Memory Tree

by Pittman, Joseph

  Books by Joseph Pittman

  Linden Corners Series

  The Memory Tree

  A Christmas Hope

  A Christmas Wish

  Tilting at Windmills

  Todd Gleason Crime Novels

  California Scheming

  London Frog

  Novels

  Beyond the Storm

  When the World Was Small

  Legend’s End

  The Original Crime, Part One: Remembrance

  The Original Crime, Part Two: Retribution

  The Original Crime, Part Three: Redemption

  The MEMORY TREE

  A Linden Corners Novel

  JOSEPH PITTMAN

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Dedication

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  PART 1 - THE SULLIVAN FAMILY

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  INTERLUDE

  PART 2 - THE DUNCAN FAMILY

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  EPILOGUE

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  This one’s for . . .

  the Menter family

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  It’s always nice to come home, especially for the holidays. Seeing friends and family, you can’t help but remember good times, special moments that define what Christmas means to you. After three previous novels—two of them with a holiday theme—it’s time for another return to our friends in Linden Corners. Here, in the land of the windmill, a new story awaits faithful readers and new alike. Though many of these characters have appeared in previous novels, I intend each story to stand alone.

  Brian Duncan remains, of course, the focal point of the series, as it is his story that has fueled so much of the action. Other favorite characters return, including Gerta, Nora, and Thomas, all in supporting roles, as well as the regular denizens of Linden Corners. Sharing the lead this time is Brian’s best friend, Cynthia Knight, who finally gets her moment to shine—and just in time. A new character to Linden Corners is Trina Winter, who shares a surprising connection to someone we’ve met before. Lastly, the surprise appearance of Brian’s parents, Kevin and Didi Duncan, adds drama to the coming holidays.

  But the heart of the book remains Janey Sullivan, now ten years old, and her devotion to the endlessly spinning sails of the windmill. In The Memory Tree, the residents of the sleepy hamlet of Linden Corners are once again faced with how to make this year’s Christmas celebration the best ever. What follows are all the hallmarks readers have come to appreciate in the Linden Corners series—gentle warmth, subtle humor, and an endearing, enduring sense of family, no matter its origin.

  Not with whom you are born, but with

  whom you are bred.

  —Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

  PROLOGUE

  Clocks turn even when you’re not looking, the sun rises and falls as the passing days move gently into the quiet of night, and so time effortlessly glides by, unseen but ever present. For those with little to look forward to in life, time can drag on till it seems the earth has stood still, while for others the endless rotations of its axis move far too quickly, leaving them with a sense of time running out, always planning, seldom living. Time is universal, yet it represents so many things to so many, and while it can be enigmatic, even mysterious, it also represents one of the few constants in the universe. What no one has in common with time is how much of it they have.

  In reality, the world marches on, and before anyone realizes it, time has flown by on the currents of the wind, with another day, month, and year having elapsed, leaving us all a little older, perhaps a bit wiser. And always wondering, Where has the time flown?

  Sometimes people anticipate the arrival of a certain day, a birthday or anniversary, a trip that will take them to the far reaches of the earth, feeling it will never come. And then suddenly it’s gone, whisked away by time’s inevitable advancement, leaving in its wake those things called memories. Sometimes people wish time would grind to a standstill, allowing them to forever treasure a moment so hard to catch, like witnessing a falling star, the first bloom of love, a long-planned wedding, only to realize that time is a part of life no one can lay claim to—its hold on us strong, our grip, at best, tenuous.

  Time is always present, but it’s remembered in the past, thought about for the future.

  “Remember that time . . .”

  “Time will tell.”

  Time means everything and yet it ultimately means nothing, leaving a place like the small village known as Linden Corners somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow. For eager kids down at Linden Corners Middle School, a year of studies can feel like forever; for anxious adults in the simple act of waiting for a cup of coffee down at Martha’s Five O’Clock Diner, time can come to mean impatience; and for the elderly folks down at Edgestone Retirement Center, who have seen their lives fall behind them, time taunts like an enemy. Even the iconic, majestic windmill that looms over this countryside knows of time’s unstoppable dance, its spinning sails silently recording every step.

  But then come those special times of year when folks dream of better lives. Holidays are like time-outs from the rigors of daily life, filling out days with Memorial Day picnics and Fourth of July fireworks, these events like time caught in a bottle. At Thanksgiving, we take time for our families and ourselves, giving thanks for all we have, all we share. And then of course there’s’s Christmas, which stretches the notion of time to extremes, for it is not just a single day amidst a cold month, but something joyfully referred to as Christmastime, a time built on a giving spirit, on tradition. And what is tradition but time told in reverse.

  Only one thing in this world can halt the passage of time.

  Only one thing in this world can transport you to another time and another world.

