Berdine Hoffman settled heavily into a chair. Amber had given her five minutes to sit down, and she was thankful even for that. She lolled in the tiny backroom, legs straight out in front of her, arms dangling at her sides, head resting on the chair’s back.
    She worked without another break until they closed at nine. On her way out, Amber held up the day’s receipts.
    “Three thousand,” she said, “and you were top salesperson again.”
    Berdine smiled, too exhausted to reply. She left Amber’s Boutique and walked the two blocks to her apartment. Tourist season was in full swing and the streets of downtown were still crowded. She walked up a flight of steps, unlocked her door, and breathed a sigh of relief as she entered the shelter of her place.
    She showered, threw on shorts and a t-shirt, sat on the threadbare couch in the center of the room, and began to read. Having worked hard and been on her feet all day, she dozed off and dreamed.
    In her dream, she found herself in a recognizable location, the beach at Tarton Shoals. The moon poured silver light on the choppy waters frothing around the large stone formations that made the bay dangerous and necessitated a lighthouse there. A few gulls foraged for food along the wet margin of sand when the breakers rolled back.
    Berdine looked out at the familiar scene, and then stopped. A few feet away she saw a figure—a woman, pale, almost transparent, standing by the shore. She wore a flowing white garment that made her look spectral and ghost-like, though in the dream Berdine was not afraid of her.
    The woman turned and walked toward her until they stood only a foot or so apart. She had a young, pretty face that looked vaguely familiar. Her penetrating gaze riveted Berdine’s eyes to her own. She felt the wind blow and the lake water soak her shoes.
    She awoke suddenly.

    ***

    Two days later Berdine drove through the pine forests and sandy dunes of the Lake Michigan shoreline, coming back from her parents’ home after breakfast with her mother.
    The breakfast had not gone well. She had told her parents two years ago, after the father of Debra Page, her girlfriend in high school and her first lover, found out and told Berdine’s father. Her parents were religious; her father, in fact, worked for a mission agency that had it headquarters in town.
    She drove along, stomach churning with anger and hurt from the things her mother had said to her. On impulse, she turned into the Tarlton Shoals Lighthouse, parked, and got out of her car.
    The sky billowed with clouds and a brisk wind blew, churning the waves into whitecaps. She walked down to the beach, feeling the wind in her face and the sand beneath her shoes, and stood, watching the waves on the rocks and the clouds scudding through the hard blue sky. After a while she went into the lighthouse museum, which had just opened for the day.
    She knew Mary, the docent, from high school. Mary had accepted her when she came out of the closet at school and had stood by her as a friend. The two of them chatted, and then Berdine went alone to walk through the rooms of the lighthouse.
    She made her way through various exhibits, climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor, and walked into the restored living room. She stopped in front of the large picture of Lillie Palmerstone, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter.
    She froze with fear.
    Scrawled across the glass in big letters, Berdine read a single word: BLOOD.
    She screamed.
    Mary came running up the stairs. When she saw what had frightened Berdine, she seized her arm. Somebody must be in here,” Mary said, looking around. “Let’s get out and call the police.” They ran downstairs and out to the parking lot. The two of them piled into Berdine’s car, started the engine in case they had to make a fast getaway, and called the police on Mary’s cell phone. The police arrived quickly, searched the lighthouse and the grounds, but found no one there.
    Berdine answered questions from the uniformed officers and then went upstairs and talked with the detective assigned to investigate the incident. They stood in front of the life-sized photo of Lillie Palmerstone. Tall, pretty, in a long white linen dress, hair tied up, she looked out with the slightly stern expression Victorians always assumed in portraits (they did not think it dignified to smile in pictures, someone had told Berdine). She was slender and had a well-shaped face and intelligent eyes. The word BLOOD was scrawled across her middle in letters four inches high. Dribbles of dirty water ran from the block letters as if from a wound. It appeared to have been written with mud.
