Free A Breath Away by Rita Herron

rocking chair and stroked the arm. She imagined her grandmother sitting in the chair, crocheting in the afternoon sunlight, sunshine that turned the tiny room into an inferno in summer. Violet had curled up at her knees and played with her rag dolls while her grandmother watched her soap operas. Now dust coated most of the ancient furniture, and cobwebs hung in the corners. She slowly walked through the kitchen, not surprised to find everything the same, only older and smaller. Newspapers and magazines littered a beige countertop spattered with stains. Dishes encrusted with half-eaten food cluttered the sink. Trash overflowed onto the graying linoleum floor, the stench almost unbearable.
    A delivery box containing an uneaten pizza sat on the counter next to a full six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, as if her father had just returned from getting dinner. Odd, but both had been untouched. And the want ad page lay on the table, a red circle around two ads. Why would her father buy an entire pizza and six-pack and be job hunting if he planned to kill himself?
    Depressed people aren’t exactly rational, she reminded herself.
    Her father’s room was to the right, but she couldn’t bring herself to go inside. On the left, her grandmother’s room adjoined Violet’s. The crocheted green afghan her grandmother had used to warm her feet at night still lay at the foot of the Jenny Lind bed, the scent of her grandmother’s favorite lavender potpourri mellow, yet lingering. Violet grabbed the afghan and hugged it to her, then glanced at her own room. Had her fatherchanged it? Turned it into a study or storeroom for the old car parts he collected? The parts that had meant more to him than she had.
    She pushed open the door and was shocked to see the sawed-off iron bed still rooted in the corner, the antique dresser laden with her childhood costume jewelry. Even more surprising, Bobo, her big brown birthday bear, hugged the pillows where she had once slept. Right next to Bobo were her Raggedy Ann doll and the stuffed pony her father had won for her at the county fair. The same pale pink chenille bedspread covered her bed, too, although it had yellowed with age.
    Tears pooled in Violet’s eyes. Taking a deep breath, she noticed the faint scents of mothballs and wood polish, as if her father had tried to preserve her room. Peculiar, when the rest of the house seemed in such disrepair.
    She flipped on the radio her father had given her for Christmas one year. Static bellowed back at her, and she fiddled with the knobs, hoping to find some soft music to calm her. An oldies station came through, so she let it play while she retrieved her suitcase. The floor creaked as she entered the house again. Could she really spend the night in this old place?
    Would the ghosts haunt her when she tried to sleep?
    Exhausted and drained from the trip, she dragged on a thin cotton nightshirt. But just as she lay down, a newscaster’s voice came over the radio. “This late-breaking story in just now, folks. The search for Amber Collins, the missing woman from Savannah, Georgia, has ended tonight.”
    Violet gripped the sheets. She didn’t need to hear the report—she knew what he was going to say.
    Amber Collins was dead.
    Still, she listened, her pulse racing. “The young woman’s body was discovered late this evening on the front steps of a church outside the Georgia state line, in what looks like it might be a ritualist killing. Sources say the coed was strangled. Although no signs of sexual abuse have been reported, one source tells us that the victim was left holding a note in her hand that read, ‘For Our Father.’ No suspects have been named thus far. Police have refused comment. We’ll bring you more information as it becomes available.”
    Violet pulled the teddy bear into her arms, stroking its ears the way she had as a child. The police hadn’t mentioned finding a bone whistle beside