Hillwilla

Melanie Forde

Description

Beatrice Desmond, 55, lives on a remote farm nestled in a deep hollow in southern West Virginia. Her troubled past–an alcoholic father, growing up borderline poor, a suicidal husband–along with her loyalty to a deceased friend, drove her to this lonely existence. She soldiers on, accompanied by her wry sense of humor, a faithful setter named Ralph, and an inherited herd of six llamas, one of whom hurls a wad of chewed-up hay in her face on New Year's Day, a most unwelcome omen.

A native of Boston and a graduate of an Ivy League college, Beatrice is a fish out of water in fictional Seneca County. She has constant difficulty dealing with the locals, many of whom she finds interesting but unfathomable. And although she maintains contact with certain friends and family–lively and irreverent Evie, sturdy brother Bart–they remain distant geographically and sometimes emotionally. As a result, and too often, Beatrice retreats into her work as a translator and editor, or into the bottle of Jack Daniel's she maintains nearby. Fate finally intervenes, requiring Beatrice to befriend and shelter Clara, an abused teenager, and accept the job of ghostwriting the memoir of her dashing but enigmatic neighbor, Tanner Fordyce. Gradually, Beatrice finds the harsh Appalachian winter of her life easing and signs of a hopeful spring appearing. Her resolute independence and crusty reserve soften, her carefully constructed
barriers fall, and her guarded and self-protective nature moderates, as she explores the renewed pleasures of emotional involvement.

At times sad, at times hilarious, and always quirky, Hillwilla is a life-affirming read. It celebrates the glories of nature, the resilience of the human spirit, the healing power derived from genuine connections with others, and the potential for reinventing ourselves–at any age.

Come, explore the unforgettable world of Hillwilla.

Sujets

• Literary
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 17 février 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780988591967
• Langue: English

Extrait

Hillwilla
By Melanie Forde
Published in eBook format by D Street Books,
a division of Mountain Lake Press
Converted by eBookIt.com
© 2014 Melanie Forde—All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 978-0-9885919-6-7
Design by Michael Hentges
Cover photo by the author
 
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of
the characters to real persons living or dead is
unintentional and purely coincidental.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced for any
purpose—except for brief excerpts used in reviews—
without the express written consent of the author.

 
 
To Himself, for all those leaps of faith

 
 
AUTHOR’S NOTE
 
With the exception of White Sulphur Springs and Charleston, all of the West Virginia localities mentioned in this book are fictitious. Although “Seneca” figures in many place names in West Virginia, the state has no “Seneca County,” but that mythical locale has much in common, for good and ill, with many a deeply wooded, seriously mountainous, and amazingly isolated county in southeastern West Virginia.
ONE – Spit Happens

 
Beatrice wiped the wads of chewed-up vegetation off her face and thought of omens. Here it was, New Year’s Day, and this was one of the first things to happen to her. But Beatrice told herself this would not be an omen—it would not set the tone for the entire year.
No. Getting spat on was merely serendipitous, she told herself. She just happened to get caught in the crossfire between Graf and Tess, as they duked it out over the flake of hay she had slipped into the wall rack. Graf was newly gelded and grumpy. Tess was old, arthritic and grumpy—and bigger. She lobbed off the first volley, and Graf, the lesser llama, took it full on the mouth—apart from the clumps that had landed on Beatrice. That’s all there was to it: serendipity.
For other people, serendipity was about magical gifts that dropped out of the sky and into their laps and changed their lives for the better.
Stop it, Beatrice, or you’ll end up a worse whiner than the biggest West Virginia godhelpus.
Beatrice Desmond had, after all, experienced benevolent serendipity—the kind that made you look forward to waking up in the morning because just maybe there was another gift under the metaphoric tree. And yes, Beatrice had experienced the kind of serendipity that made you want to stay home with the covers pulled so tightly over your head that you could hardly breathe. No one gets to the age of fifty-five without being in the wrong place at the wrong time, just when the deer dashes onto the icy highway. Just when the dear friend dies.
For the most part, Beatrice had lived a planned life, where the good things came from lots of organization and hard work, which could avert or at least minimize a lot of bad things. That was how it should be and how Beatrice’s life was. But at times she couldn’t help wishing for a gentle shove in a happy new direction.
This was one of those times. Graf and Tess weren’t the only ones with the grumps.
At least I didn’t have to spend the night in this godforsaken weather, like these poor things.
Beatrice closed the paddock gate and willed her legs to take small, flat-footed steps along the snow-packed path back to the house. At a few tricky spots she whipped her hands out of her down pockets to struggle for balance. The last thing she needed was a fall.
She turned around and looked back at the barn, where all six llamas were chowing down greedily, having worked out an appropriate pecking order in the inscrutable camelid hierarchy. “Who would take care of you, if something happened to me?” she wondered aloud.
Not for the first time, Beatrice felt a wave of relief at seeing those red walls. They were the typical dull “barn red,” a paint famed for its ability to penetrate wood deeply and fortify the most decrepit of barn boards. Surely many paints of similar consistency could serve as well. Indeed she had seen dark green and gray barns in the country. But here, in Seneca County, West Virginia, barn red predominated.
She had heard myriad tales about barn red’s origins. According to many, the prototypes relied heavily on ferrous oxide—rust—which was inexpensive and had the added virtue of inhibiting mold. Others claimed the original barn-red paints derived their hue from the blood of slaughtered livestock or from lead chromate—a toxic, pinkish substance that dried quickly and was protective against wet rot. In northern New England, barn red supposedly stood out even in whiteout conditions, when the farmer might become disoriented on his way to feed the animals. Perhaps because of her own New England origins, Beatrice favored that explanation, although she wondered why the farmhouse wasn’t painted barn red as well. Wouldn’t the farmer also be in danger of losing his way in the driving snow, as he shuffled back home after tending to his livestock? Especially if his house was white, as Beatrice’s was?
She chided herself for letting her thoughts wander. All those mental side roads and detours so often got her into trouble with reductive-thinking colleagues, most of whom were men. But more and more women preferred to think one thought at a time, too. Conversation had become agenda-driven. Get to the next item on the schedule. People like that built straight driveways instead of ones that curved first north and then south, as Beatrice’s did on its quarter-mile journey from road to house. Those graceful curves were one of the attractions of her little homestead.
“Where was I?” Beatrice asked herself. “Red, right.” The red was welcome because it offered visual relief from the monochromatic bleakness of an Appalachian winter. Also a good part of an Appalachian fall and spring. Here, gray was the primary color. Even with full snow cover. The snow on the pasture had blue-gray streaks from the shadows of the surrounding mountains, which cast her hollow into an early twilight by 2 p.m. every day. On winter mornings, the sun didn’t clear the eastern hills until nearly 9 a.m.—if it managed to penetrate the cloud cover.
What am I doing here?
In the past year, this remote homestead had lost its last vestige of charm for Beatrice. But she felt tied to it because of the llamas, which were a serious constraint on mobility. If not for them, she and Ralph would have packed their bags and headed back, in defeat, to civilization.
 
