3 From the Ashes by K.J. Emrick

bun, her eyes sparkled, and she was smiling.
    Darcy knelt and said a little prayer, something she did infrequently but with conviction each time she did. When she stood up again Sarah was staring at Millie’s headstone.
    “Is that your aunt?” she asked Darcy. There was a strange look on her face.
    “Yes, that’s Millie. She was my great aunt, actually, but that’s such a mouthful… What is it?”
    Sarah was still staring at the gravestone. Without answering, she reached into the back pocket of her jeans and took out a slim woman’s wallet. Zipping it open she removed a photo and handed it to Darcy.
    “That’s a picture of my mother,” she explained. “I keep this with me to remember her by. Look at the woman in the photo with her.”
    Angelica had been a young woman in the photo. Long blonde hair swept over one shoulder, and she was smiling at the camera. Standing next to her was a much older woman, her brown hair already mostly gray. Darcy was shocked to see the face of her great aunt Millie staring back at her.
    “Why do you think your aunt would be in a photo with my mom?” Sarah asked. “Were they related? Are you and I related?”
    Darcy shook her head. “I don’t think so. I knew my mom’s family pretty well.” Still, there was something familiar about Sarah’s mother. Something about the eyes, she thought. “Maybe Millie and Angelica were friends?”
    Sarah took the photo back and carefully put it away. “Maybe. I mean they both lived here in town. It is a big coincidence though, don’t you think?”
    “Yes,” Darcy said quietly. “Quite the coincidence, isn’t it?”
    In the back of her mind, though, she had to wonder. Had this mystery just gotten more mysterious?
    In the corners of the graveyard, fog started to lift from the ground.
     

Chapter Ten
     
    Later that night Darcy went over to Jon’s. The mists that had given the town its name began to crowd in along her feet. They always came in when something was wrong, Darcy had found. She was shaken by what Sarah had shown her in the cemetery. She needed to talk to someone about it.
    When Jon opened the door to let her into his apartment she didn’t say anything, she just slipped into his arms and hugged him tight, pressing her face into his chest. She breathed him in and it calmed her. He let her stand there like that for several moments before he broke the silence.
    “What’s wrong?” Jon said as he ran a soothing hand over her hair.
    She sighed that the moment of peaceful comfort was over, and gently pushed past him to let the door close. “Can we sit down? I need to talk to you about this thing with Sarah and her mom. And I really need a drink. Do you have any of that wine left?”
    Jon raised an eyebrow at that but went to the cabinet to take out the bottle of dry red wine they had started a few days ago. Two glasses in his one hand, bottle in the other, he met her at his couch in the living room.
    “Thanks,” she said as he poured her some in the long-stemmed glass. He took a sip of his drink and then leaned back next to her, loosening the top two buttons of the dress shirt he still had on from work.
    He was patient with her, letting her sip and ruminate and take her time before she brought up what was bothering her. “I went to the graveyard today. To look at Angelica’s grave.”
    “That sounds…well actually that sounds dreary.” He picked her feet up off the floor and put them across his lap. Putting his drink down on the coffee table, he took her shoes off one at a time.
    When he started rubbing the soles of her feet she thought she might swoon.
    “Oh, yes, that feels good.” She sipped her wine and let the warmth and pressure he was applying relax her body.
    “So what happened? Did you see Angelica’s ghost?”
    She looked at him, wondering how he possibly put up with her and all her eccentricities. He was wonderful, she decided. That must be the answer. “No, I didn’t see her ghost.” She left out the part