The Forget-Me-Not Library

Chapter One

One

A Pearl of Wisdom

from Maeve Hearnshaw

“Honey, sometimes when you’re lost, the path finds you.”

Juliet

On a tree-lined street in the middle of Who-Knows-Where, Alabama, fate knocked on my car window.

Later I’d learn his name was Tennyson Greenlee, age seventy-nine. He had round black eyeglasses, a long thin face lined with shallow wrinkles, a scruffy silvery-white beard, and wavy white hair that seemed to have a mind of its own.

“Don’t suppose you’ve seen a little girl?” He spoke loudly to be heard through the closed window. “Yellow hair. Blue eyes. Purple glasses. Cute as can be?”

It wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to say.

Especially since I’d been parked in front of his big three-story house for a good five minutes now, cursing my luck and trying to figure out how to get where I was going.

I was supposed to be in Memphis, Tennessee, by six p.m. Seven at the latest. Ahead of the stormy weather system creeping northeastward from the gulf.

It was already a quarter till five, so I was definitely going to be late—if I made it there at all.

I opened the car door a crack since my windows had stopped working. “No, I haven’t. Is she lost?”

“Not lost. Misplaced.”

That sounded lost to me.

As I stepped out of the car, I asked, “Have you called the police?”

“No need. Katy never wanders far.” The man didn’t sound especially worried, but there was definitely concern darkening his blue eyes.

He gestured vaguely down the street. “Last time she did this, I found her all cozied up on Vera Ingleby’s porch swing.

Katy had done lost herself in a book. Didn’t realize an hour had passed.

Couldn’t hear me calling her. It was like she was in her own little world. ”

She most likely was. Disappearing into a book was one of my favorite things to do, too. Especially lately.

I glanced around. “How old is she and how long has she been gone?”

“Seven. And not long. An hour ago, she was tidying up her bedroom. Katy!” His voice carried down the street in heartfelt waves.

Birds scattered from the trees, squawking loudly. One, a chubby robin that had an odd splotch of white coloration at its neck, landed on an ornate sign nearby that welcomed me to the Historic Garden District. I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see the bird.

I’d seen it nearly every day since I left home five weeks ago.

“Katy June!” the man shouted. “Time to come inside! It’s comin’ up a cloud!”

I’d never heard the phrase before, but deciphered its meaning just fine. The afternoon sky had clouded over, and the hot, humid July air had suddenly cooled. A storm was building.

This weather was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid by getting on the road early this morning, long before the sun came up.

My heart rate picked up as I eyed the gray clouds and absently touched the scar that sat in the hollow between my collarbones. A burn mark. There was nothing I wanted more than to get back in the car and speed off to where the skies were blue and bright and safe.

But two things were stopping me.

One, something was very wrong with my car.

This leg of my trip, which had started in St. Petersburg, Florida, had taken an unexpected turn after a construction detour spit me off a state highway and onto one pine tree–lined back road after another.

Unable to find a cell signal amid the towering trees, my GPS failed.

I kept following the empty road, longing to see any kind of detour sign, but no such luck.

Finally, I happened upon this small town.

A good thing, too, because that’s when all the symbols on my dashboard started flashing ominously.

A few minutes later, when the engine stuttered and a plume of blue smoke puffed out from under the hood, I quickly pulled onto this residential side street and rolled to a stop.

The car had shuddered, a veritable death rattle, and stalled.

So far, I hadn’t been able to restart it.

And the other reason I couldn’t leave quite yet: I had to help find Katy. I needed to know she was safe.

“Everything okay out here, Tenn?” a woman called out from the front steps of the house next door. She was an older woman, maybe mid-sixties, wearing a simple sleeveless blue dress. A cloud of pale blond hair sat atop her head, secured with a large claw clip.

Tenn’s short-sleeve button-down caught on the wind and billowed slightly as he spun around. He jammed his hands into the pockets of khaki cargo shorts. “Katy’s done pulled another disappearin’ act.”

The woman whistled. “Best you find her soon. Tallulah will be home before you know it. Who’s your new friend?”

Tenn looked at me, bushy, bristly, curious eyebrows raised in question.

“I’m Juliet. Juliet Nightingale,” I said, not bothering to explain that I wasn’t from around here since my Michigan license plates announced it plainly for all to see. “There was a road detour with hardly any signs. And I didn’t have a cell signal. And now my car seems to have died.”

