Chapter 1

Rosemary

I checked my paper again to make sure I had the right address and fervently hoped that I was in the wrong place. Alas, the number on the decrepit mailbox matched the one on my letter; this was really it. The sprawling farmhouse at the end of the driveway looked nothing like it did in the pictures. The roof sagged in the middle, the chimney was crooked, the porch had weathered to a flaky gray, and everything leaned to the left like the tower of Pisa.

I had been lied to; that was the only answer. When I’d received a letter on fancy stationery saying I had to attend a reading of the will, everything that had followed had felt like a gift. A new start away from the concrete jungle that seemed to grind me down a little further with each passing day.

Never having known my dad, I felt this odd mixture of sadness to hear that he’d passed, and happiness that he’d left everything to me. My mom always told me she didn’t know how to get in contact with him. All she had was one faded picture of them together and his first name; Zachery.

Standing in that office and being told I was inheriting his home, his land, and what was left of his money had been mind-blowing. The pictures the solicitor showed me had been of this beautiful farm, freshly painted white, and covered with blooming roses. There had been rows and rows of corn growing in the surrounding fields and a fresh vegetable garden on the right. In the pictures, this place looked like paradise, but those had to have been taken at least twenty years ago, if not longer.

Now what? Sell the place and just leave? Let someone else deal with this mess? It was very tempting, but the solicitor had stipulated that I had to live at the farm for an entire year if I wanted to receive the rest of my father’s inheritance. Money, he’d said, lots of it. I didn’t want to be greedy but could I live here, in this firetrap, for a year? Get the money and then leave?

“You won’t know until you try, Rosy,” I told myself. So I squared my shoulders and started up the driveway, trying to ignore how the collapsed side of the cliff in the background was making me uneasy. They built the house some distance away from it, just close enough to be sheltered from the wind on that side. A good portion had come down to the left, a rock slide making one giant pile of mud and boulders that had covered half of what was left of the vegetable garden.

The porch steps creaked as I went up them, and then one groaned so dangerously that I didn’t dare put my weight on it. The entire porch looked like it was rotten and my heart sank. If I couldn’t even get to the front door… How was I going to live there? What was I going to say to the movers when they got here tomorrow with all my stuff?

Granted, there wasn’t much stuff they were moving anyhow. I hadn’t been able to afford the costly shipping for more than one haul, and I hadn’t had much to start with. Just my mattress, closet, and the kitchen set that my mom and I had refinished one shiny afternoon. The things most of note were my precious plants, which I’d carefully watered and packaged before I left. Any other furniture I might need, I hoped to get here. It was just as possible that the house was still fully furnished too; I’d have to assess what to keep or toss.

Squaring my shoulders, I put on a brave smile, determined to cross the sagging porch, and headed for the front door. I only looked back once to trace the disappearing taillights of the taxi that brought me here. Maybe I should have asked the driver to wait while I checked out the house. Suddenly, it seemed like an extremely stupid idea to enter an abandoned house all by myself. What if there were squatters or something?

My foot went straight through the first porch plank, each subsequent step after felt like I was walking on a soggy mattress. This was really bad. I would have to rip this out and replace all the boards—that is, if the frame was still any good. For now, I’d reached the front door, but it wouldn’t be safe to try that much more often.

The big, golden key that had looked so fantastical and fancy when I received it now looked more like dirty copper in my hands. It had a rounded head with all these pretty, elegant swirls, but when I stuck it into the rusty lock, my finger caught on one such swirl. “Ouch, damn it!” I yelped, sucking the bleeding fingertip into my mouth while I gingerly turned the key the rest of the way with my other hand.

On creaking hinges, the door swung open. Crooked in the door frame, it dragged along the hardwood floors inside. Hardwood floors were good though. They looked intact if scratched up, but nothing a little sanding wouldn’t buff out. Inhaling deeply, I was greeted with the rotten, musty smell of the rotten porch and dust from the house.

It felt very final to step through that doorway and wasn’t a threshold symbolic of change? A new adventure? Everything up to this point had already been a stressful whirlwind of changes, but somehow, stepping into the house seemed to herald the last, final transformation of my life.

I took the plunge with my eyes closed, passing through the open door with goosebumps breaking out all over my body. I tingled from head to toe, my nipples perking, my belly clenching, and my natural curls standing on end in a static mess. This was crazy! Was I really feeling all that, or was I just imagining it?

Once I had both feet inside the door I didn’t really know what to do first. With the tingles fading, it didn’t seem like anything had really changed. I was still standing inside a dusty, dirty hallway, dimly lit through grimy or boarded-up windows. I was still little old me, an orphan since age twenty, with no job, and somehow the owner of this giant mess.

Flicking on my flashlight, I started to walk through the house, and then something strange did happen. It should have been creepy, and I should have been scared that some homeless dude was squatting in one of the rooms. I was just a girl by herself, only my sturdy flashlight in hand as a weapon. Except I started to relax almost immediately.

There were no signs of anyone having been in the house in ages; the dust on the floors was completely undisturbed. There was no graffiti marking the walls and no discarded trash from trespassers. Not even any sign that teenagers had used this as a hangout at any point. Which was bizarre, considering the relative proximity to the nearby town and the fact that this place had been abandoned for so long.

Inside the house everything looked dated, with curling, faded wallpaper and ancient furniture, but it still looked very livable. Everything was just… dirty. Had my father one day just picked up his suitcase and walked out the door, never to return? The solicitor had made it clear that my father had died very recently, so where had he been all this time? Actually, it looked like he hadn’t been home since the day I was born, twenty-six years ago.

The kitchen was the worst, all appliances so dated or rusted that I knew I’d have to strip it all out and replace it. I had a small stipend to live off for the next year, as stipulated by the will. Would it be enough to cover all of that if I did the work myself? My hand touched the phone in my pocket; if I had internet, I was sure I’d be able to learn most of what I needed to do on it, and it wasn’t like I had anything else to do. Right?

I dreaded going up the stairs, but those steps were sound; no rot, not even the slightest creak. The bedrooms were dusty messes with old mattresses and sheets that had to go. One room had a giant carved wooden canopy bed, which was utterly gorgeous. The posts were shaped like living trees, the carving so exceptional that it looked almost real. I froze just staring at it, sure I’d stepped from a farmhouse into a small woodland glen for just a moment.

Too bad the bathrooms were almost as bad as the kitchen, and there was no running water. That was going to have to be on my list to fix first, but for now, the bottled water in my backpack would have to do.

Assessment done, I ditched my things in the bedroom, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work.