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Chapter Three

SUNNY

S unny pulled her camper van up to her childhood home.

After climbing out, she stood and looked at it.

Even with the rain coming down, her little home on wheels felt more inviting than the dilapidated house before her.

For years, this was a cozy old house filled with warm memories.

But those years were long gone. And if she was honest with herself, they were gone long before she left.

As if on demand, a shutter fell from the house and crashed into the long-overgrown bushes below.

A large part of her thought about getting back into the van and driving far away from here, but it was time she finally dealt with this.

Living her life on the run from all of this was an illusion.

If she wanted to feel truly grounded, she needed to get right with the Hollow.

As hard as it would be, it needed to be done.

Being out on the road for so long, she had been able to get away from everything that happened here, but in running away from that, she was also running away from herself.

She didn’t really know who she was anymore.

.. At least here, even when it was hard, she knew who she was.

She didn’t need to hide anything. But after her dad had worked himself to death, trying to figure out what happened the night her mother died, she couldn’t be here anymore.

She pushed all that away and set off to the house. The stairs creaked underfoot, so she was careful not to step on the loose boards on the porch. The key was having trouble, but with a small turn of the handle, the door groaned as she opened it.

Everything was just as she left it but covered in dust and cobwebs. A part of her wanted to run, screaming. But the letter from the lawyer had let her know it was now or never.

She walked past the sitting room with the small TV and her father’s recliner that still had his VenDeer Coal hoodie slung over the back.

On her right was her mother’s parlor, which had been closed since the night of the car accident.

She didn’t even want to think about the state of the kitchen, so she made her way upstairs.

She tiptoed down the creaky hallway to her bedroom door and pushed it open. Despite the dust covering everything, it looked just the same as it did when she was young.

She left when she was twenty-one. This room felt like a lifetime ago. Its sunny-yellow walls and sunflowers covered in dust gave a haunted cheerfulness. Fitting.

She pulled out the chair from her vanity and sank into it.

What was she going to do? How was she going to live here?

She had a choice; she could let the weight of this house and this place pull her down, or she could roll up her sleeves and get to work.

First, she would get this room under control to make it more comfortable... Then she would deal with the rest of the house... and the rest of the Hollow.

After peeling the sheets and blankets off her bed, she set off to the washer and dryer in the basement to see if they still worked.

To her pleasant surprise, they worked, and there was still an unopened bottle of laundry soap...

It doesn’t go bad, right?

Once at the top of stairs, she looked at the door across from hers, her dad’s office.

He was a writer and had spent hours and hours in this room working on stories.

.. until his obsession with the crash took over.

She put her hand on the door and almost jumped out of her skin when, from downstairs, “Coal Miner’s Daughter” boomed. She jumped and covered her ears.

When she made her way downstairs, the record player was spinning an old Loretta Lynn album. Pretending not to be creeped out, she gently lifted the arm. Silence settled back in the house. It was too quiet.

She made her way upstairs and turned on her radio, rolled up her sleeves, and blew out a breath.

Before she knew it, she was bagging up trash. She needed to head into town and get some cleaner from the dollar store. Picking up her purse, she made sure she had her keys before making her way out the door with two full bags of garbage.

As she headed down the porch, her foot came crashing for through the loose step, and a sharp pain shot up her ankle before she tumbled to the ground.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” she called out to the universe as she assessed the damage on her ankle.

She stood and tried to walk. It hurt like a bitch, but it wasn’t bad because she managed to hobble the trash to the side of the house. As she put the lid back on, a rustling came from the woods. She peered into the woods next to the drive and could have sworn she saw something looking back at her.

It was just wishful thinking. Those woods would lead her right to Asher.

As scary as the mountains were, she thought she knew what she saw, and she was scared for a whole other reason. She wasn’t ready to deal with that problem yet.

She limped her way over to her van and set off into town.

Later that night, she was ready to relax, so she took a long hot shower, trying to wash off all the grime of the day.

The rain had finally stopped, and the sun was setting. She decided to make herself tea and sit on the porch swing.

As she sat and looked out over her yard, she remembered all the nights her mom sat on the porch swing while Sunny caught lighting bugs in the yard, memories tied to the Black family.

The four were often catching those fireflies as their mothers chatted and shared magic.

She had felt the absence of that since her mom died, but with being back, it was even worse.

As if the endless pit the loss of her friends and family wasn’t enough, there was Asher. He was so much more than a friend.

He was her person. Her mate.

Finding your mate as a child is wonderful and awful all at the same time. She was filled with this need to learn who she was, but it had already been decided for her, which was part of what had caused her to run.

But then there was Asher. She missed him every day. Ached for him. She told herself she would come back, but with each mile and each day, it got harder and harder to.

A rustle from the tree’s edge caught her attention. Even in the dim light, she could see a black furry figure sitting there, watching her. While this might scare most people, its presence calmed her. Even still, after all this time and as complicated as it was, it brought her a sense of peace.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

It just stood there, watching her.

“I’m going to make this better. I promise.”

At that, the black figure turned back into the forest and slipped away.

She closed her eyes and listened to the woods as twilight gave way to the stars.

A slight chill wisped in the air on this late April night. The warmth from the cup of tea calmed her. Her mother had always said when things got hard to just keep moving. And that was all she could do now.

Just keep moving and hope it was the right thing.