Ollie wakes with a start from a terrifying nightmare during the wee hours of Tuesday morning. She sits bolt upright in bed as snippets of the dream come back to her. She can smell the pungent smoke. Hear the voices screaming for help. Feel her brother’s icy glare. Her gown is soaked through with perspiration. Her tongue is swollen with the remnants of wine. She’d drunk so much wine that night.
She hasn’t had a nightmare since she came to Hope Springs months ago. Is it possible the past is catching up with her?
She plods in bare feet across the living room to the kitchenette. The studio apartment—located above Caffeine on the Corner with a picture window overlooking Main Street—is the ideal size. Small enough to offer a sense of security while big enough to accommodate her meager belongings. She brews a cup of the calming lavender tea blend she orders from California and curls up at one end of her teal-colored velvet sofa with the last of Stella’s great-grandmother’s diaries.
Imogen’s pages are filled with fascinating details of life at Hope Springs Farms during the forties and fifties. She describes elaborate balls in the lounge with men dressed in white tie and women in elegant gowns with white kid elbow-length gloves. She talks of fox hunting parties and guided fly-fishing trips, bingo nights in the summer house and Fourth of July picnics. And she mentions the many famous people who frequented the inn, such as Doris Day, Elvis Presley, Ernest Hemingway.
Imogen writes of the guests who soaked for long spans of time in the hot springs tub. The women whose gynecological problems were healed, and the men whose dangerously high blood pressures were lowered. Ollie believes nature heals. She has faith in homeopathic remedies. It stands to reason mineral water from deep within the earth would improve physical ailments. As for matters of the heart, she’s more inclined to believe couples resolved their marital problems and lovers’ spats by spending a weekend alone together, rekindling their feelings for each other surrounded by the beauty of the farm and mountains.
Ollie stays awake for the rest of the night reading. The first rays of sunlight bathe her living room in a pale yellow when she reads the tragic tale that prompted Imogen’s husband, William Jameson, to prohibit guest use of the hot springs for the next two decades.
Ollie arrives at work early. She’s traumatized from Imogen’s journals and exhausted from lack of sleep. She drinks too much coffee, which sets her on edge. She pours over the latest batch of employment applications, some of which show promise, before moving on to social media. She’s posting an image of the spa’s serene lap pool to Instagram when she receives a text from her brother.
She drops the phone as though she’s been burned, and it falls screen down on the desk with a thud. Ollie hasn’t heard from her brother in ten months and fourteen days. Why is he texting her now?
She flips the phone over on the desk and reads his text. We need to talk. Three dots appear followed by another message. I can come to you. Where are you living now?
She blocks the number from her phone without responding.
Her chest tightens as she’s transported back ten and a half months. Her eyes and nose burn. She can hear voices calling for her, but she can’t find her way to them through the smoke. She can hear Murphy, the family’s golden retriever, barking his head off in a distant part of the house.
No! Please no! Ollie shakes her head, bringing herself back to the present. Her heart is racing, and her armpits are damp with sweat. When the walls begin to close in on her, she jumps up and jerks open the door to the cabinet where she keeps a supply of clean workout clothes.
Tilting the blinds closed for privacy, she strips out of her work clothes and pulls on her sports bra, jogging shorts, and a tank top. She stuffs her feet into running shoes, grabs her phone, and leaves her office. Bypassing the elevator, she hurries down the stairs and out the front door, hitting the nearest hiking trail at a run.
Her therapist in California encouraged Ollie to take an anti-anxiety medicine to control the panic attacks. But Ollie prefers to deal with the crippling fear the natural way. She circles the farm three times, an equivalent of nine miles, before returning to the wellness center.
After a long hot shower in the locker room, she feels calm enough to focus on her work. She spends the late-morning and early afternoon-hours in her office, catching up on paperwork and reaching out to the potential job candidates. Around two o’clock, she begins her daily tour of the wellness center, starting in the spa and ending by the pool.
She’s at the check-in gate, handing out towels to guests, when Jazz hobbles in on crutches. She’s wearing white shorts and a pink top with her hair smoothed off her face by a yellow headband.
“Ollie! I’ve been looking all over for you. Why are you working here?”
“We’re short staffed. I’m filling in for a pool attendant who needed a break. If you were a little older, I’d hire you on the spot.”
“Hire me now! What’s so hard about handing out towels?”
“Hmm.” Ollie considers the menial duties associated with the position. “Nothing, now that I think about it. Get Stella’s permission, and you’ve got the job.” Her gaze shifts to Jazz’s ankle, which is bound by an elastic bandage. “What happened to you?”
