Chapter 8: Seeds
Church was as awkward as
the ladies anticipated. Each one of them would quickly dart their eyes away
when the light brown haze of the reverend’s would fall upon them. Mrs. Callaghan
did attempt to stare back, but she found herself too susceptible to laughing
whenever he looked her way to maintain the stare. Whenever a seemingly random
chortle escaped and echoed within the brightly lit white-hall the ladies from
the card game knew exactly from whom it had escaped.
“I can’t believe we made it
through that sermon,” Mrs. Elderbe exclaimed as the four women met outside the
church.
“What, did you think that
we would burst into flames?” Ms.Joyce asked sarcastically.
“You know, after last
night’s conversations, I wouldn’t have doubted something like that happening
today,” Mrs. Elderbe answered.
Mrs. Callaghan nodded her
head in agreement, sweeping her dirty blond hair from her face. Actually, with
what I was thinking in there I wouldn’t have doubted it either,” she said
quietly. “I’m going down for sure.”
“What could you possibly be thinking during church?” Ms.
Grace incredulously asked. She quickly scanned the people surrounding them to ensure
no one was listening. She knew that Hewie would certainly not check for other
listeners.
Indeed Mrs. Callaghan did
not check her surroundings as she widened her eyes, leaned forward, and said,
“You know, I was wondering if maybe…if maybe he actually had before.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Ms.
Joyce exclaimed, throwing her hand against her heart and turning bright red.
“Why would you think about that in church?”
“Of course she would,” Mrs.
Elderbe chuckled. “Do you honestly believe she thinks of anything else?”
“Well that’s not all,” Mrs.
Callaghan furthered with a serious shake of her head. She leaned even more
forward. Her collection of comrades followed her action, leaning close to each
other, enclosing the circle from any other face around them. Mrs. Callaghan
pushed her hair behind her ears as she elaborated, “So my thought process was this:
‘what if he has before? It’s not like
any one of us would know what he was like before he came to Providence. For all
we know he could have been a fop of sorts. So then I started thinking, I wonder
what he’s like? And then I started thinking that of all the men in Providence, and
aside from my bartender-husband, the reverend is probably the best.” (Ms. Joyce’s
mouth was agape, Mrs. Elderbe was laughing uncontrollably and Ms. Grace was
nearly as red as an apple’s flesh.) “Think about it,” Mrs. Callaghan continued.
“He would be so attentive and engaging and, and sensitive.”
“Hewie, you’re disgusting,”
Ms. Joyce said shaking her head from heavy disapproval.
“I can’t handle this,” Mrs.
Elderbe muttered through her laughter. “I can’t!”
“Hewie, how on earth can
you even think about these things during sermon?” Ms. Grace asked simply
appalled, for even she did not think of these things while in the church.
“Ugh,” Mrs. Callaghan
scoffed, “You’re all such prudes. Besides, it’s not as though he can read our
thoughts or have any way of knowing what we are saying.”
“Hello,” the reverend’s
kind voice shattered Hewie’s safety zone and sent all four of the ladies
leaping away from the source. The reverend stared, unnerved by the reaction the
women had to the sound of his voice.
However, after a moment the
reverend found their expressions rather humorous, which generated a playful
smile on his face. He had to keep himself from laughing especially when his
eyes fell upon one of them in particular. “Up to no good again, the lot of
you?” he asked kindly. He certainly was not green – he had a good idea that the
subject they were discussing was less than something to be regarded highly by
society. However, he did not assume that the conversation connected to him.
“Uh, n-no, reverend, none
at all,” Ms. Grace timidly answered. “We were just, er, just planning our next
card game of course.”
“Yes, of course,” Mrs.
Elderbe quickly added.
“For next month,” Ms. Joyce
further added.
“Cards,” Mrs. Callaghan
said somewhere in between as she fought her best to not implode with laughter.
