Page 1 of Artfully Wild
CHAPTER ONE
SKYLAR
The day after Thanksgiving is the day I dread the most every year. The holiday passes and everyone quickly shifts to the next thing, like the day before didn’t even happen. Evidence of fall decorations are replaced with glittery, gold garland, white lights, or fake pine. Snowmen and Christmas wreaths now hang on doors where scarecrows and turkeys were seconds before.
Blue Grove, Oregon takes every holiday very seriously, but Christmas is at the forefront of every year. While we do have a decent number of tourists in the summer season and fall is even better, winter is where our town really shines.
Festivals, movie nights, hot cocoa, freshly baked Christmas cookies fromBooks & Beans—the local coffee and book shop—and all the small town charm is perfectly crafted into one ridiculously magical season.
A perfect little snow globe for us to replicate and swirl around in every year, the snow landing softly on the rooftops just right every time. Add in someone from the city coming into town who falls in love with one of the locals and you haveyourself a cozy little romantic comedy…except that already happened. To my brother, Hudson, and his now fiancé, Avery Reid, five months ago. She came to visit to get away from her mother and her busy city life and my brother was an immediate goner even if he refused to believe it for a while.
My boots crunch in the snow as I continue to walk down Main Street to my outdoor store, passing a handful of townspeople trading their oranges and yellows for greens and reds. Outside their respective businesses, they’re all bundled up in winter gear, some on ladders, others on the sidewalk feeding garland or snowflakes up to their employees to hang from the awnings.
The town usually does a contest every year where everyone votes on the best storefront decorations, and typically I would participate—mostly, because it comes with bragging rights for a whole year and I am an exceptional bragger—but this year, I don’t think I’m up for it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the holiday and every cheesy thing that comes with it…or I used to. I used to act like I didn't care and pretended it was just another day, but secretly, the cheesier it was, the better.
I tease my brother about his obsession with the time of the year—which is actually a little over the top, let’s be honest here—but on some level, I did understand it. I still do for the most part, but it’s also a holiday I shared with our sister, Sarah. We loved everything about this time—the secret whispers in our shared bedroom about the gifts we planned to get our family, the excitement when the first snow of the season came, the warmth from the smile she would give me when our family would spend a weekend pulling totes out of their hibernation to breathe the crisp winter air for the next month or two.
Every year we would stay up late and talk about what we thought Santa would leave us. And then in later years, when we were old enough to know Santa didn’t exist, we would talk about what our parents would think of the gifts we boughtthem that year or the town activities we were most looking forward to. Our conversations would usually drift in the middle of the night while we made hot cocoa with cinnamon and vanilla as we wondered what the future would bring. We didn’t realize what little magic would await us over the next year of our lives and how much the once bright, shiny holiday would dull.
I stop walking and pause in front ofBooks & Beans,the only establishment not currently decorated as the owner, Fran, will need help with everything. I lean back against the brick and change the course of my thoughts before allowing them to spiral. I’m not usually this down on myself, but recently it seems like I can’t help it. Fiddling with my gloves, I adjust my beanie to tug it back down to cover my ears while also trying to block out the sounds of the hammering and subtle sounds of the town around me—the rattle of dangling lights at the storefront next door, the deep voices laughing as they pass me on the sidewalk, unaware of the small body trying to shrink away from everything around it.
The flower boxes across the street are filled with Oregon’s winter blooms and they make me think of when my sister would bring home flowers for our mom every Sunday so she could have fresh ones in her vase for the week. It’s something she continued to do when she and her family moved back here.
When Sarah and I were in high school, she would talk about working at Fran’s whenever she could, so she could be around books and coffee. Then college came and she left to go to business school in Seattle where she met Elias. Our late night talks quickly shifted to him, their future together and other things about him that I really didn’t want to know and now really regret knowing.
