Exousia (Karass Chronicles Book 4)

by Beca Lewis

  The entire family objected. Emily’s mother was inconsolable. Jean was her hero. She needed her. Mary begged and begged, but Jean was full of the idea of freedom.

  Tired of arguing with everyone, one day Jean just left. The family woke up and found a note saying she would keep in touch and would send pictures of what she saw. Mary found a note under her pillow that night. Jean said that she loved her, and wanted to set an example for her of what was possible. Women are allowed to be free, Jean said. Along with the note she had left a four-leaf clover pressed in wax paper, saying it would bring Mary luck.

  Jean kept her word. She mailed postcards from all over the United States. Her family was afraid to ask how she was getting around the country, or where she got her money. Jean said that sometimes she traveled with groups of people. Mary’s dad said they were all called hippies. They were people who took drugs and danced with flowers in their hair.

  That didn’t help Mary at all. She feared for her sister, missed her terribly, and cried for her every night before falling asleep.

  A few years after Jean left, she sent them a letter from a place she said was the perfect place to settle. In fact, that was what she was going to do. Settle down. Once everything was in place, she would come home for a visit, and tell them all about it. That was in 1973. They never heard from her again.

  That place was Doveland.

  Growing up, Emily heard very little about Jean. Her grandparents had passed away when she was young, and Emily never knew her dad. Missing Jean, her mom had looked for love with the young men in town. She didn’t find love with them, but she did find joy in having Emily. The two of them had been close all the years of her growing up. But, they had never discussed the secret of Jean.

  Emily knew that her mom had an older sister that had traveled the country. But if she wanted to know more, she was shushed, or her mom would turn away with tears running down her face. When Emily went off to college, for her mother, it brought back the memory of her sister leaving. So, finally, Mary told her more of the story, a tiny bit at a time.

  The summer Emily graduated from college, a drunk driver crashed into her mother’s car. Emily never left her mom’s side as she slowly faded away. The day before she died, Mary told Emily the rest of the story. Jean had never come home. Did she stay in Doveland? Did she move away and not tell them? Was she still alive? And if she was, why didn’t she come home?

  Mary asked one thing of Emily. Would she find out what happened to Jean and when she found her, would Emily please return the four leaf clover? She told Emily where to find it hidden in a special box in the chest at the end of the bed. The next day Emily’s mom was gone.

  Emily spent the summer going through her mother’s things. She sold the small home they had lived in, and collected the money from the insurance policy that Mary had put on her life. It was much more than Emily thought it would be. In Mary’s files she found a note asking Emily to use the money to fulfill her dream.

  Her mom knew what the dream was because they had talked about it many times. Emily realized that her mom had asked only two things of her, both of them based in love. Why not put them together, she had thought.

  The story she told anyone that asked about why she came to Doveland, was that her Aunt Jean had passed through Doveland years before and raved about the area’s beauty. Emily had come to see it for herself. That part of the story was entirely true.

  What she never told anyone was that her aunt had gone missing in Doveland. If something had gone wrong while Jean was in Doveland, Emily didn’t want to alert anyone to the fact that she was looking for her.

  And that was why she was in the library looking through the microfiche at newspapers from the early 1970s, looking for anything that would hint at what might have happened. Anything that might point to where her aunt had gone, and why.

  Twelve

  Melvin stood at his kitchen window holding his favorite coffee mug and watched Hank as he tinkered with the equipment that the two of them had invested in for Hank’s construction company. What Hank had used before had belonged to Grant’s company. However, when Grant died everything became part of the police investigation. That left Hank without a way to earn a living or do the work that he loved to do.

  Hank had saved quite a bit of money over the years, and Melvin pitched in a little money along with providing the home base for Hank’s construction company. That, plus a loan from Evan, got them what they needed. Hank and Evan settled on an agreement much like the one Evan had made with Pete and the Diner.

  The equipment would also be used for the youth apprentice program. The first thing they planned to work on was the bike trail that Mandy had dreamed of doing the year before. Hank also wanted to work on building Emily’s dance and art camp.

  Hank told Melvin that if it didn’t snow or rain in the coming week, he would begin grading Emily’s land. Emily had come over the night before to check on the plans. As Melvin had watched Hank and Emily bent over the plans on the kitchen table, he thought that perhaps these were the best years of his life. He was surrounded by people who were filled with imagination and believed in possibilities. An old man with dreams was not something that he had ever envisioned for himself. He had thought he would simply fade away. Maybe even die in his chair and not be found for weeks.

  No chance of that happening now, he thought, lifting his coffee cup to the heavens in thanks. But still, it was time to put his affairs in order. The last time he had visited Dr. Joe, he learned what he already knew. Things were slowly shutting down. There was no point in going back to the doctor’s, even if it was to that new fella Craig with his fancy ideas. He was winding down just like an old watch.

