Amy nervously turned around and tried not to panic. The room was much darker now. She couldn’t hear a whisper of what was going on outside. For all she knew the storm might have stopped, it was that quiet.

Clutching the lantern in her clammy hands, which were shaking along with every other part of her body, Amy glanced at the staircase, the last place left for her to go. She put her foot on the first step and slowly began the ascent. Less than a minute later, she found herself standing in the tower’s glass-walled lamp room. In the middle of the room was a giant lens. It was a few feet wide, at least six feet tall, and was covered in arc-like patterns of glass radiating out from its center. Inside the lens was a powerful lamp, pulsing brightly and rotating with a mechanical purr. Amy stepped to the right and tried to peek around the lens. She sensed she wasn’t alone. There was someone else up there with her. She could feel it . . . another presence.

“Hello,” Amy called out, her voice trembling. “Is someone here?” She took another small step, then another, and then she saw someone standing on the opposite side of the room. A heavy lump solidified in her throat. She couldn’t make out who it was; the figure, looming on the other side of the lens, was obscured by all the reflected light and luminescent glass.

“Please,” Amy whispered, “tell me who you are.”

And then, from out of the silence, a voice answered, a voice from beyond the grave, a voice that couldn’t possibly be real . . .

“Amy, it’s me.”

Amy froze.

No, it’s not possible . . .

A woman moved from behind the lens and stepped into view, a woman with sandy-blonde hair and dark-green eyes. Dressed in a dark gown that seemed to shimmer with translucency when it moved, the woman whispered to Amy as she reached out her hand, her voice soft, surreal, and familiar.

Amy couldn’t breathe. Her throat shriveled up. She stepped backward and stumbled and hit the wall, mumbling “no” over and over and over, louder and louder, as an avalanche of fear and shock and confusion crashed inside her head.

“Don’t be frightened, sweetheart.”

“Stay back!” Amy fled along the wall, waving her hand in the air as the woman—the ghost, apparition, whatever she was—tried to follow. None of this was real. None of this could possibly be real. “Whoever you are, stay back!”

“It’s me, Amy.”

“No! Don’t come any closer! You’re not her ! You’re not my mother !”

“Yes, I am.”

“My mother was in a car accident! We buried her! I was at her funeral! You died !”

Amy’s heart was pounding fast, every beat a chest-rattling tremor. She fell to the ground and began sobbing uncontrollably, the raw emotions spilling out.