    After the police left, Berdine drove back into town, her mind focused on what had happened in the museum and in her dream.
    Lillie Palmerstone was the woman in her dream.
    Berdine shudder as she drove along. Blood. What did it mean? She wondered if she were becoming psychotic. Had the pressure of being queer in such a small, straight town snapped her? She licked her lips. Something was going on. What?
    Yet she was not entirely certain it was a delusion.
    She got ready for work. As she put on a white blouse and short black skirt, she reflected on how rejecting her parents’ faith had also led her to dismiss belief in the supernatural in any form. She did her hair and put on make-up (Amber expected her sales-clerks to look good), realizing that deep down she did believe in a vague “something.” The word God had too much negative baggage for her to call it that, as did most religious terminology; and it seemed too silly to call it a force (that reminded her of Star Wars). She guardedly allowed the possibility that something more did exist. Berdine took one last look at herself in the bathroom mirror, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door.

    ***

    She worked without a let-up for the next four hours. When she did get a break, she hurried over to a coffee shop next door that she knew kept books on local history for customers to read. She found the one she wanted, North Point Ghosts, and asked the barista if she could take it with her. The Tzortzinas family owned the coffee shop, the barista knew she and Lexander were an item, and so consented. Berdine hurried back to Amber’s Boutique, and with only five minutes left on her break, leafed through until she found the chapter, “Lillie Palmerstone: the Lighthouse Ghost.” She read the first paragraph:
    One of the less-seen ghosts is that of Lillie Palmerstone—though she has been spotted by many people through the years (she died in 1899) both inside the Tarton Light House and on the shoreline in front of it. She wears a white dress and looks out to the shoals. She is one of the few Northern Michigan ghosts of whom we actually have a photo (see p. 55) . . .
    Berdine turned two pages ahead and saw a blurry figure standing on the shore and Tarton Lighthouse in background. She felt her breath go out of her and felt cold. The figure stood blurry and indistinct; she could not make out its features, but everything in the photo was just as she had seen in it her dream. She glanced at her watch. It was time to go back to work.
    She worked on. At one in the afternoon Amber told her Lexander was here to see her. "You can have five minutes," she said. The store was full of customers and new ones walked through the door every minute. "She's out back."
    Berdine hurried out the back door. Lexander was there in the alley that had a few shops on it but was less crowded than the main street. She wore a stylish business suit. She had pulled back and tied her hair. She opened her arms and kissed Berdine.
    "Hey, baby. God, I’ve missed you."
    "I thought you were coming home tomorrow."
    "I got in an hour ago. I have to spend the rest of the day, half of tonight, and most of the next day reporting to the board of directors of our family corporation. But I had to see you."
    Berdine, nervous and tense from working so long, and still unused to public displays of affection, softened her look and stance.
    "That’s sweet of you, Lexie. I’ve missed you too."
    "How late do you work tomorrow?"
    "Till six."
    "I’ll come by your place at seven. Dress up. We’ll go some place nice to eat and then stay the night at my house. Does that sound good?"
    "Lexie, that sounds like paradise."
    Lexander gave her another quick kiss.
    "I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow tonight."
    Berdine went back inside. Plunging into the hubbub of customers and sales took her mind off the emotion and doubt that had flooded her heart on seeing Lexander. She worked without letup until six and walked wearily back to her apartment.
    She made a cup of tea and sat down at her small kitchen table.
    Conflicting emotions shot through her. She liked Lexander. She was pretty, bright, and, Berdine reflected, the perfect girlfriend. Undoubtedly, Lexander loved her. So much about her was desirable, but Berdine held back. She was not sure.
    Not sure of what?
    Berdine wondered why, after the thing she dreamed of had come true—after the woman of so many girls' fantasies had walked into her life—she felt so conflicted.