The reverend’s brow rose as
he attempted to filter out sense from what Ms. Grace’s comrades added to the
conversation, but he no longer saw relevance to said deed once Ms. Grace asked,
“Er, Mr. Tamrin, what part will you be playing at our festival this week?” The
other women were much relieved from Ms. Grace’s quick diversion, but none so
much as Ms. Grace. Pointing at herself, Ms. Joyce, and Mrs. Callaghan she
added, “We are to be on child watching duty on the first morning ourselves.”
“Keeping track of the young
ones is one of the nobler duties for the festival I must say,” the reverend
said cheerfully. Though blurry to her eyes, his smile was a bounty pure of joy
for Ms. Grace. Mr. Tamrin sighed, but he answered with an only slightly lesser
smile, “I’m going to be one of the judges for the cider and pie contests, as
always.”
“You should definitely
request something different, Reverend,” Mrs. Callaghan suggested with the most
serious expression she could conjure. All eyes of the group turned quizzically
to Mrs. Callaghan. All were held in great suspense as to what philosophical or
(the more likely) total hysterical nonsense would emerge from her. Mrs. Callaghan
parted her lips and said her one-line spiel, but the reverend failed to hear
the humorous offensive words that escaped from her. At the very moment of her
line, one of the Davis family dogs hounded after one of the Thomas children who
blundered against the reverend.
As Mr. Tamrin straightened
himself from nearly being knocked off his feet he failed to see the women
behind him: Mrs. Callaghan was laughing in her menacing little way; Mrs.
Elderbe was screaming “What?!”; Ms. Joyce was a shade of red she had not been
in ages; and Ms. Grace was the jolted into action. She did not permit the
reverend the chance to query the lady’s queer behavior. Ms. Grace rushed to the
man, looped her arm through his and swept him off without a word.
The group of women left
behind continued to laugh at the crude comment of Mrs. Callaghan while the
church crowd scorned the Davis’ dog for its poor behavior. The community took
this golden opportunity to scorn both families for never attending church. But
Ms. Grace and Mr. Tamrin were deaf to the commotion around them. At first the
reverend did ask Ms. Grace what it was Mrs. Callaghan said, but after a quick
dismissal of the comment as naught to be recalled, both souls came to a slow
and steady revelation.
Their bodies were touching.
Their arms were looped at their elbows.
True, it was nothing more
than an innocent stroll, but this was the first time they shared anything more
than a handshake. In their years of knowing one another, this was instantly
becoming one of the more beautiful moments. The pair were elated from the
electric energy of their arms being linked like a couple as they walked through
town. It was almost too good to be real, but here they were already quietly
walking past Mrs. Huff’s house. (Ms. Grace knew that it was not likely, but she
wished with all her might that Mrs. Huff would see the pair of them together
looking so happy – maybe that would finally give her something real and
wonderful to talk about.)
The pair was quite content
with their relative solitude – mostly everyone in town was gathered around the
church for the Sunday afternoon market.
The joy devolved into
nervousness as Ms. Grace’s ever quickening heart became aware to the notion
that there remained a wall of professionalism and of propriety between them.
“So, er, Mr. Tamrin,” Ms. Grace cleared her throat then she continued, “I
received that book you ordered last month in the post yesterday along with an
item I secretly ordered for you, which I think you will like very much. So if
you do not mind coming with me to the schoolhouse –”
“No, I don’t mind at all,”
Mr. Tamrin quickly said, accidently cutting off the end of Ms. Grace’s
sentence. Feeling horribly rude, he cleared his throat then said from his
humble heart, “Excuse me for interrupting, Ms. Grace, but you did not have to
get me anything.”
Ms. Grace turned her
intense and lovely dark eyes to Mr. Tamrin. He simply melted inside. He could
sometimes hardly stand to look at her for fear that he was looking too much.
She smiled because she was able to see the tiny flare of admiration in Mr.
Tamrin’s eyes as they continued to stroll along. Ms. Grace sighed then softly
said once their feet turned down the short road to her home, “Come now, Mr.
