Free Dark Water by Sharon Sala

familiarity.
    â€œWhere to next?” he asked.
    â€œInto town, please.”
    â€œTo the sheriff’s office?”
    â€œEventually,” Sarah said, and then looked at Tony. “Do you remember where I used to live?”
    He nodded.
    â€œIs it still there…the house, I mean?”
    â€œYes, but the last time I drove by, it wasn’t in very good condition. In fact, I think it was empty and up for sale.”
    â€œEven better,” Sarah muttered. “I want to go there next, please.”
    He started to ask why, then changed his mind and put the car in gear. He would find out soon enough.
    Sarah rode into Marmet without further conversation, unaware that her fingers had curled into fists. The only things of which she was cognizant were the irregular thump of her heart and the constant fear that she was going to throw up.
    If anyone had asked her a month ago how she felt about Marmet, Maine, she would have sworn she had few, if any, memories. But from the moment she’d gotten off the plane in Portland, dread had been growing. Now it had all but consumed her, and it wasn’t just because she’d learned her father had been murdered. She was remembering the way she and her mother had been ostracized.
    She took a deep breath and unconsciously lifted her chin. If they tried anything like that again, they were in for a big surprise. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, and, unlike her mother, she wasn’t the kind of woman to quit. She was a fighter, and she wouldn’t be denied the chance to redeem her family’s name.
    â€œWe’re here,” Tony said.
    Sarah took a deep breath and turned her head. If he hadn’t told her where they were, she wouldn’t have recognized the house. The wide front porch she’d played on so often was gone. In its place was a small, wrought-iron stoop and a pair of rusting decorative lions. The concrete walk that led to the house was cracked and overgrown with weeds, and the big oak tree where her swing used to hang appeared to be dead.
    â€œAre you sure this is it?” Sarah asked.
    Tony pointed to the house number at the curb.
    Sarah sighed. “Lord.”
    â€œYou don’t have to do this.”
    Sarah sat without moving, her gaze fixed on the house. Finally she sighed, as if in defeat.
    â€œYes. Yes, I do,” she said. She had started to open the door when Tony grabbed her hand.
    â€œYou don’t have to do all this by yourself.”
    The gentleness in his voice was almost her undoing.
    â€œI know, and I appreciate all you’re doing.”
    â€œWhy do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ in there?”
    She managed a small smile. “I suppose because there is.”
    â€œSo you’re telling me you don’t want any company?”
    â€œI’ll be fine. Besides, it’s still drizzling. All you’ll do is get wetter than you already are.”
    â€œAnd you won’t?”
    There was no need to comment on the obvious. Of course she was going to get wetter—and colder—but then, so had her father.
    â€œI won’t be long,” Sarah said, and got out of the car before she could change her mind and beg him to come with her. It was getting harder and harder to face her ghosts alone.
    The ankle-high grass in the yard was dead and brown, compliments of an early frost over a month ago. The ground was wet and spongy. Sarah dodged a couple of holes, seeing them just in time to keep from falling, and guessed that a neighborhood dog must have had a field day here, burying bones. She wouldn’t let herself look at the house again. It was too sad and too depressing to see what time had done to it.
    But when Aunt Lorett had taken her away all those years ago, she’d left something behind. Something that had, at the time, been very important to a ten-year-old. From the way things looked, there was every reason to believe it would no longer be here, but she’d come