The bells above the door chime, startling me from my thoughts, as someone walks out. I zip through the door before it closes and the sounds of the midday crowd envelop me. Thelunch rush is starting to slow and there are only a handful of people scattered throughout the café. My eight-year-old nephew, Ethan, is lounging on one of the smaller couches in the back, his now long legs hanging off the end of it, some kind of graphic novel in hand. Deep in concentration, his eyebrows are scrunched together. The same look his mother would get when she was swept away by a book. I decide not to bother him and turn to Fran who is patiently waiting for me to approach the counter, arms crossed and resting on top of it.
“Afternoon, Fran.” I force a smile.
“Sky,” she acknowledges, and while she doesn’t say anything else, I know she can see right through my forced politeness.
“Can I get a latte to go, please? With vanilla?”
“You got it.” She winks before she gets to work. Instead of leaning on the counter and waiting like I usually do, I take a few steps toward the shelves and look through the section labeledHenry’s Picks, a special shelf Fran set aside for her late husband’s favorite books. I’ve never really been into reading—that was more Sarah’s thing—but for whatever reason, I’ve been feeling more drawn to it lately and wonder why she was always so engrossed in a book—much like Ethan is now. I tilt my head, shuffling through the choices, and consider what book I think I might like.
Maybe it’s something I can do to connect with Sarah, to feel her or just to have something in my life that doesn’t feel like I’m lost in the dark while I try to find the right path.
I keep sifting through the books, most of which are classics I recognize from Sarah’s shelf she used to have at home. Among them arePride & Prejudice, Treasure Island, Sherlock Holmes, Through the Looking Glass, and a few others. But at the very back of the shelf, tucked away like it’s been hidden, a secret waiting to be discovered, there’s a light blue, leather bound book with gold foiled edges and engravings of flowers scattered across the cover.The Secret Gardenis scrawled on the top in fancy lettering,a sketch of a gate right below it. Brushing my fingers along the spine, I am transported back to my childhood bedroom with Sarah, her shifting positions on the bed with a book with the exact cover as this propped open. Her copy was a bit less worn than the one in my hands, but I remember catching a glimpse of her highlights, tabs and handwritten notes in the margins. She was always reading it and I never really understood the appeal. Maybe I would now? I’ve changed a lot since my high school years, and I’d like to think that I’ve grown and my tastes have developed over time.
I never cared for classics, or books in general really. There was never enough interest for me, but Sarah would always be reading one. FromJane EyretoPride & Prejudice, to her own battered copy ofThe Secret Garden. I questioned why these types of stories interested her. What was it about them that pulled her in? She used to make me watch the movies with her and I would struggle to stay awake every time. But Sarah? By the end of the movie, she’d be sitting on the edge of the couch, completely focused on the characters and their deep confessions of love. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve heard the line, “Completely, perfectly, incandescently happy.”
Is anyone actually that? Is anyone in this world truly completely, perfectly, incandescently happy?
Anyway, forget the Darcy hand flex. Give me Aragorn opening the doors at Helm’s Deep on a loop and I’ll be “incandescently happy.”
What does that even mean? An image of me driving the fixed up RV I’ve worked on for years floods my head. The windows are down, ‘90s rock fills the cabin and I look over to smile at my best friend, Jacob, who is singing at the top of his lungs, voice cracking when he tries to hit the higher notes, his short blond hair swaying with the wind as he adjusts his glasses. I miss traveling. I miss my RV. I miss the way Jacob would ask me questionafter question about my future plans for it and where I planned to go next.
But family came first. Family always comes first and even though my purpose for coming home is fulfilled, there’s still a part of me that mourns the life I had before I came back. Traveling, painting, just driving where I wanted to go next.
I remember the email from the ski resort sitting in my inbox and wonder if that is something I can have again. I’d have to finish the RV—although, let’s be realistic, Axel would have to finish it, but I think I can convince him to push it up on his list as long as I make sure Sophie, one of my best friends since childhood, comes with me every time to “help.” Definitely not to ogle the dark-haired man in a mechanic jumpsuit.
I grip the book in my hands, running my fingers over the grooved leather, soft with age against my skin.
Maybe this will be a way to bring Sarah back into my life a little bit and help me figure out myself along the way.
Fuck. When did I become a walking sign for melancholy?
I roll my eyes at myself and take the book with me up to the counter.
