∞ ∞ ∞
Mark woke the morning of the wedding to find his bedroom bathed in an unusual burst of sunlight. He stretched and pulled himself from bed, a hum building in his throat. He had planned to gather the freshest blooms from the riverbank and tie them with a simple ribbon. They had endured a few blasts of more seasonable weather lately, but not a single frost. The strange tropical flowers he had nurtured and studied had continued to grow by the river.
He put his coat on over his pajamas. Bouquet first, suit second, he told himself. He scratched his chin. He was in need of a decent shave, too.
But when he stepped outside and his slippers hit the porch, the sight before him made him stumble. He slipped, threw his arm out toward the railing to catch himself.
Snow had fallen.
That was the reason why his bedroom had been so bright—the sun was bouncing off the white blanket that covered the entirety of the area.
“No,” he groaned. From the look of his porch railing, they’d gotten three inches. The bitter cold of the snow chewed against his fingers. Finally, winter had decided to arrive. But why now? It couldn’t wait a day?
Snow would ruin the possibility of any bouquet.
He grumbled a few choice swear words at himself, tugging his hand from the snow-covered railing. How foolish he’d been! Why had he not gathered a few blooms the night before, placed them in his fridge just to be safe? Now he would have to break the news to Natalie. On her wedding day. No flowers. She would be angry. Or worse—heartbroken.
Still chastising himself, Mark let his eyes wander toward the river—and paused at the sight of a splash of yellow. “Can’t be,” he muttered, but he was already slipping and sliding down the spiral staircase.
The snow seeped through his slippers as he ran, sprinting toward the yellow along the riverbank. It was impossible. And yet, there they were, growing as though it was late spring and not December. Growing as though it had not just snowed. Primroses. Hundreds of them. Where had they come from? Mark had seen no evidence the past few days of any primrose buds. They had not been there the evening before. And now, they were flowering, growing parallel to the river. Mark was overwhelmed with a mixture of fear and uncertainty and joy and hope. Would the blooms disappear just as quickly as they had appeared? Would he reach out to touch them and find that they were a mirage?
Or was she back? That girl with her moon seeds?
“Finley?” He called.
But it was Mary who answered him. He had not seen her standing nearby, her white hair and the snow blending into one another. “She could grow anything, you know. That’s what the family always said. She could extend things well beyond their growing season.”
“Finley?” Mark repeated.
Mary nodded.
“Is she here?” Mark asked. “Did you see her?”
“You have. I can see it in your face.”
She pointed behind his shoulder. Mark swiveled. The statue of Amos Hargrove was intact—standing in one piece again. A bright orangey bronze under the sunlight. As though the entire statue had been rubbed for luck.
Mark turned again to ask if she knew how the statue could have possibly been resurrected. But Mary was gone. Only her footprints remained in the snow. How could she have moved away so quickly? At over a hundred years old, Mary wasn’t exactly known for speed.
Had he even seen Mary? The real Mary? What was going on?
He wasn’t entirely sure, but he knew one thing: the flowers were most definitely alive—and fragrant. For years, he had been taking note of tropical flowers growing where they should never have been able to take root—right there in the middle of Missouri. But he had never before witnessed this—blooms that were themselves native to the region but growing at a time they shouldn’t: in the middle of winter, popping straight up through the snow.
Mark called Natalie. He told her about the flowers. Natalie called Kelly. And before the hour was over, phones had rung across the entirety of Finley. Flowers in the snow. This news mixed with the possibility that had been in the air since Amos had received his wedding invitation. The two reacted—like a seed reacted to the soil it had been buried in. Hope was once again beginning to sprout the tiniest of green shoots through the hearts of Finley residents.
∞ ∞ ∞
Natalie finished dressing for her wedding in one of the upstairs bedrooms in Mary’s house. The one she and Damien would take for their own once they returned from their honeymoon, leaving the downstairs bedroom to Mary.