Jazz crosses her eyes. “I sprained my ankle doing an aerial cartwheel.”
“Ouch,” Ollie says with a shiver. “Does it hurt much?”
“Sorta. But I landed the cartwheel.”
“Thatta girl,” Ollie says, offering her a high five.
“If it’s not better by the weekend, Stella won’t let me go to gymnastics camp next week.” Jazz leans in close. “I heard you talking the other night at dinner, and I was wondering if I could soak my foot in the hot springs.”
“Ah, the magic cure. Technically, you’re supposed to be over eighteen. But as long as I’m with you, I don’t imagine soaking your foot a few minutes would be a problem.” Ollie spots the gate attendant heading their way. “And here comes Lindsay now.”
Grabbing two bottles of water from the cooler, Ollie leads Jazz around the pool to the far side of the building. She’s relieved to find no one is soaking in the hot springs. She’d hate for a guest to complain about a child being in a restricted area.
Ollie directs Jazz to a stone bench. “Sit down, and I’ll take off your bandage.” She gently unwraps the bandage, revealing a tiny bruised and swollen ankle. “This doesn’t look good, Jazz. Have you been to see the doctor?”
Jazz bobs her head, her crown of frizzy hair flopping up and down. “She took an X-ray. It’s not broken.”
“All right then. Let’s see the magic.” Ollie scoops Jazz up and places her on the rocky side of the pool. “Remember, feet only. I don’t want to get in trouble with Stella.”
“I understand,” Jazz says in a disappointed tone.
Ollie lowers herself down beside the child, and they sit in silence for a few minutes. As the warm water massages her feet, Ollie wonders if the mineral water cures panic attacks.
“Ollie . . . why do you always seem so sad?”
Taken aback, Ollie asks, “What do you mean?”
“You hide it really well. My therapist says the same about me. I’m sad, because I’m not sad. That doesn’t make any sense to anyone but me. My mom died, back in December. But she had a lot of problems. She was an alcoholic and mentally unstable.”
The kid sounds like a grown-up. She’s obviously learned a lot from listening to adult conversations. “I’m so sorry, Jazz. I didn’t know.”
“I loved my mom, because she was my mom. But I was scared a lot of the time when I was living with her. And I like living with Stella and Jack so much better.” Jazz hunches her small shoulders. “That’s why I’m sad, because I’m not sad.”
“In other words, you feel guilty for not feeling sad.”
Jazz scrunches up her forehead. “Something like that. I’m supposed to feel sad, but I don’t.”
Ollie rests a hand on Jazz’s shoulder. “You’re a kid, Jazz. Kids are resilient. They’re forgiving and trusting, which helps them recover quickly from bad stuff. But you can’t help how you feel. It’s okay to not feel sad.”
“That’s what Stella says! Are you not forgiving and trusting?”
The person Ollie needs to forgive is herself. And the only people she ever truly trusted are gone. “My situation is more complicated. My mom died too. And my dad.”
Jazz’s amber eyes get big. “At the same time?”
Ollie nods. “In a fire.”
Jazz places her hand in Ollie’s. “I’m sorry, Ollie. If you want, I know the name of a really good therapist.”
Ollie bursts out laughing. “How old are you?”
Mischief twinkles in her golden eyes. “Seven, going on twenty. That’s what Stella says. Can I have the job?”
Ollie laughs again. “We’ll see. Now, let’s take a look at that foot.”
Jazz slowly removes her foot from the water. “Look! It’s better.”
Ollie stares at her foot in utter amazement. In the fifteen minutes she’s been soaking her ankle, the swelling has gone down considerably, and the bruise has transitioned from blue to yellow. “That’s incredible.”
“Let’s see if I can walk on it.” Jazz spins on her bottom as she swings her legs out of the pool.
When she tries to stand up, Ollie grabs hold of her arm to support her. “Take it easy. You might still feel some pain.”
Gripping Ollie’s arm, Jazz gingerly bears weight on her foot. “It doesn’t hurt. I don’t believe it.”
When Stella comes through the gate, Jazz cartwheels over to her. “Look, Stella. The hot springs fixed my ankle. I can go to gymnastics camp now.”
Stella kneels down to examine the foot. After a long minute, she looks up at Ollie with an expression of utter amazement. “I don’t believe this.”
Ollie considers her words. “Crazy, isn’t it?”
She considers whether to tell Stella what she learned in her great-grandmother’s journals about the beautiful debutante from Charleston. But decides now is not the time for the tragic tale. Stella let the genie out of the bottle by opening the hot springs to the guests. If word gets out, they will all have to work together to tame it.