Chapter 2 - The Advance Guard
The drive to Savannah was long. The interstate stretched out before me like a ribbon of gray slate, cold and indifferent. My uniform was stowed in a garment bag in the backseat, replaced by the civilian clothes I rarely wore—a dark wool coat, sturdy boots, and a posture that still commanded the air around me.
I hadn't arrived in Savannah yet, but I was already active.
I had spent the last twenty-four hours in a flurry of activity that would have made a logistics officer dizzy. I had called an attorney—not just any attorney, but a pit bull who specialized in probate disputes and was known for tearing apart "routine" estate paperwork with the fervor of a shark. We had spent the morning filing an injunction. We had flagged the title with the county registrar.
I was three hours out when my phone began to vibrate. It didn't stop. It buzzed with the frantic, erratic rhythm of a trapped insect. Celeste. Brielle. Even my father, Orin, who usually couldn't be bothered to pick up a phone, was calling.
I ignored them all.
They were in the panic phase. The message had landed, and the reality of the ‘Frost House Closing’ group chat was beginning to fray at the edges. My mother was likely pacing the kitchen floor, her hands twisting her rings, wondering how the daughter she had successfully excluded from Christmas last year had suddenly become the person holding the keys to the kingdom.
I stopped at a gas station just across the Georgia line. I bought a coffee and stood by the pump, the cold wind whipping through my hair. I looked at the missed calls. Forty-two.
I hit the playback on the last voicemail, from Brielle. Her voice was shrill, the composure she usually projected in public completely shattered.
“Mara? What is this? Who is this attorney? Mom is freaking out, she says you’ve blocked her! Are you crazy? It’s Christmas! We’re supposed to be a family!”
I didn't listen to the rest. I deleted it.
The term "family" was a weapon my mother used to enforce silence. She used it to make me feel guilty for existing, for being inconvenient, for having a life that didn't revolve around her social calendar. She used it to get me to sign things without reading them.
I climbed back into the car. The terrain was changing. The landscape was getting flatter, the Spanish moss hanging from the oaks like the gray, tattered remnants of a ghost story. Frost House was nearby.
I didn't drive to the house. I drove to the county clerk’s office. I had a closing to stop.
The clerk, a woman named Mrs. Gable who I remembered from Grandma’s funeral, looked up from her desk. She recognized me immediately. “Gunny Voss? What are you doing in Savannah?”
“I’m here to protect an asset, Mrs. Gable,” I said, my voice steady.
She looked at the paperwork I produced—the court-ordered injunction, the affidavits, the proof of ownership. Her eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. “Oh, dear. Your mother was in here just last week. She said the house was being sold as a total estate liquidation, with your full consent.”
“That would be a mistake,” I said, the words cutting through the air like a blade. “A very expensive one.”
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As I left the office, the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, casting long, bruised shadows over the city. I was officially the owner of record for fifty percent of the property. And legally, that meant absolutely nothing could be signed, sold, or liquidated without my signature.
Celeste thought she had the upper hand because she controlled the narrative. She forgot that in the real world, the truth doesn't care about narratives. It only cares about the deed.
