Seeds of Discovery

by Breeana Puttroff

  “Eleven o’clock, please, Zander,” her mom was saying.

  “I’ll have her home on time Megan, I promise.” His tone was light, pleasant. He was comfortable with her mom. “Hey, Quinn,” he said, as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hey, Zander.” She suddenly felt very shy.

  She reached for her winter jacket, which she’d hung on the bannister at the bottom of the stairs, but Zander was too quick for her. Pink flooded her cheeks as he held it open, slipping it first over one arm, and then the other. Megan opened the door for them.

  The walk to the truck was awkward. Zander stayed right behind her, but just as they reached the door on the passenger side, he stepped in front of her to pull it open. As she climbed into the cab, she got the distinct impression that he’d vacuumed inside very recently.

  This was beginning to feel a lot like a date. She didn’t know if that thought made her giddy or nervous. Probably both. Zander slid into the seat beside her, and turned on the engine, then adjusted the heater. “I hope it didn’t get too cold,” he said. Yes, definitely both.

  Jake Price lived only a few blocks from Quinn – in nicer weather, they could have walked – and so there were only a few minutes of the awkward silence in the car before Zander was walking around to open her door. There were a few other cars parked along the stretches of trees between the houses, but not as many as she would have expected.

  “How big is this party?” she asked Zander, as she tried to ignore his hand on her arm, steadying her on the ice.

  He shrugged. “Just senior football players – and whoever they bring.” They reached the porch, and his hand moved from under her elbow to the empty air in front of her – he was clearly expecting her to take it. “Ready?” he asked, tipping his head toward the door, his whole face lighting up with a grin.

  Heart hammering furiously, she reached to take it. As soon as his fingers closed around hers, it got easier. This was Zander. He’d been her best friend before even Abigail.

  Once they were inside, the evening felt much less like a date. There were quite a few people she didn’t know well, but Bristlecone High School wasn’t big enough to accommodate strangers. Jake’s mom managed a card shop in Pinespar where Quinn liked to shop sometimes, and she smiled kindly at Quinn before she and her husband disappeared upstairs.

  About fifteen minutes after she and Zander got there, Abigail showed up, on the arm of Adam Lamos. Quinn raised an eyebrow.

  As soon as Zander and Adam were engrossed in a battle on the foosball table, she made a beeline for her friend. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

  “Me?” Abigail’s eyes were wide. “I’ve been after Adam for weeks – he just finally gave up the fight. But you? So, Zander was just coming to check on you at lunch the other day because your moms are friends, then? Since when does Quinn Robbins come to a party at the quarterback’s house?”

  Quinn opened her mouth, but then closed it again. She didn’t have a response, and she wasn’t ready to talk about this – it was too new, and she hadn’t had a chance to sort out her own feelings yet. And she wasn’t sure how Zander really felt, either. Sure, tonight seemed like a date, but he hadn’t said so. Fortunately, Abigail was easy to divert.

  “So when did Adam ask you here?”

  Abigail shrugged, although her eyes were bright and excited. “I think it was Wednesday before lunch. I was going to tell you about it, but I swear, you’ve been so distracted this week. Every time I see you, you’re out in space somewhere. Lately, you’ve been about as social as William Rose.”

  A jolt of electricity shot through her chest. “Wh … what do you mean?”

  “Jeez, Quinn, you look like I said you murdered someone or something. I was just trying to make a joke. I didn’t really mean you’re as weird as William – just that you’ve been so … distant or something. Are you sure that accident didn’t freak you out worse than you thought?”

  She couldn’t do this, didn’t have answers for her friend. She thought she’d been doing well this week, focusing on Abbie, trying to be normal. Maybe it was just because she was so tired from not sleeping. “The boys are done playing,” she said. “Should we go and check out the hot tub?”

  * * *

  “Did you have a good time?” Zander asked, climbing into the truck beside her and turning the key in the ignition.