Tamrin, you do so much for this town and for me out of the simple goodness of
your heart, so this is my thank you. Think nothing of it, sir,” Ms. Grace’s
heart was beating at what she guessed to be three times speed once they reached
the steps to her home. The original plan to go to the schoolhouse was lost to
the weightless feeling her pulled her instead to her house’s short stoop. “Besides,”
she added once her hand was on the doorknob. “I certainly will not tolerate not
having a gift for you on your birthday.”
The reverend blushed.
Hardly any soul knew his birth date and he was positively thrilled to find that
Ms. Grace not only knew, but that she was also kind enough to acknowledge it as
well. Mr. Tamrin took a step up onto the stoop as Ms. Grace opened the door,
she could not turn her eyes away from his.
However, the light from the
concentrated stare was engulfed with shock once Ms. Grace heard from within her
house two voices startled from her entrance.
“Oh, my God!” Ms. Grace
shouted as she saw the producers of the sounds.
Mr. Tamrin leapt the stairs
so that he could come to her rescue, but he, like Ms. Grace was too stunned
from the scene to say or to do anything, but produce an awkward stare.
“Ms. Grace, Mr. Tamrin?! I
can explain!” the young Miss Thomas desperately claimed while clutching the
sheet from Ms. Grace’s bed to her chest.
“We didn’t do anything!” the
young Mr. Davis claimed as he too held the sheet up to his chin, lying beside
Ms. Thomas in their teacher’s bed.
“Right,” Ms. Grace mumbled
in her fury. The blatant appearance of the scene was enough for proving guilt
without the messy necessity of hard evidence.
“Christ, she’s got the
reverend,” Mr. Davis whispered to Miss Thomas.
“Why are you naked in my
bed?!” Ms. Grace’s consciousness finally came to full function. “What on earth
told you that it was alright for you to, to…” Ms. Grace threw her hands about
madly as she tried to configure the appropriate word, which eventually she did,
“To fornicate in my house?”
“We didn’t think you’d be
back until later,” Miss Thomas shouted, “PLEASE, don’t tell our parents!”
Out of decency, the
reverend turned away from the children and shut the door so that no chance
passersby would see or accidently overhear anything.
“I’m not going to bloody
tell your parents,” Ms. Grace cursed. “Just, just get dressed the two of you,
but don’t crawl out the window and don’t do anything else, don’t even look at each other.” Ms. Grace inhaled
deeply and upon the exhale said much more calmly, “Knock on the door when
you’re done. Mr. Tamrin and I will be right outside.” Ms. Grace did not wait
around for disputes. For the second time that day she ushered the reverend
away, pushing him and herself out the door. The trap slammed behind Ms. Grace
immediately and the school teacher lowered herself to sit on the bottom step of
the stoop.
Mr. Tamrin had his hands in
his pockets and he looked as though he could not be more disappointed.
“Oh, Reverend, what are we
to do?” Ms. Grace softly asked. Her face was buried in her fingers. “If it were
any other pair…”
“I know,” Mr. Tamrin
whispered understandingly. “I know.”
The adults remained quiet
for a long moment. The happiness that had them feeling gilded was temporarily broken.
Behind them they could hear the teens fussing to dress as quickly as possible.
How could it be that the
one thing she hoped for most for the sake of Providence could be taken to such
extremes and to end up so intimately tied to her? The children in her
schoolhouse she considered partly her own. She knew that it was somewhat wrong
of her to do so, but how could she not? She spent countless hours with each one
of those children and because of the extra special attention she always gave to
the Davis and the Thomas children to keep them in line, she was closest to
those students in a way. Miss Thomas had only last week confessed to her that
she was nervous about something or other and now Ms. Grace could only assume
that this situation was the issue formally mentioned. She now understood why it
was such a difficult topic for the girl to breech.
