A mysterious past, an unrequited love, and a desperate need to find himself, fifteen-year-old Kalyn has enough to occupy him without being on the verge of a massive societal upheaval. Join Kalyn and his friends as they explore what it means to come...
We have made it but a dozen yards when we veer off of the well-worn path to the barn. I have travelled this gravel trail every morning for the past fifteen years, on my way to town or to chores, yet this is the first time I have noticed a divergence... a slight parting in the grass, trampled underfoot, by the passage of dedicated feet day after day.
I can still see light glowing warmly through the windows of our cottage. This is a place I never would have ventured to call "home" a decade prior, but a place that has become so much more than that to me in the time since.
Corsa. Arri. Alvi. Even Enos. We are a motley bunch, clinging together with the desperate affection of survivors. A family lost, a family found. What we lack in genetics, we more than make up for in love for one another.
The twins joined our mismatched family nearly seven years after I did. Their parents were killed while out hunting, and Enos's heart and home expanded to accommodate two more. In spite of all that they have endured, the pair became the shining sun we didn't know we were missing. Their laughter fills the house with life. We revolve around them like doting planets.
Perhaps anxiety for this evening has made me nostalgic, but I feel a strong pull for the makeshift home. Even the broken parts. For the man leading me. His hunched shoulders and bowed step make me long for a time when he would have moved with more ease. My guardian has burdened himself with so much to ensure that we have never wanted. He has become a father to us—a role model I can't imagine I will ever live up to—and I love him fiercely for it.
I catch up to Enos as the grass grows longer, tugging at the frayed hems of my pants. The ground becomes more and more unkempt as we venture from the well-tended plot into a wild meadow, a verdant sea, billowing in the wind and moonlight.
He comes to a sudden stop, and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust before I see it. There, beneath a blooming dogwood, is a headstone.
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