People only went to Nowhere, Georgia for two reasons: one, because they didn’t have a choice, and two, because they hadn’t meant to come at all.
Wyatt Best fell into both of those categories.
Wyatt didn’t have a choice in his arrival because he’d been sent to Nowhere after his father’s death.
Wyatt hadn’t meant to come to Nowhere because he certainly hadn’t meant for his father to leave his unstable mother with nothing but a five-hundred dollar bill and a single note that read, Just send the boy to Hal.
Hal was the uncle Wyatt’s father never spoke of because “he’s a blight on our good name”.
After losing the family fortune after his father’s death, Wyatt was beginning to wonder what was so good about their “good name” anyway.
One would expect Wyatt to be devastated. If not for his own financial ruin, then for his father’s death. If not for his father’s death, then for the fact that he had to live with an uncle he’d never met, in a town that was renowned for its ghost population.
But Wyatt Best felt none of these things. He’d hardly known his father, and while the money was a sore loss, there was nothing he could do about it now. Wyatt Best did not believe in emotions, and he certainly did not grieve about the things he couldn’t help.
Now here he was, walking down a dusty road in Georgia because the Cadillac (the only one that hadn’t been repossessed) had mysteriously stopped working just inside the “Welcome to Nowhere” sign hanging underneath an oak tree
The cotton fields on either side of him were set ablaze by the fiery sky and Wyatt paused long enough to completely ignore it and study the poorly scribbled directions he’d written on the back of a postcard.
He was five miles into Nowhere with three to go until he reached his uncle’s house. He’d be navigating these dirt roads until nine o’clock if he didn’t pick up his pace by at least another mile per hour.
He hitched his duffel bag higher onto his shoulder and counted each step, keeping in time with the rhythm in his head that would get him to his destination in a more timely fashion.
A black cat skittered across his path, making him stumble forward and break his brisk pace.
Wyatt scowled as the cat stared back with its luminous green eyes, swishing its tail calmly back and forth across the dirt and making a tiny dust cloud in its wake.
It was the eighth black cat he’d seen since entering Nowhere. Now that he thought about it, it was the only type of animal he’d seen at all. Either he hadn’t been paying attention otherwise, or the residents of Nowhere had a strange fetish.
The cat watched Wyatt for a long time, as if it were trying to hypnotize him. The cat blinked once, long and slow.
A honk from a car behind him startled him so badly that he jerked upright and stepped on the cat’s tail.
The cat shrieked, swiped at his trousers, and darted away.
Wyatt blinked into a pair of dusty headlights. Shielding his eyes, he squinted and saw a 1940 Ford pickup. It was sanded and dull with its roof completely missing like a convertible.
A blonde head leaned over the door and tilted curiously. The girl’s eyes were green and clever and from what Wyatt could tell from the top half of her, she wore a plain but well-sewn dress that had dust smeared across the sleeves and straw sticking up from the seams.
The cause of the dust and straw was apparently a goat tied up in the back seat of the pickup, who was watching Wyatt skeptically while munching on hay.
The girl said, “Some of them tell the future if you’re not careful.”
“Sorry?”
“The cats. Legend has it that if you look them in the eye, you’ll see your future.”
Wyatt assumed she was joking, so he decided to “be careful” by not asking questions.
“You’re going the wrong way,” the girl continued.
Wyatt blinked and straightened himself, suddenly embarrassed either because he’d been staring at the girl or because he’d been staring at the cat, he wasn’t sure.
“I, er, don’t think so,” he offered, wondering how in the world her car was working when his had clunked out. “I’m going to Hal Best’s.”
The girl’s mouth formed a small “o” and she reached over to the passenger’s side and opened the door with a forceful thrust. “Hop on in.”
Wyatt furrowed his brow. In California, it wasn’t a common practice to ride in cars with strangers, mostly because every stranger owned their own car and there was no need to hitch a ride with one.
How did this girl know he wasn’t some sort of killer? On the same token, how did he know that she wasn’t a killer?
Though he was still feeling a bit shaken after the cat incident, Wyatt found himself clamoring into the Ford and resting his duffel bag next to the goat, who was now even more skeptical than before.
“What’s your name?” the girl asked. She pulled the stick shift into gear and it complied with a painful squeal.
“Wyatt Best.”
“So a relative of Hal’s, then?”
The girl’s accent was slow, almost calming, and Wyatt nodded. “He’s my uncle.”
The girl knitted her eyebrows and Wyatt could see the questions she didn’t ask floating through her mind, but instead she said, “I’m Marigold Penny.”
