The Lighthouse — Millie J. Ragosta

Laura Henderson had been dead for years and her descendant, Ann Henderson, didn't believe in ghosts. But how could she explain the feeling that Laura was trying to reach her, warn her, trying desperately before it was too late?

Night Visitor...

Her father had bought the old family home in Maine for sentimental reasons, but recently-orphaned Ann Henderson was moving there with her five-year-old sister Maggie for practical reasons: it was cheaper than Philadelphia. Her first sight of the pink house by the sea took Ann's breath away -- it was so lovely. But the abandoned lighthouse out on the end of the point sent a chill through her: a child, the daughter of Laura Henderson Stornhoff, Ann's father's cousin, was believed to have fallen from there and drowned -- though actually little Janey's disappearance had never really been explained. Ann looked amazingly like Laura, so Davy Blue, the old caretaker, told her. Perhaps because of this uncanny resemblance, she seemed to sense Laura's presence... Imagination, of course. But one night she dreamt that Laura hovered beside her bed, sad and distressed. She woke to the strong scent of carnations that had been Laura's favorite, and to a voice echoing warningly: "Guard the child!"

Laura...
Above the fireplace in my room hung a portrait of a young woman so like myself that I gasped out loud.
"Annie, it's you!" cried Maggie, coming in from the room across the hall. "It's a picture of you!"
Davy chuckled. "Do you see why I stared at you when you first got here?"
"I certainly do."
The girl sat primly in a ladder-back chair, her apricot-colored dress falling gracefully around her. Her hair was a dark cloud, her skin tawny, almost translucent, and she was smiling gently. Except for the eyes, which were gray--mine are dark brown--she could have been me...

Hero: Dr. Nathaniel "Nate" Radnor
Heroine: Ann "Annie" Henderson
Sister: Margaret Mary "Maggie" Henderson