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pork-pie hat. “I should have warned you more about the terrain.”
    Tugging a briar from my shoulder, I hurried to keep up with him. “Oh, no. Don't worry. You said the house was far, guess I didn't understand what that meant.”
    He paused beside a low hanging oak limb, lifting it partially so I could duck under it. “I should have been more clear. Anyway, we're almost out of the thicket. After this the trail is much easier.”
    “How much easier?” I asked, pushing my hair from my eyes. The shadow of the leaves above suddenly broke away. Standing on the path, I had the perfect view of the gentle green hills all around me. It was stunning, the breeze tugging at my dress and taking my startled gasp away into the clouds.
    Dirk stepped up next to me, his grin tangible in his voice. “Much easier, I'd say.”
    “It's beautiful,” I breathed. “Everything out here looks so peaceful.”
    “Always thought that, myself.” He led the way down the slope, the ground hard packed where it cut the way through the fields.
    With the warm sun on my shoulders, my backpack, everything felt so light. I couldn't remember being in such a gorgeous chunk of the world. “Now I really wish I had known about my grandmother, I would have killed to visit as a child.”
    “Tessa loved it here,” he said. “She spent all of her time in the outdoors when she was young.”
    Keeping pace beside him on the wide path, my scuffed flats were grateful for the smooth ground. “Were you close to her?”
    He glanced at me under the shadow of his hat. “Tessa was a little older than me, but as kids, we played together some. When I became the resident doctor, I expected her to tease me, actually.” He walked slower, stick tapping the earth. “Tessa was too kind for such things. Always too kind.”
    How can someone be too kind? I wondered over it, but my interest was on other things. “Um, so you knew her all this time... does that mean, maybe, you knew my mother too?”
    “Oh, yes,” he said, his smile spreading at some fond memory. “Gina. She was an interesting child, nothing at all like Tessa. Scared of everything, often sick. Yes,” he said, turning towards me as if he'd just remembered I was there. “I knew your mother.”
    I felt like there was so much in front of me. I'd opened a box looking for answers, and inside, found so much more. “What do you mean, she was scared?”
    We rounded a large hill, the sun vanishing in its wake. “Gina didn't like it out here, that was always clear. I'm sure that's why she left when she was so young.”
    “She ran away?”
    “Indeed,” he sighed. “Tessa was wrecked by it. The idea that her only daughter wanted nothing to do with her, with her house... well. It was hard. Tessa wouldn't call on me often in her later years, but I checked up on her just to—to be sure.” His words were grim.
    Losing a child, being abandoned... poor Tessa. “I don't get it, though,” I whispered. “What did my mother hate about this place so much? It's wonderful out here, and Barrow Village is cute enough. What was she running from? ”
    Dirk rounded the last of the hill, his shoulders tight as rocks. I could sense the tension in him, even before I saw what was ahead of us. He didn't answer me about my mother, I don't think he really needed to.
    We were at my grandmother's house. And, in seeing it, I related to how my mother must have felt. I didn't grasp it entirely. How could I have? But seeing that place, knowing she'd grown up there...
    I understood.
    The building was angled in a way no foundation should allow. It tilted to the right, hunkered down like a crouching beast. The windows were dark, the glass thick and green. With pale stones and faded, painted wood, the only real color was on the roof. There, clinging to every inch, was a thick layer of emerald moss.
    Matching vines clung to the sides, choking the chimney, dangling from the top all the way to the earth. It was three stories, I thought. The