She had sent her bridesmaids and her mother and Kelly away, telling them all she needed a minute to take a deep breath on her own. Really, what she was trying to do was get rid of her off-kilter feeling.
She had her Damien, she tried to reason. She had her gown. Her guests were here—her parents had made it, as had all her best friends from her old hometown, the ones with their faces still saved on her phone. Mark had even brought her a bouquet—which up until about ten minutes ago truly had felt utterly remarkable, considering the weather.
Now, though—Natalie sighed. As phenomenal as it all was, something wasn’t quite right. Something was missing.
“Quit it,” she scolded herself. “Nothing’s missing. You’ve got the cake and the music and even Norma came through with the antique chairs she promised for the tent.” In fact, the site of her wedding was nothing short of breathtaking. The tent had been placed with its back facing the house. It had been bathed in evergreen boughs. The transparent walls allowed guests to look out at the snow-covered fields that Natalie had been hoping for throughout the past few months. The setting where she and Damien would exchange their vows was, in short, an absolutely perfect Currier and Ives picture. “The storm ruined nothing.”
Truth be told, though, a very special piece of her day had gone missing long before the storm clouds had begun to gather. Natalie’s heart had been set on finding Finley’s shawl. Even that very morning, she had pulled herself from bed believing there was still time—and a way—to find it.
But no one had.
Suddenly, she was hyper-aware of the tarps rattling across the roof and the plywood on the bedroom windows, robbing the room of sunlight.
Natalie walked toward the dresser, where her bouquet of primroses waited for her. When Mark had presented it to her, she’d gasped and said she couldn’t imagine anything more perfect: a bouquet that was itself as simple as the dress Kelly’d designed. And while she still did find their appearance amazing, the longer she looked, the more she disliked that they were yellow. On its own, the shade was lovely, but it clashed against the ivory color of her dress. It shouldn’t have bothered her—but it did. Enough that she had decided not to follow through with Nathan’s camera idea. She didn’t want a video of her looking down into the bouquet; she would remember this feeling every time it was played. She could put the cluster of flowers down before she and Damien smiled for photos.
She glanced down at what she wore, trying to convince herself it really was true, what she’d told Mark. A simple bouquet for a simple dress. An involved, large bouquet would have looked strange with her unembellished long-sleeved silk gown. Buttons down the back. High collar. No voluminous skirt, no tons of lace. After the loss of the shawl, Natalie hadn’t been able to stand the idea of lace. That was what she’d told Kelly, anyway. But really, she hadn’t wanted any lace on the gown because she’d still believed she’d be wearing Finley’s shawl on her wedding day. And the shawl was all the lace she would need.
There was nothing she could do about any of that now. The wedding was about to start. She was glad and excited and sad and disappointed all at the same time.
As Natalie’s fingers touched her bouquet, a pop sounded from the opposite side of the room. Nothing loud or frightening—more like the sound of a book hitting a hardwood floor.
When she turned, she saw that what had fallen was a sheet of plywood. And it had exposed not a window that had been shattered by forceful winds, but one in perfect shape. With frost creating
intricate patterns across a few panes of glass.
As Natalie stared transfixed, the frost on the glass began to expand. Small snowflake patterns grew like wild vines, covering the entirety of the window. They thickened—no longer looking like the pattern of frost. She took a few steps closer, cocked her head to the side.
“Lace,” she whispered wistfully. She must have really been feeling badly about the shawl if she was seeing lace everywhere she looked.
The pattern continued to thicken. Natalie reached forward, tentatively touching the window. The intricate pattern fell from the glass to drape across her wrist.
It couldn’t be. But it was.
Natalie was holding the shawl.
Quickly, Natalie draped it across her shoulders. And caught her reflection in the suddenly frost-free window.
But the face that stared back was not her own. She was staring at Finley.
“I hope you don’t mind yellow,” Finley told her, motioning toward Natalie’s nosegay. “I planted those special. I wanted those to grow over anything else. My fellow’s always said that they were the color of my hair—and of the sunshine that danced on the trees between our houses.”
