Chapter 3

 

The climb up the two-hundred-and-seven stairs seemed to take forever. The metal of the handrail burned her hands with the cold through her grandmother’s gloves that she had donned before heading to the beacon. The snow managed to drift and pile in the short time since she’d been outside. Her heart seized with the knowledge her grandmother was still out there and would remain on the rocks until the ferry could get back after the storm and the police could come out.

Her steps echoed in the empty tower as she ascended higher and higher. Sweat, despite the cold, trickled down her spine. Her breath wheezed in and out of her mouth, her lungs burned. Her thighs screamed as she reached the second landing. And the sound of the storm echoed in the empty tower stairwell. The whistling and thundering of the surf was almost deafening to her senses.

When she reached the floor with the lens mechanism, she rested her head against the wall. She wheezed with the effort to drag air into her constricted lungs.

The haunting laugh of a ghost filled the air.

“Ohhhhh, Ainsssssssleeeeeeyyyyyy.”

Ainsley resisted the urge to cover her ears and rush back down the twisting metal stairs.

She panned the flashlight around the room. There was a desk and old file cabinet against the wall beside it. The light now was fully automated, and this part of the room was a throwback to a bygone era. She took a deep breath. Her grandmother believed the painting that held the spirit of a ghost was in this room. Somewhere. But where?

Ainsley had never been up here. It was stark in its furnishing, and nothing adorned the walls. An old oak desk sat under a small window. Ainsley went over, pulled the chair out, and sat. She started to pull drawers out, looking for a secret compartments. Besides it being a portrait, she didn’t know how large it was or what the painting would contain. Oh, how she wished her grandmother had talked to her sooner. She’d wished she’d not been so stupid and stubborn and had spoken to her grandmother about what she’d felt.

Thunder rumbled overhead and lightning lit the room.

A thunderstorm during a snowstorm?

The heavy oppressive feeling once again settled over the room.

All at once, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. The fragrance of lilac coated her throat. Gagging, she pushed away from the desk, desperate for fresh air.

She stumbled out onto the landing and clung to the black-lacquered railing, gulping the stale, cold air as a wave of dizziness assailed her. Overwhelmed, she slid down to the ground and tried to draw in enough air to settle herself.

A gust of wind, stale and warm, so at odds with the tempest blowing outside, rushed over her. She gained her feet and pushed away from the railing. Her body revolted, weighing her down, as if dipped in cement.

Forcing herself back into the room, a coat of darkness filled her. Not physical, but an evil darkness.

Is this what grandmother experienced?

At the thought, determination fueled her.

It was time to get this done, do what her grandmother asked of her—it was the least she could do after leaving the old woman alone.

Ainsley began tearing through the file cabinet. She yanked on the bottom drawer and the whole thing shook. She managed to scoot out of the way just as the thing toppled over. Had she remained where she’d been, she’d have received serious injury.

As she gasped for breath, she noted a part of the wall that seemed different—discolored from the rest. Even in the dark, with only a flashlight for illumination, it was obvious.

On hands and knees she crawled to the wall. She tapped on it and noticed it was hollow sounding.

A screeching came from down below. Ainsley quickly hit the wall with her Maglite, and was surprised when the wall easily gave away and left a large hole. She leaned in and looked into the wall, shining the flashlight’s bright beam into the space.

There in the dust and damp recess was a rolled canvas.

She reached in and pulled it out.

The wind swirled, yanking at her hair. Lilac filled the space and she sat back and unrolled the canvas, hands shaking as the colors were revealed, and so too was the face of a woman. Her sober expression stared back at Ainsley.

A mirror image of herself.

She gasped and dropped the canvas. A swirling gray mass raced around her like a tempest.

She watched, transfixed with horror, as mist formed into a grotesque and misshapen form of a woman. Her hair was long and dark, stringy and dull. Her eyes were sunken, bruised under the eyes, and pure evil emanated from the dark orbs.

Ainsley grabbed the portrait and zipped it into her coat, since it wouldn’t fit in her pocket and turned to leave. The door slammed shut. She tried to pull on the door, turn the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. The sound of ghostly laughter filled the air.

Before Ainsley could move or think, something threw her across the room. She slid down the wall, the air knocked from her lungs. Pain radiated through her. A hand pulled her up by her hair and Ainsley resisted the urge to cry out in pain. Although she didn’t see the ghost, the smell of her perfume filled the lens room.

