ARDEN
“Areyou sure this is the right place, Miss?”
As he handed Arden her overstuffed camping pack, the trucker peered down at her with such sincere concern that Arden felt guilty for worrying him. Honestly, she was worried about herself. For a moment, she indulged in the thought of having him go ahead and take her to the next town. She could get a motel room for the night. It would certainly be more comfortable than what she was planning.
But her money, what little she still had, was running out fast. She couldn’t afford to keep draining it. She needed a place where she could stop and collect herself. Make plans for something longer-term than where she was going to sleep tonight. Figure out what to do with her life.
“It’s fine,” she said, smiling at him. She shrugged into the backpack and fastened the waist strap. If nothing else, she was in better shape than she had been in years. “I have a friend who lives around here.”
The trucker looked doubtfully at the overgrown turn-off into the woods beside the two-lane country highway. Arden had to admit that there was little here to make him—or her, for that matter—feel more optimistic about her plan. Theyhad driven through miles of farm country since the last town, slowly growing wilder and more remote-feeling. Now mountains towered above them, and the trees were dense, showing patches of sunlight here and there, but no sign of houses.
“It’s okay, really,” Arden told him. She held up her cell phone. “I can call my friend. Look, I’m texting her now.”
“Service is pretty spotty out here, Miss. I wouldn’t count on it.”
“It’s fine,” Arden said. “I’m getting bars.”
“Well, good luck to you, Miss.” The trucker frowned as he started to close the door of the big-rig. “You know, I haven’t been able to put my finger on it, but I’ve been thinking for the last few miles that I know you from somewhere.”
“Nope, I’m a nobody,” Arden said firmly. She pulled her sun hat out of a pocket of the pack and clamped it firmly on her head, hoping to hide a little more of her appearance. “I guess I just have one of those faces.”
“Maybe.” He still looked doubtful, but Arden looked down at her phone pointedly and went on with the fake texting until he slammed the truck door. He waved to her, she looked up long enough to wave back, and the semi pulled away with a loud hiss of air brakes.
As the truck vanished around a bend in the road, Arden stopped her mimed texting and put her phone away. She figured his concern was genuine, but there was always the chance that it wasn’t. However, if he believed a friend was coming to meet her, he probably wouldn’t come back.
If only she did have someone to meet her.
Or anyone else in the world who cared at all.
Arden settled the pack more firmly on her shoulders and turned to look at the narrow dirt road in front of her. It was just like the waitress had described to her at the truck stop in the last town, just before she’d hitched a ride. Beside the road, therewas a large boulder, the kind of old glacier deposit found all over this part of the country, splashed with a badly faded mile marker number in red paint.
Arden and the waitress, a chatty motherly type, had gotten friendly, and Arden had relaxed enough to let slip a little of her real situation—she was traveling, she had nowhere to stay, and she was running out of money for buses and motels.
“Gosh, there’s no shelter here, we’re just too small,” the waitress had told her. But there were places in the woods where she could camp.
There’s an abandoned ghost town out on the highway where you could stay for a while. It’s private, and the buildings are still in good shape.The waitress had frowned a little.I heard it got bought by a new owner, but as far as I know they haven’t done anything with it. There’s nobody there. You’ll want to take the side road marked with a red-painted rock. Just look for the mile number.She sketched a little map on a napkin.
Wouldn’t I be trespassing?Arden had asked.
Yeah, I guess, but no one ever goes out there. No one’s gonna know.
“No one’s going to know I’m here,” Arden said aloud.
She had gone from being recognized everywhere to an absolute nobody.
There was nobody to miss her. If she vanished here, it might be a long time before anyone found her.
She took a deep breath, tightened the pack straps, and started walking.
The old roadcurved gently into the trees. Arden crossed a culvert where a small, fast-flowing stream rushed beneath herfeet. Near the highway, she had noticed a few driveways, but back here there was no one at all. Grass and weeds grew up through the middle of the road. There were no sounds except birdsong and an occasional distant car on the highway, now long out of sight behind her. She felt as if she was walking off the edge of the world.
But when she came around a corner and saw the town itself, it turned out to be worth it.
The first thing that met her gaze was a sign, heavily weathered and mounted on two peeling log poles, framing the entrance to the town. The words WINDROCK CITY were just barely legible.
Beyond that, the town began. Old log houses, decades old if not a century or more, lined a narrow main street. Wildflowers spilled around the structures, blue and gold and pink. Behind the town, a mountainside rose steep and wild, covered in pine trees.
Arden walked slowly up the street, looking around her. There was a falling-down boardwalk in front of the houses, and pieces of antique equipment here and there in the flower-filled grass. For the first time in years, her fingers itched to hold a paintbrush and try to capture the picturesque scenery around her.