“Fellow?” It was all Natalie could manage.
“You’ll meet him,” Finley assured her. “After all, it is our wedding day.”
∞ ∞ ∞
Kelly paced nervously through the tent behind Mary’s house.
A hand gripped Kelly’s arm. When she glanced up, Patricia Steele was giving her one of those everything will be all right looks that teachers seemed to have cornered the market on. “We’re not going anywhere, you know,” she reassured Kelly, as she had been ever since the tornado had decided to inflict more damage on the Powell house than on any other home in Finley. “Whether the repairs are done before or after the wedding, what does it matter? Natalie and Damien—and you—and the town—were there for me when I needed it. I’m going to make sure this house is in better shape than it was when Finley Powell herself lived here.”
Kelly offered a grateful smile, even though her client, Natalie, had yet to smile. Natalie had not displayed the same elated yet anxious expression that most brides wore on their wedding day. Mostly, Natalie had just looked sad. The last thing Kelly ever wanted was to disappoint any bride on her special day. Especially this one. She still felt partly responsible for the loss of Finley’s shawl; she’d hoped to design a gown beautiful enough to make Natalie forget it completely. But it was clear that hadn’t happened.
Kelly glanced through the back of the tent, toward the house. “Hey,” she said, touching Patricia’s shoulder to get her attention again.
Patricia swiveled, her eyebrow hiked.
“Didn’t you say all the windows had been blown out?”
“They were.”
“Then what’s—” Kelly pointed toward the upstairs window framing a face that was most assuredly not Natalie’s.
“They’re still boarded up,” Patricia said.
“You see boards?” Kelly asked.
Patricia laughed, offering another pat to her arm. “I’m sure the light’s reflecting off the snow, making the back of the house look different from where you’re standing. Sometimes, a few inches can make a world of difference.” And she turned to join her husband.
“What is it?” Michael asked, overhearing the conversation. He had been tuning and retuning his guitar, in the hopes that he’d be able to carry off something that sounded at least partially in the right key.
He looked up, toward the house. “Who is that?”
Annie took a step closer, curious to find out what had grabbed her friends’ attention. And stopped breathing. So did Justin, who was attempting to scribble down a toast for the reception.
“Isn’t that the shawl?” Kelly asked. “Finley’s shawl?”
Annie nodded, unable to arrange any of her thoughts into the kind of order that would have allowed her to speak.
A woman’s perfume filled the air around the small group as Natalie’s mother approached them. “I see you all can’t help looking at her!”
“You see—someone—in the window?” Kelly asked.
“Of course.”
“Not boards?”
“No,” Natalie’s mother said. “Not on that one. That upstairs bedroom window. The only one that’s not boarded.”
As the group exchanged shocked looks, her mother added, “Oh, I’m so glad Natalie found it.”
“Found—?” Kelly asked.
“Natalie?” Annie chimed in.
“Yes,” Natalie’s mother said, frowning in disbelief at the two women. “Clearly, Natalie’s wearing an old lace shawl. Over the dress she brought home to show me last month. She told me it had been lost!”
“You see Natalie?” Kelly pressed.
Natalie’s mother chuckled through a frown and attempted to nudge her playfully. “I may be getting up there in years, but my eyes aren’t that bad. I better get in place. It looks as though she’ll be coming down soon.” And turned to find her spot at the end of the aisle. Near Mary, who was wearing an antique-looking hat. Very ugly. Not quite a pillbox, but almost—covered in feathers as black as a crow’s.
No one considered a woman wearing black bad luck at a wedding—not these days. Still, though, the sight surprised Kelly. Mostly because she would have expected someone with roots as deep as Mary’s to have clung to the rules of the past.
Things were changing.
But by how much? And for whom?
“I don’t see Natalie’s face in that window,” Annie whispered into Kelly’s ear.
“Neither do I,” Kelly admitted. And, judging by the looks on the faces closest to her, neither did any of them.
“That’s—Finley,” Annie whispered.