The reverend seemingly randomly
started to chuckle. Ms. Grace slid her hands off her face. “Find a bit of
sunshine to laugh at, did we?” Ms. Grace could not help to smile too from
seeing a light expression on the reverend’s face.
“I guess these two are
proof that world peace is a viable possibility,” the reverend responded.
Ms. Grace chuckled. Her
warm laugh again touched the reverend’s heart. “I suppose so, dear sir, but in
this case for our town does that make the lining around the clouds silver or led?”
Before the reverend could
say anything a knock came to the door. The aperture squeaked open and the
adolescent face of Mr. Davis peaked out. “D’ you want us to come out?” The
boy’s eyes could hardly stay still. His brown eyes were shooting this way and
that, but there were no bodies walking in this part of town today.
The adults looked to each
other for a tick before they tacitly decided to keep the teens from any further
embarrassment and enter themselves.
The room had been messily
restored to normalcy; Miss Thomas was sitting nervously on the end of the bed,
which she had sloppily remade. (In the back of her thoughts Ms. Grace was not
exactly sure if she wanted to sleep in those sheets tonight.) It was obvious
that the child on the edge of the bed was already realizing the potential
consequences of her actions.
“Go ahead and sit, Mr.
Davis,” Ms. Grace instructed, pointing to the opposite corner of the bed from
where Miss Thomas planted herself.
Ms. Grace leaned her back
against the cast iron oven and the reverend kept his back against the door.
The children independently
thought of him as a sort of barricade against the potential dangers that could
come even though they feared for the future salvation of their souls.
And then it happened; the
crying began.
Miss Thomas’ eyes lined
with tears and then in an instant the girl fell into hysterics.
The men looked terrified at
this sudden surge of emotion. Ms. Grace was not wholly surprised, but she
listened attentively to the girl’s words so that she could properly offer
advice instead of scorn, for the latter was not presently needed. Through the
sobs Ms. Grace was able to discern: “What ‘ave we done?! M’ parents are going
to kill us! They’ll never accept him
and me! But I love him! They’ll never understand. Oh! I can’t believe we did
this! An’ the reverend of all people had to
be the one with you, Ms. Grace! Why couldn’t it have been anyone else but the
reverend! We’ll be damned for sure!”
Ms. Grace raised her hand
to say something, but the reverend did so first.
The gentleman stepped
forward so that he would receive proper attention from the teens who both were
clearly scared for what would happen next. “Miss Thomas, Mr. Davis, he started
softly, understandingly. “I assure you that we will not let your parents lay a
hand on you. Ms. Grace and I will not be so quick to condemn you for your acts
and nor will be God.” The words of the reverend never before sounded more from
the heart. “Our Creator would never condemn an act that was done out of the
purity of love. That you two overcame decades of hatred from your families is a
blessing in the eyes of our Lord. If you do truly love each other then you have
done nothing wrong.” The reverend scratched his chin and straightened his white
and black collar before continuing on a firmer note, “However, our town’s
standards of propriety are more the focus now. You two are both so young.”
“But we, we knew what we
were doing,” Mr. Davis quickly replied. “We’re not children.”
“But you are,” Ms. Grace
leapt into the conversation. Miss Thomas resumed her crying even more. The
reverend reached over to give her his handkerchief. “You’ve still your baby
faces,” Ms. Grace informed looking at the youth still clearly visible on the
physical forms of the babes she addressed. “Yes, I do see your maturity in
class, but being in a relationship such as that which you have entered with
Miss Thomas requires a level of responsibility that I am not sure I could have
handled at your ages.”
“Aside from keeping it
secret, how hard could it be?” Mr. Davis greenly asked. He crossed his arms
over his chest and leaned back against the air, feigning his comfort.
The reverend scoffed,
mildly disgusted as he answered, “Evidently a hell of a lot more than you
realize.” That was the first time any soul present had heard the reverend
curse. Ms. Grace found it surprisingly dashing. “What if she conceived, Mr. Davis? At fourteen would
either of you be ready to take on the responsibilities of being parents?
