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brambles.
    In the backseat, Arlo started wiggling and released an excited bark.
    “What’s his deal?” asked Liz, turning back to the little animal and scratching his neck. He lapped at her wrist.
    “Maybe he’s just excited that the car has finally stopped. At least he didn’t get sick.” Connie paused. “I don’t know, Liz. I don’t think there’s anything here. Are you sure this is Milk Street?”
    “You have to go to the bathroom, little guy?” Liz cooed to the dog, whose entire hind section was vibrating with excitement. “I think he needs to be let out. Let’s take him over to those trees to do his thing and then we’ll take another look at the map.”
    The air smelled moist and fresh, like new earth, but with a hint of brine—nothing at all like Cambridge. Connie stretched her arms overhead, feeling her spine pop in two places, and then rubbed her neck with one hand while opening the back door for the dog.
    “C’mon out, mutt,” she said, but before the words were completely out of her mouth the animal had vanished, reappearing an instant later directly in front of the bramble thicket. He barked, tail cutting half-moons in the air behind him.
    The two women started toward the wood at the end of the lane, expecting the dog to follow them when he lost interest in whatever vermin he had spotted in the thicket.
    “So whose house is this supposed to be again?” asked Liz, picking idly at a hangnail.
    “Granna’s,” said Connie. “My mother’s mother.”
    “But you said you’d never been here before,” Liz said.
    Connie shrugged. “I haven’t. My mom and Granna—Sophia was her name—didn’t get along, as you can imagine. All Grace’s hippie stuff. AndGranna was apparently very old-style New England. Stiff, restrained. So they were only sporadically in touch, I guess. And then she died when I was really little.”
    “Sophia,” Liz mused. “That’s a Greek root, you know. It means ‘wisdom.’ Did you ever meet her?”
    “Mom says that I did. She came to our house in Concord pretty often, but it always drove Mom crazy. Apparently Granna didn’t approve of Mom’s raising me in ‘such an environment.’” Connie waved her fingers in mock quotes on either side of her head.
    “Sounds like you would have gotten along with her pretty well, actually. At least you and she would have agreed about Grace. Do you remember any of this?” Liz asked.
    “Not really,” said Connie. “I think I maybe remember when she died. Mom being sad. Her holding me and saying something about ‘universal life energy,’ and me asking if that meant ‘heaven,’ and her saying ‘yes.’ I must have been about three or four.”
    “But if she died over twenty years ago, what’s been happening with the house this whole time?”
    Connie rolled her eyes before she could stop herself. “Well, apparently it has just been sitting here. How typical is that? Mom never even told me.” She shook her head.
    “So why would she ask you to deal with the house now?” asked Liz. “And, more importantly,” she said, joking, “why have we been paying to live in the dorm all this time if there was an empty house less than an hour away that might as well belong to you?”
    Connie laughed. “I think the answer to that question will be apparent when we find the house. Mom says it’s a total dump. And as for why she’s asked me to deal with it now, it would seem that my very responsible and attentive mother has neglected to pay the property taxes on the house since Granna died.” Liz gasped in disbelief. “Oh, yes,” Connie continued before she could say anything. “It’s been adding up, but until recently the rate was so low that the town didn’t really care. Then last year they changed the law.And this spring the town sent her notice that the house will be seized in six months if she doesn’t make restitution.”
    “Wow,” said Liz. “How much?”
    “I don’t know the exact figure,” Connie said, tugging