by S.E. Akers
Copyright 2011 by S. E. Akers
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Dedication
For my loving mother, Sonia…
You will always be in my heart and
on my mind, every single day…
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1 — The Favor
Chapter 2 — Penny for Your Worries
Chapter 3 — Meeting of the Minds
Chapter 4 — Beautiful Stranger
Chapter 5 — He Came Bearing Gifts
Chapter 6 — Private Eye
Chapter 7 — Surprise, Surprise
Chapter 8 — Revelations
Chapter 9 — How About That Dance?
Chapter 10 — Fight, Flight, or Fright
Chapter 11 — A Tale of Two Mikes
Chapter 12 — Adamas
Chapter 13 — Such Sweet Sorrow
Chapter 14 — My Tears Fell Like Rain
Chapter 15 — Catch!
Chapter 16 — Long Way Down
Chapter 17 — What Will Be, Will Be
Chapter 18 — Where’s a Real Charmer?
Chapter 19 — Thank Heaven for Little Girls
Chapter 20 — Cold Shoulder
Chapter 21 — Hail Mary
Chapter 22 — Blow Me Away
Chapter 23 — He Won’t Remember a Thing
Chapter 24 — A Girl’s Best Friend
Chapter 25 — Uninvited
Chapter 26 — Seraphina
Chapter 27 — A Traumatic Token
Chapter 28 — Bosom Friends
Thank you
Chapter 1
I KNEW DADDY WOULD BE HOME SOON, but it was such a perfect day…and I just couldn’t wait!
What little girl could?
The hue flooding the cloudless sky had to be the most beautiful blue I’d ever seen, like Mother Nature had reached into her box of crayons this morning and briskly colored the air with a stick of cerulean until her fingers were pinching the tiniest of nubs. I could just imagine flipping it upside-down and pretending to dive in for an early swim it felt so inviting. My eyes fell to the mountains stretching across the horizon. They were a far cry from the barren and bleak canvas of dirty browns that had plagued my eyes for months in-between our winter snowfalls. Lush and leafy mounds rolled throughout the countryside now smothered in so many pretty greens—too many to count—and all of them were begging to be explored. I drew in a deep breath. Even the air smelled like a sweet mix of fresh grass and wildflowers. The lilacs seemed to stir my senses the most. I gazed at the scene, my smile beaming just as warm and bright as the sun’s kiss on my cheeks. The land was alive once again.
Really? Who could resist nature’s tug on such a mesmerizing day?
I climbed over the weathered fence with a determined nod, ignoring my parents’ repeated warnings about venturing out on my own, especially out on Shiloh Ridge — the land that bordered our modest mountainside home, a ridge which I’d been personally named after, and the only thing that now stood between me and my father on his birthday. It was a convenient shortcut down to the Riverside-Pocahontas Coal Mine where Daddy worked, so the stroll was a necessity. I wanted to be the first to acknowledge his special day, officially. He was always the first to wake me up with a cheery, “Happy Birthday”, along with a cake frosted with vanilla icing for just the two of us. And after all, I had the bouquet of wildflowers I’d picked all ready and waiting in my tightly clenched hands…all I needed was my daddy.
And who doesn’t like a surprise? Even adults? He wouldn’t be mad. How could he? Why would he? Nothing ever, ever happened around here. Not in my backyard.
Not in Welch, West Virginia, I mused with a five & fearless little-girl grin.
Step by step, my bare feet carried me across the serene ridge. I loved it out here. I always pretended like it was a magical place, my own “enchanted forest” the would-be princess in me had decreed on many occasions. One person’s random patch of woods was another’s paradise, and this was mine — all mine. Something about the sights and sounds on the ridge seemed particularly beguiling today. Who knows? This was my first time crossing it without Daddy tagging along. Maybe the excitement of proving I was a big girl now added to the blaze of its beauty?
My carefree gait slowed the deeper I trekked. I looked up and peered through the heavy mask of the trees, searching for the vibrant sheet of blue. The sky was barely visible now; all the leaf-laden towering oaks and soaring pines had seen to that. I stopped for a moment. I couldn’t hear any of the songbirds that had been accompanying me merely seconds ago either. I scanned the woods, listening intently for their melodic chirps. I didn’t hear a thing. Nothing. Nothing at all that is, until something that sounded like a voice began rustling the leaves. The faint whisper seemed to be calling out to me like a gentle breeze, and oddly, calling me by my name.
“Shiloh . . . SHILOH,” the frail voice chanted over and over. A creepy feeling inundated my senses. I felt as though someone was watching me somewhere up ahead through the dense landscape and veiled by the trees. The voice moaned again, but its cries were now too low and muffled for me to make out what it was saying. Then all of a sudden, a distinct smell ignited my nostrils like dynamite. The intoxicating mixture of lilacs and pine had been replaced with a gagging stench of sulfur. The scent was so pungent I could taste it on the tip of my tongue and reminded me of the rotten Easter eggs I’d found hidden in the bushes around our house only yesterday.
The next thing I knew, a rush of blinding fear had besieged my naïve little frame, crippling my muscles and leaving my limbs helplessly paralyzed right where I stood. My eyes slammed shut as my little-girl instincts took hold and then I desperately started wishing the scary feeling away. When they finally opened up, the sanctuary of my enchanted forest was filling with an eerie black fog at an alarming rate. The murky haze devoured the ground with its choke as it headed straight for me, almost as if it was being steered by eyes of its own. The sound of my pulse pounded in my ears while I apprehensively watched the billowing mist roll closer and closer like waves reaching for the shore. Suddenly it stopped and simply hovered near the tips of my toes, not advancing or receding the slightest bit either way. I was frightened but found myself more awestruck by its mystical presence. My teeth sank into my bottom lip as I gingerly stretched my bare foot towards the black mist. As soon as my toes grazed its edge, a jolt of pure pain shot up my leg — a pain so excruciating it felt like someone had set my foot on fire and was stabbing me at the same time. The fog swiftly coiled around my leg like a snake, tightening its grasp until it came to a stop at my thigh. Then with a brute yank, the feisty tendril jerked me towards the ground hard enough to have hollowed out my very own grave.
My freshly picked flowers flew right out of my grasp and into the air. An explosion of colorful blooms rained down around me and littered the patch of earth where I flailed about in a violent fit for what seemed like forever. Somehow I managed to wiggle free—luckily—and ran back to my house as fast as I could. Countless twigs raked my limbs as I tunneled my way to safety, their harsh scrapes urging my pint-sized legs to make haste. Although I never looked back, I could feel whatever had attacked me was still very much hot on my trail and like any predator, closing in for the kill. Breathless and trembling, I quickened my heart-thumping pace as soon
as I spotted the fence that bordered our property. With one strenuous leap, I hurled myself over the pointy pickets, slicing my leg from my knobby knee straight down to my ankle and landed face-first in the grass on the other side…