  Melvin had already transferred all his accounts, including his farm and house, over to Hank. All of it was done in secret with Evan’s help. Melvin didn’t want Hank to know. First, Hank would be upset that Melvin was thinking about dying, and second, because Hank would have tried to talk him out of it feeling he didn’t deserve it. Melvin knew that Hank did. There was much to be done, and Hank would need all the resources possible to do it.

  As far as Melvin’s son, Melvin had left him a small amount of money set aside in a trust for him. But his son had no use for the farm and hadn’t visited or been in touch with Melvin in years. Melvin had tried calling and writing, and other than a terse “hello,”there had been no response. It’s okay, Melvin thought. He felt no pain from their separation. His heart was full.

  Melvin knew that he would see Sally soon, but in the meantime, he was planning on doing as much good, and having as much fun, as possible. He couldn’t wait until the first kids started showing up with all their faults and hopes and dreams.

  He would show them how to farm, Hank would teach them how to build, and between the two of them they would learn how valuable they were, and the possibilities the world was offering them.

  *******

  It was a beautiful April day. The air was warm with just a hint of cold hidden in the slight breeze that blew across the hill and ruffled the hair that was sticking out from beneath Emily’s baseball cap. She and Hank were standing on the rock that she had sat on so many times in the past few months, looking out at the view.

  Emily had mixed emotions. She knew that once Hank got started the land would never look the same again. It would be the last time the hill looked untouched.

  She and Hank had discussed the plans over and over again while sitting at Melvin’s kitchen table. Sometimes, Hank and Melvin would come to town, and they would meet in her living room, but this was the first time she and Hank had stood together to see the land free of snow.

  The stakes for each building had been laid out. They were not going to build everything at once. They would begin with a small cottage for her to live in and a building very much like Melvin’s barn.

  Inside the barn would be a spacious dance space,
and running down one side would be smaller rooms for art and music. Maybe even a place for writing. Eventually, each of the arts would have their own building, but Emily wanted to be sure that she would have something finished by summer when she planned to have her first summer art camp or retreat.

  She had started calling it a retreat because she had decided that it would become a year-round place to come. A retreat from the everyday world, and into the art of creating for all ages.

  However, the essential part of the retreat would happen just above where they were standing. It would be a massive deck that jutted out over the hill. Emily could imagine the joy of teaching on that deck and the beautiful performances that they could have there. The audience would sit on curved seating built into the hill. A winding gravel walkway would bring them to the first building. Behind a stand of trees, they would tuck the parking lot so as not to spoil the view with cars.

  For each building, they would have to level the land, which meant they would be moving quite a bit of dirt. Emily had plans to put that extra dirt into gentle rolling mounds where she would plant even more trees. Most of them would be behind the buildings and deck. She didn’t want anything to block the view into the valley and towards Doveland.

  Emily turned to Hank and said, “Have I said thank you yet for doing this?”

  “Well, you are paying me!”

  “Sure, but you have put so much more time and attention into this project than just a regular contractor might have done. You have made me feel that my dream is in safe hands.”

  Hank turned to look at Emily. If his life had been different, this young woman would have been what he wanted in a daughter. He thought that someday he might tell her that, but at that moment he just smiled at her, and said, “You’re welcome.”

  Emily had brought a thermos of coffee for them. She put the small blanket she was carrying on the rock so they could sit to have their coffee.

  “How come you don’t have a southern accent?” Hank asked. “You said your family lived in Louisiana.”

  “My mom did, and so did I when I was younger, but when I went to off to college, I worked to get rid of it. Took speech lessons and everything.”

  “Why? I always think that southern accents are beautiful.”

  “Maybe. But the accent marked me as coming from the south. People have an idea what that means, and I didn’t want those ideas to be attached to me. I wanted—want—to be my own person. Seen just for me. Clean. Does that make sense?”

  Hank laughed. “Well, it’s obvious you are your own person. And yes, I understand not wanting to be judged by things like how you talk, or look, or where you come from.”

  “Where did you come from, Hank?”

  “From here. But I only came back here a few years ago. I spent most of my life roaming, and I am sure you have heard that I spent most of that time getting in trouble.”

  Emily laid a hand on his. “I haven’t heard much, Hank. I probably need to get out in the community more to let people know about this dream of mine and convince them to send their kids here. However, I know what I have seen of you, Hank, and that is only good.”

  They sat quietly for a while sipping coffee and enjoying the peace of where they were.

  “And you, Emily. Why did you choose Doveland?”

  Emily sighed and wondered if Hank was the one she would tell the full story to, but she wasn’t ready. Instead, she said “My mom’s sister had told my mom about Doveland way back in the Seventies. When my mom died a few years ago, I was curious about what could have been so wonderful about the place.”

  “Have you answered that question yet, Emily?”

