A Place to Land

Dedication

To Meme’s Crew, with love

Prologue

Sugar Bend has always been known as a place of secrets and mystery. In this small town nestled alongside Little River, words spoken in confidence turn to mist, evaporating before anyone else can take notice of them. Fish swim against the current, pushing themselves deeper into the rich river water even as the tide sweeps everything else out into the Gulf. Mourning doves float on the water’s early morning surface like ducks, as if the water were a safer place than land. And long-gone memories, thick as the rain-heavy air, tend to come back at the strangest of times, as sharp and clear as if they’d only just happened.

The town of Sugar Bend sprouted in a cozy crook of the river over a century ago, and its people built stores and homes along the thin ribbon of brackish water. Now lazy roads fan out on either side of it, full of candy-colored houses, birds that chirp in the middle of the night, and dogs that crisscross the road in search of the tastiest handouts.

But on the edge of town, the secrets deepen along with the river, and as the water grows shadowy under tree-dappled shade, the mysteries darken as well. For way down deep in the murky blue-green depths, a little boat sleeps. Forty years ago it was laid to rest in its silent, watery burial ground by a pair of strong hands—hands that belonged to a girl whose life was irrevocably changed in the span of one steamy, glass-calm night.

Part One
Lift

One

On a quiet silver morning, before the world—or at least the rest of Sugar Bend—had awoken, Violet Figg took in the spirited birdsong from her back porch overlooking Little River. She wrapped her hands around her mug of tea and closed her eyes to listen. There by the steps was the three-part whistle of a Carolina wren. Up in the scrubby oak along the side of the porch was the soft coo-oo of a mourning dove. A great blue heron squawked as it landed at the edge of the grass and lifted its head high atop its skinny neck.

At the quick, squeaky chit-chit coming from near the back steps, Violet smiled. She’d started seeing the ruby-throated hummingbirds a few weeks ago, back in town from their yearly jaunt down to Mexico and other parts farther south. She was always happy to see them return.

This morning there were two of them, a male and a female, with wings that beat so fast they all but disappeared. Where the male had iridescent green feathers on his back and the telltale bright red throat, the female’s feathers were paler green and she was missing that trademark ruby red. What she did have was a splotch on the underside of her neck that resembled a sun with brilliant rays shooting out from the center. This particular hummingbird had visited Violet’s feeders last season, and possibly the one before that too. Trudy didn’t believe her, but Violet knew her birds.