I glanced up, spotting first the miniature windmill, which stood sentinel halfway up the hill. The staircase leading to the house was built in a zigzag pattern, and there was a large trilevel deck at the top.
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. “Ohmigod!” I said, feeling my knees go a bit weak. “Ohmigod!”
“Lily?” Cole said. “What’s the matter?”
My breath was coming in short pants, and I felt the beginnings of a panic attack. I closed my eyes and tried to slow my breathing down, but my heart was hammering away in my chest so hard that it hurt.
I sank to the sand on my knees while sweat trickled down from my temples. Cole kept asking me what was happening, but I couldn’t speak. All I could do was grip his hand for dear life.
He put his other hand on my shoulder and began to speak in soft tones.
“Hey,” he said. “Lily, it’s okay. You’re okay. Hang on. Just keep breathing and hang on to me.”
Every one of my limbs was trembling, and I bent at the waist, feeling like I was going to melt into the ground. This was by far the worst panic attack I’d ever had. It was like a tsunami of fear and anxiety washing over me. I was drowning in it.
“Breathe, Lily,” Cole said. I focused on his words. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
His free hand gripped my arm to steady me. Tears leaked out of my eyes, and when I opened them I got so dizzy that I had to close them again.
Please! I thought. Please don’t let me pass out!
“Lily,” Cole whispered. He was very close to my ear and there was something urgent about his whisper. “Listen, I’m gonna pick you up and carry you, okay?”
Feebly, I shook my head. If I moved, I’d black out.
“I have to,” Cole said, easing his hand from mine and placing it across my back.
I was about to shake my head again when I heard, “You there! You kids all right?”
My eyes flew open as Cole carefully pulled me close and picked me up. I caught a glimpse of an old man making his way down a long staircase. A staircase I’d seen in an old photo album at my grandmother’s house. There’d been photos of my dad as a young boy in those photos. They’d even been captioned. The Lake House. And, if there was any doubt about who’d owned it, I remembered one photo in particular of a boat parked at the dock with the windmill in the background. The boat had been named Maureen’s Folly after my grandmother.
“We’re fine,” Cole said, hugging me close. “She forgot her inhaler.”
I put my head against Cole’s chest and gripped his shirt. The effort to keep air in my lungs was quickly exhausting me.
“Should I call someone?” the old man asked. He sounded closer.
“No, sir,” he said. “She’ll be okay. Just gotta get her home. Thanks!”
I felt the rocking motion of Cole carrying me across the soft sand. It wasn’t helping me fight back the wave of dizziness.
I closed my eyes again and tried to think my way out of the panic attack. I focused on the smell of Cole’s freshly laundered shirt. The feel of his arms supporting me. The pillow his muscular chest was lending my head, and the beat of his heart.
Like a tonic, the method began to work. I felt less dizzy, and I could keep air in my lungs for longer each time I breathed in. Finally, he stopped and eased to the ground with me still held in his arms. By then I was almost back to breathing normally. Cautiously, I opened my eyes.
“Hey there,” he said when I looked up at him. “How you doin’?”
I swallowed, which was hard because my mouth was very dry. “I think I can stand,” I told him.
“Good to know,” he said. “But how about we hang out here for another minute?”
I managed a small smile and a mock eye roll. “Okay. If we must.”
He chuckled. “So what happened back there?”
“That house,” I said. “The one Bishop is living in…”
“Yeah?”
“My grandparents used to own it.”
Cole’s brow furrowed. “Your…what?”
I wiped the sweat from my brow and leaned against Cole’s chest again, exhausted by the panic attack. “Bishop’s house. I recognize it from an old photo album my grandmother has.”
Cole looked over his shoulder toward where we’d just come from. “Bishop bought the house from your grandparents?”
I rubbed my temples. I’d asked Grandmother about the house in the photos. She’d said that it’d been taken over by a friend of the family. I remembered how she’d paused when she’d said “taken over,” as though it was something done grudgingly. I distinctly remembered the note of bitterness in her tone, only I’d chalked it up to her general demeanor. Now I wasn’t quite so sure.
“I don’t think they sold it to him,” I said. “I think my grandparents gave it to him.”
Cole looked confused. “Why would they give a house that’s gotta be worth a million dollars to some schoolteacher from Chamberlain High?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea,” I said, easing my way out of Cole’s arms to get shakily to my feet. “But I think we need to find out.”