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North of Happenstance: Chapter One
Kate McDonald looked up from the newspaper in her hand to the house in front of her; according to the rental ad, the two bedroom one bathroom residence, located at 257 Eveleth Ave, had a semi-furnished basement, a fireplace in the rustic, high-vaulted living room, and a modernized kitchen. She narrowed her eyes. The price was a steal. She’d paid more for her 750 square foot loft in Minneapolis. Welcome to Whestleigh, Connecticut. Rolling the newspaper up, and sticking it in her back pocket, she climbed the stairs to the front door. It was painted red. She might as well give it a look, despite vague doubts—just what exactly did…
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North of Happenstance: Chapter Three
Kate figured it would be hard to get lost in Whestleigh, Connecticut. Not only was the town set up in a grid pattern formation, the Avenues numbered one through ten accordingly and the Streets arranged alphabetically, but the main shops and stores were all located in the same general area: on Gadbee Street. This was particularly nice for Kate who lived on Eveleth Street—a mere two blocks away. Besides school, she figured her car would probably spend the majority of its life in her garage from now on. Pocketing her house keys, throwing her purse over her shoulder, Kate stepped outside. Turning left down the sidewalk she considered that it was a…
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North of Happenstance: Chapter Fifteen
Time: 3:54 p.m. Rushing up the steps to her front door, Kate was tempted to check the time on her watch—a fruitless endeavor. She knew what time it was. She’d never lost track since leaving Cordwyn College. Penny and M.T. were coming over for dinner at 5:00 p.m. It was another of the pastor’s attempts to see her sister and, as such, another of Penny’s provisions that Kate joins them. Somehow, Kate had found herself agreeing once again, and this time, not just to having dinner. She was also hosting the event. M.T. was still living out of a hotel and Penny’s cottage, it had be patently proved last time,…
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North of Happenstance: Chapter Sixteen
“Kate, can I see you in my office for a moment?” The words, as unexpected as they were forceful, caused Kate to still, her hand suspended over a stack of outdated periodicals placed on a wire holder near the check-out counter of LitLiber. Luckily her back was turned when the command was issued, so the speaker wasn’t able to witness the sudden tightening of her facial muscles, her knee-jerk hesitation. Because the voice which delivered that question belonged to none other than Jake. It had been weeks since the Halloween party; if M.T. could see Kate now, she’d be so disappointed. She and Penny had worked hard that ill-fated…
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North of Happenstance: Chapter Eighteen
“Bless me father for I have sinned,” Kate’s voice came out soft, questioning… The metal lattice separating her from the priest on the other side of the confessional was foreign looking, something she’d prior only witnessed in movies—the structure divided into two separate compartments. She tried to get comfortable but the wooden abode was small, stuffy, her knees jutted up against the door in her seated position. The padding on the chair was thin, no doubt to keep the sinner’s declaration to a minimum. She wasn’t sure how to begin a confession. Was there a certain prayer or a recitation required in the introductory statement of such a sacrament—a manual…
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North of Happenstance: Chapter Twenty-Two
With a weary sigh, Kate opened the door to the tutoring room. It had been a week since her midnight tell-all to Penny, and her grades had taken a serious nosedive in the aftermath. She couldn’t seem to focus, her thoughts stuck on repeat; this was why she’d run away from home, so she wouldn’t have to remember, wouldn’t have to evaluate what had gone wrong in her life, so she wouldn’t have to face her decision, guess at whether she’d made a mistake in her defection; so she could forget Phil, her mother, everything. She’d come to Whestleigh to escape but ever since that night…. She’d gotten a C…
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North of Happenstance: Chapter Twenty-Three
Whipping open the front doors to the LitLiber, Kate barreled inside, her face a mask of frozen fear as her feet tripped, unseeing, past a throng of shoppers. Her breath wheezing out past her parted lips, Kate quickly found herself outside Jake’s office; terrible images transposed themselves before her eyes—what would she encounter when she opened that door? Frantic, she twisted the handle in her numb hands, her eyes hunted…only, nothing so dire materialized when she bowled across its threshold. Instead, Jake was seated quietly behind his desk, head bent over the computer screen before him, seemingly fast at work; Janessa sat sulkily in a chair across the way, looking…
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North of Happenstance: Chapter Twenty-Five
Shoulders racking with the force of her sobs, Kate reached blindly for her phone. She was hardly thinking straight. How could she possibly think straight after reading something like that? Dialing Penny’s number, she prayed the psychic wasn’t in the middle of a consult. “Uh…hello?” Penny answered after the third ring. If Kate hadn’t been so upset, she’d have been immediately alerted to the distracted tone of voice. As it was, Kate was too upset to notice. “Penny—” Kate warbled. “Kate? Kate, are you alright?” Taking herself quickly into the kitchen, Penny’s voice came out low, hushed. Unbeknownst to Kate, she wasn’t at her office. Something had held her up……
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North of Happenstance: Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hobbling carefully, her arms sturdy against the uncomfortable padding of her crutches, Kate made her way slowly into her kitchen. The soft click of the front door closing behind M.T.’s reluctant form ringing from the hall, Kate frowned. She was hungry. She hadn’t realized just how hungry when she’d more-or-less pushed the hovering pastor out the door; in retrospect, she should had her stay just a little while longer…but then again, if Maggie suspected Kate couldn’t even so much as make dinner she never would’ve agreed to leave Kate to her own devices. Propping her body up against the counter, Kate fumbled a frying pan out from the cupboard. Eggs…
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North of Happenstance: Chapter Thirty-Four
A slight breeze wafted against the window curtains of Penny’s room, as the three women stared outside. Maggie looked back at Kate. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Kate nodded. “I’m sure.” M.T. sighed again. “All right. Penny—lead on.” Without more encouragement, Penny tossed one end of the sheets over and out the window. Glancing nervously over her shoulder, Kate felt her heartbeat kick up another notch. “Hurry up—we don’t have much time.” Any second now her mother was going to throw the door open, catch them in the act. Shifting back to the window, she watched Penny slide over the ledge. Her feet…
