“Where, exactly, is here?”
“Why, Ashland. No one told ya where you were headin’?”
I shake my head slowly. “No. They sure didn’t.”
“Sorry, Miss. Would’ve filled ya in sooner, had I known.”
We pass the first few buildings, all variations of the same old small-town house, ranging from understated bungalows painted in a thousand similar-but-different shades of grey and brown to elegant Victorian homes with ornate, pastel trim around the windows. I wonder if any of these homes will be my destination, or if I’m here for some other reason. The roar of an oncoming engine, the first we’ve come across in quite some time, rattles me from my thoughts. A motorcycle speeds past us. The taxi driver taps the horn in greeting, and the burly leather-clad rider raises his gloved hand in return. That red hair and beard . . . It can’t be, can it?
Ahead of us lies the center of the town, the quaint shops and restaurants lining the street. We stop for a light, and something catches my attention. Off to the left, flower pots and rows of benches surround a bubbling fountain. A woman and her little girl sit on the far side of the falling water, their smiles and glittering eyes visible through the spray. The little blonde girl takes a lick from her ice cream cone. In true kid fashion, most of it ends up on her face instead of in her mouth. I laugh out loud, and the unfamiliar sound startles me. The light turns green and we continue on our way. I turn in my seat and watch the woman and girl fade as we leave them behind.
The cabbie swerves sideways to avoid a dinged-up blue station wagon that had jolted away from its parking spot along the curb without warning. The other vehicle slams on its brakes and waits for us to pass.
“C’mon, kid!” the driver yells out the open window. The black-haired boy behind the wheel flushes crimson as an older version of himself barks direction from the passenger seat.
A thin woman with a long silver braid frowns and shakes her head at the station wagon as she walks her Golden Retriever down the sidewalk. Warmth creeps through my body, melting away the ice coating every last cell. A tear shudders in the corner of my eye before falling to the front of my shirt. Whatever this place is, it’s turning out to be perfect.
The cab drives up to the last house on the street, a white house with dark green shingles and huge porch. A grin spreads across my lips as we slow to a stop near the front steps. The cabbie opens the door for me, and I step out.
A large black man unfolds his body from where he’d been pruning flowers in one of the large beds on the other side of the drive.
“Hello, there,” he booms in his rich bass. “She’s been expecting you. I’m Norman. I live over there.” He tilts his head to a house across the street. “That girl kills anything with leaves, so I offered to . . . well . . . enough about me.”
I don’t know what to say. I want to throw my arms around his broad shoulders and hug him, but I have to remind myself that this isn’t Mitte and this man isn’t really the Norman I know. He looks at me like someone might remember bits and pieces of an old lullaby. If I’m a memory at all, I’m the whisper of a memory.
“Come up to the house, Miss,” Norman continues. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
He leads the way, his long legs covering so much ground I have to run to keep up. I have to run, and I can do it without limping. As soon as I settle in somewhere, I can’t wait to buy a pair of running shoes and start training again.
Norman opens the front door, a fancy wooden one with an inlaid oval of stained glass in the pattern of a pale pink rose, and pokes his head inside. “Company’s here!”
“Coming!” a female voice calls from deep inside the house.
I run my clammy palms along the front of my pants and then smooth my hair. I mean, I smooth my scarf, and its presence makes me a hundred times more self-conscious. Norman rests a gigantic hand on my shoulder and smiles in reassurance.
Seconds later, a woman who must be in her twenties steps from the house and onto the porch. The wind catches her long, blonde hair and whips it around her sun-kissed shoulders. I blink a few times, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.
“Aunt Perdita?”
“No.” The corners of her mouth turn up slightly, and I stutter out an apology.
She dismisses me with her delicate hand. “Don’t be silly. There’s no need to apologize. I know I look a lot like my mother. I’m Felicity.”
The lub-dub of my heart speeds up. “You’re my—cousin?”
Felicity nods, her crystal eyes sparkling. “The hospital called trying to find next of kin, which, um, I guess is me. Welcome to your new home, Lucy—if you want it to be, I mean.”
“Yes,” I blurt, then blush. “Uh, I’d really appreciate it. If it’s not too much trouble for you.”