    She showered, changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and lounged on the sofa. She picked up the book and read the full article on the “The Lighthouse Ghost.” Lillie Palmerstone’s father was the keeper of Tarton Shoals Lighthouse. She led an average life, it seemed, studied at a local academy for women and worked briefly as nurse, but then fell ill and returned to live with her family at the lighthouse. "Her illness may have in fact been an addiction to laudanum (a mixture of alcohol and opium often given as a painkiller); she lived in seclusion and died at age twenty-eight." Since then, the article said, people had seen her ghost.
    Berdine read accounts by those who claimed to have seen her. She studied the picture again and marveled at how much it was like the image she had seen in her dream. On impulse, she walked over to the library, which she knew was open until ten, to see if she could find anything else written about this strange, mysterious woman.
    She found other books on local legends and ghost stories, but their accounts of Lillie Palmerstone added nothing to what she had already read—until she found a note on the internet. She got a copy of the magazine to which it referred and opened it up. The title was "Lillie Palmerstone: Lighthouse Ghost and Lover?" She read the sidebar next to the title:
    Lillie Palmerstone, the "Lighthouse Ghost," is an enigmatic figure in local history. Could the thing that brought about her tragedy have been a same-sex relationship?
    Her mouth went dry. Eyes riveted, she read the article. The author, a professor of Michigan history at one of the big universities in the state, had researched the archives of the hospital where Lillie worked and read diaries by people who knew her and letters by her father and her physician. The controversy had started, she said, when several women at the hospital reported “unseemly behavior” between Lillie Palmerstone and an administrator named Cora Harbaugh. The board questioned them and found nothing out of the ordinary, but a few months later one woman wrote of “indecencies” between the two of them. Lillie lost her job and moved back in with her family. Cora disappeared without a trace.
    The woman historian theorized that Lillie and Cora were in a relationship. When the authorities discovered it, Cora left town (no trace of her was ever found after this) and Lillie was remitted to the care of her family. Her father, she proposed, and her doctor, purposely addicted her to laudanum so they could control her and kept her under tight watch and so she would not run away. The letters to her father said, "These affections often come upon young women but may pass with time." His father asked if he should arrange a marriage for her. The doctor wrote back that it would not be a good idea. Since she had "exercised her affections," he said, it would take a longer while for her to "overcome these impulses." The conclusion, the scholar wrote, was inescapable. It had been a same-sex relationship, discovered and forcibly brought to an end. Lillie Palmerstone, held prisoner by her family and made dependent on drugs, died a few years later.
    And she had become a ghost.
    Berdine felt cold. This was why the woman had appeared to her and not to someone else. The ghost of Lillie Palmerstone knew that she—Berdine—would understand and sympathize. She had reached out across time and across death to touch someone who would want to help her.
    But help her do what? Why was the word did the word “blood” written on her photo?
    Was it all superstition and a derangement?
    She left the library, shaken, fearful for her own sanity. She paced the floor of her apartment, wondering how it would be possible to know if this was some delusion she had built up in her mind. If it had only been the dreams, she thought, she could dismiss it. But the message scrawled in mud on Lillie Palmerstone’s photograph. She could not explain that away.
    Berdine lay down on the sofa that also served as her bed. She must have dozed off because once more she found herself in the dream. As before, she stood on the shore in front of the lighthouse. And as in the other dream, Lillie Palmerstone appeared. The pale, glowing figure turned and approached her.
    They faced each other, Berdine’s heart pounding with fear. Lillie spoke. As before, Berdine heard the words only in her mind.
    You understand, she said.
    "I understand. How did you know about me?"
    You came here one night with your beloved. I saw you two together on the beach.
    She remembered the night she had come there with Debra and, sheltered in trees close to the shore, the two of them had kissed in the moonlight. The memory stung her. It happened only a week before Debra disappeared from her life.
    "What do you want, Lillie? What do you mean by writing the word 'blood'?"
    Come here before the sun is up and it will all be explained. I will not do you harm. Please come to me. Please show me the kindness no one else among the living showed me.
