Soul Keepers (Editing) #Wattys2020

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Thick hills of snow lined the edge of the largely empty streets in small mounds in a mixture of the dirtiest brown and pristine white. People scurried about with single minded purpose, never staying still for too long trying to avoid the bite of the frigid January air, bundled in shapeless but warm clothing.

A yellow cab drove along the road carrying a single female passenger. She was slight in build, with slender limbs and a graceful neck; her delicate face holding a timeless youth that put her in her late teens to early twenties. Her hair was a long cascade of midnight black and her olive skin was lightly dusted with golden, barely noticeable freckles. She was a serious mouth and pert nose but it were her eyes that people noticed first. It was a fascinating, unusual shade of violet that leaned more towards purple than blue that held a heavy sadness.

The heavyset, bearded man at the wheel couldn’t help but sneak glances at her in the rear view mirror. There was something beautifully sad about her that rendered him unable to look away; he just couldn’t place what it was. She reminded him of a painting that his Mama had once taken him to see, where the paint stuck to the canvas making a beautiful masterpiece.

It could have been her fine, regal features or the innocence written on her face, but whatever it was she was just alluring shining with a beauty that he was never seen before. She seemed almost unreal.

Millie felt the full weight of the driver’s eyes on her, but she ignored it. It was a reaction that she had, by necessity, learned to grow accustomed to. She may not have always liked it—in face she never like it, or even wanted it—but she understood it. Her face, her beauty was a curse, one she was forced to live with.
She instead focused on the simple college town that she would soon be calling home. Summit Valley was neatly nestled on the peaks of the Colorado Mountains. It was an obscure place, tucked away from most things, bordering a privately own college. Spencer Trudeau University wasn’t widely popular or even known but it was where she was led, and it was here that she hoped to find answers to question that had been haunting her.

The place, she noted, had been transformed into a winter wonderland. Most of its buildings were covered in a sheet of snow. A building that was simply name ‘General Store’  still sported Christmas decorations in its display window and another next to it that seemed to be a clothing store proudly proclaimed that it was having an end of year clearance sale in bold red lettering though it was almost the end of January.

More buildings lined the sidewalks but Millie had adjusted to the layout quickly. It seemed that most of the towns businesses lined Main Street. A small smile tugged at her lips, it was a quaint little place even equipped with coffee shop that seemed to rival Starbucks, with the amount of patrons she saw crowding the small space. Well, she thought, most college students did live off caffeine, so it would have been more of a surprise if it didn’t have one.

Homey and cosy were the words that came to mind and a fissure of unease trickled through her. Both those words meant small most of the time and that worried her.

The car slowed in front of a two story building with red and white bricked walls, shuttered windows and a cobble stone walk-up lined with snow covered shrubs. There in the window was a handwritten advertisement about rooms for rent.

This would be the place that she would call home for the next few months, hopefully less time if her search proved fruitful.

Millie turned to the driver with a small, soft smile on her face and told him thank you before handing him his fare. He nervously nodded before accepting it a blush tinting the mostly hidden apples of his cheeks. He internally sighed, here he was a man with grandchildren, a man who'd been married for over three decades and he was behaving like a teenager on his first date.