Apr 16, 2007 | Fiction, What The Nutcracker Never Guessed |
Chapter 1: The Okanogan Sometimes it was hard to get to the house in the high remote Okanogan in the winter. In the summer, when the sun was tawny gold as the head of a lion in a powder blue sky, they whizzed along the black ribbon of the road and got there in just a little bit more than three hours. Sometimes it seemed to Elise they got there too fast. The trip went by so quickly that she didn’t have time to get ready. She didn’t have time to let go of the city and take hold of the different kind of place that was the rugged old Okanogan. But in late December when snow was falling in the Cascades, it was a different story. They had to stop and put chains on all four tires of the car to help its wheels hold the road. Even though it seemed that the trip might take forever, it was a beautiful trip. Everywhere there was white and the slowness was like the slowness of a story, the slowness of a dream. It made Elise glad to get away from the city and to be alone with her own thoughts and the sky and the mountains. She could leave most of her sorrows behind in the city and bring along only the hopes that were so close to her heart that they filled her with fear and wonder. Elise had the idea already that her sorrows and her hopes were sisters. Like sisters, they could bear to be apart for a while without losing their connection. Underneath they were...
