March Forth (The Woodford Chronicles Book 1)

by Deirdre S. Hopton

  She had gone to the front, pushing the irate-but-intimidated Drew to the side gently and holding up a cigarette. The Rasta Man took it and inclined his head toward the door slightly, as if inviting her outside, so she followed him. It was so rare that any of his attempts at communication made sense, she didn’t see how she could turn down the subtle invitation.

  While they were outside, smoking cigarettes together, he talked more than she had ever heard him talk before. Most of it was obscure gibberish that she couldn’t understand. Even those words that she could actually decipher made no sense, like when he said, “Had a new motorcycle, brand new, dunno where I left it. Maybe Ohio?” Despite her lack of comprehension, she smiled and nodded as if chatting with an old friend; she felt like he needed someone to talk to. Finally Rasta Man looked her dead in the eye, with those sad, scared, haunted, crazy eyes of his, and said, as clearly as he could, “Is it safe to be here, Lady?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Have a good day.”

  He looked up at the sky and then just wandered away, looking around him with an air of fascinated confusion that made Deanna think of a newborn child.

  Remembering that day now, she smiled, picturing him riding a brand new motorcycle down a highway in California or someplace similarly warm and wonderful. Although she knew it was highly unlikely, if not impossible, that he had ever owned a brand new motorcycle, much less lost and found one, it was what she hoped had happened to him. She wanted to believe that wherever he was, he was happy, healthy, and well –fed, and had found his brand new motorcycle.

  “God knows I’ve made some bad life choices,” she thought. “If it weren’t for my parents bailing me out, I could easily have become one of the homeless of Woodford.”

  She shook her head, trying to clear it of those familiar but unwelcome self-deprecating thoughts, and looked at the clock on the wall. She decided to head to the coffee shop down the street while her clothes were in the washing machine; hanging around in the laundromat was just depressing.

  As she opened the door of the coffee shop, a merry little bell jingled to announce her presence. It was a cozy place, with couches and armchairs set up around little tables, and books and magazines laid out for patrons to enjoy while they sipped their coffee or enjoyed their snacks.

  “Oh, hey, Deanna!” Paul, the owner, exclaimed as he emerged from behind a curtain that separated the little kitchen from the front of the store. “Haven’t seen you in a while, how’ve you been?”

  “I’m well. Same old, same old.”

  “How’s the job hunt going?”

  “Nothing yet,” she admitted. “Just revamped my resume, though. Thinking about getting out of the restaurant industry.”

  “Oh, yeah? I don’t blame you, it’s a tough business,” Paul replied. His eyes, Deanna noticed, looked a little glazed, and he smelled like he had just emerged from the inside of a bong. Paul was a sweet guy who had never quite mentally left the 1960’s. “Good luck with everything.”

  “Thanks, Paul,” she replied, and he disappeared behind the curtain again without asking if she wanted anything.

  After standing awkwardly for a few seconds, she called, “Hey, Paul?”

  His head appeared around the curtain. “Oh, hey, Deanna. What’s up?”

  “Could I… if you’re not too busy…. Could I get a coffee?”

  “Sure, sure, never too busy for you!”

  Deanna smiled and glanced downward, repressing the urge to giggle at Paul’s marijuana-infused brand of customer service. The jingling bell on the door caused her to look back up, and she found herself face to face with the BitterSweet Bistro’s head bartender, Louis Miller. The smile Paul’s antics had caused faded, and she tried to school her features into a poker face.

  Louis Miller was probably the last person on Earth she would have liked to see at that moment.

  He had been a friend and mentor to her at the BitterSweet, and somewhere along the way, she had developed a giant crush on him. It had not ended well, due largely to the issues Deanna was dealing with in her own mind at the time. She did not want to think about how she had behaved toward Lou shortly before leaving the BitterSweet. Seeing him, and feeling his judgements – whether they actually existed or not, she felt them - would not be helpful to getting her out of her winter funk.