  “Yeah, actually.” Quinn reached for the control panel, turning the heat to high. She was rewarded with a blast of cold air in her face, so she adjusted the vents, avoiding looking up at Zander. On the walk back to the truck, she’d suddenly become self-conscious again.

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “What?”

  “That you had fun.”

  She frowned, finally lifting her eyes to study his expression. He looked genuinely curious; his brown eyes were warm and gentle as he blinked back at her. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Is it supposed to surprise me?”

  He was silent for a minute, and then he, too, shrugged. “You play a mean game of air hockey.” He grinned, and rubbed his thumb. A little bruise was starting to form there, where she’d hit him, hard, with the puck.

  “You have only yourself to blame for that one. I seem to remember you teaching me that move.”

  “That was a long time ago, Quinn.”

  “Yeah, it kind of was.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Me? I’ve been right here the whole time. You’re the one who’s always off doing something when we come to your house. When’s the last time you were home to eat dinner and play air hockey when your parents invite us over?”

  “Why aren’t you out doing stuff with us? This is the first time you’ve ever come to a party – even with Abigail.”

  “I don’t know, I guess I’m usually busy. I’m usually helping my mom with the kids, or doing homework, or working. Does it matter?”

  He looked down at his hands, and for a second, she wondered if they were trembling. “I just miss you, Quinn, that’s all.”

  Oh. Now her hands were shaking. “I miss you, too.”

  “And …” he stared down at his hands again. They were definitely trembling. “And I was wondering if you wanted to go to the Valentine Dance with me?”

  She blinked several times. “You’re asking me to the Valentine Dance?”

  “I think I just did.” He leaned down, catching her gaze.

  “Um … you know I can’t dance, right?” She was stalling, trying to regain her composure.

  He chuckled. “Neither can I, but I think it could still be fun.”

  “With me?”

  “Yes, Quinn. With you. I want to go to the Valentine Dance with you. Actually dancing is optional.”

  A strange fluttering feeling filled her stomach. Shoving her hands under her legs to stop them from shaking, she gathered up whatever courage she had. “Okay, sure.”

  “You’ll go with me?”

  “Yes, I’ll go with you.”

  Zander’s face lit up with a smile that did strange things to her insides. She had to work to catch her breath as she watched him shift the truck into drive.

  They were both silent for the short trip, but the grin on Zander’s face didn’t diminish. By the time he pulled into the driveway in front of her house, she was smiling too, suddenly a little giddy.

  “So … I’ll see you at school on Monday?” She was unsure how this whole process worked. Did his asking her to the dance change other things between them?

  “Um, no, actually. Next week is the senior football ski trip. We leave early Monday morning, and won’t be back until after school on Friday.”

  “Oh, right.” She’d never thought about any of the senior football players at school before; she was surprised to discover that the thought of them being gone on Monday was a little … disappointing.

  “I can text you, though,” he said as he climbed out of the cab. A second later she was grateful that she was still too much in shock to remember how to open th
e door and get herself out, because she would have felt awkward when he showed up to do it for her.

  He walked her up to the porch, and they stood there for a minute. She could feel her cheeks turning pink, and it wasn’t just from the cold.

  “Do you want me to text you?” he asked, sounding a little nervous again.

  She nodded, slowly coming to understand that she very much did.

  “All right, then …” He hesitated, and then quickly brushed his lips against her forehead. Heat flashed all the way to her toes, and she had a hard time catching her breath as she watched him walk back to the truck, grinning the whole way.

  By the time she let herself into the house, she couldn’t contain her own grin. She took her coat off slowly, arranging it carefully on a hanger as she tried to process what had just happened.

  “So, how was it?” Her mother’s voice from behind her startled her, and the hanger clattered noisily to the floor.

  “It was fun,” she said, once her heart had started beating again.

  “Did anything interesting happen?”

  Her heart nearly stopped again at the inflection in her mom’s voice. “You knew?”

  “I knew that Zander wanted to ask you something.”

