Fragile Hopes (Harmony Hills #1)

Chapter 1

Ivy

Everyone has their own quirks, harmless little things that make them happy.

Some people find joy in naming their cars and coffeepots; I’ve heard Larry for both.

Others risk getting kicked out of the movie theater for yelling at the protagonist when they head down into the creepy basement.

Which, if you ask me, is an understandable reaction.

I mean, going into a dark and isolated room isn’t the best way to avoid getting murdered.

Not that I have any personal experience, but come on.

Then there’s my little brother, who can’t take a single bite of food unless the TV is on or there’s something playing on his phone (I stopped trying to understand teenagers a long time ago).

As for me, my harmless little quirk is waking up peacefully on Sunday mornings instead of being jolted awake by a loud crash.

“Shit,” I hiss, sitting straight up in bed as if yanked by a string.

Regaining my breath feels like an impossible task, no matter how hard I clutch the front of my old sleep T-shirt and triple-check that there’s nobody in my bedroom.

All the windows in our house are shut. I know that because I always make sure of it before going to bed, yet a cold breeze snakes up my bare legs and peppers my skin with goose bumps.

The mattress creaks as I move, reaching for my phone on the nightstand. Two taps on the screen later, it shows me it’s six in the goddamn morning.

I groan and fall back in bed, but not for long. Because whatever that sound was, I’m not a hundred percent sure it was outside the house.

Gah, it’s too early for this.

Another groan. I’m starting to resemble a bear more than the wet rat Joe called me last night when I got out of the shower. God forbid a girl walks into her own kitchen with damp hair.

“Joe?” I ask into the stillness of the house.

The humming of the refrigerator is the only sound, if I don’t count the erratic pounding of my heart. Pretty rude that it hasn’t calmed down yet.

My bedroom door is open, as always, and our house isn’t big. Which means that my brother would hear me if he were awake.

“Why me?” I whine as I drag myself out of bed and put on my socks because the wooden floor is freezing cold.

I’ve always found it fascinating how all houses have a distinct smell, but the people who live in it can’t usually tell. Now that I think about it, it’s also a little unfair—and risky. What if our house stinks and I’m none the wiser?

But… no, it doesn’t. Because, as I leave my bedroom, it hits me.

If bittersweet familiarity had a smell, it would be this—cheap laundry detergent, citrus, wood.

I must still be half asleep because, for a moment, I can hear it all. Dad’s footsteps as he gets ready for work. Mom burning the first pancake of the batch because she can never get the timing right. Joe bawling in his crib because he wants to get out and we are too busy to listen.

I can almost see the shadows of the past within these walls. Feel them around me.

I’ve only been back in Harmony Hills for a couple of weeks, but it’s like I never left. Like the past three years away from home have been nothing but a blurry dream.

My arm hits the doorframe on my way out of my bedroom, and the sharp pain brings me back to the present.

Dad is… away. He’s just away.

Mom has been gone for ten years.

And I might not know where Joe is at the moment, but he sure isn’t a baby anymore.

That loud noise, whatever it was, didn’t sound like a plate or a drinking glass shattering. But Joe was in charge of the dishes last night, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve warned him about what will happen if he piles them up—catastrophe, that’s what.

But the kitchen is empty, and so is his bedroom. His bed is unmade, his gaming system is turned off for once, and a couple of socks and a T-shirt I bet stinks of armpit sweat are lying unceremoniously on the ground because teen boys are allergic to picking up after themselves.

The only bathroom in the house is also Joe-free, as is the living room that desperately needs a furniture update. Neither of us are particularly fond of nineties house decor, but—

Focus, Ivy.

Right. One thing at a time.

Joe has many great qualities—having endless patience and being a decent cook are very high on the list—but waking up before midday on a Sunday isn’t one of them.

“Jojo?” I ask again, louder this time. “All right, snot. This isn’t funny.”

Another one of his great qualities is that he’s not a prankster. An occasional little shit, sure; all younger brothers are. But at sixteen, he’s an angel who doesn’t give me as many headaches as he should at this age.

His grades are excellent, his friends are fairly normal, he has never smoked or tried alcohol, and he doesn’t act like I’ll give him cooties when I hug him yet. I’ve always loved those things about him, but now that he’s my legal responsibility, I appreciate them even more.

