Will maneuvered through LeBeau, the streets buzzing with Friday night life, until he hit the highway and lay on the throttle. The wind in his face felt freeing, relaxing. He chased the sunlight around the curvy mountain pass until he hit the first exit for Howlett, and then pulled his bike off the highway and into town. He could make this trip to his grandmother’s bakery with his eyes closed, he’d been doing it for so long. It had been almost seven years since his grandfather died, and since then, he had helped his grandmother open her bakery in Howlett to keep her happy and healthy without her husband around. And every Friday night, he made the trip from LeBeau to sit at her table and eat her delicious homemade food, and talk to her about books and old films while she played a Sarah Vaughan or Robert Johnson album on the record player.
Will’s mother had been a troubled woman, he was told. Smart, but her mind weighed on her happiness. She was too lost to be a mother. His grandmother’s voice echoed in his mind: One foot in this world, one foot in the other. She left Will with her parents when he was an infant and never came back. They raised him as their own, and Will had never wanted for anything. Sophia was as much his mother as anyone would ever be, and he looked forward to their dinners all week.
As Will waited at a stoplight on Main and Temple, he was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of sirens nearby. He turned around on his bike to spot where they were coming from, ready to get out of the way if he had to. A fire engine and two police cruisers came roaring up Main, swerving around the line of cars and into the lanes of oncoming traffic, stopping only long enough to clear the intersection before they rushed on. Will followed as the light turned and traffic coasted on down the street. When he turned onto Rowan Avenue and up the slight hilly incline toward Delphi Lane, he could still see the flashing lights of the first responders up ahead, and tried to hang back so as not to catch up with them.
His heart missed a beat when they didn’t keep going up the hill, but made a fast right onto Delphi. Will twisted his throttle and followed faster, watching as they passed a salvage yard, a few bars and store fronts, houses just lighting up for the night. He looked up in the dying light of the day and saw a huge pillar of black smoke soaring into the sky. Every mile brought it closer and closer.
No. No. It’s not her.
Will lay on the throttle, mere car-lengths behind the police cruiser now. They passed the John Deere dealer. Miss Locusta’s music school. The historic Armstrong Manor, left over from the 18th century.
It’s not her. It’s not.
The firetruck led the cruisers and Will around the last wide bend his muscle memory knew so well. Brake lights lit up as the first responders came to a halt, joining a cadre of emergency vehicles already on the scene. Blue and red lights danced in the air, but they were nothing compared to the hellish inferno blazing against the backdrop of the mountains and the coming night. The entirety of the two-story building where Sophia both worked and lived was consumed by the raging fire.
Will roared his bike around the EMS buses and fire engines without pause. Men rushed in all directions, shouting orders over the bellow of the four-alarm blaze. He could only stare at the fire like a dumbstruck moth as he brought the bike to a sudden stop and stepped off, letting it drop carelessly to the gravel as he stumbled away.
“No… No!” The sound of Will’s scream carried, loud and long in its despair, as he fell hard to his knees in the gravel.
Will screamed at the fire for what seemed like an entire lifetime. He was still screaming when he felt alien hands pulling at his chest and arms, trying to drag him away while he clawed instead toward the fire, lost in delirium. He remembered feeling the intense, unbearable heat on his face and chest before something sharp and small stabbed into the muscle in his thigh, and the world went black around him.
~ ONE ~
Two Years Later
Eva had never been woken up by birds and the rustling of trees before. Traffic accidents, domestic arguments, lights and sirens, sure—there was even that morning when some insane raccoon was on her fire escape, clawing at the windows like he had forgotten his key to the apartment. But to roll over and feel the soft caress of early morning sunlight, and hear, well… silence… almost made her wonder what she had been thinking, living all those years in the noise.
She groaned and stretched her neck as she pulled herself to sit on the edge of the bed. Her muscles were screaming with new, strange aches from the old, lumpy mattress she had slept on. A glance around the bedroom made her realize that a lot more than the mattress was going to need to change, if she was going to stay here for long. The ugly, wood-slat walls were bad enough, but Eva found herself creeped out by the collection of porcelain figurines scattered around the room’s furnishings.
She thought she might say something to Uncle Owen, but it would be tough to have that conversation without sounding like a heartless monster. Hey, Uncle Owen, I know you’re moving your beloved wife to a care facility where she might die any day, but do you mind if I pack up all her treasures and put them in a box somewhere? Eva shook her head at herself and rubbed the sleepiness from her face and eyes.
She and Charlie had only arrived yesterday evening, so Eva had yet to unpack or really settle into her temporary home. She dug through one of her bigger suitcases to scrounge out her toiletries and went searching for the bathroom. The silent house told her Charlie must still be asleep. She wasn’t surprised; it had been a long drive.
Once she got under a hot shower, Eva heaved a sigh and realized that she was alone with her thoughts for the first time in several weeks—since Owen had called, in fact. Her relatively boring life had been suddenly interrupted by that one phone call.
Charlie and Eva hadn’t had much interaction with Owen during their childhood; he married Eva’s mother’s sister and moved her from the city out into the quiet country, where he worked manual labor in some industry Eva couldn’t recall now. But several years ago, Owen had gotten some big payout—an inheritance, maybe?—and quit the hard labor to open his own bar. Things were fine until Aunt Geri fell ill, and just recently, the doctors had told her it could be terminal.
Backed into a corner and in no position to lose his only source of capital, Owen had called his sister’s kids, desperate for help. He needed someone to run the bar while he took her to a city with a larger medical facility, where Geri could have a chance at either recovery, or a comfortable passing.
And just like that, Eva’s life had taken a sharp left turn: now she was a barmaid, waking up in beautiful, quiet places.
Lost under the comforting spray of the hot shower, Eva jumped when she heard the sharp knocking on the flimsy bathroom door.
“Yes?” she called out.
Charlie’s voice came muffled from the hallway. “Hey, coffee’s on. I’ll be in the bar when you’re done.”
“Okay, thank you,” she said. Eva wiped the water out of her face and pulled herself out of the daydream. She wrapped up her shower a few minutes later and poured herself a cup of only slightly burnt coffee in a well-loved mug decorated with kittens. She shook some of the dampness out of her short, thin hair and felt the wet tendrils lay cold on her jaw and neck.