The Rain Sparrow. Linda Goodnight

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The Rain Sparrow - Linda  Goodnight

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that you’d be doing me a favor and getting paid at the same time. How about that?”

      Brody shook his head. “I come to the library every day after school anyway. We can meet up here. My dad won’t have to know.”

      That worked for Hayden. Sometimes keeping your mouth shut was the safest way.

      Carrie’s soft voice intruded. “Not a good idea, Brody. Your dad would worry if he doesn’t know what you’re doing or who you’re with.”

      “Nah, he don’t care about that. He just gets mad if I bother him about stupid stuff that don’t matter to him.” Then, as if he’d said too much, Brody slunk down in his chair and went silent, arms crossed tightly over the raptor logo.

      Hayden huffed a frustrated breath. This was between him and Brody. Carrie should stay out of it.

      He shot her a warning look and then said to Brody, “Is your dad working tonight?”

      “Yeah.”

      “What are you doing for dinner?”

      “I don’t know.” The words were mumbled.

      “Can you recommend a good burger place?”

      Brody’s head came up. “Plenty of them around here.”

      “I’m starved. Let’s grab a burger and talk this over. We’ll figure out something.”

      The boy looked to Carrie. Her lips had thinned as if she was annoyed with Hayden for pushing. But pushing was how he’d gotten to where he was. No risk, no reward.

      Soften a kid up with food and they’d tell you things. He knew about that, too.

      “I guess I can do my homework later.” Brody jammed the English book back into the bag.

      “You should do your homework first, Brody.” Carrie glared at Hayden with those soft eyes now glittering with annoyance.

      Hayden held up both hands in surrender. “I guess you’re stuck, Brody. We don’t want to make Miss Carrie mad. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to need this library over the next couple of months.”

      “Yeah. Me, too. Miss Carrie’s usually real nice.”

      Teeth bared, Carrie flared her fingers like claws. “They don’t call me the dragon lady for nothing.”

      Hayden offered his most charming smile, wanting back on her good side. “The dragon lady wins. Homework first, Brody, my man. We’ll hang around until closing time and feed Miss Carrie a burger, too. Maybe some ice cream. Sweeten her up.”

      “The library doesn’t close until five,” she said.

      “Which gives my pal and me time to wrestle out the English assignment. Then we can drive around Honey Ridge, and you can show me the sights.”

      Carrie shook her head. The light caught the pearly luminescence of her earrings. “We already have breakfast on Thursday.”

      “You only eat once a week?”

      She huffed, amused. “I have books to drop off after closing. Shut-ins that live up on the ridge.”

      “Mind if I tag along?”

      She blinked, puzzled. “Why would you want to?”

      Because you intrigue me. All buttoned up, neat and tidy, and fresh as a flower. When his curiosity was roused, he never backed off until it was satisfied.

      If he was truthful, he felt a connection with Carrie, whether because of Brody or their obvious shared love of books or something else. He wanted to know her better.

      “Research,” he lied, smooth as warm butter. “I need to get the lay of the countryside anyway.”

      “Oh, right.” Her eyes twinkled. “A place to commit murder.”

      His smile was intentionally diabolical. “Exactly.”

      “In that case, you’re staying across the road from the creepiest place in Honey Ridge. You should check that out first.”

      “Yeah.” Brody piped up. “The old gristmill. People say it’s haunted.”

      “Haunted, is it?”

      The South was full of supposedly haunted places. Hayden had never given the stories credence. But then the dream flashed in his head, the dream about a Yankee miller and the Portland Grist Mill.

      Victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

      —William Faulkner

      1867

      If the watch was an omen, Thaddeus faced a dismal future.

      Late in the evening on the first hot, sticky day of walking, he’d reached inside his vest to check the time only to come away empty. A search of his carpetbag proved every bit as futile. His silver pocket watch was gone.

      Distraught to lose this final link to Amelia and the past he never wanted to leave behind, Thad considered turning back to retrace his journey.

      Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades as he contemplated a long, hungry walk that would likely turn up nothing. He didn’t even know where to look. The last he’d seen the timepiece was on the train before disembarking. A train bound for Chattanooga and beyond.

      For an hour, he sat under an oak by the side of the dusty trail, head in his hands, and mourned. More than the loss of his timepiece, Thad mourned what the watch represented. Amelia. Their love. Their life together.

      Gone. Everything that mattered gone.

      He’d given up the familiar and his future in Ohio to come to this hostile state. Losing the pocket watch felt as if he was giving up the last vestige of who he’d been, of who he was. It felt like letting go of Amelia and Grace all over again.

      He considered making camp for the night, but night was still hours away, so he finally roused himself and, weary now in a way he hadn’t been, trudged onward.

      Without the watch, he kept time by the morning and evening of each day as God had done in Genesis, though he quaked to compare himself to the God who gave and took away.

      Each night he lay his head beneath the oaks and willows, listened to their whispers, thankful he traveled in summer, though mosquitoes and chiggers feasted on his flesh until he had no place left that wasn’t covered in itchy bumps. Last night, he’d stolen an ear of corn from a farm and gnawed the raw kernels after river fishing proved unsuccessful. He’d found blackberries growing along the river’s edge, but too many berries pained a man and he’d learned to be careful.

      At the third daybreak, after a night on ground soppy with southern dew, he ate a handful of those same berries, then dipped in the river, the cold water soothing his insulted, itchy skin. Then he hiked up and over a long, wooded ridge,

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