Chapter 7 Elsie
ELSIE
The painkillers finally kick in, dulling the throb behind my eyes to a manageable hum. I sit on the edge of the bed with my old favorite quilt pooled in my lap. One of the embroidered stars has come loose. I pinch the silver thread between my fingers, wind it tight, then let it go.
Outside the window, the snow glows that too-bright winter white, crusted hard on top and soft underneath. I should stay inside and focus. There are permits to track down, repairs to note, a mountain of things I could check off. Real progress to make.
Instead, I’m pulling on my boots.
Wells Rourke has spent the past two days alternating between helping me and quietly trying to shove me out the door.
But he made me breakfast this morning. Handed over his space heater without being asked.
There’s some kindness buried under that stubborn edge, and maybe I want to see a little more of it.
I tug my sleeves straight and glance at myself in the dresser mirror. A yellowed photograph of Blue Willow’s fall festival is still pinned to the frame. My under-eyes are blotchy from another restless night. My sweater’s pilling at the hem. I haven’t felt like myself in months.
Back in Florida, I worked as a speech pathologist at a small clinic outside Ocala. Part-time became full-time, then all-consuming. It was the kind of work you carried home long after hours ended.
College had been hard. Grad school was harder. Practicing as a therapist was worse. I burned out early and never shook the feeling.
When Elspeth passed, I told myself I’d take a short leave. Rest. Recalibrate. But weeks turned into months, my inbox filled with messages I didn’t have the energy to answer, and debt kept climbing like ivy up the walls of my brain.
I left this place to prove I could make it in a world that didn’t always understand me. One where magic didn’t matter, and memory couldn’t sneak up on you in the grocery store. I wanted to build something steady, respectable. A real career.
Instead, I burned out trying. My grandmother warned me, and I didn’t want to hear it. I still don’t know if I can forgive her for being right.
Maybe I’m not cut out to be a speech pathologist, not in the way that job demands. Not with the families, the bureaucracy, the heartbreak. I don’t know if I can keep absorbing other people’s grief without losing parts of myself.
But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t still make it. Somewhere. In some version of the world where comfort doesn’t look like lace curtains and violet soap. If I had more time. If I had a little breathing room—enough money to rest, reset, figure it out.
Quietly, I reach for my warmest coat and head downstairs.
Wells is already by the door, shrugging into his canvas jacket. Sand-colored, scuffed at the seams. Practical. Handsome in a way that annoys me more than it should.
“I’m ready,” I say, “unless you changed your mind.”
He glances over, scrunches up one side of his face. “Not yet.”
“You sure this is worth the trip?”
He opens the door. “Guess we’ll find out.”
The path outside is already half-cleared. The snow has settled overnight, thinner and easier to walk through. Wells doesn’t speak, and neither do I, but at least our boots crunch in time.
I tuck my hands into my coat pockets, unsure what else to do with them. Every step has me second-guessing my pace. Too fast? Too slow? Should I start a conversation or wait for him? My brain spins through options, lining up topics like cue cards.
I want to ask about the Motts and the Winslows. About the cider stand and whether they still sell those gingerbread cookies the size of your face. I want to know who’s stayed, who’s come back, and how many of them remember the girl who used to visit for weekends and summers.
But nostalgia edges too easily toward grief, and I’m not ready to open that door.
So, I keep my eyes forward, boots crunching, heart thudding loud enough to fill the silence. This isn’t a homecoming. It’s a layover. I have to remember that.
When Main Street comes into view, I catch my breath. The old storefronts line the square exactly as I left them, though some have new paint and different signs. “Did she still come down here much?”
“She always liked the market on Saturdays,” he says. “And the orchard in spring.”
A gentler memory stirs. Isla crushing lavender between our fingers behind the cider shed, the sharp scent clinging to our skin for hours. Lying under the mulberry trees, pointing out shapes in the clouds until the sky turned gold.
“I know Elspeth drank her fair share of plum wine.”