  “This may seem strange, but as soon as I got here, it felt as if my Aunt Jean was still here. Of course, she isn’t, but she must have left her love of the place here for me to find because I do see what she loved about it. It’s beautiful. However, it’s not just that. It’s all of you. This community that you all are building feels like home to me.”

  Hank nodded at Emily, trying not to let tears form in his eyes. It was home to him now too, for the same reason.

  Tomorrow they would start the process of transforming this piece of land. He would do everything he could to turn it into her dream.

  There was only one thing that bothered him.

  Emily had said that the man who sold the land to her said it had never been built on before. He wasn’t so sure about that. And if it had been, why would he lie about it?

  Thirteen

  Every time she came back to the place she now called home, Sarah had to adjust her whole being just to be able to walk in the door. It wasn’t the house’s fault. It was a charming bungalow a short distance from the town square.

  It was the house that Eric had rented when he first came to Doveland. After he and Grace married, he moved into her apartment bringing his few belongings with him.

  It was the last straw for the owners. They wanted to move to Florida and were tired of always having to find a renter, so they put the house on the market.

  When Leif decided that the right thing to do was to take Eric to the Forest Circle, Sarah bought the home so she would have a place to live in Doveland with her friends. She knew she didn’t want to stay in Sandpoint without Leif.

  While Sarah took care of selling the Sandpoint home, her friends did all they could to turn her new Doveland house into a home she would come to love.

  Hank updated all the plumbing and wiring, made sure the roof didn’t leak, and her friends had done the rest. They cleaned, painted, added more doors to the outside garden, and took down walls to make it a more modern space. They had even started a garden for her.

  Sarah loved it. And she didn’t. There was no forest outside her door. Instead, it was a small patio, just right for sitting with a friend or two inside her completely private backyard. There wasn’t a lake view. Instead, it was a neighborhood.

  It wasn’t a big home; it was just a thousand square feet. Perfectly sized with everything she needed right at hand. Everything except Leif. Sarah knew that if she called him, he would come, but that wouldn’t be fair to him. Although he would always be there for her, he had work to do now with the Forest Circle. However, to ease the transition for both of them, they made plans to talk every Friday night, at least for awhile. However, she loved that he would surprise her once in awhile and just show up.

  Sarah knew she would get used to it, but it was taking much longer than she thought it would. Someone told her that the missing would never go away. It was something she would have to learn to live with, and that was what she was going to do. Live with it. Perhaps even live well with it.

  No matter what, Sarah knew that it was time to get back into the world, or at least into the community. The idea to begin the meetings with the women had been Leif’s. Probably it was an attempt to get her out of her thoughts and into something constructive. But the more she explored the idea, the more Sarah realized that there was a need for women to gather together to support each other. There was a need for women to take more authority within their own lives and their communities.

  Preparing for the first meeting, Sarah spent time thinking about the meaning of authority. What made someone an authority? What was the responsibility of someone in authority? It seemed to Sarah that too many people claimed authority over others when they didn’t have the right to do so. They wanted people to do things their way. If they didn’t, they were wrong, and varying degrees of punishment would be utilized to bring people in line. To Sarah this wasn’t authority, it was bullying, and sometimes it was tyrannical. True authority acted for the good of others.

  During the women’s group’s first meeting in Grace’s living room, Sarah had raised the subject, and they had spent quite a bit of time discussing it. During the discussion, Ava had looked up other words for authority and found the word Exous
ia, meaning the power to act, to have authority. They liked that it was a feminine noun and that its full definition talked about moral authority and influence, “of a spiritual power, and therefore of an earthly power.”

  Mandy’s question about Valerie’s husband, Harold, prompted more discussion. All of them had witnessed some of what they decided was a false authority. Sometimes it was just the way he took over conversations, and always had to have the last word, and sometimes it was something in the way Valerie looked when he was around.

  Ava suggested that perhaps they could be a council of women who focused on the true meaning of authority—or Exousia. They all agreed that doing so carried a great deal of responsibility. But each of them decided that they were willing.

  They agreed to meet at least weekly, either to just talk or to discuss anything specific that was bothering them. They’d start by acting as guides for each other, and perhaps that would expand into making more of a difference in the town that had been so gracious in accepting them.

  That first meeting hadn’t been all serious discussion. Lots of laughing and talking about gardens, and food, and what they were reading. In all, it had been a great start. Ava asked if they were going to have other women join them, and after a brief discussion agreed that they would. In time.

  For now, it was only them. And one of the first things they would do was watch over Valerie. And Harold. Was he just a little too self-important, or was there something else going on? Because Mandy and Grace were still on the committee with Valerie for the next solstice ceremony, they promised to pay more attention.

  It was an excellent first meeting, Sarah thought. She made herself a cup of coffee and settled into her favorite chair that looked out over her garden. The daffodils had just started to bloom. Spring had arrived. But instead of reading, she found herself lost in thought.