To be a Wildflower

Chapter 14

The days slowly turned into a week and Elizabeth warmed herself by the river and the ranch daily as if they required her attention. These comforting and quiet ventures were mostly taken so that she would be distracted about the letter and the convincing of Jasper which weighed her down. During her treads to the Pebble stone river it never ceased to amaze her to hear nothing but the slosh of water as it bumped into the rocks or slid ever so quietly through the pebbles underneath.

Everything was so still that she almost forgot the wailing sirens and honks back home, which were her usual sounds of familiarity that were now long gone.

And as for the Crawford ranch, the more she visited the desolate acres of paradise, the closer she felt to the letter, and trespassing was not a problem anymore as she later learned that Nolan was a watch keeper at the ranch.

She realised that he was beginning to prefer her around, when she found him intruding the breakfast club regularly much to Vivian's dismay. This discovery made her fumble her words in his presence, while unprecedented beams and laughs escaped her no matter how hard she tried to purse her lips. She began to feel stupid at her immature breakouts and hated it even more to put her dilemma of embarrassment to words. Elizabeth noticed his cheekiness had dissolved to a friendly affection, not completely enough for her to accept him whole heartedly like the Miller-Woods,' but there was a slight difference, ever since that evening by the ranch.

*****

On the morning of September 23rd Elizabeth made her way out onto the streets toward the town square to pick up some essentials and when she stepped closer to the town square she noticed that the streets were vehicle-free as people were crowding the streets while they wrapped twirls of red , yellow and white fabric around lamps. Children were speeding across the streets with tiny red flags with minuscule yellow and white tulips speckled on them, their childish amusements sprinkling the air. Elizabeth saw Billy from the chop shop, in a cleaner pair of pants and a shirt that did not include metal gunk on them, and his white mustache trimmed with much effort, offering the town's folk cold beer and an encouraging, but a very unhelpful wink for the effort.

The Streets were alive with a bustle of explosive energy. With a quizzical frown Elizabeth walked into the heart of the town and as she reached the town square she stopped in amazement. The usual empty town square with its cobble stone boulevard was now scattered with red and yellow tulip petals, just like the bunch of tulips she had seen on her first glance at the town. The fountain at the center of the square was surrounded with a long string of fairly lights which were hoisted above and connected in a star pattern to the five lamp posts at the corners of the town square, which would magnify the glorified statue of Lazarus Wroth rising from the center of the fountain.

Elizabeth caught her breath at the sight before her. She kept turning around trying to catch the whole surrounding with her eyes and paused at the sight of Ruby who was fixing a stall in a corner. When she reached Ruby a thick waft of roasted pecans, baked blueberries and chocolate distracted her senses.

"Ruby these look tempting," Elizabeth said as her eyes were pulled towards a range of flaky cream pies that were lined along teasingly, on her stall table.

"Elizabeth, darlin!" Ruby chirped and looked up from lining her pies. Elizabeth forgot her drooling at the zesty glow that emanated off Ruby.

"Hey Ruby, what's uh all this jazz?" Elizabeth asked while gesturing the town square and trying to pry the cause of Ruby's glow.

"Oh, its founders' day in Chelseaville," she said and picked up a chocolate chip tart off a tray and offered it to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth did not know that places came to life on Founder's Day. While she nibbled on her tart and gazed around in wonder she could not help noticing how jovial Ruby was, she was not this soft around anyone and a hopeful part of her guessed a certain passing delivery man was to be praised for.