  That thing is called a dream.

  For one wide-eyed girl in Linden Corners, she with freckles on her usually scrunched-up nose, dreams were sometimes all she could cling to.

  Shutters clattered against the old farmhouse as the wind took shape on dark currents. A willowy shadow emerged, sweeping in through the open window, washing over the sleeping figure in the bed. Instead of blocking the moonlight that flowed through lace curtains, the figure was cast in a golden glow. From the small bed, the little girl stirred, although if truth be told—and why not? didn’t nights call for honesty?—she couldn’t be called little anymore. She had reached double digits, a whole ten years old for just over a month now. Independence, always a trait that ran rampant inside her, had recently begun to assert itself on the outside. So much so that she didn’t need to be tucked in anymore, to be babied, and she didn’t need to sleep with a night-light anymore. Janey Sullivan was growing up.

  But the elapsed time couldn’t change everything.

  She had memories, even at her tender age.

  The moonlight glinted in her eyes and she opened them, green twinkles in the darkness.

  For a curious moment, her tired mind was unsure where she was and she reached for her constant companion, a purple frog that remained with her despite
another birthday, despite this supposed streak of independence. At night she still sought comfort from a friend made from stuffing, a friend that had never uttered a single word but had seen her through days—and nights—way darker than this one. Nights when not even the moon visited. Then, popping up, elbow on her pillow, she looked at the shadow on the wall and saw it smile.

  How did it know to do that? How did such a gesture manage to soothe her?

  “Mama?” she suddenly asked.

  “Yes, Janey, it’s me.”

  The shadow morphed into something more concrete, light hitting it. Yes, there she was, Annie Sullivan, her body floating like something crafted from the heavens, vibrant in the starlit night. The young girl felt warmth spread over her. She tossed back the blankets, and even as the wind howled against the side of the old farmhouse, calming heat continued to surge around her. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so warm, not even on those cold nights when Brian had to light a fire in the fireplace and they sat beside its flame sipping hot chocolate—with tiny marshmallows—while orange embers burned and he invented silly stories of a girl who could ride the wind. She would giggle at times, scrunch her nose with doubt at others. Those were special times, the best. At least, the best she could remember since her mother had gone to sleep at a secret place only she knew. Beads of sweat formed on her brow now, and as a drop found its way to a blinking eye, she wiped it away.

  The vision—if that’s what it was—remained.

  “Come with me, Janey. Let me show you.”

  “Show me what?”

  “What it was.”

  Why was she speaking in riddles? Janey almost giggled.

  “What what was?”

  “Our life, from before you could remember.”

  A hand suddenly stretched out toward her, and Janey felt its pull even without touch.

  This woman before her, whether real or conjured from her imagination, or perhaps locked somewhere in between, spun her dreams. And while the girl named Janey would follow her anywhere, there was only one possible destination for them both. They were headed where their lives remained connected, forever bonded.

  The windmill.

  Across the open field they journeyed, down the hill, which tonight was a swirling carpet of fallen leaves and dying grass. Yes, it was windy on this warm autumn night, and the sails of the giant windmill spun like they were producing gleaming straw. But once they had gained entry inside the tower, magically not needing to turn a key or to open the door, the windows remained closed and no one would be letting down their spun golden locks.

  Annie had loved coming to the windmill to paint her dreams on canvases, only to close them in a drawer. Never thinking to show them, never thinking her talent commanded attention. Yet several hung now inside the homes of Linden Corners—in the farmhouse and on Gerta Connors’ living room wall, just above the mantel. But Annie had mostly come here to contemplate life and all she had been given, all she had lost. Now it was Janey’s turn to rely on the windmill’s power, some days more so than the reassuring presence of Brian Duncan. He was real, always dependable, but sometimes Janey enjoyed living out the dream inside her mind.

  “Mama, why have you brought me here?”

  “What do you see?”

  “Why are you answering my question with a question?”

  “Because, Janey, sometimes when you listen you hear your own answers.”

  Janey didn’t know what to think of her wisdom; it sounded far too grown-up for her to understand. But then she gazed about the inside of the windmill, her feet taking her one step closer to the iron staircase that curled upward to the second floor. Janey made a dash for it suddenly, almost as though a gust of wind had taken her. When she arrived there, Annie was already waiting.

  “How did you do that?”

  “The world in which I live, we think of a place, we’re there.”

  “Is that how you keep an eye on me?”

  “Both of them,” the glowing Annie said, her smile giving light to the compact room.

  Janey gazed up at her mother, recognizing her features, the way her eyes sparkled. The worry she had often seen inside them was gone, replaced by something that sent a wave of relief Janey’s way. Her mother was forever at peace. Janey instinctively reached out her hand and felt it pass through the translucent figure before her. Again, warmth spread through her, even as on the nearby window frost suddenly appeared like spiderwebs along its edges. The pattern of snowflakes was left frozen against the glass, leaving Janey wondering how that could have happened.

