Page 88 of Manors & Mischief

“Just try,” Bea begs. “Life is messy. No one said it had to be perfect, and Ember knows that, too. She took a chance on the manor, so why wouldn’t she take a chance on you?”

Just like the manor, I think she was fixing me up inside, too. Well, she was until I put a stop to it.

I bite my lip. Like Mom says, she doesn’t want me looking back on today and wishing I could change things. Neither do I.

“Thanks you two.”

“Always happy to impart wisdom on such a stubborn ass.”

Trav chuckles. “Same.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Somehow along the way, even though the universe was supposedly against me, I was still able to make friends like these two.

I let the dark win, and I’m not going to do that anymore.

32

EMBER

Closing my eyes, I try to open my senses so I can remember everything about this moment. The low murmur of the people. The crisp air. The smells coming from the different vendors in the square. There’s also the skittering of leaves being blown over the roads.

It’s peace. It’s comfort. Harvest Falls has become more like home than “home” ever was.

“Miss O’Malley?”

The mayor’s voice breaks my moment. My eyes fly open to see her standing in front of me. I look for Bea, but she’s nowhere to be found. Abandoned, I smile at the mayor, but it hurts.

“Is that what we’re reduced to?” I ask her. “I thought I was Ember.”

The mayor smiles. “Ember.” Her face is flush, like she’s excited, but her voice is as calm and as sweet as can be. “Take a walk with me.”

I stand from the picnic table in the middle of the square, and she puts her arm through mine. We move toward the outskirts at a slow pace. “You know, as soon as you walked into that first meeting, I knew you were going to make a difference in our town. The stain on your shirt, breathless, hair a mess.”

My cheeks burn. It certainly wasn’t the first impression I had been banking on, but it was very true to life.

“I just didn’t know in which way. Whether you were an outsider trying to change things, or whether you would become one of us. By the end of the meeting, I knew. Even if Devon was too mad to see it, I knew you’d fit right in.”

She squeezes my upper arm, and it feels comfortable walking with her here. Everyone greets her with great deference. It’s obvious how much they love her and how she’s touched so many people’s lives. Devon is lucky. I think he could tell her he wanted to become an astronaut, and she’d probably grab a book from the library and figure out how she could help. That’s just the type of person she is.

“If you’re trying to get me to stay…”

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be? Not only did you come here and change things for the better, but you changed my son for the better, too. If I had the power, I’d give you house arrest just so you couldn’t go anywhere.”

I laugh, but when I peer over at her, she’s not, which only makes me laugh harder. She’s serious. Serious as a heart attack, she’d probably say.

“I’m sure Devon’s told you some of our history. About how his father left us when he was little.” She stops us, and we stand underneath a huge maple with the most brilliant yellow leaves and turns me toward her. “I broke for a little while. It wasn’t my finest moment. It kills me to see Devon like this because it’s eerily similar. I would just sit there glassy-eyed, staring at nothing. I’d be in my living room, but it was like I couldn’t see anything that was around us. I couldn’t even see Devon. Everything was just blank inside as if I’d never feel again. It was the scariest moment of my entire life.”

I swallow hard. “That sounds…terrible.”

“Oh, Honey, it was. The worst part is that I think it impacted Devon more than I’d care to admit. Like I set some sort of example of what you should do when you get terrible news, or when you’re hurting really badly. If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve done differently.

“Earlier, I tried to tell him that what I did was the greatest mistake of my life. I thought that bad news was the end of me, but look at me now.” She twirls in her off-pink pencil skirt and suit jacket. “Mayor of Harvest Falls, at your service.”

I give her a genuine smile. “I know he didn’t mean those things,” I tell her. “I know he’s hurting, but I’ve had a lot of people think they know what’s good for me, and they don’t. Here, I liked that I was independent, that I could make my own decisions, but Devon stole that from me.”

She frowns. I can tell she wasn’t expecting me to make a valid point back. “I feel badly that he made you feel that way. He didn’t mean to, mind you. It’s something you all should have a sit and talk about.”