“Ah, poor little Ainsley. Thinking she could have a happy ending and destroy me. Tut, tut.”

“Why?” Ainsley, managed to gasp out. “Why do you do this?”

“Why? Because my happiness was stolen from me, and I vowed before I died that no one, not one single woman, would ever know true happiness.”

“But my grandmother, she was old, she…”

“Was happy!”

The scent of decay now started to permeate the room. The specter let Ainsley go. Panting, she crawled on hands and knees to the center of the room while frantically digging out the bag of rock salt. Quickly, Ainsley poured the salt around her in a circle, remaining within the salty circumference. Inside the circle, she knew she was safe.

For the time being.

Ainsley pulled out her smartphone, noting it was after midnight. She considered calling for help, but what would she say? “Help me, I’m trapped in a lighthouse with a vengeful ghost?”

The door slammed open. A blast of frigid air rushed into the tiny room, blowing her hair around her face, sending the maps and papers, long forgotten on the desk, swirling into the air. She looked down, horrified, as the salt ring she’d poured began to part.

“No!”

She watched, helpless, while the ring protecting her disappeared. She ran toward the door.

“You will die now, Ainsley.”

Cold hands covered her shoulder blades and pushed. Hard. Ainsley fell forward, toppling like a rag doll down the twisting stairs. She tucked into herself, trying to protect her head.

After what seemed like forever, she came to a stop on one of the landings. Her head ached and her body screamed. She’d underestimated the ghost and her power. Ainsley sat on the landing, her flashlight gone. The cold blew up from the bottom of the lighthouse numbed her fingers.

She couldn’t continue to fight this ghost. And she knew she couldn’t wait to get the painting down the stairs to the fireplace in order to destroy it.

She needed to do it here.

Now.

Before she could pull the canvas out of her coat, another icy punch slammed into her, pushing her to the edge of the stairs. Her hands, raw and sore from the first fall, tried in vain to still the forward momentum. She tumbled down the next flight of stairs.

Panic seized her.

She couldn’t fall down all two hundred.

She’d die.

Screaming all the will and determination she could muster. Ainsley shot her feet out in an arms-out attempt to stop her downward momentum. A wretched crack rent the air and she came to a stop. Her ribs, no doubt broken, made breathing almost impossible. Unbearable agony ripped through her hip all the way down to the leg and she realized she couldn’t move. Blood dripped down her face and into her eye.

Pushing up to sit, she collapsed back to the iron landing. Her shoulder, no doubt as broken as her legs, was useless in the task of getting her upright. Ainsley prayed while she tried to push up with her other arm. Succeeding, she backed herself up against the last flight of stairs. Wincing in pain, she forced herself to dig the painting out of her coat, eventually using her teeth and dropping it in her lap.

Panting, exhausted, she used her good hand to spill the rock salt on the canvas. She tossed them aside, then doused the painting with lighter fluid. The stink of the fuel made her eyes water. The cold liquid seeped through the canvas and onto the fabric of her jeans.

It didn’t matter.

Ainsley knew she wasn’t getting out of this alive. But she could take this bitch with her.

Her body trembled, going into shock, as she felt around for the lighter. Her fumbling fingers took several tries before she was able to get the light to flare. Crying in pain, she used her good arm to scoot away.as the flames consumed the old painting.

A ghostly scream filled the air, and the flames began to consume the canvas.

The woman’s ghostly face appeared in front of Ainsley’s. Flames licked at her cheeks, smoke billowing out of her nostrils and eyes sockets. Cold hands seized Ainsley’s arms, hoisting her above the ground. Broken and bloody, she could do no more than watch as the burning specter tossed her over the edge of the black iron railing.

Everything moved in slow motion for Ainsley. Flames engulfed the ghost, just as the flames consumed the canvas. Her screams, once full of menace and taunting, now shrill and panicked.

I did it, Grandma, Ainsley thought, closing her eyes.

The air pillowed her body as she plummeted to the ground.

When she looked up again, the darkness was replaced by a blinding, pure, white light. Her grandmother and mother held out their hands.

“I’ll be home for Christmas,” sang in the night.

“Where the love light beams, I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” Ainsley smiled and reached for them, knowing in a moment, her life would be over. But she’d be with the people who loved her most.

For once the Christmas carol didn’t leave her sad. Instead, it warmed her with love and ended her fear.