Chapter 1 Olivia #2
Olivia missed her husband, desperately at times, but it gave her a small comfort that he slept next to Annabelle. Even though they’d slipped into the next life, healthy and strong in eternity, she liked to think of them resting here together.
The second bouquet, she laid beside Annabelle’s gravestone and added a plush lamb she’d purchased in Catawba. If her daughter had lived, she’d be an adult now, but Olivia still thought the lamb belonged with her.
A downburst of moonlight replaced the shimmer of dusk, Annabelle sleeping in its warmth with the lamb in her arms and Graham at her side.
Instead of speaking, Olivia chose the hymn she’d often sung when rocking Annabelle to sleep: Jesus is the Shepherd true, and He’ll always stand by you, for He loves the little children of the world.
In life and in death, she knew Jesus loved her girl.
In her earlier dreams, after Annabelle was born, she’d envisioned a half dozen children running circles around her and Graham, playing in the garden and swimming in the lake, but she’d given up that dream when she realized, after years of hoping, that she and Graham would have no other children.
She’d found some solace in her fictional world, writing in her free hours and inviting the many children of congregants over for what she called teas. They drank Hattie’s mint punch, then spun like whirligigs across the wood floors, racing and hiding in walls and climbing underneath the stairs.
Every moment with those boys and girls filled her with joy. They didn’t replace her love for Annabelle, but in the laughter, she could almost imagine her daughter among them, spinning and racing and hiding away too.
The children who’d once used her home as a playhouse were adults now, quite polite and mannered when they visited. She missed the squeals that once echoed between her walls. And she missed Graham tossing his shoes by the door and then loosening his collar to play like one of them.
Olivia stepped away from Annabelle’s grave, prepared to follow the path of moonflowers back home, when she heard a rustling sound. An animal, she thought. Nothing of concern. A squirrel or a raccoon in the forest.
But then a stick snapped, and she whirled in the darkness. “Who’s there?”
A black bear hadn’t been sighted here in years, but if a bear had wandered onto her property, her voice should frighten it away.
The chorus of cicadas had quieted, and she listened for another crack of a branch or grunt of an animal.
Instead she heard a cough.
Leaping back, she positioned herself between Annabelle’s gravestone and the intruder as if she could protect her daughter. A skip of her heart, the swift passage of time, seconds slipped by before she realized how ridiculous it was to guard Annabelle. The only person who needed guarding was her.
Not that she cared much about what happened to her life, but her aunt would be devastated if she had to bury her last relative. There was no sense tempting fate, be it a friend or foe who roamed her forest.
She rushed around the gate, not stopping to close it. The moon, brighter now, no longer comforted her as she followed its lead toward home. When her gaze swept over her shoulder, a shadow lingered near the trees like someone was watching her. Then the person—a child—disappeared into the woods.
Annabelle.
She took a deep breath, cursing her fervid imagination. Words may not be flowing from her hands, but her mind churned constantly, trying and failing to press her imagination into a stream.
Of course, it wasn’t Annabelle. Olivia knew keenly the power of imagination, but she didn’t believe in ghosts. Somehow a child, in the hours long after dinner, had ventured into her woods. Perhaps one of the Lamb family children—her nearest neighbors—had gotten lost.
“Who’s there?” she called again, trying to soften the alarm in her voice.
No one answered.
Perhaps she should have followed the shadow, but it seemed perilous to trek into the forest without a flashlight, especially since she didn’t know who had been watching her. Instead, she’d phone Jillian Lamb the moment she returned home.
The cicadas began humming again as she climbed the hill. At the top, three stone steps and a pot of flowers welcomed her home. She locked the front door behind her, then she kicked off her rubber boots and padded in her stockings through the dining room, to the telephone in the kitchen.
The switchboard operator connected her right away to Jillian Lamb, her neighbor and a member at Catawba Presbyterian. When she told her friend about the child in the forest, Jillian said her four children were playing Monopoly in their living room, nary a one missing among them.
