Excerpt: Orphan - Who is Iris Hill?

 

IRIS HILL STEPPED on the pedal, pumping it. It took a while for the car to respond, but eventually the green city commuter lurched forward. She hated it, but funds no longer permitted an upgrade. This was her transport now, had been for fifteen years … not that she even recalled the years already gone by between buying this at an auction and her current position. Sometime after year two alone, her memory started playing tricks on her. What was, was no longer part of her reality. It wasn’t illness of a kind with a fancy medical name –as folk whispered to each other in the butchery the other day – it was deliberate. Iris did not want to remember her past and therefore she locked everything away, even the moments spent on a lot bidding for a five-year-old baby sedan.

The car swivelled, losing traction on the gravel.

Swearing, she stomped on the pedal again, the other one, the one that brought the vehicle to a halt, but missed it and lunged ahead instead.

A young boy flashed into view, and Iris screamed, seeing him grow alarmingly larger in her sights. Huge blue eyes swung her way, as panicked.

She stomped and stomped, and screamed.

  

ADIN HURTLED SIDEWAYS into the brush, suffering slashing from sharp branches, and bruising his knees as he landed on rough stone. A green swirl filled his vision, causing him to cover his face. A strangely dulled scream filled the surrounds, eclipsing all birdsong, even the pounding of his heart.

The world stilled.

All sound vanished, and life fell into breathlessness.

A car door slammed extra loudly, jerking him back to life.

“Boy! Where are you? Are you okay?”

The woman’s voice was deep. He expected it to be shrill, but that was probably perception based on the sound of screaming. Where had she come from? He could swear her tyres made no sound on the gravel road as she approached. Maybe he had been careless in his attention, rapt in the sight of so much nature.

He crawled from scratching twigs, searching for her. She had been as terrified as he was. There was a chance she needed him to be as fine as he needed her to be on her way and leave him alone. She wouldn’t do that until she saw him.

The old and dinged thing she drove listed to one side, hanging into the ditch on the opposite side of the road. He noticed the ditch when he chose this backwater rural lane, and opted to walk on the incline side, where trees grew, and grass. Lots of grass, and wildflowers. He liked grass. Grass was far easier to sleep on than a concrete step in a city.

Another swirl entered his field of vision, this one greyed out black rather than dusty green. A swish of too much material became a dress. Adin stared at her dress. She was like a witch from the tales with her long robe billowing out in the breeze.

He shuddered, wondering if she wanted to eat him.

Pointed red shoes appeared under the rim of her mighty dress affair, causing him to smile. That wasn’t a sign of evil; that was a sign of cheekiness.

Adin looked up … into the kindest green and brown flecked eyes he had ever seen. It wasn’t her eye colour that got him, for he had seen eyes of every colour in his short life, it was her kindness. She exuded it. Stranger still, he knew it as kindness.

“I’m okay,” he said, but his words emerged croaked and broken.

Arms akimbo, she studied him. Her hair was dark, far darker than her dress, and all she needed was a pointy hat, and she would be a witch. Freckles covered her face, though, and he couldn’t make out wrinkles. Maybe not so much a witch, then. Maybe she liked to play dress-up.

“No, you’re not fine. We need to see to all those scratches and your poor knees. And I think you’re hungry and thirsty.”

Yes, he was, but he wasn’t going anywhere with anyone.

He drew himself up. “I’m fine.”

“What’s your name?”

“What’s yours?”

Grinning, she said, “Iris Hill. I live up there.” She pointed to a space above his head.

He craned around, but couldn’t see anything other than trees guarding the road. When he faced here again, she had one eyebrow raised.

“Adin,” he muttered.

“Adin who?”

“Don’t know.”

“Ah.”

In that ‘ah’ was a world of understanding, as if she knew exactly what he meant, as if she had once walked the same path in life as he now did. He stared at her.

She glanced at his knees weeping thin trails of blood. “Adin Stone, is that your name?”

Nodding vigorously, he swallowed. She did understand.

“Well, Adin Stone, we gave each other a fright. I need help getting my car back on the road and you need help with your injuries. Shall we make a deal? I help you first and then you help me? Tomorrow you can be on your way again, but I’d welcome the company at dinner tonight, if that’s okay with you.”

This time he nodded slowly.

Man, she read him too well.

An orphaned boy searches for a lost girl.

A woman abandons her new-born at a motel in the back of beyond. Adin grows up unloved, bullied, and no one remembers him. He doesn’t exist.

Until he sees a poster for a missing girl on a lamppost. There is an instant connection to little Sunflower, kidnapped for ransom, only to disappear after the money is paid. He exists because he must find her. Alone, he searches, a journey that takes him into the wild places, meeting along the way some interesting characters.

In dreams he speaks to her, for she is the one who will remember him.

THE ORPHAN