn't scare her at all. She belonged there. She was a part of that house and it was a part of her. She sat on the steps and rested her head again. She closed her eyes and her chest began to burn, so she opened her eyes again and it stopped. There was no way back. Those few weeks were all that had been given to her. It was a life that had passed, but was it really hers?
Anne needed to see a photograph. She had seen several in the house, but were they real or only her imagination? Was the reflection she had seen in the mirrors really Patricia Harper?
The woman who did the research-Ethel. Patricia's friend. The hippie woman who made jewellery and took photographs. There was a house set back beyond the hay field that had to be where this woman lived. Anne found the driveway and pulled up next to the four-wheeler parked by the front steps to a cottage set in a beautiful flower garden. The elderly couple appeared on the veranda, smiling a warm welcome.