    Berdine awoke and sat up.
    She looked at the red digits of her alarm clock. It was 3:50. She stood a moment, and put on her shoes. She would go. What harm would it do? When she walked the beach and nothing was there she would be able to lay this obsession to rest.
    She parked her car on the road and stepped over the yellow gate at the entrance to the Museum. The wind bent the dune grass and made the waves high. The light on the lighthouse blazed. She heard the noise of the breakers as she walked through the parking lot and down to the beach.
    Lillie Palmerstone was there to meet her.
    Glowing enough that Berdine could see shadows around them, Lillie Palmerstone came up to her. The wind blew Berdine’s hair but she noticed neither Lillie’s hair nor her garment fluttered, despite the stiff breeze. This time she felt less afraid. Lillie stopped, closer to her than in either of her dreams. Silence fell until Berdine spoke.
    "Hello," she said.
    Greetings to you.
    "You know I’m not supposed to be here. If someone sees me, I’ll be arrested for trespassing and probably lose my job. Tell me what you said you would tell me."
    I want enough of your blood to moisten my lips. I am a spirit and do not have breath, though I can speak to your mind. She nodded to the lake. Out there, somewhere, my beloved Cora awaits me.
    Berdine glanced at the rough waves and the water churning through the rocks.
    "Out in the lake? How could that be?"
    I don’t know but I know it is true. I have learned it from watching the water for a hundred years. I must summon her. I must call her name. But I must call it aloud.
    "Was she shipwrecked?"
    I wish I could better inform you. I do not know myself. I only know if I can call her name, she will hear. Blood is the life of the body. If I can only have a little of it, I will be able to speak—just to speak her name, just to call it over the waves.
    "You can’t speak to her mind like you speak to mine? You can’t send her a dream like you did me?"
    No.
    "Why not?"
    I don’t know.
    "And you want me to cut myself and put blood on your lips."
    Yes. It would only take a little. I would become corporal for just a few seconds, but long enough to call out to her.
    Berdine hesitated. A sharp gust of wind buffeted her.
    "I’m not sure I want to do that, Lillie."
    Why not? It does not seem a terribly burdensome thing to do.
    "It isn’t. But—well, I have to tell you the truth. I’m not sure you are real. I’m not certain this isn’t a delusion and I just need psychological help. I don’t like the idea of cutting myself because if I am indeed falling into some kind of mental derangement, that would not be a good precedent to set."
    She paused. The wind continued to buffet her.
    "And, if you are real—which you seem to be—I’m not sure I want to be giving you my blood. You may be a vampire. I may give you a little and you may want the rest. I can’t rule that out as a possibility."
    I see.
    Berdine suddenly felt perfidious. The sadness in Lillie’s voice pierced her heart. She not only heard the words in her mind but felt the emotion that went with them as well.
    "I want to help you. Look, will you give me time? One more day to think about this? I want to think it through completely. I’ll come here tomorrow night. I promise. I’ll come either to do what you want me to do or to tell you no, but I will come. Is that okay?"
    She nodded. Berdine did not hear a voice but sensed a silent word of affirmation in her mind. Then Lillie was gone. She looked around for her. The wind had picked up. The grey predawn light filtered through the trees. She needed to get out of here before someone saw her. She hurried down the beach, cut through a brake of trees, climbed in her car and drove off.

    ***

    Back home, she tried to think things through but she had to get ready for work. By the time she had cooked breakfast and dressed it was almost time to walk to work. As she walked through the awakening streets, she thought not of the ghost but of her relationship with Lexander.
    She had lost Debra and Lexander had come into her life. Perhaps she was not entirely healed from the loss. She liked Lexander, could in fact love her, but something made her hold back. It might be, she thought, as she crossed a footbridge over a stream that emptied in Lake Michigan, Lexander’s money, beauty, connectedness—though she had never flaunted these things. She often wondered if Lexander was exploiting her.