“Do you only have black cats around here?” Wyatt asked, straightening his sweater vest and picking off a few straws of hay that had somehow found a home in the knit material.
“No,” she replied. “They’re just the only ones that tell the future.”
Wyatt snorted, but Marigold didn’t laugh. Wyatt schooled his features.
The Ford bumped along the pebble-laden road and Wyatt stiffened when a blueish figure caught the headlights of the truck, lifting a friendly hand to Marigold, who waved back.
Wyatt swallowed and made sure his tone was even when he asked, “Was that one of your ghosts?”
Marigold smiled in an easy manner that told of her amusement at his ignorance. “Do they scare you?”
Wyatt considered this. He’d been startled by the sight of a ghost, but what scared him, as Marigold put it, was not the figure itself, but the idea of the impossible. So he said, “Not unless they try to flicker the lights or fiddle with my things.”
Marigold laughed. “I doubt you’ll have to worry about that. The ghosts mostly stay in the clearing at night.”
“The clearing?”
“It’s where all of the ghosts appear when they first arrive in Nowhere. Including the black cats, like the one you saw on the road.”
Wyatt frowned. Had she not been joking about them telling the future?
Marigold laughed again. “You’re really not from around here, are you?”
“I’m from Sacramento.”
“Oh brother,” she sighed.
The goat in the back seat, having decided that Wyatt was alright company, attempted to nibble his hair.
“That’s Bethany McFarlane,” Marigold said. “She’s our runner. Found her five miles away from the house again.”
Wyatt was intrigued by her, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Now that he thought about it, he was intrigued by everything in Nowhere.
There was a distinct pull that Nowhere possessed and it was different than anywhere he’d been before.
“My Cadill--er, my car stopped working outside of town,” he said.
“Interesting,” Marigold said. “Must’ve been because of the power surge earlier. Knocked out all of the lights in town.”
Wyatt asked, “Do you know of a good mechanic in town?”
Marigold’s smile widened. “There’s only one and you’re looking at her.” Then she muttered, “At least until school starts again and Frank comes back from his summer house in North Carolina.”
She patted her clunker of a truck affectionately. “I found this just sitting in the woods one day. Fixed her up myself, gleaned a few parts from this and that, and she’s been running slick for years now.”
Wyatt raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Nice work.” He swatted at Bethany McFarlane, who was now trying to eat his shirt collar.
“Your accent,” Marigold observed after a beat of goat-munching sounds filled the space between them. “It’s different. Where were you from originally?”
Wyatt glanced at her. She was keen, that was certain. Most of the people he met never even noticed he had an accent, especially since he’d worked so hard to cover it up. “Holland. But I only lived there until I was six, before California.”
He said it without a trace of emotion, but in reality, Wyatt hated talking about that day. Whatever fond memories he would’ve had regarding his childhood up until that point had been erased by the squeal of German anti-aircraft artillery filling his ears and destroying his home.
He was supposed to have forgotten about it by now. The only days that were supposed to exist were the ones after his father had struck oil and made his fortune.
But as much as Wyatt tried to forget, his dreams never seemed to.
The truck hiccuped as it rattled into downtown.
Wyatt was used to the buildings in California--stores lining each side of a paved road, some with neon signs and lights, with swing music playing from a bar nearby.
But downtown Nowhere was merely a sparse collection of houses-turned-stores. There was a diner, a shoe repair shop, and a clothing store. There were two other storefronts, but Wyatt couldn’t read the faded signs in the dying sunlight.
It was shabby, certainly, but there was the intrigue again. His heart beating out the rhythm, Something. Something. Something.
“Why are you here?” Marigold asked.
Wyatt glanced at her sun-silhouetted profile. He hadn’t talked to many people since his father died. All of his friends from Brambleby Academy had stopped talking to him once they heard he wasn’t made of money. His mother wasn’t inclined to talk to anyone, least of all him.
Besides his lack of opportunity, Wyatt wasn’t accustomed to sharing about his personal life anyway. It had to do with the California strangers.
“My father died,” he said. “We lost all our money and my mother lost her mind, so here I am.”
“I’m sorry.”
Wyatt nodded, but he didn’t need an apology. His mind had already moved on to focus on his new life.
In his mind, there was fact and there was fiction. He was of the opinion that emotions were, for the most part, fictional.
Facts were facts and fiction was fiction.
He was beginning to think he was in the wrong place for that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi everyone! I'm so excited to be joining the Tapas community! Any tips for a newbie to the site? =P
~What are your first impressions of Nowhere, Wyatt, and Marigold?
~General thoughts?
Thanks so much for reading! I can't wait to share more with you!
Comments (0)
See all