Blown Away

by K'Anne Meinel

  BLOWN AWAY

  A Novel by K’Anne Meinel

  Kindle Edition

  Published by:

  K’Anne Meinel on Kindle

  Copyright © K’Anne Meinel June 2015

  BLOWN AWAY

  Kindle Edition License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  K’Anne Meinel is available for comments at KAnneMeinel@aim.com as well as on Facebook, her blog @ http://kannemeinel.wordpress.com/ or on Twitter @ kannemeinelaim.com, or on her website @ www.kannemeinel.com if you would like to follow her to find out about stories and book’s releases.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  CHAPTER ONE

  REMEMBRANCES

  She stared at the ruins of a once beautiful farm house and memories came, flashing back in an instant yet spanning years. Over there once stood a beautiful pair of oak trees with a swing between them for her to play on. She could still hear the echoes of her mother telling her to be careful as she climbed them. Skinned knees and scraped palms; she never complained over the slivers her mother had to remove from her tomboyish activities. Their shade provided her endless hours of escape from the relentless sun and still she would burn from it. The wind would part the leaves and the sun would beat down between them. Her imagination could play for hours as she gazed up through them, envisioning them as towering giants and she a mere mortal. She loved those trees.

  “I can’t believe you climb like a monkey, and in a dress too!” her mother would scold. She remembered that fondly, the inflections, the lilt in her voice was still in her consciousness despite the span of years.

  The house still tilted haphazardly. Weather and time hadn’t pulled it to the ground and for this she was surprised as she stared at its sturdy build. Her great-grandparents had been among the first to build in this area and had used good wood and stone to construct their sturdy home. Their son and granddaughter had both raised families in this house. She scowled as she remembered she had been the last raised in this house.

  It look well picked over. The weeds around the place were elbow high and although she hadn’t seen it in over twenty years, she couldn’t help but wonder why it hadn’t been torn down before; which was why she was now here.

  “Ms. Avril?” a voice asked her respectfully and she started in surprise. She hadn’t heard anyone approach. “Oh, I’m sorry miss, I was expecting…” he began apologizing.

  “It’s okay, you just startled me,” she said in precise and clear tones, not a hint of the accent that was unique to this part of the country and so apparent in his voice. That accent brought back other memories. Ones she’d tried to quash and couldn’t. Ones that she’d known needed exorcising, and that could only be done by coming here. It was why she had come herself. She needed to stop the dreams that had returned. Her feeling was that it was in the past and it should remain there. Her psyche though was haunting her and she had to face it, one last time.

  “I was expecting Ms. Avril,” he began again, and peered at her intently and wondering who she was. He was shorter than she, his skin brown from the winds that blew here; he was stooped from a lifetime of work.

  She smiled, not realizing the beauty that was apparent in her face. Her pale white skin hid the freckles that came out in the sun, but no tan touched her creamy milk white skin anymore. “I’m A…Avril,” she answered hesitating over the name for only a millisecond. ‘Or, I was,’ she mentally corrected herself, but not aloud, he wouldn’t understand.

  “You’re Ms. Avril?” he asked puzzled. He peered at her for a long time shaking his head, trying to see some semblance of the youth he had known. As her smile faded, he saw a glimmer of recognition. Not of her but of her mother and that was when he took on a relieved look. His hat came off his head in an instant and his weathered face wreathed a smile showing several missing teeth. “Why Ms. Avril, you’ve all growed up!” he drawled, pleased at his discovery.

  “How are you, Mr. Davidson?” she asked pleasantly. The smile didn’t quite reach her eyes though. Not with the memories pushing at her temples wanting her to remember, to relive them; all the while she was trying hard to once again suppress them.

  “Poorly,” he said honestly. “Right poorly, but I aim to do the job you is needing done. I shorely do. Just like I promised.” He gestured to the truck that was parked at the end of the drive. On the trailer attached to it sat a front end loader, securely chained to its bed.

  She glanced at it, then back at the house he had come to demolish. It was the town’s attempt at getting rid of an ‘eyesore’ that had sat there empty for over two decades. Why they had decided that it needed to be done now, she didn’t know. But she was here, as requested, to get it done. Mr. Davidson had answered her call, surprised that she remembered him. He was eager to earn the money she had promised him for the job.

  “Do you want to go through the house to look for anything?” he asked, as he noticed her silently staring at the house.

  She shook her head. She had done her picking long ago, her few belongings in a few measly boxes and trunks, and a storage unit she had come to go through as well, a lifetime of memories and knick knacks that meant nothing to anyone but herself. “Just bulldoze it,” she said shortly, wanting it taken care of so she could leave.

  “You’ll have to move your car,” he mentioned, as they turned to head back down the driveway.