  He was right there, though, and looking right at her, so she didn’t really see any other choice.

  “Hello, Lou,” she said, keeping her voice and countenance reserved.

  “Hey, you,” he responded lightly. “How are things in your world?”

  Deanna shrugged, unwilling to admit she was pretty much failing at life. She was horrified to realize there were tears gathering behind her eyes.

  “Here you go, Deanna,” Paul interrupted. “Oh, hey, Lou! Hey, this must be like a reunion for you guys!”

  The awkwardness in the air was so thick, Deanna thought she would choke on it, but Lou managed to power through. “It has been a while. Could I just get my usual, Paul?”

  Paul scampered back through the curtain, leaving Lou and Deanna in awkward silence.

  “So, anything new?” Deanna asked, in as casual a tone as she could muster.

  “Not really. BitterSweet’s still crazy, but good. And I’m doing a lot better,” Lou responded, making Deanna remember things that made the tears behind her eyes threaten to spill over. “I’m going to meetings again. Got four months under my belt now.”

  “Good, good,” she murmured in response. “I’m glad you’re getting healthy.”

  “I really am,” he expounded. “The bar is busier than ever, I’m working on my art, meditating every day… I feel like myself again for the first time in a long time.”

  “Guess sometimes you have to go through hell to see the face of God.” Deanna was rather surprised to hear these words coming out of her own mouth, with no apparent input from her brain.

  “Not sure I’ve seen the face of God,” Lou said with a half-smile. “Just getting myself back on track.”

  “I’ve always imagined he looks like Tom Petty,” she found herself blurting.

  Lou’s eyebrow shot up in response. She was glad his black-rimmed glasses hid a bit of the expression in his eyes, which she was certain, at this point, would be one of condemnation.

  Lou’s lips twitched for a moment, before he finally said, “Tom Petty?” with an amused air.

  “Oh, yeah,” Deanna said, trying to hide her embarrassment. “Almost every time I’ve had any kind of major epiphany or creative inspiration, Tom Petty was playing for some reason. So I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that God looks like Tom Petty.”

  “Makes perfect sense,” Lou said, politely.

  Deanna imagined he was probably thinking she should be committed. She had the sudden urge to flee.

  “Well, I’d better run,” she said aloud. “Things to do.”

  “It was good to see you, Deanna,” Lou responded softly.

  She fairly ran out of the café.

  She knew she was being silly, but seeing Lou had been like being punched right in the self -esteem, when her self-esteem was just trying to get back up after some serious abuse. She tried to push the encounter out of her mind and think positive thoughts as she walked back toward the laundromat.

  As she approached the laundromat, she noticed the robed man again, standing in the doorway of the apartment building next door. She nodded and smiled in greeting, and he murmured something quietly enough that she wasn’t sure she heard him correctly. It sounded like, “Even a queen needs connection.”

  She wasn’t entirely sure if that’s what he said, and she wasn’t sure if it was a pickup line, so she opted to pretend she had heard nothing as she entered the laundromat.

  As she removed her clothes from the washer and loaded them into the dryer, she decided her next stop should be the library. A good book would take her mind off things.

  David

  He had no idea where he was. That was nothing new, obviously; it had
been his general state of being for a very long time. However, this place seemed a bit different than any other place he had ever been.

  He was standing on a sidewalk, surrounded by buildings and people who scurried past without paying him much attention. That was normal.

  Every so often, though, a cold wind would blow and make him feel as if he could no longer stand. No one else on the street seemed affected. However, each time the cold wind picked up – which seemed to happen every few minutes – he was nearly paralyzed by feelings of cold and darkness. It was a fairly terrifying experience.

  In between the winds, though, he saw and heard wonderful things. There was beautiful music playing, although he could not find its source, and all manner of people in colorful clothes. There was warm, golden sunlight in the sky, and a general sense of safety and contentment.

  Until the winds struck, rendering him powerless for seconds or even minutes at a time.