Especially if both of your families oust you?”
“Conceived as in pregnant?”
the boy asked. All of the color drained from his face. The truth of where-do-babies-come-from struck him
like a brick to the brow.
Still sobbing, Miss Thomas
uttered, “Then we’ll marry. You can marry us, can’t you, reverend?””
“No,” Ms. Grace quickly intervened.
“Darling, you both are far too young for that. Your first steps ought to be to
get your families to drop the feud. Then we’ll see what steps ought to be
taken.”
“But if we get married,
they’ll have to accept us,” Miss Thomas argued as she wiped the tears from her
plump freckled cheeks with the base of her palm.
The reverend and Ms. Grace
shook their heads, for both were old enough to remember travesties between the
families that the younglings could not.
“Why are you two so anxious
to grow up?” Ms. Grace asked. When she was a child all she ever wanted was to
roam the trees of Homewood forest with her very best friends until the end of
time. Trying to become an adult a second faster never crossed her mind. She was
not then yet obsessed with time.
Miss Thomas popped up from
the mattress and shouted, “I don’t want to end up a spinster!”
Ms. Grace and the reverend
almost laughed, but then both adults came to realize the seriousness of the
statement. “Sweetheart,” Ms. Grace started gently. “You are far from that. You are only fourteen.
I’m twenty-three and not married, but becoming a spinster is not a threat that
concerns me.” And then the revelation hit Ms. Grace. She understood where the
seed of this fear potentially originated. “Did Mrs. Huff tell you that I was a
spinster?”
The girl became quiet. She
turned her eyes away from everything.
Ms. Grace gently pulled the
girl’s chin up so that the child looked at her. The teacher re-asked her
question.
Miss Thomas struggled to
swallow ere she squeaked, “Yes.” But of course Mrs. Huff would have something
to do with this. “She told me tha’ I had better look for an ‘usband now before
I run out of men to choose from like you.” The girl sobbed then added while Ms.
Grace’s shocked and blank expression remained, “I heard her talking to m’ mum
and aunt about how they were considering men for me to marry. They want me to
marry a man I’ve never met from Dansend. They want to send me away, Ms. Grace!
I don’t want to leave! I love Providence and I really do love Ryan!” Miss
Thomas sent an adoring look to the boy who looked like he was going to be sick.
“This is my home, Ms. Grace,” the girl continued. “Please, I beg of you don’t
let them send me away. It’ll break my heart to leave Ryan and my home. If I marry
Mr. Thomas, they’ll have to let me stay. Oh, Reverend, please, if you’ve mercy in your heart, please, marry us!”
The reverend did not know
what to say. In his lifetime of experience, even with the vampires, he had
never undertaken the responsibility of overseeing any sort of situation like
this. He was also distracted and offended because Mrs. Huff dismissed him as a
suitable suitor for Ms. Grace. The self-consciousness that plagued his heart
and his recurring doubts began to rise.
This situation was becoming
more and more like a clouded dream to Ms. Grace. It was almost like watching
her memories from another’s eyes. She understood the situation only too well.
The teacher removed herself from her spot on the floor. She placed a reassuring
touch to the reverend’s hand, which suggested to him to hold for just a moment.
Ms. Grace cleared her throat then quietly told her own story: “When my parents
passed away I was placed in the care of Mrs. Huff and her half dozen feline
fiends. I spent most of my time with my friends exploring Homewood forest, but
one rainy day we were all kept inside. My friends and I were in the basement of
the house, for what reason exactly I can’t now remember, but we overheard Mrs.
Huff discussing my future with Mrs. Winford and a strange man from Portland. They
were arranging my engagement to the man, a person I too had never met before.”
Ms. Grace chuckled ironically. “He was a sailor – they wanted me to marry him
in a year so that he could discipline my wild head and heart. I was sixteen.