  She glanced at the Maserati and nearly laughed aloud at the contrast between it and his old rusted out Chevy. She hadn’t thought of that when she decided to drive back here. If she hadn’t before, she would surely stick out like a sore thumb now. Another reason to get the job finished and get out, get gone. Something she had done years ago and not looked back. She glanced over at the barns and silos. They still looked as solid as the day her great-grandparents and grandparents had built them. Nothing had touched them, not time, nor weather, they seemed to be as strong and steady as the day they were built. They could use a little paint, but with the weather that came through this part of the country it was amazing they were still standing. She could see they were used well by the tracks that led from the path up to them and down the driveway, but that was all. Everything else was abandoned, the chicken coop, and a few other outbuildings. The grass overgrown and obviously untrodden, no animals or people to grind it under their heels.

  “Can you tear down those too?” she asked as she gestured to the outbuildings not in use.

  “Ahyup,” he grunted as they reached her overpriced car and she automatically pressed the button on her keychain to open the door and let her in. He glanced at the car as the door opened quietly and on its own for her, expensive enough to pay a couple of year’s salary to someone like him, and most folks around here. It was none of his business though so he hurried over to the trailer where another man stood, awaiting orders. “Let’s get her down,” he gestured to him, and they immediately began removing the chains holding the machine to the bed of the trailer.

  The younger man kept watch out of the corner of his eye a
s the redhead drove the expensive sports car onto the road. She parked it opposite the driveway so they could drive the front end loader onto the property. She was definitely worth a second and third look and he wondered if she remembered him as she watched his uncle maneuver the heavy machine off the trailer. She caught him staring as she got out of the car and he felt his cheeks reddening. He hurried after his uncle to collect any boards worth salvaging hoping she hadn’t noticed. She had said they could take whatever they wanted.

  She followed along slowly and looked down at her Prada shoes knowing she should have dressed down for the farm, but after twenty years she had nothing appropriate to wear on such a place. She hadn’t thought about it as the miles passed and she headed for this part of Oklahoma.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE ESCAPE

  She remembered, vividly, the reverse trip. She had run away from here as fast as the bus would take her. Was she running away from her past or running to her future? She didn’t know, but getting away from South Oklahoma had seemed like the best thing to her to do. Her bags were packed; Mrs. Davidson had agreed to send on the few boxes and trunks when she was set.

  “All set?” Sheriff Worley asked, as he gave her a lift to the bus stop.

  “Yep,” she answered. She was frightened out of her mind but she knew she had no choice but to go. She had to leave it all behind her. Leave the memories, the only home she’d ever known, the problems, and let time fade it all.

  He glanced at the young girl; he could see how scared she was. He knew he would be at her age. She was just a week over eighteen, and had signed all the papers renting out the farm to the co-op to be used as they saw fit, to farmers who wanted to use the land and the sturdy barns and silos that still stood on the property. He didn’t blame her for leaving, there was nothing left. It wasn’t a good time to sell, it never was, not in this economy. Farming was a gamble at the best of times; this wasn’t the best of them. She had lost in so many ways, leaving was about the only option. Maybe some time away would do her good. Some of the boys who went off to school returned a little wiser, some didn’t last, few stayed away for good. He was sure he’d see her back. Small town girls were worse than small town boys for wanting to return to what was familiar, what they knew. There were a few boys around her age and a little older who would gladly marry her. She might be scrawny but she had the farm and that would draw them like bees to honey.

  He didn’t know her though. Avril Christenson might have died that day a couple of weeks back, instead of her father. At least in her own mind she had. Not that day, but the week before. They said lightening couldn’t strike twice in the same place. They were wrong. Tornadoes did it, lightening did it too. This time though, the tornado had taken her life in this world, and left her with the shell of the person that was escaping on a bus. Everyone thought her grief was over her father but it wasn’t. It was for the young woman who had been caught in her Chevy truck the week before. The woman had been her best friend and allowed Avril to be brave in the face of a dismal future. She was the one who had given Avril hope. She tried not to remember how much she had loved her best friend, how much they had planned, how much she had wanted to…

  “Here we are, now you want some help buying your ticket?” the sheriff offered helpfully, as he would have any young woman.

  “No thank you Sheriff Worley, I’ve got it,” she said in a flippant, teenage way. She threw her red hair back over her shoulder, her freckles standing out in relief against her tanned face, the sun making the freckles seem unending. “Thank you for the ride,” she remembered to say politely, as her mother would have wanted her to.

  “No problem. Now you take care, ya’hear?” he spoke in return and watched as she gathered her backpack and two duffels and headed into the office that doubled as a bus stop and cafe. He watched through the door and looked around to see if any undesirables were loafing about. He didn’t want this young girl hassled. He would have treated her as a daughter, as any young thing in this area would be treated. Poor young thing to lose her best friend and father within a week of each other, and have to graduate high school all alone, no relatives, no close friends to see her off. Mrs. Davidson had been kind enough to take her in these last few weeks until she graduated, but other than that Avril Christenson was on her own. Maybe she was better off. That best friend of hers had been nothing but a troublemaker since she was born, with unnatural leanings from what he had observed. He had never caught her at anything, but a person knew about such things. He thought her interest in the young Avril a tragedy in the making. It had only been a matter of time until she corrupted that innocent child. Maybe God had taken her for that reason, to prevent it. That poor child, with a father like Owen Christenson to have been left with nothing like that. It was best that she leave, at least for now.

