Chapter 4
Luna
“Sometimes the best way to find yourself is to get lost in a labyrinth of colors.”
—Eloisa Hobby
Ten minutes later, the six travelers disembarked with their luggage. The ferryman tooted the horn and chugged back to Everly, leaving them alone on Marshmallow Landing.
The early-afternoon sun glinted off the water, casting them in golden halos. They were pilgrims, embarking on an unknown journey, and the moment seemed weighted with meaning somehow. The sweet scent of the jacaranda trees rode the air, and purple petals stained the cobblestone pathway stretching before them.
Luna fixed her gaze on the dreamy landscape straight from the fairy-tale mural she painted in the kids’ playroom when Beck and Artie were small. She dreamed it as a portal into an enchanted realm, and that’s what this was like.
How could it be that her imaginative haven from thirteen years ago was an actual place? Her pulse skittered and an odd excitement churned in her belly.
To Luna’s surprise her fairy-tale mural design had ended up on the cover of a glossy Dallas magazine. It happened after a reporter came to their house to interview Herc. Her husband had saved the life of a local celebrity after everyone else was certain the man would die.
The reporter saw the mural, fell in love with it, and returned the next month to do a story on Luna. After the feature ran, several people encouraged her to enter her design into a lofty art contest for muralists. Based on such an enthusiastic response, she gathered up her courage and submitted her artwork.
And she won! A thousand-dollar prize and a blue ribbon she put in a scrapbook. And she received offers from people to paint murals in their homes.
It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. Even after all her drastic downsizing, she held on to five copies of the magazine. Whenever she looked at the cover, she got that same feeling of pride and accomplishment just for creating a beguiling space for her children.
It was the first—and last—time she felt like a genuine artist.
She thought about doing something more with her design skills after that success, but Herc pooh-poohed her desire to go to art school, saying the children needed her and they were her priority.
Luna agreed and packed away her art supplies, but she couldn’t stop herself from noticing shapes and colors, shades and hues, negative space and perspective. She saw the world through a visual lens and used her insights to interpret emotions.
It was just how her mind worked.
And this island world was incredible—the palette intoxicating, the composition balanced and unified, the contrast of colors both warm and cool pleasing her sense of aesthetics.
Awed, Luna stared at the appealing beauty all around them. An urge to grab a sketchbook and start drawing overwhelmed her. But she hadn’t created art in years, and she threw all her sketchbooks away when she liquidated her possessions and sold her home to pay off Herc’s gambling debts.
“What now?” Luna whispered, not knowing why, but reverence seemed appropriate somehow.
“We wait.” Sharon perched on her huge suitcase like a perky sparrow, unruffled by the uncertainty that lay ahead. Isabelle and Nanette sat down together on the edge of the dock kicking their feet back and forth over the purple-hued water.
“Wait for what?” Jeanie asked, her voice vibrating in the stillness.
“A ride?” Artie guessed.
“Patience.” Sharon aimed her cryptic smile at Luna.
The woman’s perfect smile gave her the willies. She didn’t trust a dazzling smile. Luna shot Sharon the side-eye.
“Mom! Mom!” Artie stormed over, cheeks puffed, lips pursed. “Something’s wrong with my cell phone. I can’t get on social media!”
“Oh.” Sharon tapped a manicured index finger against the tip of her nose. “I forgot to tell you. Cell reception is spotty on the island, depending on your carrier, and they don’t have wi-fi here either. The staff use landlines or satellite phones.”
Artie gasped and clutched her phone to her chest. “What? No! Mom! Fix this! Fix this now!”
“Honey, I’m not in control of the island’s internet service. It is what it is.”
“I can’t believe this! This is the worst.” Artie gurgled like she was being strangled.
Luna had to pick her battles. “It’s a minor inconvenience. You’ll be so busy on vacation that you won’t miss social media. I promise.”
“Gak! You brought me to this godforsaken hellhole to shrivel up and die of boredom!” Artie stomped across the deck.
“Aah,” Isabelle said. “The drama of youth.”
“She’s been under a lot of stress this last year.” Luna sighed, feeling like the worst mother in the natural universe. Not because of the internet thing. It would be healthy for Artie to stay off her phone for the summer, but for the fallout from losing her dad. Grief widened like ripples on the water, touching everything.
“I have a way with teenagers.” Sharon canted her head and offered a smile. “Do you mind if I give her a pep talk?”
That would go over like sour pickles. Sharon had no idea what she was getting herself into with Artie, and Luna wasn’t clueing her in. She waved toward her angry kid. “If you’re not afraid of having your head bitten off, be my guest.”
Confidently, Sharon hopped off her luggage, delicate as a wicked pixie, without knocking it over and sauntered toward Artie.
Her daughter plopped down underneath the Marshmallow Landing sign, scowling, her arms crossed over her chest in a pugilistic way.
Luna had to give the woman props: Sharon was at least sixty, and she drifted down into a cross-legged position next to Artie with the grace of a yogi.
