Prologue
A beautiful blue sky held white-and-grey clouds drifting high above the treetops, and a gentle breeze blew softly through the woodlands. A leaf carried by the breeze danced to the song of the wind calling through the trees, gently descending towards an unbeaten path.
Jacob was a brown-haired, hazel-eyed, energetic, and youthful ten- – almost eleven- – year-old with an energy one might describe as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He was out with his best friend, Sabrina, recently turned fourteen years old, whose eyes were like the colour of a cloudless sky, her flaxen-blonde hair like fields of wheat. Accompanying them was their mutual friend, Belle, the almost-nineteen-year-old town beauty, with hair like black silk that almost seemed to reflect a starry night sky, whose high cheekbones and deep-set chocolate-brown eyes somehow made her look mature for her age, and she had the height to go along with it
“Look!” cried out Jacob happily, pointing towards the falling leaf, a twinkle in his eye. “Another one. I can add this one to my pressed leaf collection too,” he said as he held out his hand to catch the falling leaf. “Isn’t nature wonderful?”
Belle smiled, holding her broad-brimmed hat to her head. “He sure is enthusiastic today.”
Sabrina furrowed her brow and smiled. “He’s enthusiastic every day, which you’d know if you came out with us more often.”
Belle frowned a little and tilted her head as her eyes darted around and she pulled down the sides of her hat. “Uh, okay. Sorry about that.”
“Why are you out here with us today anyway?”
“Actually, Angela asked me to come out and make sure neither one of you got up to any mischief.”
“What? Then why come out here at all?” asked Sabrina.
Jacob spoke up. “Don’t worry, it’s just my mum being bothersome again. I know she does it because she cares, but sometimes I think she worries a little too much, you know?” Jacob pointed to himself and Sabrina. “We come out here and do this all the time, so I don’t see why today would be any different.”
“She told me not to tell you this,” began Belle, “but she said she had an ominous feeling about today, although she couldn’t really explain why.”
As Jacob, Sabrina, and Belle ambled back to the village, the ground started rumbling. Jacob gasped, crouched down, and put his ear to the ground.
“The train!” he said, his eyes as wide as his smile.
“So what?” said Sabrina with a raised eyebrow and a smile. “The ground always rumbles when the train passes by.”
“It’s different this time. I can feel it.”
Sabrina laughed. “What, you mean you have some sort of a premonition?”
“No, I can literally feel it through the vibrations in the ground. The train’s stopping this time. Do you know what that means?”
Sabrina and Belle looked at each other plainly.
“Someone new’s coming to the village!”
Jacob bolted back to the village in a tizzy of excitement, unintentionally kicking up a small whirlwind of dirt behind him, the girls having to cover their faces from the dust.
Adam’s Arrival
Adam, a tall, well-built yet rugged young man, in perhaps his mid- to late twenties, with a scruffy head of hair and eyes that were neither a deep nor light shade of blue, stepped down from the steam train and took in the scenery of the exceptionally well-kept old wooden train station. He walked through the station, tipping his hat to the staff and other patrons as he continued onwards out of the station and onto the old dirt road. He headed off to his right to visit an old village he’d heard a lot about.
“Few people come back from that place, Adam,” rang his grandfather’s words in his ears. “So, be prepared to settle down there if you ever plan to visit.”
The winding old road was considerably longer than Adam had prepared for, and on a hot summer’s day like today, he was eternally thankful for the shade provided by the fully grown trees that lined both sides of the road. A white picket fence ran along the road to the left. Wiping his brow, he put down his duffel bag and sat by a tree, taking a swig of water from his flask. He leaned back against the tree, lowering his hat over his face, and closed his eyes.
An hour or so later, he woke up feeling remarkably well rested, adjusted his hat, picked up his belongings, and energetically continued on his way. The winding road rose and fell with the valleys and hills, the scenery barely changing from one stretch of road to the next.
This village I’ve heard so much about sure is a lot farther away from the train station than I’d expected, he thought as a train whistled far off in the distance.
“And when you’ve walked farther than you ever thought possible,” rang more words in his ears, “after you’ve emerged from the canopy of trees, look far into the distance, and there you’ll see it. Like a beacon of hope. A light at the end of the tunnel. That small, quiet village where nothing much ever happens. Where you’ll want for nothing, and ordinary people live ordinary lives. That place you’re one day likely to call home. It’s there, just atop a small hill at the bottom of a valley.”
As those words finished ringing in Adam’s ears, he saw it. Just as his grandfather described. He smiled, walked onwards, a slight skip in his step and a song in his heart.
Children of all ages were having fun playing a variety of games in the streets. Games such as marbles, jacks, red light-green light, hopscotch, and so on, their parents watching them from the porches of their houses, making sure they were well behaved. One of the children looked up, noticing something off in the distance.
It was Jacob running back to the village as fast as legs could carry him.
