It was foggy the day I arrived in Anacortes. No, foggy would have been an understatement, for I was walking through clouds as I trudged through the streets to get to my hotel on the main street. A friend had called me and said that there might be something to inspire me in this small town, but I had yet to find it.

I was a writer back then, young, and just out of collage, full of ideas and seeking a sense of adventure to start off the book I was convinced would make an instant millionaire out of me. Little did I know that what I would find here would change me forever.

I went into the local coffee shop to grab a mocha, in hopes of warming myself up. Fresh from Florida as I was, I wasn’t suited for the cold autumn temperatures of the Northwest.

Oddly enough, I felt a chill as I stepped into the cafe, rather than when I was leaving. There was something unnerving about the place, despite the friendly people and soft looking easy chairs sitting up against the walls.

Sitting in one of them, I pulled out a notebook and began to take notes about the conversations that I could hear being held around me. It was a trick that one of my favorite mentors had taught me in order to help with story dialogue and make it sound natural.

I noticed an elderly gentleman watching me, his eyes smiling sadly. I didn’t want to be rude, so I didn’t say anything at first, but, after a while, it got rather creepy.

“Excuse me,” I said, speaking up “But is there something I can help you with?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that you remind me of a young lady who used to sit right there, almost every day, writing, just like you are now.”

“Why doesn’t she come now? Grow up and move away?” I asked.

He shook his head mournfully. “Poor girl never had the chance. She committed suicide when she was only twenty-one years old.”

“What happened?” I questioned, jotting down some note from what he was saying.

“It’s a long story,” he warned jokingly, though his ancient eyes still held his emotions in plain sight.

“I’ve got time,” I said, getting comfortable.

“Well, it all started about fifty years ago...

I was just out of high school back then, and she was a few years ahead of me. Let me just say now that she wasn’t the most loved person among our peers. I never knew why. She was one of the nicest, smartest people I’ve ever known. The adults back then like her though, and would always wave when they saw her pacing the town. She liked to take walks, you see.

Well, a young man started flirting with her one day, and she, being the kind to trust the few people who are nice to her, fell in love.

They dated for several years before he asked her to marry him. She accepted the proposal and they began the wedding plans. She had asked me to be there, so, when the day came, I was there to see one of his friends walk up to where she stood at the alter, dressed in a fine white gown, and handed her a note from her groom, explaining the three year-long prank they had played on her. He’d taken a morning flight to Florida to marry his girlfriend.”

“What did she do?” I asked, my notes forgotten.

“Well, she picked up her skirts and fled, tears streaming from her face. Her gown was found thrown across her dressing room, the buttons in the back scattered across the floor. She’d left her coat and shoes, taking the rest of her clothes.

They had been planning on going on a sailing cruise for their honeymoon, so I ran to the marina, hoping to find her. And there she was, on the tip of the breakwater, still weeping, her hair done up, but the jewels torn out. She jumped, and I couldn’t do anything to stop her.”

The old man wiped a tear before continuing.

“They never found her body, though the water was actually very shallow when the tide went out. But they say that people sometimes see her walking around town, or hear her crying on the docks. I’ve seen her myself, and talk to her on occasion, trying to calm her soul so she’ll pass on, but nothing helps.”

Thanking the man, I decided to go down to the park to write for a few minutes, but when I was about halfway there, the urge to see for myself whether or not there was a ghost in this town overrode me. I found my feet pointed toward the marina. It was already dark by the time I’d gotten there, and the port lights painted everything with a yellow hue.

I walked out to the breakwater, a wall of stones, and sat down. A small bit of movement alerted me to the presence of another. It was a young woman, dressed in jeans and a green, long-sleeved shirt. She wore no coat or shoes, but her hair was up in an elegant bun, small wisps of hair sticking out here and there.

“Hello,” I said. “Sorry about intruding. I didn’t know anyone else was here. I can leave if you want me to.”

She silently shook her head before going back to watch the water. The silence became uncomfortable.

“I’m Robert. What’s your name?” I asked.

“Marie,” she replied, though it was barely a whisper. “You look like him.”

Something in the water caught my eye. It was just a crab. When I looked back, she was gone.

Then it hit me. I’d been talking to a ghost.

I spent the rest of the evening going over the story and Marie’s comment. Whether I liked it or not, I’d been drawn into this small town ghost story, and I knew it wouldn’t let me go until I’d figured it out.

The next morning came all too soon in my opinion. As I passed a group of teenage girls gossiping on the street, I caught a bit of what they were saying.

“Did you hear? Marie was seen walking away from the marina this morning. Some fishermen saw her.”

“Marie? You mean the girl in science class?”

“No, the ghost!”

“But she’s never seen leaving the marina! Just running to it!”

“Maybe her groom has returned for her!”

“Na, the man was probably just drunk and-”

I left the area where I could hear them, reminding myself to note what I’d heard later, as I’d left my notebook at the hotel. Instead, I headed to the library, what must have been a grand building in her time, but now showed the years it had aged.

An old librarian started slightly when I entered, before showing me where old high school yearbooks were kept. Finding the year that she’d graduated in, the flipped through the senior pages until a familiar face, though a few years younger, caught my eyes.

“Marie Fletching,” I read to myself, a smile crossing my face. I was just about to close the book when a second familiar face seeming burst from the page; my own. No, I corrected myself, looking at the name beside it, my father’s. Mother had been right, we did look almost identical when we were my age.

“You look like him...”

“You’re studying the ghost story, aren’t you?” the librarian asked, glancing over my shoulder. “Yeah, that’s the man all right. You look just like him, except for the eyes.”

“I know,” I whispered. “That’s what my mother says. He- he’s my father.”

She smiled. “Then maybe you can put her to rest. Goodness knows how much she deserves it.”

I searched the town after that. She wasn’t in the marina, nor the cemetery, where one could suppose a ghost would linger. It wasn’t until I finally stumbled, out of breath, into the old, ivy-covered church that I found her, seated at one of the pews. Hesitantly did I walk up to her and sit down.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “For what my father did.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, her voice as quiet as before. “You weren’t born until years after.”

“But-” I protested. A glance from her stopped me.

“When next you see your father, give him this for me,” she requested, handing me a folded-up piece of paper. Faded writing covered the outside. “I’ve written a message on the inside. And tell him- tell him that I’ve passed on.”

With that said, she pressed a light, cold kiss onto my forehead and walked out of the building, her form fading before she reached the double doors.

I stood up, smiling. “It will be done, I promise.”