Autumnal Journeys

Excerpt from the Wisp ...

Windfall was surrounded by forest on three sides, with the ocean on the fourth, and it wasn’t hard to see how the town had gotten its name. She turned onto Windfall Boulevard to find leaves falling as thick as snow on a winter’s day. The oaks that lined the street were hundreds of years old. Rather than reaching for sunlight, lower branches grew earthward. Selfless limbs braced ancient giants against toppling under their own weight.

At one end of the Boulevard was the School District, where both St. Cat and St. X could be found, and not too far off, Windfall High. The boulevard led to Library Square—the heart of the town. Several streets fed off the square. Maple Avenue ran north and through a couple of middle-class neighborhoods. The home Bara sometimes shared with her mother was at the end of the avenue in the Garden District. Anything but middle-class, the Garden District had some of the largest homes in North America.

Just past Library Square and along the east end of Windfall Boulevard was a heavily wooded park, a forest really, and then finally the Grande Oaks District. This was where her father and his new wife, Courtney, lived. South of the square was the Business District and further south a rundown area known as the Tracks. Amy’s family lived there. She attended St. Cat on scholarship and so roomed with Bara in the dorms. Before reaching Library Square, Bara veered off the boulevard and cut across a small park with a fountain—a shortcut. A chestnut fell from the sky and collided with her foot. She watched it skid to a stop at the base of its parent tree. Just then her coat pocket vibrated. She paused under the shade of the tree and took out her phone. Colin had sent a text.

Help! They’re either trying to poison or starve us. Save me! Send food.