“Mum, Mum!” he shouted again and again. “Grandpa. Grandma. Everyone! The train stopped. Someone new’s coming to the village.”
“My word,” said Jacob’s mother, Angela, in disbelief. “It’s been such a long time since someone new came to the village,” she added, just as her son had caught up to her. “Go and ask Grandma to bake some cookies for whomever this new guest is going to be.”
“When is Grandma not baking cookies?”
“Jacob. Go.”
“Yes, Mum.”
While the oldest couple in the village were only truly grandparents to a small handful of the children, they were affectionately known to everyone as Grandma and Grandpa, or sometimes Mr. and Mrs. G. They were both short and round, with grey heads of hair, and each had a rather jolly disposition. Their weatherboard house sat in not quite in the centre of the village and was painted bright red with white highlights.
“Oh, Jacob,” said Grandma, taking her freshly baked cookies out of the oven. “Come in. You’ve arrived just in time. Adam’ll be here any minute.”
“How do you know his name?” asked Jacob, taking a plate from the kitchen cupboard to help Grandma put the cookies onto.
“When you’ve been alive as long as I have, Jacob, you become aware of so much more than what your five senses allow for.”
“Okay,” he replied, not really understanding what she meant.
Almost everyone had gathered at the edge of the village where Adam was approaching, the children happily musing amongst each other about what this newcomer was going to be like.
As Adam walked ever closer to the village, he couldn’t help but smile, and seeing everyone gathered, he decided to give a big, slow wave of his arm.
“He waved,” said many of the children excitedly, waving back, big smiles helplessly on their faces.
“Welcome to the village,” said Angela, offering the plate of Grandma’s cookies to Adam.
“Oh, thank you,” said Adam as he took a cookie before taking a bite. “Wow, you’re a great baker, ma’am.”
“Oh, I wish I could take the credit,” she said, a little embarrassed, “but these were actually baked by Grandma.”
“Well, then my compliments to your mother.”
“Oh, she’s not my mother, but everyone here calls her Grandma.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“It’s okay. Easy mistake to make. I suppose I should introduce you to everyone.”
Jacob, being Angela’s son, was introduced first. “This little dark-haired ten-year-old of mine is quite lively, very friendly, and easily gets lost in his own thoughts.”
Next was Jacob’s best friend, Sabrina. “These two have been best friends for as long as I can remember. Sabrina’s family used to live in the next town over, but a few years ago, they moved here, and Jacob couldn’t have been happier. And that flaxen-blonde hair of hers – I’m so jealous.”
“You’re jealous of my hair, Angela?” asked Sabrina, her eyes wide. “I would give anything to have naturally jet-black hair like yours.”
“Maybe in the next life we can swap.”
“Maybe.”
“Anyway, those two girls over there eating lunch on the front steps of Grandma and Grandpa’s house are Belle and Donna.”
“The taller one’s Belle,” Sabrina pointed out. “And the shorter, rounder one is Donna. They’re best friends too, just like me and Jacob.” She called out to them to come over, but they didn’t quite hear her, although they both waved, Donna far more enthusiastically than Belle.
“And these two here casually leaning up against the fence are brother and sister, Maxwell and Julie,” continued Angela.
“Max, please,” said Maxwell, coming over to Adam with an outstretched arm for a handshake.
“Hi, Max,” said Adam, shaking Max’s hand.
“Julius,” called Julie, raising her hand. “You know, like Julius Caesar?”
“Got it.”
“But Julie’s fine too. You know, whatever.”
“Okay, so it’s …” began Adam as he pointed to each person as he said their names “Julie, Max, Sabrina, Jacob, the two girls on the steps, and Belle and Diane.”
“Donna,” interrupted Jacob.
“Donna, right. And I don’t believe you’ve given me your name, ma’am,” he said as looked at Angela.
“Mum’s name’s Angela, but you haven’t said your name either.”
“Uh,” Adam paused. “I haven’t,” he said, wide eyed. “The name’s Adam. Nice to meet you all.”
“Hi, Adam,” said everyone.
“Of course,” began Angela, “there are other people to meet in the village too, but for now, I think we should get you settled in. There’s an empty old house at the back of the village by the road that goes down to the convenience store. We’ll put you up there for as long as you like.”
“You mean the inconvenience store,” interrupted Jacob.
“Jake. You know better than to interrupt.”
“No, it’s quite all right. The inconvenience store, you say?” asked Adam, his head tilted slightly and an eyebrow raised.
“It’s just so far away that it’s really inconvenient to go there,” said Jacob.
“Hence why we call it the inconvenience store,” added Sabrina.
“I see. You’ll have to take me there one day.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” said Angela, inserting herself back into the conversation. “Come on, Adam. Your new place is this way.”
Angela, Jacob, and Sabrina all led Adam to his new abode, where he unpacked, felt unusually at home, and had one of the greatest night’s sleeps he’d had in longer than he could remember.
