The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate

Author:Lisa Wingate [Wingate, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781414387222
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2014-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

Sarra Bend Bridge

I blinked, hit the brakes, and looked again. Sarra Bend Bridge. It wasn’t my imagination.

The bird flitted off as I exited the car, blocking Friday’s hasty attempt to follow. Somewhere upstream, a waterfall rushed and gurgled. Its music enveloped me, giving the moment a dreamlike quality as I moved toward the sign, touched the surface, ran my fingers along the clinging scraps of paint, marveled that it could be there.

Had someone —Evan Hall or whoever the story’s author really was —named a character after this place, or had this place been named for a woman who really existed? Could the story be true?

Grabbing my phone, I snapped a photo, intent on preserving the proof. Proof of what, I had no idea. The mystery teased my senses as I returned to the car and rolled slowly onward, the bridge fading in the rearview.

I stopped where the woman was digging, got out again, and walked to the edge of the grass, Friday watching from the window.

“Ya lost?” She shook the dirt off a clump of roots before looking up. In the shadow of the bonnet, her face was weathered and leathery, her mouth puckered inward, indicating the absence of teeth.

“I didn’t realize the road was closed off down there.”

“Been while now, thataway. No town down there n’more.” She returned to digging, offering neither an opinion nor interest in more conversation.

“I was wondering about the bridge. There’s a sign on it that says Sarra Bend Bridge. Do you know where that name came from?”

Bracing a hand on her back, she mopped her forehead with an arm and observed me. “Be Sarra Crick there, and Sagua Falls up a piece.” The trowel traced the line of tall trees at the end of a cleared field. “Been such long’s I knowed it. My pap brung the mule teams fer takin’ out the old mill bridge so’s this’un could go up, back in Depression days. Them letters was a-scratched in a bur oak tree up the way yander-piece. S-A-R-R-A.

“Mama never did cotton it much. Said the Cherokee done it, and it were a heathen word. But she’s a nervish type, my mama. Growed up over’ta Asheville. Never did like it too good down t’holler. Back when there wadn’t no highway, folk went on thisaway to Towash. Was a mill ’n’ a mill town down the crick. Ain’t there n’more.”

Nodding toward the road, she dusted her hands. “Used’a have us a stand, front a the house. Sold vegdables and rootstocks. Not many folk wander down here n’more . . . less they’re a-stayin’.” A practiced eye turned skyward, and the light caught her time-weathered face. “Rain’s a-comin. You bes’ git out while ya can.”

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