Page 7 of Red Hunt

I still didn’t know who currently owned it. But in the year I’d been going up there, I’d seen no signs of another human being. So maybe it belonged to no one—like me.

All alone, invisible, hidden.

How fitting.

The sweat trickled in my eyes and made them itch. At least I was already halfway there.

I stepped off the bike and pushed it along the road, toward the last house on the right. As soon as I entered the front yard, the door opened, and little Stevie shot toward me like the mini-tornado he was. “Aunt Milli. We’ve been waiting for-ev-er.” His rolling eyes and over-the-top gestures made me grin. There went my fantasy of a shower.

I leaned my bike against the house, swung my backpack down, and rummaged around until I found the book I’d brought for Stevie. “Got something for you…”

When I handed him the book, I watched his eyes light up. That was my greatest joy and motivation to work as the part-time town librarian. Besides being the town librarian, I kept Grandpa’s grocery store up and running and devoted time to my little side projects in the virtual world. Managing all-the-things was stressful, but Grandpa had been in the hospital more time than not since he’d broken his hip, so there was really no other way than taking over the store. And giving up the job at the library was out of the question. Watching a kid’s eyes light up when they found a new book, how they couldn’t wait to get started reading it at home, nurtured something inside my soul. Some place deep down. Some void space.

The library had been my happy place when I grew up. My only happy place. I’d spent hours there, finding just the right book that could make the ugliness in my life disappear and help me escape into an alternate reality.

Books were temporary lifesavers…until the library closed, and I was forced to go home…without a book…because at home there had been no escape.

“Thank you, Aunt Milli.”

I petted his hair and followed him inside the house where we met Sharon in the kitchen.

“Hey, girl.” Sharon hugged me, totally disregarding my sweaty state.

I kept my flinching to a minimum. I was still only getting used to having friends, let alone them touching me, hugging me as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I still had a long way to go.

Then she leaned back and grinned. “Towels are in the bathroom. Why don’t you hop in for a quick shower and then we’ll get going?”

I could have kissed her right then and there, but instead, I squeezed her hand and followed her advice.

I rushed through the shower, got dressed in the set of fresh clothes I’d always kept stored in my backpack, and we were out the door within ten minutes.

The road down the mountain flew by, and Sharon only spoke once we took a left onto the highway and sped up. “We’ll drop you off at the hospital and pick you up after an hour. Sound good?”

“Sounds perfect. Thank you so much for taking me.”

“No problem. We’ve got some errands to run anyway, right, Stevie?”

I looked back at the boy, but he had his nose deep inside the book and didn’t even react to his mother.

“How’s your grandpa doing with being in the hospital again?”

I shrugged while I looked outside at the lake passing by. “He’s grumpy and pissed.” That was an understatement. It had been nearly ten months since he’d broken his hip the first time, and ever since, he’d been in and out of the hospital constantly. And what it did to his mood…

Grandpa was grumpy and old, but he’d saved me…my sanity, my life.

Without him, I would’ve died inside…agonizingly slowly. Numbing reality with drugs like my mother used to. Or maybe I would’ve come to a breaking point and ended my ordeal altogether.

Those had probably been my only two options to escape that dark, dark place on my own.

Now I could repay him for saving me…at least on a small scale. I just hoped he would get to come home again soon. With him being in the hospital so much and me not having a driver’s license and two jobs, it was difficult and time-consuming to visit him. Just my luck that I had friends now: Alan, the town physician, who called every time before he went to Whitebrook, and Lisa and Claire from the Inn, and their husbands, Peter and Blake, did, too…and of course, Sharon.

Still strange to suddenly have a group of friends who were…normal people.

Not broken like me, but stable and happy and settled. They all worked their jobs, were pillars of the community, and seemed genuinely happy.

All the things I wasn’t…yet.

I shook my head to get the dark thoughts out of my mind. Considering where I came from, I’d come a long way. A really long way. And my surroundings and the people of Moon Lake were a big part of that.

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