I was rambling, talking too fast. I clamped my lips together and glanced at my supposedly reliable hatchback, feeling slightly betrayed. It was only a few years old and as a precaution I’d had it serviced shortly before I started this road trip. Fat lot of good it had done me.

The man scratched his beard. “Did smoke come from the engine?”

I nodded. “Blue smoke. That can’t be good, right?”

His gaze softened, and he quietly said, “Not good at all.”

My heart sank. I was afraid of that.

With a great flutter, the robin flew from the sign to a branch on a magnolia tree in the woman’s front yard as she said, “You poor thing. I’ll give my grandson, Callum, a call.

He owns the local garage and will get you sorted, but I hope you didn’t have somewhere to be.

You’ll likely be in town a spell, what with parts taking forever to get in these days and the detour of it all.

” Having said that, she turned and went into the house, her movements stiff but steady.

I wasn’t quite sure what the detour had to do with anything, but I did have somewhere to be.

I was supposed to check into the Peabody Hotel tonight, and I had a ticket to tour Graceland tomorrow in nice sunny Tennessee.

But it wasn’t as though I’d had my heart set on seeing Elvis’s home.

It was simply a destination. A distraction.

One of many on this impromptu trip. Since I’d been on the road, I rarely stayed in one place for more than a day or two before moving on to the next city, following a route that had been laid out for me long ago.

And, more importantly, keeping my distance from home.

“Where’s here exactly?” I asked.

“Why, sweetheart, you’re in Forget-Me-Not, Alabama.”

“Forget-Me-Not—like the flower?”

“Exactly like the flower.” He introduced himself, then motioned to the cottage next door.

“And that there was Maeve Hearnshaw, my baby sister.” He checked his digital wristwatch, and I noticed ink stains on several of his fingers.

“On any other day, I’d invite you in to wait for Callum, offer something cool to drink, but it took a lot for me to convince my granddaughter, Tallulah, that I wasn’t too old to keep an eye on her little girl while she was at work.

She’s trusting me, and I don’t want to go disappointing her by telling her I misplaced Katy, so I’ve got to find her posthaste. ”

I smiled at his determined usage of the word misplaced. “I’m happy to help you look, if you want.”

“I’d be most grateful. That’s right kind of you.

You can start here at my house and work your way toward the sun garden.

” Tenn pointed to the far end of the street, where a wrought iron arch spanned the road.

“Check front porches. Check behind shrubs. Check everywhere the little sprout could curl up with a book. I’ll search the other side and meet you at the end.

Katy!” he yelled again, hurrying across the road, moving at an impressive clip for a man of an advanced age.

I peered down the street, enamored of its leafy canopy and mossy sidewalks.

Everywhere I looked there were gorgeous pops of color in flower beds and boxes and also the houses themselves.

There were at least a dozen homes, six on each side of the street, and every single one was full of charm and character and craftsmanship that spoke of days gone by.

It started sprinkling as I poked around Tenn’s yard. I didn’t hear any distant rumbles of thunder, but it was probably too much to hope that the storm would skirt past this town.

I hoped nonetheless.

As I looked high and low for Katy, I tried to remember if I’d ever sneaked out of the house when I was younger.

I couldn’t recall.

Three months ago, a tragedy had stolen part of my memory, including all of my childhood recollections. Everything before I left for college was simply gone.

Sadly, it wasn’t the only thing that had been lost.

Because I couldn’t remember that spring day, I only knew from others what had happened. A storm had popped up while I was on a walk with my grandpa. Lightning had struck, causing chaos. Pain. Loss.

I absently touched the scar where my collarbones met. The spot was where a small bird-shaped charm had been resting when I’d been hit, melting it, burning me. I’d healed from all my injuries, though—physically at least.

My grandfather hadn’t survived.

With a shake of my head, I snapped out of my thoughts and tried not to drown in a wave of grief. It took me a second to recall what had spun me off into the past. Right. Sneaking out.

When I had a minute, I’d text Amy, my sister. Out of my big family, she was who most often filled in the hazy parts of my life over the last few months. Well, as much as she could. Because she was ten years older—and had moved out at eighteen—there were memories she couldn’t possibly fill in.