  Avril knew the Sheriff was watching her, he couldn’t help himself, nosy bugger that he was. She bought a one-way ticket to California, and when the clerk asked if she wanted the return ticket, she declined. The clerk had graduated from the same high school the year before and couldn’t blame her for leaving and not coming back, she wished she could do it. She knew who Avril Christianson was, everyone knew. The tragedy had been all over Oakley. Losing her father like that, the poor child, and right before graduation and her eighteenth birthday, such a loss. The clerk watched her as she sat down on one of the benches for the bus that was due in at any time. Avril looked out and saw the sheriff’s car was still there, waiting to see if she got on the bus so that his ‘obligation’ to the citizens of this small town was discharged. She suspected he was afraid she would stay and expose him for the lecherous fool he was, a drinking buddy of her fathers, who hadn’t protected her from his abuse. The many scars on her soul she laid firmly at her father’s feet, but that man outside waiting in the sheriff’s car could have prevented some of them after her mother’s death.

  It hadn’t been her fault that her mother had been ‘poorly’ after giving birth to a ‘girl child’ instead of the much anticipated son and heir. That she couldn’t have any more children had been blamed solely on Avril, as she had been told over and over throughout her life. Her mother tried to make up for it by shielding her from her father’s abuse while she was alive, but he wore her down, he killed her slowly and surely until the shell of the woman blew away in the Oklahoma winds. Her death had been laid firmly at the young Avril’s feet, and she was made to feel the abuse that her mother had shielded her from for so long. She was to take over all the duties of running a household. At ten, this was too much for any child. Farm work is tough on a woman at any given time but for a child with no one to teach her; she faltered at every turn. Only her friendship with Ellie had given her hope. Ellie implanted a fierce hope that gave her a will and strength to survive to escape her father’s tyranny.

  She learned to do her chores quickly and if not perfect, to hide the flaws so that she would have time to meet Ellie out on the prairie to escape his notice for a few minutes every day. She shared all her girlhood dreams with the older girl. With four years separating them, Ellie seemed worldly and wise. She understood without being told what was happening to the smaller and younger girl. She saw the bruises and scratches from the belt she had been given for not finishing her ‘work’ in a timely manner or not up to his expectations. Many times his rage was fueled by liquor; he had no idea of his strength as he yelled at the youngster.

  Avril put aside her memories for a moment as she watched the bus come in and one person get off. It looked bigger than the school bus she had ridden to school for nine years. She bravely got up from the bench and gathered her things, her most cherished possessions in two bags and a backpack, the rest in storage at the Davidsons, for how long she didn’t know, but it couldn’t be long as they were charging her for keeping it there. It was their way of profiting from having to ‘keep’ the minor and not getting enough out of the deal as she had turned eighteen this past week. Had she not been so close to turning eighteen, they would have been a
ppointed her guardians, and stolen every dime from her parent’s small estate. She slowly approached the bus with her ticket in hand, and the driver leapt off the bus.

  “Two bags miss?” he asked respectfully, as he opened the massive storage container underneath the bus. She nodded as he took one bag and gently put it inside the bin, and then reached for her second one closing the doors behind the bag. She must have looked worried as he said, “They’ll be safe in there.” She nodded with a tremulous smile.

  “Ticket please?” he asked, as she hesitated to head for the door of the bus. She handed it to him as she adjusted her overly full backpack on her shoulder. He looked it over, surprised to see the destination, and handed it back to her. “You first,” he said politely and indicated the stairwell. With a last look over her shoulder at the station and the sheriff car sitting there, she went up the stairs and looked for an empty seat, one where she could watch the container if it were opened up again. All her things were in those bags, she couldn’t afford to have them stolen. Sitting down, she put her backpack on the empty seat beside her, to discourage anyone from sitting next to her. She glanced around making sure not to make eye contact with anyone, and noticed the bus was barely full. A few people in the back seemed to be traveling together, but most were sitting by themselves like she was. She was close enough to the front to watch for her stuff, and to the driver in case anyone wanted to start something. She watched as he closed the door, as he sat down and strapped himself in. She looked for seat belts, but there were none, just like on the school bus. She had often wondered at that, the bus driver had once explained that in the event of an accident, that it was so the driver could get the kids out easier. She hoped a bus this large didn’t get into accidents. As the bus pulled away from the depot, she saw the sheriff’s car pulling away in the opposite direction, a small cloud of dust blown up from the tires. She guessed she was no longer Sheriff Worley’s concern.