Free Buried Dreams by Brendan DuBois

are dead, the road is wide and busy, the fences are gone, and so are most of the homes. This house was an aberration, and I couldn't figure out why Paula was there.
    She was sitting on the hood of her car, a new red Toyota Camry, and waved at me as I approached. It was another brisk day for October, the wind kicking up some, the chill in the air predicting a heavy and hearty winter. The home was brick and dark wood, with small windows, a narrow pitched roof, and it seemed out of place. It looked like it had been picked up from some English village with a name like Burberry-on-Kent or something, and dropped here intact. Maple and oak trees surrounded it, and the lawn was tiny but well kept. There were hedges marking the yard, and the home's immediate neighbors were a branch of Coastal Savings Bank, a car wash, and a condominium. And smack-dab in the middle of the door was a red and black sign: NO TRESPASSING.
    "Hey," Paula said. She had on tight jeans, small black boots, and a short black leather coat.
    "Hey, yourself," I said, sitting next to her on the Camry. "Are we both lawbreakers, young lady?"
    She laughed. "You talking about the No Trespassing sign?"
    "It certainly caught my attention."
    She tapped me gently on my hand. "Not to worry, my friend. This lovely homestead is now considered property of the town of Tyler, and I have permission from the town counsel to visit it as much as I want."
    "Knowing how the town counsel feels about you, I'm surprised he didn't give you permission to move in and take the place over. What's the deal? Tax lien?"
    Paula said, "Among other things. Look, do you know who built this place? And who lived here?"
    "No, but I'm sure I'm about to find out."
    "You certainly are," she said. "Donald F. Burnett. Retired newspaperman and a poet, lived here right after the Civil War. Was in love with all things English, and had this home built to certain specifications. He said he wanted to live like a lord in Elizabethan times, which is what he did. Lived here and wrote some great poetry, and had a comfortable life, corresponding with authors like Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman. A minor celebrity here in Tyler, bit of an eccentric. Achieved a small part of fame before he died, peacefully in his sleep, just before the dawn of the twentieth century."
    "Sounds like you're keeping his flame alive."
    "Doing my best," she said. "And right now, I'm trying to keep his house alive." She nodded in the direction of the home. "The inside of the place is a dump, Lewis. Past owners really haven't taken care of it and the last owner was evicted back in the spring. The wiring, the plumbing, the insulation... all about twenty years out of date. The building inspector has said it could cost thousands to rehab the place into anything approaching livable, and even if you do that, who wants to move in next to a highway and car wash? The thing is, what's valuable here isn't the building. It's this nice high-priced lot, right in the middle of a commercial zoning district."
    I said, "This is where I'm supposed to say, you have a plan, correct?"
    She kept her view of the house, like she was waiting for the ghost of the old New Hampshire poet to quietly appear. "You're right about that. See, the thing is, the owner of the car wash, one Sy Hartmann, from down Lawrence way, he wants to purchase the land and take the house down and build what Route 1 desperately needs: another convenience store to sell beer, slurpies, and artery-clogging snacks. But for once in their life, the Tyler selectmen have decided to put the brakes on destroying a piece of the town's history, and have told Sy that yes, he can payoff the tax lien and secure the property, but he has to give somebody a chance to save the house. So that's the deal. See this pretty house in front of us?"
    "Can't miss it," I said.
    "Care to figure the asking price?"
    Having gotten my own home for free from the United States government, and not one for keeping