A/N: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is one of my all-time favorite movies, even if it's from 1947. I've never watched the show, but that's because who can top Rex Harrison? ' He was an amazing Captain Gregg. I don't know the plotline of the show, but this follows the movie, whoever has seen it. Enjoy if you can forgive my ignorance about the TV show!

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Gull Cottage

Gull Cottage. A finer place to live simply could not be found. Despite the warnings and the superstition of the man who'd tried to persuade her to choose any other house, Mr. Coombe, it was proving to be exactly the home about which Mrs. Lucy Muir had always dreamed. Something about the sea air, and more than likely the sea itself, lent a sense of enchantment to the entire atmosphere. Her little daughter was absolutely in love with the place already, and though their dear Martha Huggins had her misgivings, she had misgivings about everything.

As for the in-laws she'd left behind, the miserable mother and intolerable sister of her dead husband, Lucy was more than happy to rid herself of them. She found it plausible that at least her sister-in-law was also happy to be rid of her.

"Good-night, Mummy!" Anna called sleepily as Lucy turned down the gas lamp and closed her little girl's door tightly. An affectionate smile played across her face. Darling Anna – she seemed the one good thing to come out of her rather dull marriage to Edwin. If nothing else, he'd left behind the sort of child who would surpass her father. The sort of legacy, girl or boy, any man would hope for. She had been convinced almost until Anna's birth that she'd been destined for a fairy-tale with her husband, and it had been proven a fool's hope. Edwin was no Prince Charming, and after he'd died, leaving her behind some money, his horrible relations, and a seven-year-old daughter, she'd been determined to look at the world more realistically. She would make do with only her own cleverness, and it should be quite enough. Lucy Muir swore to herself that her romantic, daydream-filled days were over.

She headed downstairs to boil the water for her hot-water bottle; the only problem with a big house such as that one was that it was terribly drafty. She could not know it at the time, as she passed Martha and offered her a pretty smile, but it would be the last evening she considered her daydreams so fanciful, or so childish.

The kitchen was enveloped in blackness, and if not for the lightning flashing outside of the windows – the windows which, much to her dismay, refused to stay closed – she might not be able to see anything at all. Lucy fumbled with the matches in her hand, trying in vain to keep one lit long enough to catch on the stove. She was terribly frustrated and, feeling the fool, lashed out at no one in particular.

"You won't frighten me! I'm hardly impressed by such a show. Now if you please, all I want to do is boil this water; if your game is done, I'd thank you kindly for letting me get on with it!" Lucy scowled into the darkness and struck another match. It miraculously stayed lit.

Light the candle.

She was not altogether sure if it was a voice in her head – or if it was really there. But either way, the commanding tone was all too obvious. Lucy Muir was not a woman to be commanded left and right, but she leaned over and lit the candle she had come downstairs with nevertheless. Foolishness, she thought to herself. Pure foolishness. Her daydreaming years were far behind her, and it wouldn't do to keep them going, consciously or otherwise. She turned around, candle in hand, to face the back of the kitchen…and she gasped.