That's what I remember from the year I came to Mosspond. That's how I remember it, whether it actually happened that way or not.
I don't live in Mosspond anymore, but my mother does, and I go home to visit her as often as I get the chance. The skies there aren't nearly as gray as they used to be. Mrs. McBride passed away over a year ago, and I was as sad to see her go as if she had been my own grandmother. Sometimes, if my mother and I are drinking iced tea or hot chocolate, I'm reminded of the old woman, and I'll look out the window toward her house and silently raise my glass to her spirit.
Jillian Lee went far away after high school, to some university that I'd never heard of. I think about her a lot, trying to guess whether she's still as impish as I remember her. Through middle school and even early into high school, we made the old stump on Mr. Black's property our own. We were there more than we were at school, thinking and dreaming and just breathing. I know Jill will come back to Mosspond. She will, just like I'll have to. We promised each other that one day we'd plant a new pine near the old stump, one we could watch and hope would someday reach higher than all the rest.
And Jude? It was strange, our intense friendship, during the time we were both sick beyond our own knowing. It didn't last, but I don't think it was meant to. I don't think it could have, even if we'd tried to keep it. Jude and his father moved into the old house with Mr. Black shortly after our frightening night on Moss Lake. I'm certain they were happy. Mr. Black paid to send Jude away to an expensive music academy when he began high school. Then he reopened the Lake to swimmers and skaters. People aren't afraid to go there, anymore. Everything around the house seems greener. Greener and more full of life.
It's been years since I've seen Jude — years since we were thirteen and heartbroken and in need of each other. As I grow, and as that time moves farther into the past, it's difficult to tell what was real and what wasn't. But I don't try to sort it out, because the details don't matter so much. What matters is what I remember . . . what I really believe.
The End
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Jude's Music
General FictionThirteen-year-old Nat is bitter about moving to Mosspond, and the future looks dim until he stumbles across the trail of a strange, ghostly boy--Jude--who is frightening yet intriguing in his cold silence. One afternoon, Nat discovers Jude playing t...
