The others that had been here with her had left when my mother moved inside the house. Annabelle had once told me she missed the others. I had asked who they were, and she mentioned a young boy named Oliver and a pretty lady named Margret. Annabelle had explained, “The darkness made them leave, but my doll is here. I couldn’t leave it. Even when the cold dark floated through the house pushing the others away. I had to stay.”

Her small porcelain baby doll, a blanket that had been hand stitched, and a photo of her family were all upstairs in her cedar chest. They were her anchor to this place. I knew the others didn’t have that kind of anchor. The home had been Oliver Delvaux’s only residence his nine years on earth. He’d been here before Annabelle. She was his great niece. He’d died from falling off his horse and breaking his neck in 1866. Margret Delvaux was Oliver’s sister-in-law and she had died in 1880 in childbirth at the age of twenty.

I had studied spirits and ways to help Annabelle, and I’d finally accepted that leaving her here where she wanted to be was best. She was happy here with her familiar home and her things. I hoped one day this house would be a Delvaux home again. It was one thing I planned on making happen before I died.

I glanced at the ceiling and hoped she’d gone to the attic to avoid my confrontation with my mother downstairs. “Stay upstairs, Annabelle,” I whispered hoping she had listened.

Straightening my shoulders, I walked to the bedroom door and opened it with determination. Questioning my mother shouldn’t be this difficult. I did all I could to avoid her, so actually going to talk to her was unsettling.

The smell of her cigarette hit my nose by the time I was halfway down the stairs. I didn’t pause at the landing but kept going until I found her lounging in the great room with the television on Real Housewives of Atlanta. She lifted her gaze from the large flat screen to me. She raised her eyebrows, but not one wrinkle formed on her forehead. The hand that held her cigarette was paused on its way to her lips. Most women who smoked as much as she did at her age would show some wrinkles around her mouth at least. The smoothness of her skin made her appear to be in her mid-twenties.

“I can’t think of one reason you’d purposely seek me out,” she drawled with her thick southern accent. “I’m fascinated.” With a smirk, she placed the cigarette to her overly plump lips, which were enhanced by a spell not collagen.