    The idea seemed absurd, yet it nested stubbornly in Berdine’s heart. Was she—Berdine—just a local girl Lexander had latched on to as an amusement until she found a more suitable lover in New York or Chicago or Miami—places she often went as an administrator for her family’s business affairs? The paradox of her reaction bewildered her. Still, it was there. She felt fear. And she only let her affections come to a certain point and stopped. She wondered if Lexander sensed it.
    The store was crowded and she plunged into another long day of selling. Business was so heavy now, at the height of the tourist season, that they could not even take lunch breaks. Amber had pizza and Coke delivered; the salesclerks dashed into the back room to quickly eat and then go back into the store.
    Berdine went home at six. She rested then showered, selected one of her most stylish dresses (an expensive one she had got as a bargain at Amber’s), and got ready for her date.
    As she finished, a knock came at the door.
    She opened it to see Lexander. She wore a stylish dress that fit her body perfectly—probably made by a tailor, cut to accentuate her form—a garment such as Berdine had never owned and probably never would own. She came in, put her arms around Berdine, and kissed her. She complimented her, going on about how good she looked in the little black dress she had selected. Her eyes were full of love and Berdine felt ashamed of the things she thought earlier in the day.
    "Can we sit down a minute?" Lexander suddenly asked.
    Berdine felt her mouth go dry. Why did she want to sit down? They settled on the sofa. She wondered if Lexander would announce it was over between them—if the very thing she had feared—that Lexander had found a fashion model or actress and was dumping her—had in fact happened. Lexander put her fingers in Berdine’s hair and gently pulled her head down so it rested against her shoulder.
    "Before we go," she said, her voice soft, "I just want to cherish you for a while."
    Berdine lifted her head and looked at Lexander.
    "Cherish me?"
    Lexander nodded. Berdine felt a wave of emotion pass over her. A tear rolled out of her eye.
    "Lexie, that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me."
    But Lexander coaxed her head back to her shoulder. She had something in mind and wanted to do it. Berdine nestled against her. Lexander put one hand on her back and one in her hair and simply held her. The tears dropped from Berdine’s eyes, though she did not sob. She did not want to spoil the moment by crying. Lexander held her for as long as five minutes—maybe longer. Finally, she took Berdine’s hands and smiled at her when she lifted her eyes.
    "Ready to go?"
    Berdine had wiped her tears away, though it was probably obvious she had been crying.
    "I’m ready."
    That night they drove up to Charlevoix and dined in a fancy restaurant on a cruise ship then took a night cruise of the shoreline. They drove back to Lexander’s house and made love in the quiet dark of her spacious bedroom with its bay windows and huge, soft bed.
    As Berdine lay next to her, she felt satisfied to her bones. She had dissolved the invisible barrier and experienced Lexander’s love unguardedly. She had risked making herself vulnerable. Opening up to someone always carried the possibility of being hurt. She realized this had been the source of her reserve. It was the fear of being hurt again after all the pain she had known in losing Debra and the subsequent events with her family. In abandoning the impulse to protect herself, she had felt love go deep and fill her. She had felt its healing.
    Lexander was asleep. Berdine snuggled against her and kissed warm flesh at the top of her shoulder where her hair spilled down in a cascade of gold. Lexander murmured but did not wake up. Berdine knew she could love her.
    She also knew she had another thing to do.

    ***

    She arrived at the shoreline at four in the morning. She carried a small bag. She waited, listening to the breakers softly roll in, hearing the trees sway in the slight breeze. Lillie appeared.
    "I’ve decided I want to help you, Lillie. Are you ready?"
    Lillie regarded her.
    I am ready, she said after a moment.
    Berdine took a razor blade out of the bag. She wiped it with one of the alcohol disinfectant pads she had bought at the drugstore earlier in the day, gripped it carefully, and made an incision at the top of her palm by her thumb joint—the same place she had seen in her first dream.