She squeals and throws her arms around me. Her excitement takes me by surprise, but after a moment I relax against her thin frame. “Thank you,” I say.
After we eat dinner and clear away the dishes, I decide to head outside for some fresh air, something I hadn’t gotten much during my recovery in the hospital.
“I’ll be—” I walk into the kitchen and instantly my throat binds up, words damming against each other when I realize what I’m seeing.
My cousin—the one no one had ever told me about—dumps half a teaspoon of sugar into her coffee mug, along with way too much creamer. Two spins clockwise with her spoon. Swish. Then four counterclockwise circles.
“I, um . . .” I blink, pulling myself back to the present. “I’ll be back before dark. Promise.”
Felicity’s light brows knit together and she chuckles as she clinks her spoon on the rim of her mug. “You’re old enough to be out after dark. Just be careful.”
Out after dark. Just be careful.
I shake my head and wave to her over my shoulder. Then I set off to see what else of Mitte remains here in Ashland.
There’s no apple orchard in the backyard, only an in-ground pool and a long expanse of grass. Seeing the pool should have excited me, but it floors me instead. The manicured lawn sits where a bunch of weathered fruit trees should tower overhead. As much as I try to ignore the pang of disappointment, the more it grows.
The familiar greying split-rail fence stretches along the back of the property, and I walk alongside it until it ends at the edge of Felicity’s land. A rough path probably only used by the occasional deer meanders off to the left, and I follow it. I expect to get hopelessly lost and wander in circles until the route dumps me out somewhere far away; or maybe I’ll reach a point where the path becomes nothing more than a hedge of brambles, insisting I turn around.
The narrow dirt path leads into the brush for a while, then veers in the opposite direction. Whatever animal made this track had been seriously drunk, but I don’t turn back.
Out after dark. No rules. Just be careful.
A shrill clink sounds ahead of me on the trail. My heart picks up its pace as I still my body to listen. The clinking continues, this time mixed with some other, more melodic tones. Whistling. There’s the other sound, again, like metal clanging on something solid, but I’m not exactly sure what. Someone’s near, and good sense tells me to turn and head home rather than stumble across a stranger in the middle of the wilderness.
But why start listening to good sense now?
I push ahead and around the corner until I’m in a clearing, or, more correctly, a garden. A man with his back to me plunges a shovel into the earth and moves a shovelful of damp earth to a growing pile. He picks up an unearthed bush lying nearby and eases it into the newly-formed hole, then scoops the dirt back in to cradle the plant. When he’s satisfied with its security, he paces several feet to the side and pierces the ground with the point of the shovel.
Doubt floods my mind. I shouldn’t disturb a strange man digging random holes in the middle of the woods—that might be considered rude. I turn to hurry away when a twig snaps under my foot. The man spins around with shovel at the ready, just in case he needs to defend hims
elf. He drops it with a thump when he sees me standing there.
My heart nearly explodes as I look straight into Oliver’s deep brown eyes. It can’t be possible to find him again after all that happened during those final seconds in Mitte.
This morning I was lost and hopeless. I no longer feel lost.
Still, things aren’t quite the same as they were before. Maggie has her mom, and Duke has his dad. Angus is friendly, and Letty walks dogs instead of watching kids. Maybe this Oliver doesn’t love me the way the other Oliver did. I grit my teeth to prepare myself for his rejection.
“I’m sorry to sneak up on you.” I drop my gaze. “I’m—”
A huge grin spreads across his face, causing the corners of his eyes to crinkle. “I know who you are, Lucy,” he says as he closes the distance between us and scoops me up into his arms. His lips reignite the spark inside of me, bringing me back to life.
“It’s about time you got here,” he breathes.
Epilogue
Oliver
Agatha doesn’t look well at all, so obviously stricken with consumption. Ma sits by her side up in that loft all day and night, wiping the sweat from her brow with a rag soaked in cool water. I’ve been left to run the house seeing as Pa and Marty are fighting with the Union. Don’t know how I missed getting dragged off with the others—just lucky, I guess. The war has been going on for what seems like an eternity, with no end in sight. I reckon I’ll never get a break from all the chores.
