Cross country practice began three weeks ago, only a week after school ended. I have been pushing myself to my limits, determined to be able to keep up with Maria by the end of the summer. Today, though, I am running slowly through the woods behind the school, taking a much-needed easy day after weeks of difficult practice, along with the rest of the girls' team: Lisa, Maria, Bianca, Bianca's older sister Brianna, Brianna's friend Isabella, and a freshman named Sadie. All the trails seem the same to me, but the other girls decide they are bored of our usual paths and we wander off on one of the lesser-used trails.
The path is so thin that we run in single file, Hope guiding me carefully through the narrow gaps between the trees. Just as I am about to complain that we're running on more of a deer trail than an actual path, Bianca stops short and I almost crash into her.
"What's the mat—?" Maria starts to ask before cutting off suddenly. "Well, that's strange."
"Did you guys know this was here?" Sadie asks.
"What's going on?" I ask, completely lost.
"There's something in a clearing there... Just off the path... There's three benches, some bushes, and bricks have been laid into the ground."
We walk over to the clearing, curious as to why something like this would be located off a tiny path in a remote part of the woods.
I run my hand over one of the benches, feeling how the arm of the bench curls inward in a spiral just before it ends. "These bushes are well-pruned," Isabella observes. "Someone has been here recently."
I trace the pattern of the brick with my fingers, stopping when I feel some sort of groove in one of the bricks. I realize the brick is carved with letters, and I carefully trace them, reading without seeing.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF LOUISIANA DAVIDSON
Davidson. Could she be related to Coach Davidson?
No one sees the brick, and we continue on our run, the others soon growing bored of their speculations about what we have just seen. I can't forget about it, though, can't stop thinking about the engraved brick in the strange area in the clearing.
YOU ARE READING
Puzzle Pieces (formerly Reach for the Sky)
General FictionAutumn Fletcher's life is a mess. Her mother is gone, her father locks himself in his room when he's not at work and refuses to speak to anyone, and no one but her grandmother believes she can amount to anything. When Autumn's family moves to the sm...
