We stood in my stable, but it was barely built. Bare bones. An outline of an idea that would soon become Elmwood.
My uncle was next to me, drawing, too. His strokes were stronger than mine. Confident. While I create nonsense, he created something with so much intent it burned the wooden planks.
Little me laughed. “What’s that? It’s not a horse.”
“Luck,” My uncle pulled his hand away so I could take a closer look. “Do you know anything about luck?”
I shook my head.
“Well, some people are born with it,” he said. “Like your dad.”
“My dad?”
“Yeah, he’s free to wander. Ain’t worried about money. And now, that luck’s rubbed off on your ma. She can wander the world too without worrying about places or things or money,” my uncle explained. “But the rest of us, well, we’ve gotta find luck all on our own. We either gotta make it or take it. Like me and building this ranch.”
“Okay.” I nodded because what else was there to do when I hadn’t known what he meant. What did luck matter anyway? It hadn’t bothered me. “But what’s that drawing?”
“Some call it the devil’s luck,” my uncle said. “It’s a request.”
“Request?”
He nodded. “For help. Like a deal. You know about deals?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes Mom makes me deals for bedtime. If I brush my teeth early, I get ten extra minutes with my book.”
“It’s like that,” my uncle assured. “I make a deal for luck and then do something in return.”
“What do you do? Brush your teeth early?” I wondered.
“Sure, something like that.”
The voices became muffled. I was in the dark again. He was there too, waiting and watching. I knew he could see me clearly. He could hear every erratic flicker of my pulse. Every nervous exhale I force past my parted lips.
“So, that’s where you came from?” I asked the void. “He called for you. He wanted to make a deal?”
“Yes, I’m all tied up and bound because of one flimsy human,” he lamented.
The lights were back. We stood in a field. The grass was too long and bright for it to be Elmwood now. Maybe Elmwood in the spring when everything would become overgrown and unwieldy.
He remained a black, amorphous figure. The grass wilted as he flopped down into it. What could be his face be turned to the cloudless sky, taking in its vastness.
“If this deal was with him, then why are you terrorizing me?” I tugged on my sleeves, exhausted but not desperate enough to join him on the ground. There was a vibration flowing from him, a disruption that made me taste blood.
“You are his only living relative, Octavia.” He pushed himself into a sitting position. “And look.”
The memory flickered in front of me again,a film on a small screen. Someone called for my uncle. He left me in the stable, his voice clashing with someone else’s outside. The adults were arguing. They always argued. I’d learned to tune them out because I’d never get rest or peace if I let them pull my focus.
With my bottom lip between my teeth, I continued my wobbly drawing of two horses. My grip tightened on the chalk, nails cutting into its sides.
“I want one one day,” little Octavia murmured under her breath. “Maybe two. Or three. Four?”
Little me’s smile wobbled as I looked down at my doodle. But it quickly faded when I considered maybe I should take some of my uncle’s luck, too. After all, he said, Dad was lucky. And Mom, too. But he didn’t say anything about me. I looked at his drawing and traced a line of chalk from my work to his. He wouldn’t mind. Uncle always shared with me.
Our drawings overlapped, lines crisscrossed as we shared the wooden plank that would be nailed to the loft of the barn. The plank that would host all our luck.
I scratched a part of my palm on the wood. A splinter pierced my skin. Only a couple of drops of blood made it onto the plank before I covered the cut and dropped the chalk. I ran out of the stable, looking for someone to save me from the pain.
“That’s…that’s…” I shook my head as we resurfaced in the field. The sky was darker, storm clouds rolling in.