The night Agatha turns for the worse, a rogue group of soldiers who’ve broken from the Confederates passes through our area, pillaging and plundering in our village like a bunch of rotten, no-good pirates. It’s the worst time for a midnight trip to fetch the doctor, but what choice is there? She’s started coughing up blood and hallucinating ‘bout some fella named Duke . . . or maybe she meant Luke. In either case, it’s clear as day she won’t be with us long unless I do something.
When I walk into the barn with a lantern swinging in my hand, I give Jasper quite a fright. If I wasn’t so worried about my sister, I’d have laughed and given him some grief about it. Right then, all I can think about is getting to Doc’s place without the renegades spotting me first.
The forest lies still as we race through the darkness—not even the crickets sing their lullabies on the warm summer evening. The unnatural silence should have been my first clue something’s wrong. But I streak into the night like a jackrabbit, unaware of the snare ahead.
To save time, I’d jumped onto Jasper’s bare back and galloped away. I’m a good rider and used to riding without a saddle, but the pitch black disorients me. Every so often Jasper swerves to avoid catastrophe, and I have to scramble to keep up. Still, I remain on his back, and I reckon I can fight to keep myself there for a little while longer.
We fly around a bend and into the junction of two hills, and right into the trap. Directly in the center of the path ahead stand two snarling men illuminated by lanterns, their muzzleloaders trained on us.
Jasper spooks at the men and rises up on his hind legs. A shot rings out with a crack and then a thud. It’s hit something solid.
“Jasper, nooo,” I cry as my best friend, my faithful companion, loses his balance and topples backward onto me.
The good news is that I die before those men can have the satisfaction of stealing my life from me.
The bad news is that I die then and we’re separated.
In my dying moment, I see her. Lucy. Skin the color of caramel, eyes deeper than a bottomless pit, and glossy hair that cascades down her back like the veil of night itself. My heart beats for her alone until it stops beating. And then it will begin again.
I know she’ll find me, she always does. She never knows she’s looking for me, but over and over again, the smallest speck of her every cell reaches out into the cosmos and draws itself to the same thing inside of me. It’s like a magnetism neither one of us can stop, nor do we want to.
As usual, she didn’t remember me or our previous lifetimes together when she bumped into me at the mercantile. As usual, I didn’t try to remind her. Half of the fun of her finding me again is discovering our feelings still cross over time and space. Through countless years, our love is the only thing I can count on.
She will find me again. She always does. Lucy, my light.
Special Thanks
Some people go their whole lives without discovering their purpose. I’m one of the lucky ones. Not only do I get to do what I love, but I get to share this journey with some of the best people. Inevitably, I’ll forget someone who belongs on this list. If this is you, UGH. I’m the worst. I’ll do better next time.
Thank you to my awesome launch team, who allowed me to completely drown them in cover design concepts without complaining once.
To my critique and accountability partners—Angela, Niki, Kari, and Ann—who read and re-read chapters and entire drafts, and let me whine while simultaneously dragging me toward the finish line.
To Nicole, who tried to blackmail me with a rebozo to get this book done, like, two years ago. Books and chocolate may have been more effective incentives, just saying.
To Courtney, my biggest fan next to my mama. Pancakes! Onto the next adventure.
To my mom, who read this even though it was kind of scary. You are the best mom and best friend a girl could ever have. I hope someday my kids feel the way about me that I do about you.
To my boys—thank you for putting up with my late nights, plot bunnies, hermit ways, and Hozier albums playing on endless loop. Someday it’ll be worth it. Maybe. I love you weirdos.
To my grandparents, who left their earthly bodies behind after seventy-five years together. Yours was a love story that will never be duplicated. I miss you so much, but I know you’re never too far away. Smooch, smooch!
About the Author
S. J. Henderson is the founder of the Kid Authors Project, as well as a published author of the DANIEL THE DRAW-ER series.
S. J. lives on a farm with her husband, four boys, two dogs, and cat. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her riding one of her family’s three horses. She loves to sing and is slowly learning to play the ukulele.
Website: www.sjhenderson.net
Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorsunnyhenderson
Twitter: www.twitter.com/sunnyjhenderson
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/sunnyhenderson
About the Publisher
Tiny Fox Press LLC
5020 Kingsley Road
North Port, FL 34287
www.tinyfoxpress.com
In the Middle Page 20
