He drove another minute, then stopped the car. “Keep them closed,” he instructed. He came around and opened our door. I stumbled out, holding Maggie in my arms, Will guiding me.

“Okay, open your eyes.”

I gasped. Will, I’m sure, took it as a gasp of awe and delight. But really, it was fear. I sucked air into my chest, which felt as if it was being crushed by a giant fist. I held Maggie tightly in my arms, and we gazed upon Sparrow Crest. It was so much more massive than I had imagined, like a great stone fortress. It truly was like the castle I had dreamed of living in when I was a little girl. The front door was heavy wood with a rounded top. The windows were arched with leaded glass. Two stories high with an attic, the roof had steep peaks and was covered in gray slate shingles. There was a large half-round window in the attic at the very front of the house.

The whole building seemed alive to me; it felt as though it was a part of the landscape, as if it had risen up right out of the rocky soil. It fit the backdrop of trees on the hill behind it perfectly. The windows and door looked like a fierce face under the steeply angled rooftop.

The front door stood open, a mouth waiting to gobble us up.

“Oh, Will,” I said, taking a step back away from it, wanting to get back in the car and drive as far away from this place as we could.

But it was too late. We had nowhere else to go. This was our home now.

Will took Maggie from me, swooped her though the air as if she were flying. “And what do you think of your new house, little sparrow?”

She laughed with delight and pointed. “House,” she said.

“Your house,” he told her. “Sparrow Crest. Shall we go inside?”

I followed him on shaky legs.

A work crew was inside, as well as the movers, who had come ahead of us, trucks loaded with our furniture and all of our belongings in baskets and boxes. All the men scuttled to and fro like ants.

Will introduced me to the foreman, Mr. Galletti. He was a broad-shouldered man with dark hair and a thick, bushy mustache. “A true pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Monroe,” he said.

The front hall was magnificent—heavy, dark wood-paneled walls, a stone floor, built-in benches to sit on while we take off boots and coats. Off to the right, a large living room with a stone fireplace. There was a mason pointing the cement between the stones with a tiny trowel. He tipped his hat to me. Beyond the living room, a dining room connected by a hall to the kitchen. Oh, the kitchen! It’s enormous.

“You could cook a feast every night!” Will said. There were plenty of deep wooden cupboards and a large pantry. A huge soapstone sink. The newest and fanciest gas stove.

“It’s big enough to get lost in,” I told him.

“And look,” he said, showing me the kitchen door, divided into two halves. “It’s called a Dutch door. You can open just the top if you’d like to let the breeze in. Or, latch it together and open the whole thing at once.”

He opened the door, stepped aside.

“Go see,” he said, but I stood frozen. A breeze blew in through the open door, giving me a chill, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. I rubbed at them.

At last, I willed myself forward and stepped out onto the patio, shuffling my feet like a sleepwalker.

The pool was nothing like what I remembered, and yet so familiar. It was so much larger, a great rectangular pond. The water was as black as ever, perhaps more so. And there was the familiar smell: metallic tinged with rotten egg. The taste got caught in the back of my throat. I tried not to gag on it.

“It’s so much bigger,” I said. “We could sail a boat in it.”

Will laughed. “Not quite large enough for that, but plenty large enough for proper swimming.”

I walked around it, maintaining a safe distance between myself and the edge. Neat blocks of granite lined the top; the slate of the patio was laid up in a neat bed of mortar (only half of the patio was finished, the rest a sandbox and stacks of stone). At the far end was a little stone-lined canal that led across the yard, all the way to the stream. I could hear it running.

We stood, looking at the pool. I was mesmerized, watching our reflections in it—the three of us, the house and hills behind us, the clouds overhead. The wind blew, rippling the water, making everything waver as if none of it were real.

Maggie squirmed in Will’s arms, and he set her down. She got too close to the edge, and I swooped her up in my arms, kissed her soft dark hair, whispered low, “This is where you came from. Where it all began.” And it’s the water keeping you alive, I thought.

We have to be here, I told myself. I would have to find a way to put my fears in a box and put on my best, brave face. For Maggie. It was all for Maggie. I kissed her again and again. She smelled like sweet apples and warm milk. Like all that was good in the world.

Inside, one of the men hammered. One said something to another, and they laughed.

The water in the stone-lined canal sounded like it was laughing, too.

A mocking little laugh.

“We still have the whole upstairs to tour,” Will said. “And there’s the attic. That’s where I thought we’d put your sewing room.”

“You never said anything about a sewing room.” I felt my spirits brighten.

“I wanted it to be a surprise! You can set up under that big window at the front of the house.” He was bouncing up onto the balls of his feet, so excited.

It was going to be all right, I told myself. We are going to be happy here.

I followed him back in through the kitchen door, holding Maggie in my arms. “What do you think, little sparrow? Isn’t it magnificent? Shall we go up and see your bedroom? I hear Daddy’s had it painted a lovely yellow.”

Maggie pointed out the open door, back at the pool. “Lady,” she said. My arms tightened around her, my whole body going rigid.

I turned slowly, looked back at the dark surface of the water, glanced around the patio, out at the edges of the yard.

“There’s no one there, my love,” I said, my throat tight, heart beating so fast and hard I was sure it would burst.

“Lady,” she said again, smiling, giggling.

“What’s she saying?” Will called from up ahead in the hall.

“Nothing,” I called back, my voice high and strange.

“Lady!” Maggie said, the word mixed in with delighted laughter as she pointed at the pool. “Lady! Lady! Lady!”