Scarlett got up and closed the door behind her. The house felt warm, but it felt familiar to have this little something off itself in this very same place, sitting clumsily in her chest. She shrugged, shook herself clear, though the subtle murmur of cicadas remained to hang suspended over outside.
The town of Hawthorne was waking up, or maybe it never really slept. The weight of the trees, old and unyielding, made her feel them, the mist curling through their skeletal branches like secrets whispered. She felt as if someone watched her, a little.
She stood in the hallway breathing deep into the smells of fresh bread and of lavender from her mother's kitchen. She tried to remind herself that this was home, or at least it used to be. Returning brought more questions than comfort.
She reached for her coat and stepped outside for some air. The moment she did, the unease rose again, sharper this time.
The cobblestone streets seemed colder than she remembered ever. The houses seemed just the same, yet somehow hollow-as if they waited for someone.
She was looking down at a small market square, just a few blocks off. She took a few unsteady steps in that direction. She felt the reverberations of laughter, of hometown gossip and community gatherings - all just a little dulled, as if she is in some sort of dream she couldn't quite touch.
Not by herself.
It had started like a shadow alongside-the movement on the curve of a narrow alley. Scarlett froze on her pace, her heart racing on. She kept telling herself it is nothing, but her body hardened; the breath was shallow.
"Only a cat," she whispered to herself.
Then again the sound came.
Her heart was stuffed into her ribs. She looked down the street. Nothing. The mist had made it hard to see and every shadow alive. She would swear she had seen a figure, but when she concentrated, it was gone.
Scarlett laid aside the fear, hoping it was all her imagination, and entered the market square. Here, in these local shops, once it used to be full of people greeting each other, opening up their stalls, and sharing stories while the scent of fresh bread or roasted coffee floated around.
But the closer she got to the ancient tower, marking the center of the square, these streets felt the more abandoned. No warm words. No smiling faces. Just the screams of the wind tearing through cobblestones and cracks and squeaks of age-old wooden building constructions within the houses on either side.
She thrust through all this thinking, steadying herself in the anxiety also, as well as she was able. She listened to the quiet padding, rhythmic, deliberate and suddenly turned upon it, her stomach turning.
And here was he.
He was a man at the far end of the square, a figure in a dark coat, his hair dampened by the mist. His features were sharp and angular, totally unfamiliar, yet there was something about him that reached in and touched a memory, just out of grasp. His eyes were cold and calm, and Scarlett stood, frozen.
He was looking at her.
Scarlett clasped her coat and tried to think about the man. She automatically knew he was not just another street guy. There was something special in the way he gazed at her.
Can I help you?
He didn't respond to her. He took slow steps toward her. Scarlett felt the pounding of her heart, each nervous beat.
I think you can, he said finally, his voice smooth but low.
Scarlett swallowed hard, her mind racing. His words sent an icy thread of fear through her.
Who are you ?
The man hesitated, glancing toward the misty horizon. "A friend. Perhaps… an old one."
She searched his face for any recognition, but nothing came. His words felt both comforting and foreboding.
"Look, I think you're wrong—", she started to say, but he stopped her.
"I've been waiting for you, Scarlett Whitmore," he said, his eyes piercing hers.
Scarlett drew short breath. The repetition of her name, spoken with such deliberation, sent her reeling. She didn't know whether this man was a threat, a friend, or merely a product of her anxiety.
"Who are you ?
The man took another step forward
Scarlett hesitated. "About what?"
"About Hawthorne," he said. His voice was a heart touching. The words sliced through her like a jagged spear of pain, more real than anything she could ever deny.
And Scarlett stood there, her breath coming quickly, her heart racing, the cold seeping into her bones, as he turned to disappear back into the mist-shrouded streets leading back into town without a word.
She wanted to follow him but her feet felt heavy.
What had she just gotten herself into?
man a friend or a ghost?
Her mind reeled at the wind pulling at the mist as it carried his words to her like shadows: Hawthorne, your father, the secrets buried here.
And suddenly she wasn't sure if going back to Hawthorne was going to lead her anywhere but deeper into the dark.
She took one last look at the empty square and started to walk away from her mother's house, the wind catching at her coat, cold burrowing deep into her bones.
The walk back to her mother's seemed several miles more than what it was. Scarlett's paces sounded on the cobblestones as her thoughts, fears, and questions kept running through her .
She may have sworn she felt the weight of him behind her, but he was gone. Some kind of refrain stuck in her head, words that nipped at the edges of something buried long ago: secrets.
Scarlett had known, of course she knew, that every family had secrets. EVERYONE did. That is, until her thoughts conjured the idea of it running deeper within and into something that had been latched to Hawthorne itself. The notion really did make her skin crawl as it wasn't one to consider as a child visiting grandparents, assisting at the local library. It was one of those things to be buried. Now that she was crossing over with mist-shrouded streets that made her feel it was clawing its way toward the top.
She turned her thoughts toward her father. He died years before she was cognizant enough to care even about the town's and family's secrets. Maybe this dark-coated man understood something of her father, something in Hawthorne's secrets: what might he know of her?
Light spilled through the frosted panes of her mother's house; she quickened her pace, and wind nipped at her cheeks. Breath came more sharply now, lungs cold, home was within view. It looked nearly familiar, nearly real; though everything seemed so much not, what had transpired.
She pushed the door open and entered. Scent of lavender and of bread wafted inside, comforting, ordinary.
And at this appearance by the hallway, her hair disarranged and her hands a-rubbing round at the sink in the kitchen. With sight of Scarlett, the hardness left the eyes.
"Well, Scarlett! You come in early. I was bakin' some bread," she said, her voice warmly relaxing to see her daughter there at the door.
Scarlett hesitated for a moment weighing the words of the man against that strange thing that sat inside her chest, and she nodded and moved into the house; the comfort was very ordinary, this mundane warm comfort of home.
But when her mother finally closed the door behind her, Scarlett knew things in Hawthorne would not be ordinary ever again.
He left her with more questions than answers, and they did not leave her in peace until she found the truth.