Fiction--Dreams in the Clouds: Second Installament

The toddler had been lost for more than three days and his mother’s hope dissipated with each passing hour. His sisters did their best to comfort the woman, who clung to his older brother like a rag doll. The house had been searched from cellar to attic, as well as the dairy barn and sugar house. The uncles had combed the pastures, the maple groves, the heavily mossed ravines, and pined capped peak of Lincoln Mountain. The boy hadn’t been found anywhere. 

The fireflies glittered above the new corn and the moon rose large over the White River rapids at the fork in town by the covered bridge. Each day more people came from town to help in the search, and by nightfall all were somber with exhaustion and deflated hopes.

It was a relief when the cock finally crowed and the first rays of dawn speared the sky illuminating the church steeple in crimson, rose, lavender and peach. Ribbons of morning fog lifted from the tilled fields as men in overalls and caps and women in calico dresses and straw hats set off once again looking for the wayward child.

“Momma,” the eldest daughter bent over her mother. “I’ve made you some coffee.”

The woman rocked her son, resting her chin on his sleeping head. She stared at the lampshade with red rimmed eyes. She hadn’t slept in days.

“Here, let me take Liam. You should eat something.” Her mother looked up and surrendered her first born son into the arms of his sister.

“The cows,” started the older woman and made to rise from her chair.

“Amy’s already gone after them, mum.” The girl put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Just eat.”

Rena felt her mother’s pain.  Her own heart had shattered upon learning of her favored brother’s disappearance. At just two, she wondered how he could possible survive all alone with the moose and the bears and the snakes and the river and the ravines.  Heck, even the bulls could do the boy harm if he got anywhere near them.  Without food or water? He’s just too little, she thought, and with each new dawn her hope began to dwindle.

Hal Harper had come the day before to help and he was back again this morning. Rena watched him join the men near the red barn as she stood by the window releasing her ample hair from its pins, ran her fingers through it briefly, and rerolled it. They had been friends since birth, as often happens in small country villages such as theirs. He had been the one who taught her how to swim and where the secret cave was behind the Grasonville Waterfall. In fact, that’s where she got her first kiss. He had grabbed her hand when she was standing at the back of the crowd watching the Fourth of July fireworks and they had run all the way to the river. Her sister Nina had seen them run off but hadn’t told a soul.

As the men dispersed, Rena heard her mother put the dish in the sink and shuffle up to her bedroom where—she prayed—the woman would finally sleep.  Hal looked over his shoulder at her, but she couldn’t smile. Instead, she prayed that he’d find her baby brother today. The young man seemed to comprehend the message, and nodding to her, he pulled his cap on and strode off like a man with a purpose.