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too loud. He was a kind-hearted child and was attempting to smooth over Margo’s rudeness.
    â€œWhat kind of story?” Berta picked up the thread of conversation. In the kitchen, Bob continued to lay down the law to Margo. She’d just gotten her driver’s license, and I had no doubt he would take her keys away.
    â€œAbout the old hotel and a ghost. A lot of things happened at The Paradise Inn. Annie knows all about the old hotel. Lots of movie stars hung out there. Some of them even died there.”
    â€œDo you know about the Paradise?” I asked Annie. How was it possible she knew my history but not her own?
    Her smile was apologetic. “I could see it from the water, the big old columns and all of the vines. It must have been beautiful once.” She signaled me with a wink to let me know she was fibbing. “I told Donald a tale about the ghosts of people who once visited there.”
    â€œA ghost story!” Erin was thrilled. “Tell us! Tell us!”
    Donald paled slightly, but he joined in with the demand.
    Berta was amused. “I’d like to hear the story, too.”
    Annie shrugged. She motioned us all to lean in closer, and I noted that though she was shy, she could manage the limelight. “There was once a beautiful movie star named Madeline who came to the Paradise Inn. She was the most beautiful star in all of Hollywood, but very young. She’d filmed two movies, and she’d come to Coden to meet with a director, a man from Germany who was highly respected.”
    Annie might not know her past or her family, but she had a good handle on telling a story. I sipped my wine and leaned back, prepared to enjoy a gothic tale.
    â€œMadeline was a strong swimmer, and each morning she got up and would swim down the bayou and out into the sound to a small buoy with a bell. She would ring the bell and swim back to shore. It became a routine for the first week she was there because the director was delayed in Berlin, something about the war. Finally, on Saturday night, Madeline was told he’d arrive on Sunday.”
    I wanted to ask Annie where she’d gone to school. She had a sense of the world unusual for a teenage girl found wandering the streets. I didn’t interrupt. Donald and Erin were enraptured. Even Berta was caught up in the story.
    â€œThe morning the director was supposed to arrive, Madeline went for her swim. It was a foggy July morning, and the people in the hotel heard the bell on the buoy ring. At noon, when the director arrived, he went hunting for Madeline. No one could find her.”
    A peal of thunder exploded, and everyone around the table jumped. I looked up to see Bob standing in the door. There was no sign of Margo, and I assumed she’d gone up to her room.
    Once the giggles subsided, Annie resumed her story. “By the afternoon, people had begun to search for the young star. When night began to fall, search parties with lights went out to check the shoreline.”
    â€œDid they find her?” Erin was on the edge of her seat.
    â€œShe was never found,” Annie said. “But to this day, fisherman see a young girl with dark hair floating in the deep pools of the bayou. They say Madeline’s spirit remains near the old hotel, waiting for her chance at a movie.”
    â€œI saw her.” Donald’s eyes were nearly black, only ringed by a thin edge of blue. “She was in the marsh grass.” His chest rose and fell rapidly, and I pushed back from the table and went to him. He was almost rigid with fear.
    I turned to Annie. “You’ve frightened him half to death. You shouldn’t do that to a child.”
    Annie blushed. “We saw something. In the water. Just a shadow or dark cloud. It wasn’t anything. Donald’s imagination jumped to conclusions.”
    Donald leaned forward. “That’s not what I saw. She wasn’t in the water, Annie. She was down the shore, hiding in the