Grandma was cooking when I got back to the house. I knew that meant she was feeling better because she had only stopped cooking when she’d gotten sick. Before that, it was about all she ever did.
“Oh, are you back?” she asked me,
I sat there for hours, not paying attention to the time, to the sunlight beginning to fade on the other side of the forest from when I began, to the chirping of the birds or the scampering of the squirrels. I sat there with my eyes closed and felt the energy of the forest dance around me.It was almost twilight when I became aware that someone was walking toward me t
My parents weren’t crazy about me making the trip to Great Falls with Sam, not because they didn’t trust him, although I’m not sure how much my mom did trust him, at least as far as keeping his hands to himself was concerned, which was a legitimate concern, but because his truck was almost as old as she was. That’s what she said, anyway, when I asked if I could go. She said we could borrow the minivan, but the idea of me asking Sam to drive my mom’s van seemed ridiculous to me. Max didn’t offer his truck, so I just had to assure my mom that, if something happened and Sam’s truck broke down, I could fix it with my magic. It was the only thing t
I had heard what Sam said, about the memory that I’d just conjured up of having donuts and chocolate milk with my dad at a small donut shop when I was a little girl, but I was having trouble processing it. “It was here?” I asked him. He nodded. “And… you were here, too?”“I was,” he said. “It’s kind of a strange
Just being in the truck with Sam made me smile, even though he was busy driving, and I was probably driving him crazy with all of my questions. We had the radio on, and even though he refused to sing along, even to the songs I knew he had to know the words to, and I peppered him with a million different questions about what it was like growing up in Whispering Hollow. I stayed away from the personal parts, about his family, about his dad and Horace in particular, and he let me know that it hadn’t been easy for him being a kid out there in such an isolated part of the world. They hadn’t had much, and he still didn’t have much, even though it was clear he worked hard f
As the other car came careening toward us, I didn’t think there was anything any of us could do to keep the two vehicles from colliding. It seemed like the path of Sam’s truck and the other car were destined to meet, no matter what. The panicked look on the other driver’s face locked in my field of vision as I saw his cell phone go flying in the air.He h
The jewelry shop was about what I was expecting. We walked inside to see lots of counters with lots of pieces of jewelry on display including rings, earrings, necklaces, and pendants. There was a couple browsing, the woman already covered in large diamonds, her husband hanging back and letting her wander from case to case. They were well dressed and probably in their late thirties or early forties. I felt very out of place.
Sam pulled up to Grandma’s house a little before sunset. It had been a long day. We’d stopped at a nice restaurant in a town about halfway home and had a fancy-ish dinner. Italian always seems fancy to me. Now, I was tired and ready to get inside and share the good news with Grandma and the rest of the family. Of course, I also had to face the forest. But I didn’t think it was a good idea to go out there in the dark, so that would have to wait until tomorrow.
“Well?” Mom asked the second I walked in the door.“Well… what?” I asked her, staring from her face to Max’s, to Grandma’s, to Grayson’s.