The Ever After

Chapter Two: A Letter from Before

"YOU CAN DROP ME OFF HERE."

Mrs. Bird looked at May, then at the dirt road ahead of them, then back at May, who sat with her back straight, the way her mom always asked her to. Mrs. Bird ran her free hand through her wavy brown hair as she brought the car to a stop.

"You sure you don't want to just come home, pumpkin?"

May nodded.

"I wish you wouldn't spend so much time in the woods. I worry about snakes."

May opened the car door, but felt her mom's hand on her back. She turned. "I love you, pumpkin," Mrs. Bird said.

"You too."

"Wait, May?"

May was halfway out of the car when she ducked back down to meet her mom's eyes. "You know I wouldn't trade you for anybody in the world, right?"

May smiled. Mrs. Bird seemed to breathe a sigh of relief before May went around to the back of the car to get her bike and her backpack. Somber Kitty jumped out of the back too, just before May closed the door and the car pulled away.

"Thank gosh," May said. She looked around the dilapidated and deserted main square of Briery Swamp. Except for being dry and dead, it looked like any other town in the state of West Virginia.

May Bird had always thought that if states were like people, West Virginia would be the shy relative of, say, Texas. Texas was big and bad and sprawled out flat, saying "Look at me, I'm Texas!" West Virginia was mysterious and it liked to keep to itself. It hid in the folds of mountains, resting in the cool shade. It was sweet, beautiful, and bashful. Its woods held its secrets, or at least it seemed that way to May.

Briery Swamp wasn't much of a town anymore. The houses that had once stood in a sociable gaggle at the town square had crumbled into crooked piles of bricks, overgrown with weeds. A possum, four snakes, and a hundred thousand three hundred and six earthworms had moved into what used to be the mayor's graceful mansion. The postmaster's old cottage was the centi- pedes' favorite place for hatching long crawly babies.

The only building in town that still looked like a building at all was the post office itself. It stood up from the weeds like a snaggle tooth, three of its walls mostly collapsed and pouring onto the grass like a waterfall.

May laid her bike on its side and stared around. There wasn't much to do except meander around the square with Somber Kitty and tell him made-up stories about the people who'd lived here and why they'd moved away. Since there had been a drought in Briery Swamp for as long as she could remember, her favorite theory was that the rain had retired to Florida, and all the people of Briery Swamp had followed it there.

"Meow," Somber Kitty said, which May interpreted to mean "At least we have each other." The pair spent an hour or more kicking rocks up and down the road, until Somber Kitty ran off into the woods chasing a moth. Then, for the millionth time, May ducked in through the hole in the old post office wall and began digging through the rocks for treasures. Once she'd found a stuffed skunk mounted on a plaque. She'd also found three old rubber stamps saying "First Class," "Second Class," and "Third Class."

Now she thrust her hands into a pile of rubble against the back wall, sifting out the larger rocks from the smaller ones, hoping to find maybe another stamp, or an old letter. She was just digging in with one last thrust when her fingers lit on something that felt distinctly different from rubble. It felt like paper. May pinched with her thumb and forefinger and gently extracted it, watching a corner of molded white emerge from the pile. It slid out with a little scratch.

It was a letter. A huge find. May couldn't believe her luck.

"Meay?"

"Oh, you scared me," May said, her heart racing as she met Somber Kitty's tilty green eyes. "Look at this."