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1

Charlotte

Charlotte McBee was accustomed to the incredulous looks she got while driving her over-sized airstream trailer down the highway. Nobody expected the Silver Stork. But had she known about the wedding taking place in Mystic Bayou’s town square, she probably would have taken another route.

Charlotte slumped in the seat of her truck, practically folding her small frame into the space under the steering wheel as hundreds of eyes followed the Silver Stork’s progress down Main Street.

It wasn’t that Charlotte was embarrassed of her beautiful metal darling, but she’d seen enough wedding reality shows to know that distracting guests from the bride could end in violence. And Charlotte had been driving for too long to put up much of a fight.

Charlotte thought she could park near the League office complex, but then realized that the collection of temporary buildings that housed their offices and employees was on the opposite side of the square – directly behind the wedding party. So, she just eased down the street to the Mystic Bayou Parish Hall and parked across multiple spots.

The “town proper” was like so many rural small towns where she’d worked in her ten years as a midwife consulting for the International League for Interspecies Cooperation – one main street that included most of the town’s businesses and municipal buildings branching out into a “tree” of residential streets with small one-level houses. She imagined that most of the locals lived in the dense swamplands that surrounded this tiny spot of civilization.

Charlotte hopped out of the truck, groaning in relief as she stretched her legs, short as they were. Most of the wedding guests seemed to have stopped staring and returned to their merriment. According to her official League welcome email, she was supposed to talk to an AJ Lancaster, the executive director of the League’s operation here in town. She pulled her fancy satellite smart phone from her pocket, an essential when the League sent her to some of the most remote locations in the continental United States. She dialed Lancaster’s cell phone number, but he didn’t pick up.

She glanced up and down Main Street, wondering whether there was some place she could grab something to eat. Most of the businesses, small single-story, cement block affairs, seemed to be owned by a “Boone.” The local bank, a boat dealership, the grocery store, the beauty salon, the hardware store – all of their signs practically shouted “Boone,” The only eateries seemed to be a gray and navy building called The Ice Cream Depot, and “Bathtilda’s Pie Shop, Home of the World’s Best Chocolate Rhubarb Pie,” both of which were closed.