  After one such wind subsided, he turned a corner and saw a beautifully carved gargoyle statue on a bench. As he walked toward it, it took a long sip out of a cup in its hand, and waved at him. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen such a thing, so he stopped and stared. A moment later, the gargoyle proffered his cup and said, “You want a sip, man? Nice warm cocoa. Cure for what ails you.”

  He reached for the cup, somewhat timidly, and took a tiny sip. The hot, sweet beverage tasted like safety and happiness. He closed his eyes in happiness while he swallowed it, then offered it back to the gargoyle, who casually waved it away and smiled, saying, “I can get more at the community center. You enjoy.”

  David nodded and walked down the street, taking tiny sips of the cocoa as he walked. He wanted to make it last. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so comforted, so safe.

  Something clicked in what was left of his mind. This cocoa tasted like something in his mantra.

  “Find a world where I can be safe.”

  The delicious, hot beverage definitely heightened this feeling of safety, but he realized he had been feeling that way for a while. He wasn’t quite sure when it had started. Vague images and feelings flickered through his broken mind. There was a lady, he thought. A nice lady. She had told him he could go and be safe in this world, and even have a nice day. It had been a long time since he’d had a really nice day.

  He smiled, and sipped his cocoa. He couldn’t be certain if he was truly safe, but the cocoa was the best thing he had tasted in a long, long time.

  Deanna

  Back on the Main Street, Deanna nodded and smiled at a few passersby that she recognized from around town. She passed the Piano Man, his fingers wiggling in the air as he played an unheard sonata. She greeted him, neither expecting nor receiving an answer; however, he appeared to watch her walk by, which was a tad unnerving. He never usually looked at anyone.

  As she entered the library, the heavyset, grey-haired woman behind the desk smiled and said, “There she is! Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “You weren’t here last time I was in, Barb,” Deanna replied.

  “Oh, must’ve been a Tuesday. That’s my day off. You ready for tonight?”

  Deanna stared blankly at her. “Tonight?”

  “Buh – buh – buh – buuuuh,” the librarian sang dramatically. “SNOWMAGEDDON! They’re calling for like, two feet.”

  “I heard eight inches.”

  “Nope, two feet or more,” Barb replied earnestly.

  “Uh-huh, sure. You believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Remember the last ‘snowmageddon’?” Deanna referred to the storm they were supposed to get a few weeks earlier, for which the governor had called a state of emergency and many businesses had closed early. The storm had missed them, giving them only a light dusting of snow, and leaving a lot of people very disgruntled toward meteorologists.

  “Well, it snowed like the dickens, just not here. Beat the hell out of Boston,” Barb said. “My daughter lives up there, she still hasn’t dug her car out. So you be prepared, get some good books and hit the grocery store. Get yourself some movies, too.” The librarian gestured at the wall of DVD’s, in the center of which a TV was mounted. It was currently playing the movie, The Matrix, though it was near the end of the film.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of watching this, Barb?”

  “I could never get tired of Keanu! He really is the one!” the librarian said, laughing as she quoted the movie. The two women watched as Keanu Reeves’s character, Neo, stopped a hail of bullets with the power of his mind, marking his acceptance of his role as “The One” who would save the world.

  After they watched for a few moments, Barb seemed to snap out of her Keanu-fueled reverie. “Hey, we’ve got that Discworld book you were looking for,” she said, bringing her attention back to reality.

  “Really, you got The Shepherd’s Crown?” Deanna was elated; it was the only book of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series she had not yet read. The author, a lifelong favorite of hers, had passed away months earlier, and the book was published posthumously.

  “Yep, it’s on the shelf. Go to town.”

  Deanna thanked her and scurried over to the Fiction section, grabbing the Pratchett book off the shelf as if someone were going to beat her to it if she wasn’t quick enough. Then she pored through each shelf, as she always did, looking for titles to jump out at her and promise to give her the mental vacation good books always provided.