With his butt planted firmly in the snow, Ralph soberly observed Beatrice carrying out her barn chores. Gray with ample white flecking, he blended into the scene, as he silently stood guard. He had long ago forgotten the ignominy of being banished from the barn and pasture. The day the llamas arrived, he had dashed off, barking and wagging his tail, to greet them. But instead of returning his greeting, the strange beasts dug in their feet, fixed him in the eye, and made that noise . Ralph had never heard that noise before. It sounded like fear and menace and lunacy intertwined. He barked back more authoritatively and then sped toward them. One of the beasts lowered its head and charged toward Ralph. Ralph permitted himself a small startled yip before he headed back toward the house.
He had since come to understand that the llamas were part of the extended pack. His person liked them. Not better than she liked Ralph, of course. Like most setters, he had a big heart and was generous enough to share his human. So if she had to tend to them, he would stand guard for her. And because of his big heart, he would guard them as well against interlopers who were not part of the pack. It was very nice to be of service.
Ralph liked being a good dog.
“Good dog,” Beatrice said breathlessly, as she paused in her hike from barn to house to flip Ralph’s bangs with her gloved hand. She bent forward and locked eyes with him, just inches from his frosted muzzle. He fluffed out his flews to get an even deeper draught of the tea and toothpaste on her breath. And was there a bit of last night’s lamb still lurking somewhere between his human’s teeth? Ralph would be happy to remove it for her. But humans didn’t seem to like that service. So he contented himself with breathing in Beatrice. He liked the way his human smelled and signaled his contentment by sweeping an arc in the snow with his tail.
As soon as Beatrice straightened up, Ralph sprang forward to show her the rest of the way to the back door. At least he hoped that was where she was going. Ralph would like very much to warm up by the wood stove, have a drink of water and look to see if his person had dropped any cereal on the kitchen floor.
Beatrice appeared to be veering off for the Boring Building, where she did nothing but sit at a table that was not for eating. Ralph turned around, ready to guide her there. If he were human, he would have sighed. But he was a dog, so he bounced forward.
“Oh screw it, it’s supposed to be a holiday. I’ll work tomorrow. C’mon Ralph, let’s have another cup of tea.”
Ralph went vertical, as he turned around and dashed for the back stairs with such enthusiasm that his hindquarters skidded on the icy landing. He immediately went into a sit-stay and held out a paw for her to examine. “Did you hurt yourself, boy?” asked Beatrice, lifting the proffered paw. He calmly let her examine all four legs and declare him fit. With that assurance, the setter slammed his elbows on the landing, raised his rump in the air and made wild loops with his tail, before levitating himself through the dog panel in the back door.
Beatrice thought it would be very nice if she could park her rump before some kindly soul, proffer her limp wrist, and receive assurances that all was well. In fact, that was precisely what she needed.
TWO – Bart Sighs

 
“Hello?”
“Happy New Year, Daddy!”
“Martha?”
“You have some other offspring I don’t know about?”
Bartholomew Desmond had been awakened from a contented nap and an even more satisfying dream in which he was an indeterminate number of decade