Will Rise from Ashes Read online

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Will Rise from Ashes

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  A word about the author…

  Thank you for purchasing

  Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc. and other major retailers

  Even from far away, I recognized the man’s plaid long-sleeved shirt and the large backpack, but now he was walking alongside a bike on his approach.

  “Hey, look! It’s that guy you drove past this morning!”

  I shuddered inwardly. Well, karma just bit me in the butt.

  “How did he catch up with us?” Motherly instinct took over as I rose, my legs wobbly. “Will, stay there. Here, take this,” I said, handing him the tire iron.

  “We already tried that, Mom.”

  “Not for that, Will.”

  He scratched his brown hair, which was overdue for a cut, and looked at me, confusion wrinkling his brow.

  “Be my wizard, Will. It’s your sword.”

  “Wizards have wands.”

  “Will…”

  The circuit connected. “Oh…yes, Mom, I’ll protect you!”

  I smiled faintly. “Thank you, honey.” I didn’t want to explain further that it was me protecting him. I didn’t want to say that if something happened, to run and hide in the woods. Because he would run and hide. Then what? Who would come help?

  I shoved my hand into my front jeans pocket to nestle my fingertips around the pocket knife I had given Harrison for our wedding anniversary. The man slowed his bicycle as he drew nearer. He gave me an understated, yet significant, nod. The nod of understanding, of kindness. I didn’t buy it.

  “Hello, again,” he said.

  Ouch.

  Will Rise

  from Ashes

  by

  Jean M. Grant

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Will Rise from Ashes

  COPYRIGHT © 2019 by Jean M. Grant

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Mainstream Women’s Fiction Edition, 2019

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-2511-8

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-2512-5

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my husband Christian,

  my partner and my heart on this life journey.

  To my sons,

  Ewan, whose gentle spirit

  flows from him like sweet honey, and

  Henry, whose exuberance brings joy to my day.

  I love you all.

  Acknowledgments

  I write and live by the three P’s: patience, perseverance, and putting in the time. Writing is a coffee-laden, research-heavy, hone-the-craft, dust-yourself-off, and try-again kind of career. And I love it. Through college, graduate school, job changes, parenting, and all the nooks and crannies I could find, writing has been my constant. I’m grateful for my husband’s support as I shifted to full-time dream-realizer. My children have been patient and now are at the age where they ask more about my books with genuine interest: The volcano book, Mom? Yup, honey, that one (again, still…).

  Every journey is filled with bumps and bruises, but there are also friends beside us helping each step of the way. I could not be where I am without the friends and fellow writers who’ve supported me on all levels. Beta readers, critique partners, and writing groups…thank you to all who’ve helped me by giving your time and providing feedback with this book and others past or future: Lorraine, Rachel, Jill, Barbara, Briar, Miranda, Keri, Jen, Piper, Marte, Stefani, Christine, Natasha, Alex, Allison, Jess, and the Central Massachusetts Christian Writers Fellowship. I’d also like to thank the authors and the editors of The Wild Rose Press, especially my editor, Eilidh MacKenzie, who took a leap for this new(er) author and helped me chase down that dream a wee bit more!

  Chapter One

  Inception

  A gray column of ash exploded on the screen. The plume darkened the sky.

  “Mom, come look!” Will said, without turning from the TV.

  She fidgeted with the mail on the kitchen counter. Then said a bad word. The metal trash lid clanged open, and she grumbled. He tapped a finger on his thigh as he listened to the newscaster.

  A few minutes passed. “Mom…”

  “One minute,” she called. He turned. She dragged the basket of dirty laundry from their vacation to Yellowstone down the basement steps. Thump, thump, thump.

  “But it’s the volcano! On TV!” His pulse flickered. This was important. She needed to see.

  “Hang on a sec, Will.”

  The clock read 9:03 p.m. Eastern Time, but it still felt like Mountain Time and he wasn’t sleepy. He counted to one second. He knew she didn’t mean that. Her “a sec” or “a minute” could be way longer.

  She returned from the basement and opened the window over the kitchen sink. The metallic, vibrating hum of the foghorn sounded in the distance. He rose and added a tally mark to the chart on his clipboard. Soon, he’d need to make his snow charts, too. But it was only August.

  “Where are they?” Mom said.

  She came through the doorway to the living room with her mug in one hand. It smelled like burnt stinky milk. He covered his nose.

  “Mom, watch out!” She almost stepped on his eight red volcano cut-outs lined in a row in front of the TV. His heart kerthumped. He straightened one, so the bottom edge realigned with the rest. There, better.

  “So, honey, what is it? Find an interesting documentary to watch?” she finally asked, drawing her gaze to the TV as she stumbled. “Will, the tape and scissors. I need you to pick them up, okay?” She yawned. “We need to go to bed soon.” She leaned over the coffee table and clicked her laptop shut with another curse. “I can’t even track their flight. Where are they?” she repeated to herself.

