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Chapter 1
Chapter One: The Arrival
The maples lining Harbor Street were already tipped with late-summer red when Sophie pulled into Maple Harbor. She eased her rental into the driveway of the small white house where she’d spent every July and so many Thanksgiving weekends. The porch still sagged in the same spot. The wind chimes her grandmother loved still sang a little off-key.
She turned off the engine and pressed her forehead to the steering wheel. For the last two weeks she’d been moving through tasks—flights, emails, a voicemail from her boss about the September pitch—like someone moving through fog. Aunt June had handled the funeral while Sophie’s team hit a launch deadline. Now the estate paperwork was on the passenger seat, and in the back were two empty suitcases she planned to fill with a few heirlooms and favorite books. She’d told her colleagues she’d be back Monday. She told herself this would be a two-day trip.
Sophie stepped out. The air smelled like lake water and sun-warmed pine. On the porch, the spare key still sat in its usual spot under the terracotta owl. Inside, the house felt paused mid-breath. A pair of glasses on the side table. A crossword half-finished. A mug with a tiny lipstick crescent by the sink. Sophie touched the mug, then set it down carefully, as if it might break under the weight of her fingertips.
She made herself move room to room, taking mental inventory. It would be a matter of lists. The living room: books, quilts, the oak coffee table her grandfather had made. The kitchen: a drawer full of recipes, a battered rolling pin. The bedroom: the cedar chest. The attic: boxes.
She paused at the hallway wall. There, among faded photos of cousins with missing teeth and a crooked school portrait of Sophie at nine, hung a framed napkin. On it, in a child’s slanted handwriting, an X marked a crooked map of the neighborhood, and an arrow pointed toward a house with a big scribbled tree. Underneath, in blue pen, the words THE WAY HOME.
Sophie swallowed. She remembered the afternoon she and Eli had drawn that map at the diner, ten years old, sticky-fingered and full of fries. The X was for Mrs. Helms’s mean cat. The big tree was the Ferris oak where they’d spent countless hours building forts. The map was their promise: no matter what, they would always know how to find their way back.
Her phone buzzed. A Chicago number lit the screen. She let it go to voicemail. Then she turned and opened the front door wide. The breeze lifted the lace curtains and stirred the dust. “Okay,” she said to an empty room that felt too full. “Let’s begin.”