  She let out a heavy sigh. “Oh my gosh, Mom. You and Maggie …”

  “Are no different than you and Abigail.” Her mother smiled.

  Quinn felt a stab of guilt at those words. Lately she hadn’t been telling Abigail much of anything.

  “Now,” her mom started, sitting down on the end of the couch, “I want details.”

  “Mom!” She rolled her eyes, but sat down next to her, the excited, fluttery feeling returning to her stomach. “Tell me what you know first.”

  “I want to hear it from your side.”

  “No deal. You first.”

  This time it was her mother doing the eye-rolling. “Well, I know that Zander was going to ask you to the dance.”

  “You and Maggie were in on that?” Quinn was mortified.

  Her mother laughed. She didn’t even have the courtesy to be embarrassed at being caught. “Why wouldn’t we be?” she teased. “Maggie and I have been joking about the two of you getting together since you were toddlers and one of you would cry whenever it was finally time to separate you. Zander used to kiss you on the forehead and call you ‘my best fwiend Quinn.’ How could we resist being in on it when he finally got up the courage to ask you to a Valentine dance?”

  Her heart was racing. She didn’t think she was ready for this to be quite such a big event. “Mom, it’s just a dance. It’s no big deal.”

  “So you said yes?” her mother squealed.

  “Mom! Seriously. It’s not a big thing. It’s just one dance.”

  “Yes sweetheart, just a first date, and then there might be a second,” she grinned. “And if there is a third, well...” Quinn rolled her eyes and groaned, but she couldn’t stop her heart beating just a little faster at the idea of subsequent dates.

  “If there is a third date then you can do all the gushing you want to do, but until then, can it just be okay that I’m going to the dance with a friend?”

  “Of course it can.” Megan smiled – a little too widely, but Quinn couldn’t deny her own excitement. “Now, it’s late. You should get up to bed.”

  4. Determined

  “Quinn! Come on! You’re going to miss it.”

  She looked up from where she was sitting, next to Annie and Owen in the middle of an enormous field of dandelions. She took the chain she’d been making from the soft, yellow flowers, and handed it to her sister.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, as tears started to form in Annie’s eyes.

  The little girl didn’t answer, but Owen took Annie’s hand and nodded at Quinn. She stood to go, suddenly in a hurry as the sun started to sink below the horizon.

  The boy paused at the top of the stairs, waiting for her to join him, his gray eyes twinkling. “Hurry!”

  “I am!”

  He stretched his hand to assist her up the support of the broken bridge, urgency in his action as he almost pulled her to the top. “That was close,” he said, as she stepped in to the empty air over the water, and then to the other side.

  “Very,” she agreed. “Give me more warning next time.”

  The sun was hot overhead now, baking down on an endless field of red roses, their aroma almost intoxicating as it filled the air around her. She closed her eyes, lifting her face toward the sky, breathing in the scent. Somewhere in the distance, there were faint squawks from birds circling in the air.

  Opening her eyes, she surveyed the scene in front of her. The boy stood off to the side, staring down at something. She walked over to see what had so captured his interest.

  It was a rose, just like the thousands that surrounded them, only this one was white. Pure white, so pristine that it shimmered in the afternoon sunshine. It was so perfect that she couldn’t help reaching down for it, down into the quivering mass of flowers.

  “Ouch!” She drew her hand back immediately, bringing it up where she could see the damage. A bright red drop of blood glistened on her finger.

  “Quinn!”

  “Quinn! Quinn!”

  She opened her eyes, trying to figure out where she was, who was calling her name. The first thing she saw was Annie’s blinking eyes, an inch away from her nose. “Quinn! Wake up. We’re going out for breakfast!”

  * * *

  Quinn picked up her phone and then set it back down again for probably the hundredth time that afternoon, telling herself that calling there was not a good choice. She had no idea what she would say if she did call. What if William did answer the phone? What would she do? Hang up? Ask him where he had disappeared to by the river on Friday afternoon? Definitely not.

