My thumb hovered over the phone number when I zeroed in on the address. Old Windmill Hill Road. This farm was just up the street.
“Even better,” I said, backing up the gravel lane to the road. “We’ll get to the bottom of these cows in person.”
I didn’t remember every farm and family around here but I did remember Lollie’s neighbors and they weren’t dairy farmers. Those people had orchards. Apples and berries and stuff like that. I’d helped Lollie around the farm while I lived here, mostly in the form of working the cash register at the far end of the pick-your-own fields in April and May, but I didn’t know enough about farming to tell whether an orchard could transform into dairy land. Couldn’t really see how that would work out but who knew?
I sped up Old Windmill Hill toward the parcel of land now known as Little Star Farms, as determined to right this wrong as anyone in all of human history.
When I reached the top of Old Windmill Hill—with the namesake four-hundred-year-old windmill on one side—I turned down the lane marked with a large sign announcing Little Star Farms. A series of smaller signs hung beneath, readingFresh Baked Bread,Local Blueberries, andHomemadeJam and Wildflower Honey.
The place was bustling with workers. Trucks lined either side of the gravel lane and several greenhouses and large outbuildings stood in the distance, their tall doors flung wide-open. The old farmhouse was still where I remembered it but it was different now, the footprint expanded and styled into a storefront.
I made sloppy work of parking, half on the gravel, half on the heavily trod grass leading to the greenhouses. It was the best I could do, seeing as the parking area was packed. Discovering a line to get into the store only fueled my frustration. The need to bring bread and jam to the community wasn’t so great that these people could leave their moo mobiles wherever they wanted. And where the hell did all these people come from anyway?
Instead of waiting in line to speak with someone inside the store, I headed toward the greenhouses. I passed an outbuilding stocked with machinery and all-terrain vehicles and then another building filled entirely with baled hay. I tried to get the attention of the workers but they were busy unloading supplies with a forklift or carrying a large section of fencing or barking orders and jabs at each other. They didn’t seem to notice me at all.
If I’d been feeling determined before, I was angry now and that anger was odd. It was anoddsensation. The longer I stood there, baking in the late afternoon sun and half listening as the workers called back and forth to each other, the clearer it became I wasn’t completely numb. I’d felt alive since the moment I’d hatched this non-plan to come here, but that was like coming out of a shame-induced coma.
It was that realization that distracted me from registering the man walking up the lane and the little girl stomping beside him. It distracted me hard enough that I missed the girl’s eye patch and the plastic sword she waved with gusto.
It wasn’t until I heard “Ahoy! Land ho!” that I snapped out of my thoughts to take in a pirate girl and the great, bearded mountain of a man holding her small hand. He had a pink backpack slung over his shoulder and a soft lunch box dangling from his fingers. A hat with the Little Star Farms insignia and dark sunglasses shielded his eyes, and in that moment, it seemed he was going to walk right by and ignore me the way everyone else had.
“Yo ho ho,” the girl called, sliding the eye patch to her forehead. Decorative, not functional.
It seemed he hadn’t noticed me until the girl pointed her sword in my direction but then he dropped the lunch box, a cloud of dust rising up around it as he muttered something to himself. Then, “What are you doing here?”
“I am here,” I started, high on my newfound anger, “because trucks belonging to this farm are blocking the entrance tomyfarm and I’ve been trying to find someone who can get them moved. As quickly as possible.”
“Thar she blows,” the girl shouted.
I gave her an encouraging smile and nod because kids just wanted to be acknowledged and she was putting a ton of energy into this pirate bit. Then I turned my attention to the man beside her. “Do you know who is in charge here?”
“Do I know who is in charge,” he repeated slowly, as if I was the one doing the bit. “Yeah, I think I do.”
I flung my arms out. “Can you tell me where to find them?”
He gave a small shake of his head and bent to retrieve the fallen lunch box. He handed it to the girl before crossing his arms over his chest. “Right here,” he said. “You found me.”
chaptertwo
Noah
Students will be able to repress everything.
Shay fucking Zucconi.
In my town. On my farm.
And she didn’t remember me.
That only seemed appropriate. All things considered.
“Are you wearing a onesie?” Gennie asked, finally dropping the pirate’s brogue for a moment. She circled around Shay, giving her clothes a close study. “It looks like a onesie. How do you go to the bathroom?”
Shay gave Gennie a smile that held no hint of annoyance. That surprised me. I figured she would have no use for the six-year-old who’d never once kept a thought to herself. Or she’d offer some curt remark and then ignore the child.
After all, Shay Zucconi was too good for all of this. For all of us.
“It’s called a romper,” Shay said. She sounded like she was talking to a friend. “If you want to talk about real grown-up onesies, that’s a bodysuit, and those are a lot easier in the bathroom. These things”—she gave a half turn, gesturing to the zipper down her back—“are a little bit of a nightmare.” She held out her hand to Gennie. “I’m Shay. What’s your name?”
