“Someone around here must know the truth!”
“Oh, a hundred rumors flew around the playground when your mama and I were kids, but sixty-some odd years have passed. No one talks about Mrs. Belle anymore.”
Harper was increasingly curious about this woman who caught the world’s attention with sweet romance that she wrote from a tower. “How does one simply vanish from friends and family?”
“I don’t think she had any family left. Her husband and daughter died long ago.”
“So she just left this beautiful property behind...”
“Hence the many legends.”
Now, all these years later, if Mrs. Belle could tell the story of her life, what would she say?
Harper turned to scan the trees along Hammer Creek. “I remember visiting a lake near here when I was younger.”
“The nearest lake is probably ten miles away.”
“I swear I found one near the creek.” But no matter what the experts said, hindsight was not always twenty-twenty. At least her memories, mixed up with her imagination, could be unreliable.
The phone crackled. “I’m losing you.”
“A lake,” Harper repeated. “Close to the creek.”
But Aunt Marcia was gone.
Harper tucked her phone into her jeans pocket and eyed the tower again. A beacon almost, calling to her. As if it wanted to share its story.
First, she’d hike up the creek to search for the lake from her memory. Then, perhaps, if she could find her way around the gate, she’d visit the house.
Ghosts didn’t scare her.
11:Olivia
NOVEMBER 1940
Olivia stared at her face in the oval mirror, lines billowing out from light-green eyes, rivulets of gray hair in a sea of brown. While the dressing-table mirror tried to convince her otherwise, she’d shed at least three burdened years in the past three months.
Simon’s vitality, his passion for the many facets of life, had stirred something inside her. Like she’d traveled back into her thirties instead of stepping into her forty-sixth year.
She wouldn’t tell a soul, especially not Hattie, but she’d begun to dream about what life might be like as Simon’s wife. Not that he’d hinted at any such thing. Besides the occasional kiss on the cheek, he’d shown no expression of anything beyond friendship. But those sweet kisses, the simplest of affection, fired through every vein. Like hidden ashes under a mound of debris, sparked anew with fresh wood and a spring breeze. A warm, reimagined life.
Simon was the perfect gentleman, courteous and kind when he visited. So considerate that she’d often thought the spark she felt was from a distant fire. She didn’t know if he had any intention beyond enjoying her company as a colleague and friend, and she’d never give him a reason to suspect her interest in a future with him. Absurd, really, for her to even entertain such thoughts.
Simon had spent the past two weekends in Catawba, driving up on Friday and leaving after church. She’d hoped Hattie would choose to be cordial after a few weeks, but—
Her aunt had holed up in her room when she found out that Simon would be returning this afternoon. Olivia felt split between loving Hattie and expanding her heart to love anew a man who’d been generous with both of them. It was hard for her aunt, she knew that well, to lose her only niece to a stranger, but Olivia had promised her that no matter what happened, Hattie would always have a place with her. She only hoped her aunt’s hostility would slowly thaw like it had over the years with Graham.
A dab of lipstick, the faintest of pink, then Olivia tied an apricot-colored scarf around her neck. She could do nothing about the strands of gray, but she could choose in that moment to live again—truly live—no matter her age. With joy in this life as well as hope for the next one.
In the mirror, she caught a reflection of her wedding day. The photograph on her bedroom wall had been taken twenty-five years ago. Even though she had worn fancy heels, Graham had been almost a foot taller, his wide smile welcoming the entire world into his embrace. But he didn’t just stop at compassion. He thought the greatest act of love was sharing the gospel. As a minister, he preached far and wide about the redemptive power of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Simon was more reserved in his faith, but they’d bonded over their mutual grief, love of story, and belief in a God who was alive and involved today. Even though Simon wasn’t a reverend like her father and Graham,he could still prompt his students in a friendly manner to think about a loving God who wanted to redeem their world. In her mind, Winfield College was his mission field.
She added a pearl pin to her ensemble and straightened it. Twice.
It was absurd, all this overthinking when he’d never even hinted at a proposal. She would simply enjoy his company and the words he’d inspired within her.
She gathered her stole from the wardrobe and moved downstairs. It was almost half past eleven, and while she’d invited him to brunch at the manor around eleven thirty, he asked to take her out instead to a restaurant in Lititz. Given the circumstances with her aunt, she readily agreed.
