actly as Ethan remem

s stood with the kind of grace that comes only from age, not from strife. Ivy crawled up shop windows, and wooden signs softly creaked

flower boxes swaying gently beneath a carved wooden sign. As he stepped out, a familia

en and too shy to say hello to the girl with the honey-colored braid behind the counter and eyes the shade of

is?" a voice called f

window. A small woman with silver curls and a flour-covered

he said, smiling

id. "And you're taller

at hasn't chang

hug, warm and close. "Your grandmother would be so pleased you

called me," he joked

darkening just a little. "It does

own square through the win

d away into a sea of purple. The old gate was half open, as if in anticipation of him. The gravel crunched under

purple that now rolled like gentle waves around it. Time had gently pulled o

only the world could provide. The lavender smell was stronger here. More intense. It reminded him of his g

eaked as he

ows. Furniture, ghostly in its white coverings, stood sentinel in the corners, watching. But there was no

assing by framed photos that blurred the line between then and now. One in particular stopped him-a

a Qu

half-promises, orchard laughter and one almost-kiss beneath the moon. She had been gent

urned toward the front porch again, where

just at the edge of th

blond

still

ar

The line of her shoulders, the silhouette of her presence-it all came flooding b

he walked, the air changed. Grown heavier. Charged, somehow. Lavender b

reached where she'd

depressions in the earth where her feet might have been. Or ma

his chest. Something that

, a low wind swept past him. And

his

e home,