  She had read everything they had by most of her favorite authors, like Neil Gaiman, Charles DeLint, and Jim Butcher, but she found one by Jonathan Carroll and another by Christopher Moore that she had not yet read. She loved the fantasy genre. Since she had been a small child, she had secret faith that magic was real and the things that happened in fantasy books could happen in real life.

  Once, she read a quote online by author Charles DeLint. “That’s the thing about magic,” the quote had read. “You have to know that it’s here, it’s all around us, or it just stays invisible to you.” The quote gelled with her worldview; deep down, she truly, deeply believed that magic was all around, even though she had seen no hard evidence of that fact. She had played around with Wicca as a teenager, and things of that nature, but saw no great results with her spells. She had been to a variety of churches and experimented with various faiths, and though she had never witnessed an honest-to-God miracle, she remained undeterred in her belief that one could occur at any moment. Somehow, she just knew there was a mysterious, benevolent force at work in the universe, whether it was magical or mystical or spiritual, or all three.

  She rarely discussed these beliefs with anyone, lest she be deemed insane and watched with careful eyes or worse, locked away in some kind of facility. Deanna knew she wasn’t crazy, though. On the contrary, these quiet beliefs in magic and greater mysteries often helped to keep her sane in the face of constant financial worries and seemingly never-ending excruciating minutiae of the mundane world most accept as “reality.”

  The fantasy-fiction genre allowed her to suspend any disbelief and cynicism life had attempted to instill in her and rest securely in stories of magic and happy endings. Reading such books provided a necessary break from the harsh realities of adulthood and stoked the fire of her belief in miraculous possibilities.

  While she inspected each shelf, Deanna remembered the first time she had read a book from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. It was more than twenty years ago, when she was sixteen. Adolescence had been very hard for her. She didn’t have any close friends, and felt terribly alone; she hated herself, and her internal dialogue was a never ending stream of self-directed venom. She wound up trying to kill herself, and her parents, not knowing how else to help her, brought her to a mental hospital. The Discworld book, The Color of Magic, had been in the hospital’s library, and she read it three times over the course of the next month. It distracted her from the abyss of depression and self-loathing that had only been exacerbated by her failed attempt at suicide.

  Now, in the library, Deanna shook her hea
d gently as if to dislodge the memory. She wondered why it had popped into her mind at all. It was not a period of her life she enjoyed dwelling on, and she generally avoided thinking about it.

  A young man entered the aisle in which she stood and she looked up at him, welcoming the distraction from her own, loud thoughts. Idly, she noticed that he was attractive; roughly ten years her junior, tall, and well built, with blonde hair and intensely blue eyes which were currently focused on the books on the shelf. He wore all black, and seemed completely oblivious to her presence.

  Though she knew the idea was ridiculous, she couldn’t help feeling that he was invading her privacy. She had had carte blanche of the entire fiction section, and now she had to work around him. She sighed, and decided to be grateful for the distraction from her unhappy memories rather than annoyed by the intrusion on her personal space. Having made this decision, she attempted to re-engross herself in looking through book titles.

  Though she actively tried to block out his existence from her awareness, the good looking guy was creeping down the aisle, too engrossed in reading book spines to notice Deanna. As he encroached further and further into her personal space, she found it more and more difficult to ignore his presence. Finally, his elbow bumped her arm and she said, “Pardon me,” though it was clearly not her fault.

  When she spoke, the guy gasped and twitched as if she had snuck up behind him and jabbed a knife into his ribs. At first, Deanna thought he was just startled because he hadn’t noticed she was there, but when he turned to face her, all of the color drained from his face. He stared at her with wide eyes as if she was the monster under his bed from childhood, with spiders coming out of her eyes, and two guns pointed at him. He was breathing fast and hard; he was terrified.

  “Are you okay?” she asked as gently as she could, wondering if he was having an anxiety attack or something.

  He appeared to be catching his breath, at least. That was good. However, the apparent fear in his eyes had not dimmed at all.