  “Mama, did you do that?”

  “Peer through the window, Janey, and tell me what you see.”

  “I’ll see outside, the big hill, and the farmhouse where we live.”

  “Look again, but this time close your eyes first.”

  “When you close your eyes, you can’t see anything.”

  Annie cupped the young girl’s chin, her touch electric. “Of all the people I’ve met, you, my sweet Janey, know that when you close your eyes you can see the world as you wish it.”

  Janey would trust her mother to tell the truth. Didn’t she know all truths now, traveling to places beyond the world? Which is maybe just where they’d gone now, because as Janey leaned in close to the window, she could no longer see familiar sights, least among them the farmhouse she called home. But she wasn’t afraid, not in the presence of her mother. So she did as asked; she closed her eyes and immediately she saw sparkles of light dance inside her mind. Those sparkles soon took shape, stars of varied colors. She saw red and green and blue and gold, and they shone like ornaments, and when she opened her eyes she saw that all those lights dotted a tree that seemed to tower toward the sky.

  “Mama, it’s a Christmas tree,” Janey said, wide-eyed. “But how . . .”

  “Just watch, Janey.”

  More images appeared, brightly wrapped presents underneath the tree, strands of fallen tinsel atop them, aglow from the lights of the tree. It was beautiful, just like those she and Brian had decorated the last two Christmases. Janey had a sense this tree was not one of them, but one from another time. When she spun around to ask Annie, Janey Sullivan found that she was alone inside the windmill.

  “Mama?” she asked, a bit nervously.

  There came no answer, and Janey, wondering if she was soon to wake from this all-too-real dream, considered closing her eyes again, wishing to be home, safely tucked in her bed with her purple frog clasped tightly in her arms. Her feet, though, wouldn’t move, so Janey peered again through the window, seeing the sails of the windmill pass by, as though aiding in turning back the clock. As one of the latticed sails disappeared and allowed a clear view, Janey saw an image melt into the frame, the figure not quite solid. Janey blinked, and then there she was, her mother, part of that Christmas scene she had watched develop before her very eyes.

  “Mama,” she said, the word breathless.

  Annie was moving inside the farmhouse living room, a cup of coffee warming her hands. Wrapped in a snug robe, she settled on the floor near a crackling fireplace, sneaking peeks at the gifts placed under the tree. A smile lit her face as much as did the warm glow of the fire, but neither was a match for the glow when she gazed up and saw another figure before her. It was a man Janey knew but didn’t remember, handsome in his matching robe, and in his strong arms he cradled a little girl. It was this little person who elicited such a glow from her mother.

  “Oh my,” Janey stated with wonder. “That baby . . . that’s me.”

  The man, whose name was Dan Sullivan and who was the father she’d known only from photographs, placed the sleeping baby in his wife’s arms. She held her tight against her body, kissing her exposed forehead. Janey had recent experience being around babies, their neighbors Cynthia and Bradley allowing her to help out with baby Jake, so she knew that this infant version of herself was a newborn, or just beyond. Two months, she thought, her birthday being October and this scene before her obviously Christmas.

&nb
sp; She realized that unfolding before her was her first-ever Christmas.

  This was Christmas of the past.

  How had time managed to take her there? Was it because of the power of the windmill, of its sails and the strong wind coming off the land? She placed a hand upon the window, felt the cold of a winter long since passed. Inside the windmill she was still warm, almost feverish, yet just beyond the glass lived a wonderland of snow and ice and the joy of a holiday Janey had come to embrace despite recent tragedies. She had no mother and she had no father, but she had Brian, whom she called Dad, and together with the residents of her home of Linden Corners, she’d seen the joy Christmas could bring to all.

  But this story that was breathing before her, it was about one family.

  A family that back then lived for a tomorrow filled with dreams.

  Dreams, the girl named Janey Sullivan knew, didn’t always come true.

  But on this magical day they did, as Dan and Annie exchanged gifts, their laughter filling their home, their love for each other apparent. Janey watched as her father opened a box and grimaced at the sight of shirts and ties, even though she had seen many pictures of him wearing such clothes. He’d been a businessman, like Bradley, the two of them friends. She watched as Annie opened a cardboard box and withdrew, with a wow of exclamation, a ceramic Christmas tree. Janey pointed her finger, the window stopping her. She knew that piece; they still had it stored upstairs in the attic, taking it out for Christmastime. What she didn’t know was when her mother had received it, nor did she realize it had been a gift from her husband. Janey smiled as the two of them kissed, a loving sight that Janey couldn’t ever remember seeing.