“Who’s there?” she called again, trying to soften the alarm in her voice.
No one answered.
Perhaps she should have followed the shadow, but it seemed perilous to trek into the forest without a flashlight, especially since she didn’t know who had been watching her. Instead, she’d phone Jillian Lamb the moment she returned home.
The cicadas began humming again as she climbed the hill. At the top, three stone steps and a pot of flowers welcomed her home. She locked the front door behind her, then she kicked off her rubber boots and padded in her stockings through the dining room, to the telephone in the kitchen.
The switchboard operator connected her right away to Jillian Lamb, her neighbor and a member at Catawba Presbyterian. When she told her friend about the child in the forest, Jillian said her four children were playing Monopoly in their living room, nary a one missing among them.
“Some drifters are camping near the train track,” Jillian said. “Perhaps one of the children strayed.”
Olivia leaned against the kitchen counter as her mind wandered. A number of children, more than a hundred thousand she’d read, had been orphaned or displaced in the past ten years. If the shadow had been the child of a transient, would he be able to find his way home? On this warm summer evening, the shelter of her woods would offer no threat to a boy or girl, but still, if it was a child, she wished she could have provided something—food, a blanket, anything to help.
After bidding Jillian a good night, Olivia climbed to the second floor and knocked on her aunt’s door.
“Come in,” Hattie called, glancing up from her chair as Olivia opened the door, a crocheting hook in one hand and a lilac blue yarn folded on her lap. She wore a floral housecoat with organdy trim, her hair pinned back in a neat bun, the same honey brown as Olivia’s shoulder-length waves.
“Was it a good walk?” Hattie asked.
“The walk was good, but...”
Hattie lowered the hook. “What happened?”
Olivia told her about the cough and then the shadow in the trees.
“Perhaps it was just—” Hattie paused as if trying not to offend her niece by suggesting that Olivia had imagined the child.
But maybe she had imagined it, like she imagined so many things. In the past, she’d re-crafted her imaginings into scenes, patching them together into a story, but now all she had were scattered shards of narrative that whirled like a tornado in her head. Even when she walked in the evening, dreaming of the possibilities, she couldn’t seem to transfer her thoughts and experiences, like she’d once done, into fiction.
She was in desperate need of inspiration.
Hattie reached into her pocket and handed Olivia a stack of letters. “Most of these are from readers.”
While she cherished every letter, replied to each note, most inquiries as of late referenced her next novel, and she no longer had a good response about the delay. “I’ll respond tomorrow.”
Hattie handed her two more letters. “I thought you might want to look at these right away.”
The first was from Herring & Son. She’d open that in the morning with the others.
The return address on the second envelope was from Winfield College in Ohio. She’d heard of the school—Episcopalian, she thought—not far from the farm of renowned novelist Louis Bromfield.
A quick slide of her nail under the seal, and she removed a typed letter.
Dear Mrs. Belle,
Our college is launching a literary magazine called The Winfield Review to foster creative writing among our students. To celebrate this venture, we are organizing a panel of esteemed poets and novelists on September 8th to discuss writing and publishing. With your prolific background and wide readership, we are confident that your expertise would be of great benefit to our student body and faculty alike.
On behalf of our organizing committee, I would like to extend an invitation for you to join four other distinguished writers on this panel. We would cover your travel expenses and offer compensation of $50 for your time.
I apologize for the short notice but eagerly—and hopefully—await your response by telephone or mail.
Sincerely,
Dr. Simon Farrow
Dean of Arts and Humanities
Professor Farrow. She knew that name. He’d written articles about theology and literature for several well-respected journals, but she couldn’t imagine that he’d read her work.
