The Secret of Poppyridge Cove

The forest was ageless. It was dark and rich with colour, like the deepest part of Crystal Lake, where Abby could remember swimming as a child. Redwoods crowded with ferns and small pines among their massive trunks.

She breathed in the heavy pine smell, sweetened with the fragrance of sap that leaked from nearly every notch in the bark of a hundred trees. Her boyfriend, Chase, had yet to crest a small hill in the trail, and she waited for him in a giant shadow of the widest trunk she’d ever seen. It could span the width of her apartment, she was sure. It left her feeling powerful to be near it, and she wondered how she’d managed to live her life in the same state and never visit the redwoods.

Perched against the misty Northern California coastline, the woods had been invaded at every edge by tendrils of fog-like feelers stretching out through the clearings in the trees. It was like a mysterious friend, haunting and welcoming together.

“Bee, where’d you go?”

Chase’s voice called her back to the present, and she spun around with her deep brown curls bouncing. They naturally tightened in the coastal air, and she brushed a few tendrils from her view.

“I’m here,” she answered just as she caught the first glimpse of him. The summer sun had tinted his honey-brown hair quickly this year, leaving lightened streaks of blonde threaded throughout. It was something she hadn’t yet told him she admired. A smile crept across her face at the thought.

Emily and Ryan were farther down the trail, mutual friends they’d attempted to set up, but their bickering could be heard through the forest. The blind date wasn’t going so well.

“I don’t think they’ll be thanking us,” Chase whispered, glancing behind him as Emily’s voice rang out.

“Why don’t you just sail the seven seas in your little yacht? That would be a great solution to world peace—at least for me.”

Abby cringed, remembering her words again as she’d insisted Emily give Ryan a chance. “What are they even talking about?” she groaned, “Why do they have to debate the mysteries of the universe on their first date?”

Chase stood next to her and settled one hand against the bark of the mighty redwood. “I guess I should have told you Ryan isn’t chivalrous.” He shrugged. “If he has something to say, he says it regardless of who he might offend.”

Abby sighed and stepped under Chase’s arm, happy at how he quickly dropped it around her, letting it settle heavy and comforting. Like a dance they’d rehearsed, their movements complimented each other naturally. It came with time spent together, and they’d had much of that.

Emily lumbered into view, her pixie-cut blonde hair pasted to her forehead in all the dewy mist. Her usual dedication to that selfie-ready appearance had vanished. She grumbled and scowled and finally lifted her eyes to Abby’s.

Abby forced her mouth into a smile.

“I’m gonna take a minute,” Emily growled, her eyebrows pressing even closer as Ryan plodded up the trail behind her. She didn’t acknowledge him, instead turning into the trees and continuing until she was out of their view.

“Don’t go too far, Em!” Abby yelled, knowing from experience not to press her friend. If she said she needed time, she meant it.