Where the Wind Goes

Chapter 1 - Memory

Oliver loved the summer song of cicadas. They drowned out the sound of his shovel slicing through dirt. Their music mingled with the truck radio and its staticky, out-of-range blues. Dig, toss, exhale, repeat. His shoulders ached and the blisters on his hands split open, but he kept digging. Sweat dripped in rivulets down his back as the late August sun browned his skin, and still he didn't stop. The humidity fogged his glasses and he tossed them aside. He heard shouts, and someone cursed, but he forced his ears to ignore the noise.

Don't think. Just dig.

He wanted to disappear, to drown his thoughts in a pile of sweat and dirt. He didn't want to think about school or what came after graduation. He didn't want to think about the end of summer or even the end of the day. He wanted to dig to the center of the earth and keep going, if only to be alone, which would've been easier to do if Dad's oldest employee wasn't hell-bent on chatting. Bill was plopped on the edge of his ditch, wearing only his frayed jeans and faded baseball cap that bore the words: Bell Landscaping LLC.

"Someone hit a pipe line," Bill said, using his bunched up shirt to mop the sweat out of his mess of white hair.

So that explained all the swearing and shouting coming from the other side of the jobsite. Oliver paused to peer out the ditch; across the yard, he glimpsed his dad silhouetted against the setting sun, gesturing furiously.

"I'm not here to fetch you," Bill explained, "I'm hiding from your old man. Carry on with your digging. The more you do, the less I have to."

Oliver picked up the shovel and resumed working, but his rhythm was lost. There was too much noise vying for his attention. Bill watched him work, peering over his shoulder like a parrot and gesticulating with a green water bottle while he recounted the recent town council meeting.

"I told 'em a new stoplight wouldn't help anything," he said, pausing to scratch at his peeling sunburn. "No one in this town pays attention, ya know?"

"Mm-hm," Oliver mumbled, torn between his innate politeness and his desire to be alone.

Bill went on, "The mayor's tryna get the ren faire to take down that old sign. You know the one. Says it's dangerous for kids to keep sneaking out there to see it."

Oliver tried to lose himself into the sound of the cicadas and the fuzzy twang of the radio. Dig, toss, exhale.

"I haven't been to the Sign since I was teen myself," Bill sighed. Then he recited the words everyone in Midway knew by heart: "A world away from the one you know," the timber of his voice mingled with the other sounds, "follow the wind and see where it goes. What's that even supposed to mean?" He snorted and took a swig of water.

Oliver kept digging, and Bill's voice fell away. The radio hushed. The air was still and there was only muscle memory. Dig, toss, exhale, repeat. He slipped into his silence as easily as trying on a new pair of shoes. There was the point in manual labor where the world seemed to fall away, and the only sound was his heart beating against his ribs- the only feeling his pulse in his hands. Dad called it the liminal space - a place free from the world and noise. Whatever it was, it wasn't empty.

Something waited for Oliver in the silence.

"Oliver..."

There it is, he thought. He knew that voice, the familiar ghost that lingered just beyond the boundary of his five senses.

"Oliver..." it repeated, and even after four years the sound of his name in that haunting voice made him shiver. "Remember what you promised me?" it whispered, brushing his neck, lifting his hair. "You promised something important," each syllable was a thorn of guilt hissed into his ear. "You forgot."