October obsession

the long version

The Outer Banks of North Carolina...in all their stark, ghostly, perilour splendor... Laura Westmoreland has come here to assist Sheriff Bill Tate in his search for her cherished Aunt Josie, who has vanished from the seaside cottage in which she has lived alone for decades. Seeking out any clue, Laura sifts through the contents of Josie's rustic cottage, and discovers a diary - an astonishing document unveiling Josie's rich, secret, and fantastic lesbian life. Josie has for years loved and been loved by a golden, mythical being named Selene who, during the fullness of the moon each October, joined Josie for the passionate consummation of their love - a love which over the decades has been tested by assualts from hurricanes, illness, and the hostility of the entire exterior world. Agonized by the apparent delusions of her aunt, increasingly apprehensive about what may have actually happened to her, Laura delves ever more deeply into the story of Josie's disappearance. At the same time she wrestles with her won painful conflict: her inability to accept a declaration of love from her dearest friend, Jackie, and to acknowledge the nature of her own feeling for Jackie...