Tonight we gathered in my property manager Nancy Strickland’s hydrangea-heavy backyard. It was a garden that looked like it came with a staff. The wine was cheap but cold, the air smelled like fresh-cut grass, and conversation buzzed around me like bees to sugar.
The topic, of course, was the Lady of the Dunes.
“I’m telling you,” one of the older Keepers said, her glass waving dramatically, “Elodie may be onto something. Those letters are worth looking into.”
Over the summer my sister Elodie had uncovered a long-forgotten trunk containing old letters while renovating the Stafford Farm. She was convinced that there was more to our local legend than we knew. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on anything she’d found.
“You think the Lady left on purpose?” someone asked.
Star Harbor’s entire identity was wrapped up in the story of the Lady of the Dunes. A ghostly woman in a flowing white dress, seen walking barefoot through the coastal dunes with a bouquet of wildflowers clutched in her hands. Some said she was searching for the lover she lost to a stormy shipwreck in the late eighteen hundreds. Others believed she was seeking revenge. The legend had been passed down for generations, warping with every telling until no one really knew who she was or what she wanted—only that she haunted this place like a memory refusing to fade. People swore they’d seen her at twilight, her dress glowing, her eyes hollow.
Whether they believed it or not, every single person in Star Harbor knew her story. Now some of us—against our better judgment—had started to wonder if it was entirely true.
“I think she had a reason to disappear.” Elodie leaned forward, bouncing her eyebrows. “Doesn’t every woman at some point or another?”
Laughter circled the group, and I offered a tight smile, my attention drifting toward the flicker of fairy lights strung along the fence line as my thoughts wandered.
Austin’s arms. His smirk. That voice, low and amused, asking whether I’d ever been kissed under Michigan starlight.
I needed to focus.
My attention snapped back as the women discussed the upcoming fall events. I took notes, offered to follow up on a boardinghouse ledger someone had mentioned. When I slipped out an hour later, I felt no closer to peace than when I’d arrived.
Monday unraveled fast.
Over the weekend, Winnie had been confirmed for before- and after-school care, and I was clinging to that precious gift like a life raft. I dropped her off with a rushed hug and a banana she refused to eat, then raced home to prepare for a client call and catch up on the maritime registry files.
By 3:19 my phone rang.
“Ms. Darling?” The voice on the other end belonged to the aftercare program coordinator. My stomach dropped. “I wanted to inform you that we had a small incident with Winnie after school today.”
My teeth clenched. “What kind of incident? Is she okay?”
A pause. “Yes, she’s fine. But she told the other children that ghosts live in the attic of the school and that if they misbehave, the Lady of the Dunes will eat their toes.”
I closed my eyes. “Oh no.”
The woman tsked. “Two of the kindergartners cried so hard they had to be picked up early.”
Of course they did.
“Our program may not be the best fit for a child with such ...” The woman searched for words. “Spirit.”
Nerves wobbled my voice. “No, your program is perfect for her. I promise this is just a blip. I’ll talk to her.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman continued, “we can’t have other childrenafraidwhile they’re here. We’re going to have to remove her from the program, at least temporarily. You understand.”
My carefully color-coded to-do list spontaneously combusted. I offered a flurry of apologies, assured them I would speak with her, and ended the call with the brittle calm of a woman at the end of her fraying rope.
By evening I was sitting on the back steps of the carriage house with my laptop balanced on my knees and a legal pad limp in my lap. All the ice in my lemonade had melted, leaving behind a watery, disappointing refreshment. The only thing I’d managed to accomplish was burning a grilled cheese and snapping at the antique brush I’d dropped down a vent.
My shoulders ached. My head pulsed. Everything felt too loud. The cicadas. The deadlines. My own thoughts.
Across the fence line, I heard him.
Austin.
He was laughing and talking to someone as they unloaded a secondhand sofa from a trailer. His voice was low, steady, easy.