They only wanted to wait a year because Mrs. Huff considered me homely –
because I did not have a dowry Mrs. Huff wanted to wait with the hope that I
would bloom in that time.” The teacher sighed then she turned her gaze to the
reverend. “Do you remember all of this, Mr. Tamrin?”
The gentleman nodded. It
had been quite the scandal. Remembering how close Providence came to letting
this happen made his stomach sick.
The children looked lost,
so Ms. Grace further elaborated. “You see, dears, I ran away. I ran deep into
the forest. Mr. Tamrin’s cousins found me and calmed me. With their help and
the reverend’s they arranged for me the opportunity to go to school in the east
long enough for the sailor to lose his interest in me.”
“But Mrs. Huff always brags
about herself being the one who sent you there,” Mr. Davis argued.
“Of course she would,” Mr.
Tamrin said, crossing his arms. “She is
responsible for Ms. Grace’s education, in a sense.”
The school teacher sighed
and then she looped her experience back to the issue at hand. “My point is that
sometimes we have to leave our homes in order to prove or to protect our
hearts. If, Miss Thomas, Mr. Davis is indeed who you honestly and rationally
believe is who you see yourself with until the end of times and if Providence
is where you long to reside, both options may still be within reach. Regardless,
you both may have to leave for the time being.”
The children looked to each
other. Their futures were so uncertain.
“What brought you back, Ms.
Grace,” Mr. Davis asked, snuffling himself. “You escaped Mrs. Huff; why did you
come back?”
With a sigh, Ms. Grace kept
herself from looking at the reason standing so close to her. She answered
plainly, “For the simple reason that Providence holds a piece of my heart that
no other town in the world, great or small could ever dare to claim. Even if I
have to leave again, I will always return here. This is my home.”
The reverend admired the
strength radiating from Ms. Grace more now than ever before. And as he and Ms. Grace
continued their efforts to plan and to sort out the mess for the feuding
families, in the back of his head, the reverend secretly hoped that he was Ms.
Grace’s reason for returning home.
~*~*~
The hours spent with Mr.
Davis and Miss Thomas were more difficult than the pair could have anticipated.
Whenever the possibility of leaving Providence crossed the conversation, Miss
Thomas would burst into tears. She had never left the county before in her
life, so it was understandably daunting, but indeed it was reasonably the only
option for the children were things to go awry in any way.
“Do you think it’ll work?”
Ms. Grace asked Mr. Tamrin as they strolled once more together through town.
“Do you think the families will go for it as a total matter of chance?”
The reverend sighed. He was
ready to leave town for the night to go see the Cärabadés, but it was so difficult
to leave Ms. Grace. “I can only hope that we’ll have God on our side for that
affect, but if not I will see what the, er, what, um, my cousins will have to
say as their input for this mess.” The reverend stumbled over his words. He had
become so comfortable with Ms. Grace that he very well nearly blatantly
admitted that he was off to see his vampire friends (as if she did not already
know).
Ms. Grace was not daft. She
knew what words the reverend was being careful to avoid, but she did not mind.
She understood the means for secrecy. Providence was a town of fairly liberal
and accepting thoughts, even with the gossipers and the rival families, but the
rest of the kingdom was a bit touchy with anything that was even the slightest
bit different. Enchanted peoples such as witches and wizards, vampires and
werewolves certainly were not excluded from said categorization.
The pair continued to walk quietly.
Ms. Grace kept her hand on the neck of the horse the reverend brought along as
his to-be means of transportation once he left town. The horse could feel the
energy of admiration emanating between the people and flowing through him, but
as a horse he certainly could not say anything to inquire about their identical
feelings.
“I have high hopes that our
plan will work, so long as Miss Thomas did not conceive,” the school teacher
said, patting the horse’s shoulder. The adults grew very tense for a second.
They had only mentioned the threat of pregnancy once or twice during the conversation
with the teens. It was such an awkward topic to address with children who were not
their own.