“She once tried to convince me it counted as a health tonic.” He makes a strange sound, halfway to a laugh, and glances toward the market square ahead.
We fall quiet again. He’s asking about my grandmother, pulling me down memory lanes I never agreed to walk. I feel like there’s a right way to respond, a script I don’t have. I can’t tell what he wants from me.
“Some say the land here will always remember you,” he says after a beat. “Others say it waits to see if you’ll remember first.”
I blink at him. “You’re giving me whiplash. Yesterday, you pointed out every crack in the inn like you were hoping I’d run. Today, you’re making me breakfast and waxing poetic about the town.”
“I was in a bad mood. Now I’m feeling better. Don’t read too much into it.”
“I’m just not sure which version of you is real.”
He huffs. “It’s normal human behavior, Elsie, to shift depending on the day.”
Normal. I hate that word. I’ve spent my entire life on the outside of it.
Normal is people who can soften their voice without thinking. Who pick up social cues without rehearsing them. Who say thank you without worrying it sounds wrong.
I’ve always been too much or not enough, too blunt or too quiet, too hard to read. When people shift around me, I can’t track it. I don’t know which version is safe, and I don’t know how to adjust in return.
“I just want to fix up the house,” I say. “That’s it. I don’t want to think about the town, or the magic, or anything else. It’s not what I’m here for, and I don’t need you deciding what I should feel.”
He shakes his head. “The rest of us can’t simply shut off the parts of ourselves that see the whole picture. Your grandmother, for one, would have hated that.”
Would she? I used to believe she loved every part of me. But he’s right. Her doubt is why I left. Maybe there were parts she couldn’t accept after all.
The back of my nose stings. I didn’t cry when I got the call. I didn’t cry when I left my job, packed my car, crossed the state line. I didn’t cry when I read the will or walked through the front door.
Now, the dam breaks.
The bridge of my nose stings as the first tear slips free. Another follows, hot and quick, blurring the edges of Main Street.
“Fucking hell.” He steps closer, shakes his head. “Dammit . . . I didn’t want to make you cry, Elsie. Jesus Christ.”
His hand lifts, calloused fingers brushing my jaw. He swipes one tear with his thumb before I duck my chin, heat rushing to my face.
“It’s not entirely your fault,” I say with a sniffle. “I haven’t cried in eight years. I was due for a flood.”
He frowns. “That’s way too fucking long.”
I hiccup. “I think I’m emotionally stunted or something. My mom always said I was too internal for my own good. I didn’t think my grandmother agreed with her, but—”
“You don’t need to explain it to me.”
“Right, trauma dumping. Sorry.”
“S’okay.” His hand falters and falls away. “Really. Do you . . . should we head back?”
“We made it all the way here.” I swipe at my cheeks and square my shoulders. “Let’s go in, say hi to Bobby, grab another damn space heater.”
He chuckles. “Whatever helps you survive the arctic tundra of upstairs.”
I hiccup again, this time on the tail end of a laugh, and swipe the edge of my sleeve under my nose. My head feels fuzzy, light at the edges, like the tears loosened something I’d been holding together for too long.
It feels good to let it out, but also dangerous. Wells is not the kind of man you unravel in front of. He’s guarded, proud. Keeps his hurts stitched tight and expects everyone else to do the same.
Though he does have gentle hands and a steadiness that doesn’t match his sharp exterior. It’s confusing—comforting and unsettling all at once.
When he tilts his head toward the general store, I finally snap out of it. I shove my hands into my coat pockets and follow, boots crunching against the hard crust of snow. I try to ignore the weight of his gaze at my back.
Inside the shop, the air will be warm, and Bobby will be there with his crooked smile and recycled jokes. All I have to do is keep my head down, make it through the next few weeks.
Then, once the house sells, I can go back to Florida. Take the rest I should’ve taken years ago. Maybe even figure out a life that doesn’t leave me scraped hollow.
I need that, desperately, almost hungrily. The thought of it is the only thing that keeps me moving when everything else feels too heavy to carry.
Then finally, I can exhale and move on.