Through the Darkness: Of Love and Loss Series Book One

14

April 14, 1919, Washington DC

Elyria blew out a heavy sigh and reached into the bowl for another snap pea. She didn't even like them, but she needed something to keep her hands and mind busy instead of dwelling on thoughts better left alone.

"ELYRIA," Daphne called out, flinging the back door open so hard it ricocheted off the siding and then slammed shut. "Oh, whoops—look at this, LOOK AT THIS. It's him!"

"I'd love to," Elyria said with a wry smile, "right after I get a pair of working eyes."

Daphne scoffed. "You know what I meant. Here, I'll read it to you." She plunked down beside Elyria and flicked out the newspaper. Then, muttering a curse under her breath, she flipped a page, "AH-HA. Here it is. Captain Rattlesnake of Malad City, Idaho, seeks correspondence with Pegleg, last seen at Walter Reed Army Hospital, Washington DC." She crumpled the paper in her lap and shook Elyria's right knee. "Can you believe it?"

Elyria forced a swallow down a suddenly too-tight throat. Captain Rattlesnake sought correspondence with her? Worried she would either faint or vomit, she choked out, "It can't possibly be him."

"Of course it is, silly," Daphne laughed. "How many other Captain Rattlesnakes are there trying to contact someone called Pegleg? I'll eat my hat for supper if it isn't your Captain."

"He isn't my Captain." Elyria did her best to ignore the delicious shiver that raced through her from head to toe at remembering the brief moment in time when he had been. "In any case, why would he wish to contact me now? It's been almost a year."

Daphne hummed in concentration and then slapped the paper against her lap. "Perhaps he wants to thank you for your service to him. You're the only person he tolerated, after all. Maybe... he's finally healed and is full of gratitude instead of vinegar."

Elyria let out a short, derisive laugh and grabbed her bowl of peas. "Or," she said, drawing the word out while walking to the door, "he's a different Rattlesnake talking to a completely different Pegleg." It was a long shot, and she knew it.

"Oh phooey, that's a crock of bull poop, and you know it," Daphne grumbled, following Elyria inside the house.

"So what if he's seeking correspondence?" Setting her bowl on the counter, Elyria reached behind her and untied her apron. "Surely, you don't expect me to respond to him?"

"Why not?" Daphne took the apron from her. "He wants you to. It says so right here in plain English, which is both our native tongue. And since I read remarkably well and your ears work perfectly well, I know you understood it."

That's what she thought Daphne would say. Although not in those precise words. She wasn't a mind reader, after all. Elyria hung her head and closed her eyes. "But what if it isn't him... wouldn't it be a waste of paper, ink, and-and postage?"

"You're grasping at straws. It's him, you goose," she chuckled as she seized Elyria by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. "Aren't you just a little curious about what he might have to say after all this time?"

Yes, she silently admitted while biting her tongue. However, she was also terrified.

"I seem to recall several months of you crying on my shoulder over how it didn't end between the two of you as you would have liked. Now's your chance."

Elyria cringed. It'd had been too much to hope her friend had forgotten that." For what?"

"Who knows? To say goodbye... if that's what you wish, or maybe to start a new beginning and see where it leads. You two were brought together for a reason, and I won't be convinced otherwise."