    She cut herself more than she intended and the wound bled profusely. She cupped her palm. It began to fill with blood.
    You have finally given yourself, Lillie said.
    "Yes," Berdine replied.
    The cut throbbed. Blood had formed a pool in the palm of her hand.
    "I think there is enough here for you to speak," she said.
    Lillie approached her. They were only inches apart.
    Thank you.
    "I’m happy I could help you."
    Berdine held out her palm. Lillie bent down. When her lips touched Berdine’s hand they were cold; her hair felt like icicles when they brushed her arm. But after only a second Berdine felt human warmth. She felt the warmth of Lillie’s lips and tongue as she lapped her blood. And in a moment she became substantial—not a specter but a living woman, and not dressed in a white smock but wearing the kind of dress women wore in her day. Her hair blew with the wind off the lake. Her eyes glowed with life.
    As Berdine folded a handkerchief over the cut, Lillie turned and walked to the place where sand and water met.
    She lifted her arms and called twice.
    "Cora! Cora!"
    A moment’s silence, then Berdine felt her body tighten as she saw something emerge from the lake waters.
    Her mouth fell open in horror as a creature with rotting flesh stumbled upward, lurching, with little control of its form, toward where Lillie Palmerstone stood. But quickly—in only a second—the black, sagging skin and empty eye sockets transformed and she saw, walking steadily toward the shoreline, a lovely woman, in an outfit like Lillie now wore, her face bright with happiness. Realization struck Berdine.
    Cora Harbaugh had not fled town. She had not run away after being exposed as a lesbian. She had drowned herself.
    She watched with amazement as Cora stopped in front of Lillie. They did not kiss but embraced one another tenderly. Cora put her fingers in Lillie’s hair and laid her head on her shoulder.
    Then the two forms became indistinct. Berdine shielded her eyes as they merged into one and lost their features, as purple light shot through with streaks of yellow energy engulfed them. She could see the outline of the two women holding each other, but the yellow streaks that swirled through the purple grew brighter and thicker until they engulfed the silhouette of Lillie Palmerstone and Cora Harbaugh. Then the energy formation broke apart, spiraling upward, leaving behind a residue of gold discs that floated just a moment in the air, settled to the ground, covered the shoreline with their radiance, and then faded away.
    Berdine heard the breakers coming in and saw the dune grass bend and the light on the lighthouse glow as it turned, sending out a white beam slightly tinged with blue. She walked over to the spot where she had seen the two women and seen the light and energy that had engulfed them. Looking around her, she saw nothing. They were gone and, she knew, were free and together once again.
    Sharp pains shot through her hand. Blood from the cut had soaked the handkerchief. She applied three gauze pads from the bag and hurried to her car. By the time she got there, the pads were soaked through as well. She put on three more and fastened them with surgical tape. She had only driven a mile toward town when she noticed these too were soaked. She had cut herself deeply. It would probably take stitches. There was an urgent care center on her route home. She would stop there. She would have the wound taken care of.

    ***

    The cut took four stitches. Lexander said not to worry; she would pay the bill. She mentioned, too, that they might take a vacation together when things settled down with their jobs.
    Not able to get time off until February, they went to a ski lounge in Vermont for a few days and then to a hotel in Nova Scotia to spend the rest of the week simply being alone with each other.
    The lodge in Nova Scotia sat right on the Atlantic shoreline. The first night there, Berdine listened as a storm roared out on the ocean, huge waves crashing into the ice-sculpted shore, and the building creaking when struck by violent blasts of wind. Beneath two thick quilts, and with Lexander beside her, she felt safe. The two of them, she reflected, were specs on the edge of the ocean only a hundred yards away but vast as eternity and mysterious as what lay on the other side, where Lillie and Cora were now, and where we would all come to be as the years drew us onward.
    She pressed herself against Lexander and cherished her warmth and nearness, her mind drifting toward new dreams as sleep began to claim her.