“Some drifters are camping near the train track,” Jillian said. “Perhaps one of the children strayed.”
Olivia leaned against the kitchen counter as her mind wandered.
A number of children, more than a hundred thousand she’d read, had been orphaned or displaced in the past ten years.
If the shadow had been the child of a transient, would he be able to find his way home?
On this warm summer evening, the shelter of her woods would offer no threat to a boy or girl, but still, if it was a child, she wished she could have provided something—food, a blanket, anything to help.
After bidding Jillian a good night, Olivia climbed to the second floor and knocked on her aunt’s door.
“Come in,” Hattie called, glancing up from her chair as Olivia opened the door, a crocheting hook in one hand and a lilac blue yarn folded on her lap. She wore a floral housecoat with organdy trim, her hair pinned back in a neat bun, the same honey brown as Olivia’s shoulder-length waves.
“Was it a good walk?” Hattie asked.
“The walk was good, but . . .”
Hattie lowered the hook. “What happened?”
Olivia told her about the cough and then the shadow in the trees.
“Perhaps it was just—” Hattie paused as if trying not to offend her niece by suggesting that Olivia had imagined the child.
But maybe she had imagined it, like she imagined so many things.
In the past, she’d re-crafted her imaginings into scenes, patching them together into a story, but now all she had were scattered shards of narrative that whirled like a tornado in her head.
Even when she walked in the evening, dreaming of the possibilities, she couldn’t seem to transfer her thoughts and experiences, like she’d once done, into fiction.
She was in desperate need of inspiration.
Hattie reached into her pocket and handed Olivia a stack of letters. “Most of these are from readers.”
While she cherished every letter, replied to each note, most inquiries as of late referenced her next novel, and she no longer had a good response about the delay. “I’ll respond tomorrow.”
Hattie handed her two more letters. “I thought you might want to look at these right away.”
The first was from Herring & Son. She’d open that in the morning with the others.
The return address on the second envelope was from Winfield College in Ohio. She’d heard of the school—Episcopalian, she thought—not far from the farm of renowned novelist Louis Bromfield.
A quick slide of her nail under the seal, and she removed a typed letter.
Dear Mrs. Belle,
Our college is launching a literary magazine called The Winfield Review to foster creative writing among our students.
To celebrate this venture, we are organizing a panel of esteemed poets and novelists on September 8th to discuss writing and publishing.
With your prolific background and wide readership, we are confident that your expertise would be of great benefit to our student body and faculty alike.
On behalf of our organizing committee, I would like to extend an invitation for you to join four other distinguished writers on this panel. We would cover your travel expenses and offer compensation of $50 for your time.
I apologize for the short notice but eagerly—and hopefully—await your response by telephone or mail.
Sincerely,
Dr. Simon Farrow
Dean of Arts and Humanities
Professor Farrow. She knew that name. He’d written articles about theology and literature for several well-respected journals, but she couldn’t imagine that he’d read her work.
Olivia held out the letter to her aunt.
Women’s groups often asked her to speak and sometimes she did readings at a local bookstore, but she’d never received an invitation from a prestigious school like Winfield. Her stories were much too common for academics or literary magazines.
Hattie glanced up from the letter. “That’s a gracious invitation.”
“Another author must have canceled.” Why else would they wait until the last moment to invite her? The panel was in less than two weeks, and they already had four writers confirmed.
“Dr. Farrow is right. Your experience would be a great benefit to their students.” Hattie folded the letter and handed it back. “And it would be good for you to spend time among your peers. Perhaps make a friend.”
“These aren’t my peers.” Most academics she’d met were the snobbish, respectable sort who stared down their noses at novelists like her. “But the speaking fee would help our finances.”
Just until they received her next royalty check.
“If I accept their invitation, would you join me?” Olivia asked. “We’ll take the train.”
“Of course.” Her aunt patted her hand. “It would be an honor.”
“I won’t be able to offer much as the author who’s lost her voice.”
Hattie picked up her crocheting hook. “The words will come again.”
She prayed they’d return before her deadline.