  Her brown eyes were shiny, holding that sad look she got when she thought about Dad. Some expressions confused him, but Mom was easier to understand than others. She was sad a lot these days. Was she sad about his little brother Finn not returning home yet? He approached her and hugged her around the waist. He nudged the top of his head against her ribcage. “It’s okay, Mom. Finn and Uncle Brandon will be here. Maybe their flights were delayed again?”

  She exhaled. Coffee breath. His stomach squeezed. Delays. Yuck, he didn’t like delays either.

  She said in a whisper, a rasp
y grating sound, “They should’ve landed by now…the traffic north to Maine from Boston isn’t awful this time of day. Finn’s going to be so wired.”

  But he’s not a robot, Will wanted to say, but he knew it was just one of Mom’s weird phrases. The commercials ended. He grabbed her hand. “Look, Mom. Yellowstone! Maybe Finn and Uncle Brandon saw it erupt since we were all just there! How lucky of them to see that, huh?” He pointed to the LIVE symbol in the bottom right corner.

  Her mug slipped and fell in a crash, spilling all over his volcanoes.

  ****

  I stared at the open laptop. My brother’s flight was still listed as “pending departure” on the airline’s website. The airplane icon was frozen in time. It had not budged in the past twelve hours. I powered the laptop down.

  Drumming my fingers on the counter, I heaved a sigh and picked up my phone. Again. I hit redial, hoping against hope Sarah would answer this time. The news had not shown California affected by the ash cloud yet.

  Hell, an ash cloud.

  A volcano.

  It was the morning after, and I still couldn’t say those words aloud.

  The click of her picking up on the other end shut that pervading thought down.

  “Hello, AJ?” she breathed into the phone.

  “Sarah! Thank God. Please say you’ve heard from Brandon.”

  Silence. Crackles.

  “Sarah?” Dear God, don’t let me lose her, too. She was the only connection I had to my brother Brandon…and to my sweetheart, Finnie. My mother-in-law had already called me in a panic last night. Even Patsy’s rock-solid attitude wavered in the wake of mankind’s largest volcano…and I didn’t need it to add to my anxiety.

  “…closing roads north of us near Sacramento and San Francisco…last I heard from him was before he boarded…”

  “He’s not called at all?” I tried again. A few more crackles.

  Will trudged into the kitchen, toting a large clear bin of Lego bricks. “No, not all those, honey. Please. Pick your favorites. We won’t have room in the car,” I said.

  “Car?” Sarah said, her voice clearer. “You’re not planning to drive out there, AJ? No, no, don’t do that! And that’s a long car ride for you—you know, since…Can you handle it?”

  My pulse raced and head buzzed from minimal sleep and a high dose of caffeine. Jitters shook my hands. “My son’s out there.” I choked on my own words. I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder as I unscrewed my pill bottle. I popped a pill. I tossed the recapped bottle into my open handbag. “No call or text?”

  “Not yet. But he will.”

  Always the optimist, my sister-in-law. Well, I supposed she had to be, with a husband who had spent the better part of the last twenty years in the air force. Now that they’d settled into a routine in southern California, he had grown restless in his early retirement. He was the one who had insisted on our trip redo, coming in Harrison’s place. And now he was…oh, Jesus, no. Stop that, AJ!

  Will raked through the bin, the sound of bricks clacking against each other both jarring against my swelling migraine and a squeezing of my heart. Finn wasn’t here to dig through them with him. My seven-year-old baby was out there. Somewhere. With my brother. “Will, please, take that to the living room. And get your bag from upstairs. We leave in five minutes.”

  “Okay, Mom. I have the list here, on the clipboard. Make sure we double-check that we have it all.” He handed it to me with a pencil. I forced a smile. “I’m going to say goodbye to Snow.”

  Sarah’s voice poked in. “AJ, please, give him more time. He’ll call. He’ll get through. You can’t possibly be thinking of driving all the way from Maine to…” Her words faded but not from the poor connection.

  “Exactly. We don’t even know where they are! He could still be in Salt Lake City,” I said, a lump rising in my throat.

  Will perked up from the living room. “That city’s not there anymore, Mom.”

  The knot in my stomach tightened. Thanks for the reminder, honey.

  “Well, it is. Just in bits and pieces,” he corrected, while stroking the cat. “Don’t be sad, Mom. We’ll find them.”

  He turned on the TV.

  Sarah’s voice held a higher note of affirmation. “No, stop that. I’m sure he got on the flight to Denver. I ran through the timing, the delay, and the eruption. He caught the flight. They got on. They got out of there, okay?”

  She neglected to mention the earthquake that had also hit Denver shortly after the eruption.

  Earthquake. Eruption. Either way, their whereabouts were unknown.

  “Dear God, Sarah. The Yellowstone supervolcano erupted.”

  “I know, honey.”

  Silence.

  Will’s channel-surfing emanated into the kitchen. Click, click, click.

