Page 1 of Slow Burn
one
“The fires of suffering become the light of consciousness.” - Eckhart Tolle
Jocelyn’s mama had once said the women in their family were cursed—destined, even—to get burned. Bonnie Murphy had meant by love, but the truth of the statement went beyond what she could’ve predicted with her heartbroken lament.
Jocelyn’s therapist didn’t think the irony was as funny as she did.
Dr. Deborah had, however, encouraged her to go back to Cedar Hollow. Her theory was that visiting the town where Jocelyn had lost her mother might douse the long-flickering flame of obsession.
She probably hadn’t meant for Jocelyn to turn it into a veritable amateur investigation into what happened that night, but closure was closure.
Or so Jocelyn hoped.
But sitting in her car outside the empty lot that had been her childhood home, she wasn’t as sure. Not with the way echoesof memory slipped in and out of her mind like snatches of a nightmare she would never truly forget.
She was the same age her mama was when she died—twenty-nine—and it felt like the years she’d been given were borrowed ones, always meant to be counted twice.
It was still warm in Tennessee in mid-September, but goose flesh popped up in little constellations across her skin, telling a story of unresolved traumas in indecipherable pictures.
She’d started to write them down, scribbling in a journal she’d bought at Dr. Deb’s urging so she could recount the things she remembered from that night.
A fire had burned in her heart for two decades, ever since the conflagration that stole her mother and her home had licked at her bedroom door. One year ago, she’d moved from writing down memories to taking notes as she researched, spending hours looking at reports and articles, not-so-subtly grilling her grandmother, and admitting to Dr. Deb that she wanted to go back to Cedar Hollow to experience the town from adult eyes and maybe get the dreams from her head.
Deb had encouraged her in that. But she didn’t know about the research.
John Hauser’s award ceremony had been the perfect excuse to make the five-hour trek from Asheville, North Carolina to the rolling hills of Middle Tennessee. She’d been invited, after all, though it was unclear how genuine Ellen Hauser had been when she’d sent the official invitation on that shiny card stock in her last letter.
Because Mama had been raising her on her own, aside from Nan, Ellen was pretty much the only mother Jocelyn had known once hers had been taken from her, and she owed John the honor of the day.
Starting the car and chewing her lip, she worked to tear her gaze away from the empty lot. Kudzu ran wild along the backfence, coiling around the trunks of the nearest trees, branches drooping with the weight of the invasive plant. It threatened to take over everything in its path, including the empty lot where the house had once stood. Why had nothing been built in its place? The neighborhood was older, a little more rundown, but certainly not forgotten.
But she knew better than anyone that the fire on Hill Drive was a blemish on the town’s history. Maybe it remained a scar as a reminder for anyone who drove by.
She left the window open and skated her palm over the wind as she drove back toward First Street, the buzz of cicadas a soundtrack of nostalgia. The affectionately tended maples lining the road back to downtown were starting to give up their green; reds and oranges and yellows fluttered in the light breeze like hands waving as she passed. It was that in-between part of the season where summer hadn’t fully let go, but autumn was starting to whisper its name.
Enough of the town had changed to mismatch what she remembered of her days as a girl there. New restaurants, revitalized store fronts, offices, and even a trendy little boutique beckoned tourists passing through on their way to the nearby Falls or old Civil War battlefield sites marked by aged metal placards and old pyramid-stacked canon balls. Some of those very brick buildings bore the marks of prestigious historical status, listing out names of families whose legacies still walked the sidewalks.
First Street was a straight shot through the heart of the town, the artery that led to longer, lonelier stretches of highway outside city limits. Thick tunnels of trees and rolling hills led to the more rural areas of the county.
Past the line of businesses along First Street sat a lovely square of buildings as old as they were stolid. In the center, a patch ofopen space large enough to hold small assemblies pulled people in for picnics and romps in the grass.
She recalled the festivals from long ago—staples of small towns with nothing better to do than celebrate every little milestone even if it was power-washing the courthouse’s brick facade to rid it of the mildew propagated by the quintessential southern humidity.
People would line the sidewalks with their rows of booths and tables, stringing lights and decorations from lampposts, spending just as much time gossiping as they did selling whatever they were offering that season.
No gossip-mongers lined the streets now, but a small platform had been set up on the eastern edge of the grassy inner square with a skinny podium jutting up. Chairs sat in neat rows, dozens-deep, and already a decent crowd had gathered.
Despite the congregation, she had little trouble finding a parking spot. The weather was pleasant enough that a lot of people had likely walked to the square.
Her fixation on the house fire twenty years ago had lured her with easy determination across hundreds of miles, but either the ill-begotten visit to the lot had settled the dread like a boulder in her stomach or the thought of facing the townsfolk she’d spent two decades vilifying set an uncertainty in her bones.
Either way, reluctance pressed her deep into the faux leather of her seat as her hands twisted around the steering wheel. It would’ve broken apart in her hands if she let the anxiety have its way.
She’d already been to the Cedar Hollow Inn, calling on Sally Anne—her mother’s best friend once upon a time—for an early check-in since she and her husband owned the place. Sally had happily obliged, though Jocelyn hadn’t missed the concern written across the other woman’s face.
It didn’t take long for Sally to express the worry that Jocelyn’s presence would cause a bit of a stir. A population of scarcely ten thousand meant that newcomers got noticed, and someone whose history was as deep and bruised as Jocelyn’s was with Cedar Hollow guaranteed her visit would be the talk of the town.
But Jocelyn was okay with talk, especially if it meant the secrets she knew were buried would slip out.
