In Annie’s previous life, she’d been a third-grade teacher who’d maintained control of her class. But Lucy was fourteen, not nine, and not one of Annie’s students. “Okay then, but I’ll wait here. I’ll check in with Kevin to see if he and your father survived their camping trip.”

“Whatever.” Lucy tromped up an embankment of dirt stairs that were framed by tree roots; her iPad was fixed in one hand, her three-ring binder in the other. Then she disappeared—again—this time into a stand of tall, newly budding oaks. She clearly was an island kid who knew where she was most of the time, and if she didn’t, she wasn’t afraid. After all, she hadn’t been raised in the city as Annie had.

“This is so cool!” Lucy’s voice called down from the hilltop. “Every stone has something on top!”

Annie cupped her mouth. “Like what?”

“A scallop shell. A piece of wampum. A couple have coins.”

“Take pictures!”

“I am!”

Annie smiled with appreciation for the girl’s enthusiasm. Then she leaned against the boulder and scanned the rustic forest, wondering if the trees were as old as the sacred site. She closed her eyes and listened to the stillness until her mind quieted and her shoulders relaxed, the stressors of her things-to-do list beginning to disintegrate like fine white sand beneath an outgoing tide. She stood, trance-like, for several minutes until a brisk rustle of leaves warned her she was not alone. Maybe it was someone who had passed that way before.

Yup, it’s the dead guys.

Annie’s eyes flipped open, her body jerked, she nearly buckled to the ground. Quickly righting herself, she let her gaze skim the area. Of course, there was no one. Except Murphy, her old college pal who’d died nearly two years earlier from a rare, swift-moving cancer, but whose spirit tended to show up when Annie needed sage advice or a good laugh.

“Murphy!” Annie cried, shaking a playful fist up toward the sky. “Stop scaring me!”

Poltergeist-like laughter was swiftly muffled by the ding of Annie’s phone. She checked the screen: it was Kevin.

PARTY’S OVER, her brother texted. GET YOUR BUTT BACK TO CHAPPY. WE’VE GOT AN INN TO FINISH. AND—SURPRISE!—MOM IS COMING SATURDAY. SIX DAYS FROM NOW. MINUS A FEW HOURS.

“Nooo!” Annie cried. Her birth mother was coming to the island? Donna MacNeish—the woman who’d raised Kevin but hadn’t raised her? The woman Annie had only seen three times in her life?

Yes, my friend, Murphy whispered. Her.

Annie’s things-to-do list blinked into sharp focus again—that time with an added entry: Donna. She braced herself, inhaled deeply, then sprinted up the embankment, traversing the tree roots, determined to help Lucy finish her research, while hoping that the souls of the Praying Indians would forgive her for tramping on their hallowed ground.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2