  “I can’t talk you out of this, can I?” she said.

  “Nope.”

  “Then please detour to Virginia and drop off Will with Patsy and George. Or with a neighbor by you,” Sarah offered.

  The commercials on the TV ended, and the newscaster’s voice streamed into the kitchen.

  “Governments of multiple states including Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, and Nebraska have issued State of Emergency orders and have requested federal aid. Over 70,000 National Guard personnel are now activated and have been deployed to the hardest hit areas where they’ll assist with search and rescue, evacuations, and relief operations including delivering packages of water, food, and medical supplies. Highway driving is now strictly prohibited in the states aforementioned unless escorted by National Guard or specific military convoys. Mobile relief and medical units are being set up in surrounding regions.”

  Will flipped through the channels. He stood two feet in front of the TV, stock still and engrossed.

  My pulse drummed in my head. I paced the kitchen, fingers fluttering over the checklist again. Belatedly, I countered, “Sarah, driving south to Patsy will take too long and with the bottlenecks on the beltway around DC, I may never get to Colorado. I can’t leave him here with a neighbor.” What if it got worse here? What if he had an episode or meltdown? I didn’t say that aloud, as Will’s ears were always on listening mode.

  More clicks.

  “The president will be addressing the nation this evening. The death toll has risen to over 50,000, with estimates projected at over 250,000…”

  “Will, please, turn that off. Gather your bags.”

  Click.

  “…the mandate on freezing all prices of gas, food, home utilities, and many more goods. See our website for the complete list. Price gouging will be handled by—”

  Click.

  Tingles rippled from my fingertips to my palms. I opened my mouth to yell at him, but I clamped it shut.

  “Finally. Some weather!” Will said.

  “Early measurements are in, although not verified. The region around Yellowstone has seen extensive damage from earthquakes, ground drop, lava flows, and ash in measurements of inches. Bordering states have unverified levels of ash ranging from centimeters to inches. We’ve confirmed earthquakes in Washington, Idaho, Arizona, and Colorado, with the quake near Denver registering a 7.4 magnitude on the Richter scale. Ash clouds have already been observed in Kansas, where recordable amounts of ash have fallen. Jennifer joins us from…”

  I tuned it out, the images from watching TV all night already burned in my memory. I hurried down the basement steps again, nearly tripping on my weak ankle.

  Sarah’s pleading came back to me. “Oh, AJ, honey, please just be careful, okay? Check in with me when you can? If I hear from him, you’ll be the first to know.”

  I nodded, not responding as the line cut out and tears brimmed in my eyes. I swiped them away and bustled around the basement, collecting what was left on my packing list.

  I could do this.

  I lugged the last of my things to the car.

  The car is not my enemy, I repeated three times.

  I pl
odded upstairs to the living room. “Let’s go, Will.”

  ****

  Jolted awake from a nightmare, I sat up in my sleeping bag. I shuddered and rubbed my throat.

  It wasn’t real, yet I swallowed ash, my tongue parched.

  Predawn light crept across the meadow and rocks as I scanned the surroundings. Thick evergreens encircled the clearing where we’d set up our makeshift camp. The sharp scent of pine shifted me from the haze of sleep to awareness. I blinked a few times and turned to Will’s sleeping bag.

  It was empty.

  Shit.

  I stood, grabbed the lantern, and croaked, “Will!” as if his name were stuck in my throat.

  Not him, too. One child’s unknown whereabouts and now Will…where the hell was he?

  Will hated camping, despite his love of the outdoors. Will grew scared if left alone. Will wandered.

  I recovered my voice and searched shoeless around the clearing. “Will!” I shone the light into the bushes.

  Someone’s scream still rang in my ears. Had I screamed, or dear God, had it been Will?

  He must’ve had to pee. But Will didn’t like to pee in the woods like his brother. He could hold it for twelve hours if needed. He preferred bathrooms, with toilets. No standing for him.

  A cold drizzle began to patter the ground, and my socks were already soaked. I shivered as I hurried along a narrow dirt path through the trees toward the nearby pond.

  I held the lantern in front of me to deflect errant tree branches. “Will!”

  No answer.

  Why had I stopped by a pond, of all places? Will was drawn to water in any form, but he wasn’t a proficient swimmer yet. Dammit, why hadn’t I pitched the tent? A zipper would’ve woken me sooner. Because I had been exhausted, that’s why.

  My chest tightened as worst-case scenarios assaulted my brain. Getting lost. Drowning. Kidnapping.

  A moment later, the placid pond lay before me.

  There he was, at the water’s edge, hunched over something.

  “Oh, my God, Will. Why are you here?” Tingles prickled my fingertips, and the lantern teetered in my hand. My mind wrestled itself over what I was more concerned with: my sweet Finn, stuck somewhere in the ravages of Colorado, or my quirky nine-year-old Asperger’s Will, who loved water too much.