Sharon spoke to her for a few minutes in a hushed tone, and Luna couldn’t hear a word she said.
Artie glowered at Luna.
Sharon kept talking.
Artie shook her head.
Sharon put a hand on Artie’s shoulder.
The clench in Luna’s belly, which had anchored there the day she learned Herc had gambled away their future, tightened, and Luna continued fretting. Except now, she was thinking about the text message that flashed across Jeanie’s phone. The text from Julep Bank.
Urgent! You must call now . . .
Was Mom in financial trouble?
Jeanie had seemed distracted ever since she and Artie moved in, often so caught up in her thoughts that she bumped into furniture and mumbled apologies to chairs, dressers, and side tables. Luna put down Mom’s clumsiness to having her space invaded by her daughter and granddaughter. Besides, Jeanie had always been absent-minded and since Luna had so much going on herself, she kept her mouth shut.
But now, she was alarmed.
Throughout Luna’s childhood, her parents struggled financially. While they always had enough to eat, there had been many times when they didn’t have a place to live. Couch surfing, staying at campgrounds, or living out of a van for weeks at a time. Jeanie pretended it was a grand adventure, but Luna noticed the fear in her eyes, and the way she took in extra sewing. Dad’s get-rich-quick dreams landed them in a crisis more times than Luna could count.
Unsettled, Luna shifted her gaze back to Artie and Sharon.
A bright smile broke across Artie’s face. She bobbed her head. How had Sharon accomplished that miracle?
And then something unexpected happened.
Artie jumped up and rushed over to her. “Mom, I owe you an apology for acting like a brat.”
Unable to hide her shock, Luna blinked, flabbergasted. “I . . . uh . . . that’s all right, sweetheart.” What had Sharon whispered to Artie in those precious few moments they’d chatted? “Everyone has bad days.”
Artie caught Luna in a bear hug that almost sent her toppling. “Thanks, Mom.”
“For what?”
“Taking me on this trip.”
Luna righted herself. “Well, honey, thank your grandmother. She was the one who won the golden ticket. If it weren’t for her, we’d be stuck in Julep all summer.”
Artie pivoted and swooped in to hug her grandmother. “Thanks for winning the golden ticket, Gran. This vacation is gonna be epic!”
Across the deck, Luna caught Jeanie’s eyes. Her mother wore the same expression of disbelief. They shared a silent moment of I-didn’t-see-that-coming-but-I’m-not-complaining.
Thank you, Luna mouthed to Sharon, who nodded and beamed.
“I’ll get our luggage,” Artie said and skipped to the pile of suitcases the ferryman had stacked on the dock.
Nanette and Isabelle followed Artie to collect their own suitcases while Sharon strolled over to Luna and Jeanie.
“What did you say to her?” Luna asked Sharon, perplexed and amazed by the instant change in her daughter’s attitude and more than a little jealous of the other woman’s sway with Artie.
A Cheshire cat smile slipped across Sharon’s face. “I revealed the secrets of Hobby Island.”
“Which are?”
Sharon seemed smug, but she had reversed a truculent teen in a matter of minutes, so Luna wasn’t judging.
“Well . . .” Sharon swept a hand at the beautiful landscape around them. “You’re about to find out.”
Just then, a steady clicking noise drew everyone’s attention back to the cobblestone path.
Click, click, click.
From the thicket of jacaranda trees, a woman appeared. She was a senior citizen, her silver hair turning from artful charcoal to monochrome poetry curled beneath a dashing gray fedora. A vivid sunflower peeked from the brim, a bright splash of jovial yellow playful against the solemn gray. Her clothes were lilac and deep aubergine, with a silky lavender top offsetting a flared skirt of darker, regal purple, and, most surprising of all . . .
. . . the woman was riding a unicycle.
While knitting.
What in the world?
The skirt, an apt symbol of the woman’s outrageous character, swished in the rhythm of her cycling and knitting, exuding an audacious elegance and crinkly sound.
Was she seeing this? Luna blinked twice.
Click, click, click went the knitting needles flying along as they knotted together the flamingo-pink yarn dangling down the sides of the woman’s hands. In an amazing display of grace and coordination, she handled the knitting needles with the flourish of an expert conductor leading an orchestra, and the vibrant yarn danced between her fingers.
Luna watched, mesmerized. The lulling click of the needles echoed the island’s pulse beat, every knit and purl creating a story from yarn. The woman’s eyes twinkled with a mischievous glint as she held up her creation, radiant in the afternoon sun, and revealed she was knitting a map of the island.
“Well, now . . .” The woman’s voice was as warm as summer itself. “Aren’t we having a jolly good time?” Her words, spoken in a playful tone, swirled in the air light as dandelion seeds on a breezy day.
She laughed, a high genuine laugh full of energy and verve. “Welcome, welcome, my dear friends, to the island! I’m Eloisa Hobby, your host, and I’m so very thrilled you are all here!”