As her eyes adjusted, she could make out shapes in the darkness: the sharp angles of the two pop-up canopies they stored their tools and wood under. And there, beyond them, the strange skeletal walls of what would one day be their home. There was something inside it, within the cage of walls, moving across the floor. A pale figure, writhing, dancing. This wasn’t Nate with his sure gait, his broad shoulders.

This was a woman.

A woman in a white dress.

This, Helen knew at once, was Hattie Breckenridge.

And there was a reason Helen could see her figure so well—there was a flickering orange glow behind her.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Helen gasped.

A ghost! An actual for real ghost. And she was dancing around flames.

Their house was burning.

This was not some imagined horror born from panic or a bout of paranoid thinking.

This was actually happening.

Helen wanted to drop down on her knees, to hide and stay hidden. But Nate was out there, maybe in danger. And their house, the house of their dreams that they’d only just begun, was burning.

She felt Hattie beckoning her, saying, Come closer, please. Saying, I dare you.

Helen held her breath, turned the knob, pushed the front door open as quietly as she could, not wanting to draw attention to herself. The cool air hit her, her skin turning to gooseflesh.

Then, once she reached the steps, she ran.

Her bare feet pounded across the grass, past the truck, up the newly graded driveway.

She ran toward the acrid, stinking smoke. Toward the figure in white, twisting and contorting, giving off a low, droning moan.

Helen thought about history, about how places held memories, and how maybe ghosts were just a magnification of that force. Maybe ghosts were like an echo.

“Hattie?” she called as she came upon the building.

“Like hell,” a voice roared, and a blindingly bright light hit her face, illuminated the floor of the house, the girl who was trapped there, her foot encircled with rope. She hadn’t been dancing. She’d been trying to get away.

And this was no ghost, Helen understood now, but an actual flesh-and-blood girl. A girl with white makeup caked on her face, wearing camouflage pants and a matching shirt with a lacy white nightgown on top of them.

Helen guessed the girl was only thirteen or fourteen years old, all elbows and knees with a thin, pointed elfish face and dark, tangled hair that looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in a while.

“Nate?” Helen called, shading her eyes, trying to look past the girl and the beam of light at her husband. “What’s going on?”