Across the Vanishing Sky (Starlight Grove, #1)(4)
Nova’s water bottle.
A lump caught in my throat, making it hard to breathe. I still managed to scream. I screamed Nova’s name until I was hoarse, but she never answered.
1
BRAEDYN
ONE YEAR LATER
My heart gave a stutter step, the kind that made me wonder if I’d developed a heart condition in the three hundred and seventy-two days Nova had been missing. Not one sign or sighting beyond things that were wishful thinking. So maybe it was a heart condition.
A broken heart.
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel as I fought against worst-case scenarios and nightmares that took root in my mind. I would not let the what-ifs win.
The used SUV I’d emptied my savings for had seen better days, but it hugged the road like a dream as the worn sign came into view: Welcome to Starlight Grove. The wood was weathered, but you could still make out the stars carved into its grain at the top and the ornate trees along either side.
It was rustic and charming, like the town itself. But all I could feel were nerves. My stomach gave a jolting rumble as my gaze flicked to my wrist and the pink-purple-and-teal friendship bracelet Nova had made me during one of her crafty phases. I hadn’t taken it off in the three hundred and seventy-two days she’d been missing, and it was starting to fray in places.
There were times when the bracelet felt like one of those hourglasses filled with sand—a marker of what was left. And time was running out. Those final grains swirling around and around, threatening to tell me I was out of options. And Nova was out of time.
“I’m not an idiot, right?” I whispered to no one. Not to Owen, who had his headphones on, glued to a show on his tablet. Not to my sweet, mischievous dog, Yeti, whose nose was pressed to the glass, dying to smell all the new scents.
Nova had always been the recipient of all my questions and doubts. The one I talked through every problem with. But now…I didn’t have a single soul. Not really.
As the road curved again, I sucked in breath but for a whole new reason. Mount Lupine sprang up over the fields and forests like a beacon guiding us home—to our new home, anyway.
Starlight Grove might hold shadows, but it also gleamed with unending beauty. Every corner you turned, there was something new to discover. Sagebrush and tall grass-filled meadows. Ponderosa pine-and spruce-packed forests. Countless bending rivers and streams. And that mountain as a backdrop to it all.
Yeti shoved her head between the front seats and licked my cheek at the sound of my intake of air. I couldn’t help the soft laugh that bubbled out of me. “You ready, girl?”
She barked as if to say, You’ve had my furry butt locked in this car for four hours. What do you think?
Owen brushed his headphones off, and I heard the faint sounds of that robot show he loved emanating from them. He shoved his glasses-clad face through the opening between the seats, too.
A more full-bodied laugh left me at the sight of the two of them in my rearview mirror. Owen and Yeti had become besties since I brought her home from the shelter a little over a year ago. A mix of Labrador, Saint Bernard, coonhound, and pit bull, she carried traits of all four. But most importantly, she had the nose of the first three, making her an excellent search dog and a pretty dang good guard dog to boot.
“Are we here?” Owen asked, bouncing in his seat as much as his seat belt would allow.
“Just about. What do you think?”
My eight-year-old cocked his head to the side, examining the landscape in front of him. “It’s big.”
My mouth curved, and I held on to the way it felt. The lingering tendrils of warmth from the laugh he and Yeti had created. After Nova went missing, I’d had to fake every laugh and smile for months. For Owen. So he wouldn’t know the truth of what had happened. So he’d believe the story that Nova had been forced to return home to help her family. That she’d try to come back.
But one day, Owen had been painting on his activity table and accidentally exploded the blue paint all over his face. His glasses had blocked the worst of it from getting into his eyes, but he’d looked like a blue burglar.
I’d laughed for real for the first time and knew then that you could find humor amid pain, and joy amid agony. And I’d vowed to hold on to every sprinkle I could get.
“Mountains tend to be big, kiddo.”
“I knoooooow, bruh,” Owen said in that voice that was eight going on eighteen. The bruh thing was new. I hadn’t been Mommy in years, but I’d hoped to hold on to Mom for a little longer. Now, I was bro or bruh more often than not.
“All right, bruh.” I reached back and tickled his neck, making him squeal in a tone that was still 100 percent little boy. And I clung to that, too.
Yeti let out another bark and licked Owen, sensing some sort of game being played.
“Gross, Yeti! You’re a slobberfest.”
I chuckled as I made the turn into downtown Starlight Grove. I braced, waiting for the memories to hit—the handful I had of Nova and me here. The Grove Griddle, the diner where we’d had some incredible French toast. Barrel & Branch, the wine bar where we’d sampled local creations. The adorable little B&B where we’d stayed.
But because I’d braced, the memories didn’t hit as hard. They liked to surprise—a sucker punch of grief when you least expected it.