“The fire. It’s a giant inconvenience, having to board the horses and contract someone to rebuild, but Mom’s already doing better with Doreen here. Things will get back to normal.”
“Sure. But how is that a relief?” I shine the beam around, trying to get a sense of my surroundings. To our right is a tall row of trees; beyond them, the road outside the park. To our left is a grassy bank leading down to a lake so huge I’m shocked I didn’t know it was here. There’s a lifeguard stand, and a roped-off swimming area with a sandy strip of beach, and beyond that, what looks like miles and miles of inky water and sky.
“I was keeping some bad memories inside those walls,” Caden says. “With the stable gone, it feels like a clean slate.”
I swallow. Caden thinks the card and flash drive burned with the stable. That must be what he means by “bad memories” and “clean slate.” He has no idea that I—or anyone—took them from his hiding spot. Unless he’s testing me, trying to gauge my reaction.
The path takes us away from the lake and through a stretch of leafy bushes. If it’s the former, he’s probably not an arsonist, but it doesn’t answer my questions about why those things were hidden there in the first place. I keep my face neutral.
“I present to you,” he says, voice suddenly light, “the Arling Windmill.” The path has spit us out on the other side of the bushes, and the windmill stands suddenly before us. “We’ll have to come back in the daytime if you want to look inside, but considering it’s haunted, the best way to see it is really at night.”
“Haunted?” I squeak, voice pitching up in spite of myself.
“Oh yeah, you haven’t heard the local legend?”
I shine my flashlight beam across the front of the windmill. Its base is stone, but most of its body is shrouded in the same wooden shingles that cover Windermere and a lot of the older buildings in Herron Mills. Several windows are cut into the sides. At its top, of course, are four windmill blades. They’re completely still in the windless night.
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me,” I say.
Caden’s face breaks into a mischievous grin, and I mentally slap myself. Off-limits, Anna. Probably still in love with someone else. Possibly dangerous. Why can’t you wrap your head around that?
“Well, the Arling Windmill was built sometime in the mid-eighteen hundreds. I’m sure Google can give you an exact date. But for the first hundred-ish years of its existence, it was located about twenty miles from here, on the Arling estate. The windmill was restored and relocated to Herron Mills in the nineteen fifties or sixties, after the death of the last surviving Long Island Arling.”
“And that makes it haunted? That’s not a very good ghost story.”
“Patience, young Anna. That’s just the history. I’m getting to the ghost.”
I cross my arms over my chest and try to look tough. I’m failing miserably, judging by the amused expression on Caden’s face.
“This windmill used to be the playhouse for young Dorothea Arling, known to her family as Dot. When Dot was a wee child of six, she tripped on the windmill steps and broke her neck. Now”—Caden raises his phone for dramatic effect, shining the flashlight beam on the windmill’s uppermost window—“passersby report seeing the sallow face of a little towheaded lass in the windows at night, especially in July, the month Dot died.”
“Shut up,” I say, but I can’t take my eyes off the window glass.
“Fine, I don’t know what month she died, but the rest is true. People have been saying they’ve seen her face in the window for years.” He drops the beam back to the ground.
“Have you ever seen her?” I ask.
“Nah, I don’t believe any of that stuff.”
“Guess that’s how you can watch so many scary movies.”
“Hmm. Never really thought about it, but you might be right, Anna Cicconi.”
* * *
Back on Linden Lane, Caden and I part ways with a wave. The Arling Windmill is still in my head as I walk down the drive toward Clovelly Cottage, then round the corner of the house toward the pool deck. It’s a horrible story, however much is true. I can’t unsee the image of a tiny blond girl tumbling down the steps to her death. Her broken body at the base of the stairs, the spectral gleam of