“I think maybe it’s time for you to start playing,” Kelly told Michael.
“I think so, too.” He had not yet completely gotten the words out when he began to strum.
∞ ∞ ∞
A drum thudded. One beat after another.
Thomas hummed to the beat as he steered the Model T. Amos had been too nervous to drive. He had hoped the presence of his two closest confidants—Thomas on one side, George on the other—would have offered a kind of comfort, calming him down on the short drive from the cemetery to the Powell home.
He found no comfort. His suit was too tight. His throat too dry. The car shook too violently. He feared he’d rattle to pieces.
As they grew still closer, the distant drum grew louder. One thump after another. And a song found Amos—an odd song for a wedding. About unfulfilled dreams. About holes and hearts. About two people meant to be together—and still longing for one another. It was not a song about love found. “Some dreams never die,” a voice warbled.
Amos gasped as the notes of the melody—and the very words he had chanted himself for so many years—collected to form a bridge over the river. The same river that had, in part, been keeping him from his love for so long.
“All the pieces are in place, Amos,” Thomas told him. “It’s happening. You’ve worked so hard—all those miracles—and now, the miracle is happening for you.”
Still, Thomas’s words did not lessen the sensations in Amos’s chest: Fear. Longing. What was more frightening than seeing the thing you’d wanted more than anything now within your reach?
He was terrified; he shook.
“It’s okay, Uncle Amos,” George said. “We’re all here. She’s here, too.”
But George didn’t know that. Not yet. Even if he did, that wouldn’t make this any easier. Finley not being here wouldn’t be easy. Finley being here wouldn’t be, either.
“If it’s true,” Thomas said, “we’ll know instantly. What’s real and right will carry us over the bridge.”
More than a hundred years of history and planning and orchestration had come before this. It all hinged on this moment. Had he done enough? Was the world ready for it? He had placed his bet on these people—had he chosen well? Was this truly
the right day?
If not, Amos knew in his heart there would never be another.
∞ ∞ ∞
The flap along the back of the tent opened. Michael’s own song faded as he strummed another set of the chords, in a volume that announced the bride had arrived. The guests turned to watch Natalie take Damien’s arm. They rustled and cooed in approval.
But Natalie couldn’t smile back in appreciation. Not with a strange puttering sound growing increasingly louder. It was an engine, she thought. She glanced through the transparent side of the tent in time to see a Model T drive over a bridge that had not existed when she’d arrived just two hours ago, to dress and do her hair. The car had a strange glow about it—it reflected purple and green in the light bouncing off the nearby snow.
The Model T parked, and three men emerged, all dressed in dark suits. They glanced back at the bridge, grasping onto each other in a celebratory way.
“Who is that?” Damien whispered in Natalie’s ear as the men approached the tent. “Did you invite someone else from your old hometown?”
Natalie shook her head, her eyes sparkling. She started to answer when she realized Damien was not looking at the men, but at someone standing right beside her.
Finley. In her own wedding dress—one more appropriate for her time, with a large hoop skirt. And she was wearing the shawl. Or—a shawl identical to the one draped across Natalie’s shoulders.
She had an identical bouquet, too. The tent lighting had softened the yellow of the blooms; now, the bouquet was a perfect complement to Natalie’s ivory dress. Both clusters of flowers contained, oddly, a single black feather. Natalie couldn’t remember seeing one in her bouquet before. But she loved the way the deep, severe black looked against the soft primroses.
A new shuffling of feet announced that the three men had entered the tent. Thomas nodded once at Natalie and Damien, then proceeded to walk down the aisle, followed by a man who looked instantly familiar to Natalie—even outside of the only green wool jacket she’d ever seen him wear. “George!” Natalie gasped.
He smiled, leaning in toward her. And kissed her cheek. He smelled as he had last winter—like chimney smoke and cedar boxes and yellowed love letters. He pulled away from Natalie to take his place in the slot reserved for the best man.
Forever Finley Page 35