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I was going to resume the ritualist loop I’d begun making through town a few nights earlier.
I felt restless and determined as I threw the covers off and ran a hand over my face. When I closed my eyes, I steadied my breathing. The house was still, Valerie likely asleep. She always seemed to sleep heavily, and that was a solace.
I’d been exploring the town in small increments as I tried to clear my mind and shake off the dreams.
Plus. I was looking for Sorina.
Though I never saw her, I felt her watching me, and it made me feel less alone.
Taking care to be quiet, I slipped on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. After grabbing a flannel and my Converse, I’d slipped out my window to the bench below it to put them on.
The air was often hot and sticky, a heat unlike what we experienced in California. A heat that clung to every part of you, suffocated you. But at night, it faded away, crisp air flowing through open windows as cicadas sang, trying to tell me every secret of the town and it’s inhabitants. I still didn’t feel like a resident.
Hart Hollow was in the shape of a cross. We map what we are moved to believe. What is mended into our bones. Past the bridge leading out of town sat a bar and gas station, though we never got gas there.
Early after our arrival, Valerie scoffed at the idea when I suggested we stop in one Saturday as we left town to stock up on my school clothes.
“Let’s stay away from the bars, Nicholas. New leaf, fresh start.”Tabula Rasa.She didn’t say the words, and I didn’t argue as I turned to the window and pretended she didn’t sometimes sound like my mother—or others on the ranch.
After leaving the trailer park, I crept down the road, past Kyrie’s house, onto South Main. There I turned right, past the town’s main cemetery, and over the bridge, out of town.
Once I arrived at the Lazy Lee’s gas station, I stared at the small bar. It couldn’t be bigger than the trailer we lived in and looked like an old garage. The bay doors were open, exposing the patrons to the night.
To me.
There weren’t many there that Thursday night, and I knew I couldn’t get in, but I was drawn to the dirty place. The people inside were night owls like me. That was a want, perhaps, but I didn’t know how unlike me they were. Not yet.
I walked toward one of the open bay doors, planning to sit on the pavement outside, when a voice called me.
I turned to the right, finding a tall woman with shaggy, black hair smoking a cigarette, piercing blue eyes boring into me.
She’d said my name.
I walked toward her. “How do you know my name?” I asked.
She threw her cigarette on the ground, using her boot to extinguish the cherry. “Small town. Everyone knows who the new people in the trailer park are.” She shrugged before hitching her thumb toward the bar. “You can’t go in there. You’re what, sixteen?”
I raised my chin. “Small towns don’t know my grade? My social security number? They aren’t curious about the birthmark on my thigh?” I mocked.
The woman laughed, mumbling something that sounded likesome are.
“I’m seventeen,” I said. “And I wasn’t going in. I was just going to sit outside.”
“This isn’t exactly a fancy diner with nice outdoor seating. Don’t get me shut down, kid,” she said, her voice raspy.
I wondered if it was from the cigarettes, and I didn’t like being called a kid. I didn’t feel like one, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever been one, either.
“Nicholas,” I replied, crossing my arms. “Not,kid.”
“Okay,” she said. “He who mocks.Nicholas, don’t go near my bar, okay?”
“No promises—”
“Diana,” she answered, extending her hand.
I shook it and eyed the entrance to her bar. Above the old wood was a sign, the name hand-painted.Moonies.
I pointed to it, then asked, “Diana Moonie?”
