Cascadia

Prologue

Sunflower was already beginning to regret taking the child from that gas station. The infant, swaddled in camping blankets and resting safely inside the confines of a white laundry basket wedged between the back and front seats, wailed endlessly, making it hard to focus on the faint yellow lines running down the center of the desolate stretch of highway.

            What kind of person would steal a dying woman's baby?

            The words of Bob Patterson, the old gas station proprietor, still rang in Sunflower's ears, bringing with it a sense of guilt and wonder as to whether she'd done the right thing. She believed she had. She needed to believe it. If she could remain convinced this had been the Universe providing her such a rare and unique opportunity to clear her karmic debt, then her choices (however they might appear to others) would be correct and in perfect union with her highest good.

            Vivid was the memory of that pained expression on that poor woman's face as she struggled to bring new life into the world despite the speed at which her own health seemed to have been declining. Sunflower could still hear the desperate tone in old Bob Patterson's voice when he dialed the county sheriff and declared there was a woman dying in his parking lot. Sunflower remembered the blood. There had been so much blood!

            Sunflower's eyes frequently shifted between the road and the rearview mirror, making sure she wasn't being followed by the police. In the backseat, the baby continued to wail.

            "Cry it out, baby girl," she said aloud, as if the infant could understand. "Your mother might be dead, but soon you'll know the love of family. You won't be alone in this life, baby girl. Mommy's here."

            As if out of spite, the baby cried harder. Sunflower cranked up the radio and allowed the fuzzy transmission of some distant country station to soften the baby's shrill pitch. She prayed exhaustion would come quickly and the child would fall fast asleep. They had a long drive ahead of them if they hoped to reach the farm by morning.

            Ever since she was a little girl, all Sunflower had ever wanted was a family. She'd grown up as an only child, raised by a single mother who worked two jobs and spent any remaining free time isolated from her child and drunk as a skunk. Suffice it to say, the woman had never been much of a presence in her daughter's life. Hell, she could hardly even be bothered to show up for Sunflower's birthday, which were often spent at sleepovers with friends or under the strict thumb of overzealous babysitters. Loneliness dogged every waking moment of Sunflower's childhood, and she'd be damned if her new baby would be forced to suffer a similar fate.

            All of that changed for Sunflower a little over two months ago thanks to a chance encounter during a full moon ceremony atop Mount Shasta. Sunflower had met a woman named Mari who ran a booth selling balms and tinctures. The two women had hit it off almost immediately. After a wild night of eating mushrooms and communing with the moon, Mari told Sunflower about a farm she owned up in Washington State, inviting Sunflower to visit. Always on the lookout for the next place to stay and group of friends to party with, Sunflower didn't waste any time in paying a visit to the farm. After only a week, she realized she'd found her "tribe;" people who loved her, cared about her, and accepted her. She returned to Northern California, packed what few items she couldn't live without (some camping gear, bedding, and a wide variety of crystals) before heading back up north to stay.

            In the mirror dangling above the center console, Sunflower observed the noisy child in the backseat. She commended herself for having saved the child from being subjugated to the foster home experience, forever cursed to exist in an ever-rotating backdrop of upheaval, trauma, and exploitation. Because of her, this beautiful infant would have the chance to grow up surrounded by family, to be raised with nothing but love and compassion.

            The tiny communities that sprang up occasionally along the side of the road were hardly large enough to be considered towns; if she blinked, she might miss them entirely. Each one she came up on appeared dark, possibly even abandoned, with large red CLOSED signs posted in the windows of all the shops.

            Her mind kept returning to the pregnant woman lying on top of a pile of blood-soaked blankets in the middle of that dirty gas station parking lot, screaming as the proprietor's wife knelt between her legs to assist in the birthing process. Though the baby had survived, the distraught mother had not. Sunflower could still vividly see the seriousness in the woman's face, and she still bore the bloody handprint where the dying mother had reached out and grabbed Sunflower by the hem of her floral sundress and clung tightly as if with no intention of ever letting go.

            "Get out of here. Take the baby and go. Get as far away as you can! Her father will never stop looking for her. He can never know about—"

            In that moment, the woman's warning fell away into the chasm of death as the light faded from her dark brown eyes. Being a soul-seeking twenty-two-year-old, Sunflower had never seen a dead body prior to a few hours ago. The way those cold, unblinking eyes stared up at her for such a prolonged moment, before being gently closed by the proprietor's wife, would haunt Sunflower's dreams for years to come.

            It was Jake Patterson, the proprietor's middle-aged son, who'd been the most sympathetic to Sunflower's cause. Despite his mother's red-faced argument that Jake had no right helping to kidnap a dead woman's baby – and that Sunflower had even less of a right to be kidnapping one – the youngest Patterson collected a grocery bag and filled it with baby formula, first-aid supplies, bottled water, and a six pack of cheap beer, which he gifted to Sunflower with a wink and a smile. She walked away from her little pit stop with so much more than a few sundries and a full tank of gas. She'd come away with a brand-new baby – one she vowed to love, nurture, and provide for – and a few road beers to dull the irritation brought on by a screaming newborn.

            In the backseat, the baby's cries were beginning to soften, evolving into a series of short, wet gurgles that faded into silence. Sunflower glanced in her rearview mirror to check in and saw the child had fallen asleep snuggled in the blankets overflowing from its makeshift bed.

            The headlights caught the reflective green of a large road sign posted along the highway. Only forty-five miles before she reached the interchange that would take her northeast and onward to their new home. There she would begin a new life as a single mother and the nurturing provider for a newborn baby daughter.