  She wondered if she was starting to lose her mind. Or maybe more than just starting. After two more nights of the dreams that were getting more and more specific, and where William was definitely present, she had been obsessing about his disappearance at the bridge all weekend. When she wasn’t obsessing about Zander, anyway.

  Zander had texted her several times yesterday, and a couple more today, always with quick, short messages – hi, what are u up to? and smiles. Quinn, still shy about the whole thing, kept replying with equally short answers. She wondered if it was always this hard. In a way, it was a relief that Zander wasn’t going to be at school this week, and she would have time to get used to this whole idea.

  Her cell phone buzzed then, and she picked it up to read the message.

  Where are u? We need to talk! What is going on with u and Zander?

  She sighed. Abigail again. She knew she was going to have to deal with her eventually, and that she would be paying for her lack of response later, but she was just not ready to explain herself to her best friend yet.

  She picked up the phone again. Might as well just do it, and then maybe she could stop thinking about it. Feeling like some kind of criminal, she blocked her own number before dialing.

  The phone rang three times and then clicked to life.

  “Hello?” It was a man’s voice, surely Dr. Nathaniel Rose.

  Her heartbeat sped to a manic pace. “Hi … is William there?”

  There was a long pause. “No, I’m sorry. He won’t be home until this evening. May I ask who’s calling?”

  “Um, I’ll just try him later.”

  “Okay.”

  Quinn snapped the phone shut and slid it halfway across her bed, as if it might bite her. She sat there for several minutes, until her breathing was under control, and finally went downstairs.

  Her mother was in the kitchen with Annie and Owen, who were helping her knead bread dough. Owen’s dough was in a neat ball. He was methodically kneading it in exactly the same pattern as the pictures of the hands in the cookbook, which he had propped open in front of him.

  Annie was covered from head to toe in flour, with sticky dough clinging to her forearms. Quinn stifled a giggle.
>
  “We’re helping Mommy make bread!” Annie announced proudly.

  “I can see that,” Quinn told her. “You look like you’re being a big helper.”

  Annie grinned.

  “Do you need any more … uh, help, Mom?”

  “Hey sweetie,” her mom planted a kiss on her forehead, holding her own flour-covered arms to the side. She glanced over at Annie and sighed, then shrugged and smiled. “I think we’re okay here for now. Have you been up there working on homework all afternoon?”

  “Um, yeah,” She was glad she hadn’t had much homework over the weekend, but there actually were a couple of assignments she hadn’t been able to get into the right frame of mind to complete yet.

  “So, what is all this bread for?” she asked, eyeing the mess. Her mom always baked bread for the week on Sundays, but this was a lot more than usual.

  “I just thought I’d get ahead a little, since I’ll be gone next weekend. Put a couple of loaves in the freezer for next week.”

  “Oh, right.” Quinn had forgotten the upcoming conference in Denver. Her mom went every year. She would leave on Thursday afternoon with Annie and Owen, and wouldn’t be back until Sunday.

  “Are you still sure you don’t want to come with us? We could go shopping. Maybe hit up that little boutique in Cherry Creek and look for a dress for the dance?”

  “That sounds fun, Mom. But…”

  “I know, I know. It would mess up your perfect attendance.”

  “Right.” Quinn wasn’t about to tell her mom the other reason she wasn’t interested in leaving Bristlecone for an entire weekend right now.

  “Hey Mom, do you mind if I run over to Abigail’s for a little while?”

  “I guess that would be alright. Come back for dinner please, though, okay?”

  “Sure. Thanks, Mom.”

  All the way to the highway, Quinn genuinely entertained the notion of going to Abigail’s house. She knew it was where she should go. Her life would be so much easier if she just drove over there, and spilled out all the details about Zander – and maybe all the details about William, too. Knowing Abigail, she would just walk right up to William at school tomorrow and ask him what was going on. She wouldn’t run around trying to puzzle out the mystery for weeks on end. One question and she would have her answer.