The Sisters of Nowhere

o n e : a r r i v a l

People only went to Nowhere, Georgia for two reasons: one, because they didn't have a choice, and two, because they hadn't meant to come at all.

Wyatt Best fell into both of those categories.

Wyatt didn't have a choice in his arrival because he'd been sent to Nowhere after his father's death.

Wyatt hadn't meant to come to Nowhere because he certainly hadn't meant for his father to leave his unstable mother with nothing but a five-hundred-dollar bill and a single note that read, Just send the boy to Hal.

Hal was the uncle Wyatt's father never spoke of because "he's a blight on our good name".

After losing the family fortune after his father's death, Wyatt was beginning to wonder what was so good about their "good name" anyway.

One would expect Wyatt to be devastated. If not for his own financial ruin, then for his father's death. If not for his father's death, then for the fact that he had to live with an uncle he'd never met, in a town that was renowned for its ghost population.

But Wyatt Best felt none of these things. He'd hardly known his father, and while the money was a sore loss, there was nothing he could do about it now. Wyatt Best did not believe in emotions, and he certainly did not grieve about the things he couldn't help.

Now here he was, walking down a dusty road in Georgia because the Cadillac (the only one that hadn't been repossessed) had mysteriously stopped working just inside the "Welcome to Nowhere" sign hanging underneath an oak tree

The cotton fields on either side of him were set ablaze by the fiery sky and Wyatt paused long enough to completely ignore it and study the poorly scribbled directions he'd written on the back of a postcard.

He was five miles into Nowhere with three to go until he reached his uncle's house. He'd be navigating these dirt roads until nine o'clock if he didn't pick up his pace by at least another mile per hour.

He hitched his duffel bag higher onto his shoulder and counted each step, keeping in time with the rhythm in his head that would get him to his destination in a more timely fashion.

A black cat skittered across his path, making him stumble forward and break his brisk pace.

Wyatt scowled as the cat stared back with its luminous green eyes, swishing its tail calmly back and forth across the dirt and making a tiny dust cloud in its wake.

It was the eighth black cat he'd seen since entering Nowhere. Now that he thought about it, it was the only type of animal he'd seen at all. Either he hadn't been paying attention otherwise, or the residents of Nowhere had a strange fetish.

The cat watched Wyatt for a long time as if it were trying to hypnotize him. The cat blinked once, long and slow.

A honk from a car behind him startled him so badly that he jerked upright and stepped on the cat's tail.

The cat shrieked, swiped at his trousers, and darted away.

Wyatt blinked into a pair of dusty headlights. Shielding his eyes, he squinted and saw a 1940 Ford pickup. It was sanded and dull with its roof completely missing like a convertible.

A blonde head leaned over the door and tilted curiously. The girl's eyes were green and clever and from what Wyatt could tell from the top half of her, she wore a plain but well-sewn dress that had dust smeared across the sleeves and straw sticking up from the seams.