Free The She by Carol Plum-Ucci

world, ninety-five miles southeast of Atlantic City. That's right about eleven miles from where my folks were when they talked to me and Emmett on the ship-to-shore."
    "Holy shit," she whispered, then put her fingers to her mouth without really thinking about it.
    Jupe had hopped down off the chair; and even though I'd promised the receptionist I'd keep him off the floor; I had forgotten. Now he'd made rabbit poop about halfway across the room. I grabbed a Kleenex, used it to toss the rabbit poop into the wastebasket, scooped him up, and sat down to find Grey staring at me. I looked away.
    "Are you ... um ... going to your grandfather's for the holiday?"
    I could sense the next question looming as if she'd already asked it. So I skipped the first one and went right to it. "No way am I going to Sassafras. I swore to my brother that I would leave the whole business with my parents alone from here on in. At this point, that would definitely include steering clear of Edwin Church."
    She was quiet for a moment, though I could feel some scheme still baking. Finally, she said, "Evan, starting Friday, I'm entitled to a two-day leave. Take me on Friday, and I'll not only put Soundra on my list, but I'll move her up to second. Right after you." A smile lit, and after a moment it left again. "If maybe she could quit bragging about her bionic skiing, as if she didn't get enough attention, hopping around like a kangaroo, waiting for that thingamabob to get made."
    "Prosthesis." I got up and put on my coat. "How'd you like to spend a day and a night over the side of a cliff with a broken leg? That was a horrible climbing accident."
    "I know! I know! Shit. I cannot believe that passed out of my mouth. Do you think maybe I'm possessed?"
    I watched her press her palms to her eyeballs and felt ripped up. Totally cutting remarks from girls like her sent me sprawling backward sometimes. Yet her sincere desire to do better drew my hand to her head. I rubbed the back of her hair, but I was thinking,
If she ever improves, it's gonna take ten years.
"All good things take time, Grey. I think you'll be okay."
    Which wasn't saying that I would take her to Sassafras. I had promised Emmett I wouldn't get involved in her problems.
    "I can tell you how to get there in an outboard from the rental place in West Hook."
    "An outboard?" She dropped her hands, confused. "Forgive me for keeping my love of boating to the normal months. Isn't it freezing this time of year?"
    I felt strangely outside of myself, like at one point in my life I could have seen myself pointing at her and laughing and calling her "one of those stupid summer people."
    "No colder than it is standing in the middle of a field. Just don't fall in."
    I left, listening to her whisper evil shit, that I was some sort of heartless bastard. That was fine. The truth was, I had my peace about how my parents died and about what kind of creatures were real in our universe and what kinds were imaginary. But it all felt kind of shaky. The slightest thing could shake my truth away from me, make me start wondering again if dark forces could rip a kid's parents away and leave no evidence of themselves for anyone but the dead. Then I would just have to live with that. My intuition was telling me that this Thanksgiving trip to East Hook could leave me feeling something less than thankful.
    And even though he had been the person who had helped me, I figured Edwin Church had something to do with my fears. The man was a walking contradiction, one I'd known about because at one time he had been a good friend of my grandfather's.
    Like Opa, he supposedly had a lot of money. Yet he'd been living in this two-room hut on Sassafras, living off the fish, blue crabs, and clams he caught, since before I was born. He called all that education his "Bloody Mary," meaning, I think, the island witch, not the beverage. He spoke like an educated man, yet he said "I don't know" more than any person I'd ever met. He seemed to know