Sadie hid under the wild lilac bush and found safety in its scent. For hours, she watched the day through the branches of clustered blooms that turned everything to purple beauty. She held her arm against the flowers and compared her purple to the purple of the luscious blooms that smelled so sweet. And she sniffed her purple marks but the scent wasn’t sweet like the lilacs—they smelled of salt and sadness.
Mama came looking for her and barked out, “Sadie, where are you? You better come out or you're gonna get it, girl!” But Sadie shut out Mama with a song in her head. She fell to sleep and dreamed of a house made of lilacs—of sweet smells and soft petals. The lush branches were arms that swallowed her into a nest of forgetting and daydreams.
In Sadie’s dream she grew up wild like the lilac bush—all arms and legs reaching out to the sun and morning sky and smiling in sweet repose. She swayed with the breeze and made people smile as they saw her on the path. And they took pieces of her home to put in vases and wear in their hair.
When the sky matched the color of the lilacs Sadie rose and slowly ambled home. Quiet like a mouse into her room and lulled to sleep within the smell of lilacs.
Billy Frayne, a criminology student has a lot of attitude and particularly about the Clarke murder case. Convinced his theory of the case is correct, he takes a sucker bet to prove it. What begins as a sure thing and summer adventure, quickly becomes a mystery within a mystery with Billy’s past at the core of it all.
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4 comments:
Sweet and sad!
I think the image of her sniffing her purple spots to see if they smelled like lilacs will stick with me a very long time. Nicely understated story.
Great descriptions throughout. I love "they smelled of salt and sadness."
This is really lovely. Well done.
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