He’s not a difficult boy, and he’s certainly old enough to understand that I don’t enjoy the kind of anxiety that comes with certain jokes—especially those that imply he’s gotten kidnapped.

He knows I still haven’t recovered from that one time he was six and hid in the closet while I was on babysitting duty, then fell asleep.

We had just lost Mom, Dad was barely coping, and I almost had a heart attack at the tender age of sixteen because I couldn’t find him.

Needless to say, the cops were called that day.

Another sudden noise makes me jump. This one, though, I easily recognize—a lawnmower starting.

Who in their right mind is mowing at six in the morning? On a Sunday.

Momentarily taken aback by our neighbor’s lack of decorum, I draw back the curtains—they smell kind of musty; I should probably wash them—and peek out the front of the house.

And right there, on our next-door neighbor’s lawn, marching through the early-morning fog like a lone soldier, pushing along a lawnmower that looks too modern to be ours, is my brother.

“Are you serious?” I mutter, exhaling with a mix of relief and annoyance.

The cool September air seeps into my skin when I yank the front door open, making me shiver.

Fall is my favorite season, especially here in Vermont, so I’m not mad about the weather getting colder.

Not that my current oversized T-shirt and very short shorts reflect that I’m ready for the low temperatures, but I digress.

I wrap my arms around myself, trying in vain to suppress a shiver, and ask in a louder voice, “What are you doing?”

Joe doesn’t turn or acknowledge me in any way, which tells me he hasn’t heard me over the incessant sound of the lawnmower.

Ugh. Fine.

I put on the pair of rain boots that have been lying around the porch since I moved back in and start past our picket fence toward him, trespassing on someone’s property and all.

I’m clearly not thinking straight, but it’s six in the morning on a Sunday.

Our neighbors must not be thinking straight either, or they would be here with pitchforks already.

Careful not to slip on the morning dew, I get close enough to stop him with a hand on his arm.

“What’s up?” my brother asks so nonchalantly, I would give him a wet willy if my arms weren’t about to fall off from the cold.

“I thought you’d gotten kidnapped, that’s what’s up.”

“A man in a white van stopped earlier and offered me some candy, but I wasn’t hungry.”

I reconsider the wet willy.

At my murderous stare, he rolls his eyes and says, “The drama. I’ve been out here the whole time.”

I count to three in my head, summoning all the patience I have this early in the morning.

Joe sticks out his tongue at me before wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

When did he get so tall? I swear it was just last summer when he only reached my shoulder, and not the other way around.

“I still don’t know why you’re mowing the neighbor’s lawn at six in the morning. Six, Joe,” I argue, glancing around the property.

Our neighbor’s two-story redbrick house sits quietly in the fog, way fancier than our one-story clapboard that desperately needs a paint job. I should take care of that once I’ve saved enough. So, like, in five years.

“Do you even know who lives here?” I ask him.

Because I don’t. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison moved out at the beginning of the year.

“Yeah,” he says, like it’s a stupid question. “Is the interrogation over? I need to get this done.”

“What? No, it’s not over. I have more questions.”

“Can we talk as I mow?”

I sigh, deep and tired.

“Joseph.”

“Not the full name.”

“Forget the man in the van. Did aliens reset your brain? Because my brother doesn’t mow lawns this early on the weekends. Or at all, actually.”

“One, that’s not true. I mowed our lawn a couple of times this summer,” he says, listing with his fingers. “And two, I didn’t peg you for a conspiracy theorist. Do you have a secret blog?”

“A podcast. My question still stands.”

“You didn’t ask me anything.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, gesturing at him, the lawnmower, the yard, and everything else.

“I was supposed to do this yesterday, but I forgot.”

Supposed to?

“Jojo, please save me some time and a bout of pneumonia here and explain this whole thing to me from the start. Like I’m six, if you need to.”

He lets out a long sigh, as if he were already tired of this conversation. Too bad.

“I’ve been doing yard work for this guy for a few weeks. He pays me to do it. But I forgot to mow yesterday because I got in late from Ethan’s house. We went biking with his dad on the trails, remember? I was tired and went straight to bed. So I’m doing it now before he gets home.”

I frown. “You’ve been doing this for weeks?”

“Yep” is all he gives me.

How did I not know this? I might have spent three years working in New York City, but I never lost touch with my brother. He’s the person I love the most in this world, so I refused to let distance become a problem.