“But what then?” the
reverend asked. “If that is the case, as much as I believe in the goodness of
mankind, I’m also exceedingly familiar with those families and their sins. It’s
wretched, Ms. Grace, but I have very little faith that any sort of peaceful
understanding will be made between the families over this.”
Hearing the worry in the
reverend’s voice was something that Ms. Grace could not stand for. She jokingly
replied, turning so that she stood in the gentleman’s way of progressing
forward, “If they did conceive, then I suppose that it’s lucky you are our
town’s reverend and thus can marry them quickly, no?” Her smile shone so
brightly even in the darkness of the night.
Her smile was simply
infectious. The lightness of her words did help him to relax a little regarding
this mess. “I suppose so,” was all the reverend could say at first. After a
moment of collecting himself, he did manage to add, “But again, I’ll see if my
cousins could maybe host them for a time; their home is rather large after
all.” The reverend kept himself from chuckling to think of two children from
his town hiding out in the lair of the vampires from characters more vicious
than his blood sucking friends.
The teacher sighed. She
took a quick look behind her to see that the road they tread had come to an end.
They had reached the road the reverend always took on Sunday nights. “I had
better let you go, Mr. Tamrin,” she said kindly even though she obviously did
not want to leave his side. She sent another look to Homewood whose trees were
soon to absorb her reverend’s presence. “Um, but, er, before I do, here,” Ms.
Grace removed a small cotton satchel from the apron’s pocket she had earlier
tied around her waist. “Happy birthday, Mr. Tamrin,” she kindly wished as she
handed him the soft little bag.
The reverend chuckled and
smiled greatly. “What’s this?” he asked. The satchel was light and the weave of
the bag was obviously holding an abundance of something that felt like seeds.
Ms. Grace shrugged shyly
and informed as the reverend took a peak into the little sack that fit in the
palm of his hand, “They’re seeds. Lavender seeds, to be exact.” The reverend’s
smile said it all; he was extremely grateful for so sweet a gift, but Ms. Grace
kept talking out of her nervousness, “Well, you kept the tuberoses I gave you
last Christmas so beautiful all year, I don’t know how you did, but I thought
why not give you some more seeds for that absolutely marvelous garden of yours,
so I ordered these because they were the first flowers to come to my mind
because they are my favorites, so yes, there you are.” Ms. Grace realized that
she was babbling, so she quickly cut her words to an end.
The reverend thought her
babbling to be adorable. He understood, for he had caught himself doing the
same with her many times before. “Thank you, Ms. Grace,” the reverend said, “I’ll
be sure to find an extra-special spot for them as soon as the weather is fine
next season.”
Ms. Grace realized that her
smile was a spot beyond necessary, so she looked away and said, “Oh, nothing at
all. Um, yes, well, do be careful getting where you’re going alright? It’s
getting dark, so keep your eyes up and on the lookout for low branches and
bulging stumps.”
The reverend smiled at Ms.
Grace’s continued rambling. He decided to make it slightly easier on the poor
lady. “No need to worry about me, Ms. Grace. I know Homewood almost as well as
you. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” The reverend extended his arm as though to
shake her hand in a professional manner, which was a running joke between the
two of them.
Ms. Grace more than gladly
put her hand in his. ‘It feels so right!’
her thoughts hollered.
A light breeze blew and
gently pushed a thought into Mr. Tamrin’s mind and before the man could analyze
it he acted. “Until then, Ms. Grace,” the reverend said as he pulled her
forward with the handshake. His other hand softly landed upon her shoulder. As
though driven by fate and not his own manner of thought, Mr. Tamrin found
himself leaning down towards the lady and then he did something that Ms. Grace
could never have predicted.
His lips softly touched her
cheek.
“Good night, Mr. Tamrin,”
Ms. Grace said as she slipped away like a feather dropped into a soft breeze.
She lingered, holding the man’s hand for a second longer than a normal
handshake should last, for she was still entirely lost in what felt like a
dream.
~*~*~
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Your humble author,
S. Faxon
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