A Stillness of Chimes Read online

  Praise for

  A Stillness of Chimes

  “Meg Moseley has composed a haunting, melodic tale that, like any great ballad, lingers long after the last note. Full of romance, intrigue, and whispers from the past, A Stillness of Chimes will stir readers’ hearts and awaken their own unanswered what-if’s … and bring hope that maybe some dreams don’t have to die.”

  —BETSY ST. AMANT, author of The Rancher Next Door and Addison Blakely: Confessions of a PK

  “If you’re looking for sweet tea with a twist, you’ll find it in Meg Moseley’s irresistible A Stillness of Chimes. With sacred themes of family and the beauty of second chances, this novel sweeps you south and touches your soul in ways you won’t soon forget.”

  —LAURA FRANTZ, Christy Award finalist and author of Love’s Reckoning

  “A small mountain town in Georgia, with its wry humor and full complement of kudzu, is the background for this story of three closely related families. However, less than congenial relationships lurk beneath the poetic prose of this talented writer. Clue upon clue builds—to at last reveal the startling end, hinted in the story’s beginning. The finish may catch you by surprise, but its rich meaning will leave you with wonderful food for thought.”

  —RUTH TRIPPY, author of The Soul of the Rose

  “Assured writing, fully realized characters, and family secrets revealed are deftly woven to create a story as compelling as its title. When the chimes still, healing, faith, and light weave through the silence left behind. Readers will find themselves caught up in Sean and Laura’s journey to wholeness and love.”

  —LISA WINGATE, national best-selling author of The Prayer Box and Wildwood Creek

  “I loved A Stillness of Chimes. It’s a classic southern story with childhood friends, memories, a mystery, and a lake. Moseley tells the tale in her unique fashion and lyrical storytelling voice. I highly recommend.”

  —RACHEL HAUCK, best-selling, award-winning author of Princess Ever After and The Wedding Dress

  “There’s something magical in the sound of chimes. Something ethereal in the tinkling of notes gracing the air. Ms. Moseley has written an ethereal story of love and of loving family. Don’t miss A Stillness of Chimes, lovely in the prose, magical as it unfolds.”

  —ANGELA BREIDENBACH, author of A Healing Heart and president of the Christian Authors Network

  A STILLNESS OF CHIMES

  PUBLISHED BY MULTNOMAH BOOKS

  12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200

  Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

  Scripture quotations and paraphrases are taken from the King James Version.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN 978-0-307-73078-7

  eBook ISBN 978-0-307-73079-4

  Copyright © 2014 by Meg Moseley

  Cover design by Kelly L. Howard; cover photography by Lee Avison

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company.

  MULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Moseley, Meg.

  A stillness of chimes / Meg Moseley.— 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-307-73078-7—ISBN 978-0-307-73079-4 (electronic)

  1. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Family secrets—Fiction. 4. First loves—Fiction. 5. Georgia—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3613.O77876S85 2013

  813′.6—dc23

  2012033874

  v3.1

  To our wounded warriors and their loved ones.

  You have my unending respect and gratitude.

  WoundedWarriorProject.org

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Readers Guide

  Acknowledgments

  Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

  William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

  Eighteen years ago

  Laura Gantt didn’t believe in ghosts, but sometimes she wondered if living across from a graveyard had warped her. Part Irish, all southern, descended from moonshiners and holy rollers, she’d always believed in things she couldn’t see. Her dad said it was just the old whisperings in their blood.

  All morning, she’d heard soft, sure warnings. Some kind of trouble was on its way. The whisperings hinted it would come for Sean.

  She and her friends, plus one tagalong kid sister, had been picking blackberries for an hour in the brambles that lined the railroad tracks. Trees choked with kudzu vines loomed above them like green monsters.

  A few feet away, Cassie Bright and her little sister worked side by side, their blond hair damp with sweat. Sean Halloran was bent over the brambles farther down the tracks. He looked lost in a T-shirt his brother had outgrown.

  Sean straightened and squared his skinny shoulders. “No slacking off, Gantt,” he hollered. “Lazy bum.”

  Laura swatted a mosquito on her arm and tried to think of a smart comeback. She gave up and shrugged. Sean went back to work, laughing, but he couldn’t fool her. She knew what he lived with.

  Sweat trickled down her neck. She was sick of the heat, the scratches, the bug bites. There were snakes too. She tried not to think about the snakes.

  Cassie stopped working to examine her fingers, stained purple with juice. “Ugh. I hate blackberries.”

  “I hate snakes worse,” Laura said, thinking of Sean’s father. The Halloran boys called him by his first name—Dale—to show their disrespect. Never to his face, though. They wouldn’t dare.

  Cassie moved closer between long-reaching canes that bristled with wicked little thorns. “Guess what?” she said quietly. “The Cheevers heard the Peeping Tom last night. He was pitching pebbles at their windows.”

  “Why do you act like it’s good news? It’s creepy.”

  “Yeah, but this town could use a little excitement. My dad says it’s Slattery.”

  Laura shivered in spite of the heat. A sloppy, skinny man, Slattery lived in a run-down duplex just down the road. Nobody knew his first name.

  “How would your dad know who it is?” she asked.

&nb
sp; “He has a friend who’s a deputy, remember? He tells us all kinds of stuff.”

  Laura dropped a handful of ripe berries into her bucket. “Your dad’s friend should spend less time talking and more time catching bad guys.”

  “You’re scared. Scared of a silly prowler.”

  “No, I’m not. My daddy has his guns.”

  “Bet you won’t be so brave when the Peeping Tom’s at your window. He—oh!” Cassie shrieked and giggled. “Mr. Gantt, you spooked me. Sneaking up like that.”

  Laura hadn’t noticed her father either, but there he was. A curlicue of wood shavings clung to his shirt, and the humidity made his sandy-blond hair frizz where it escaped from under his baseball cap. He didn’t seem to be in one of his moods, but she wasn’t sure until he tipped his cap, his eyes twinkling.

  “My apologies, Miss Cassie,” he said. “I didn’t aim to scare anybody. Looks like you’ve got that department covered, though.” He wrapped his arm around Laura’s shoulders. “Hey, sweetheart. Are you managing to comport yourself like a lady?”

  “Always.” Laura leaned into his sun-warmed shirt and that familiar smell of sawdust. “You don’t have to keep checking on us. We’re not babies.”

  “Even when you’re a grown woman, you’ll be my baby girl. No matter what.”

  Out of nowhere, a heavy sadness settled on her. Whether it was about his troubles or Sean’s, it made her feel like a grown woman already. A grown woman who didn’t mind being called her father’s baby girl.

  “And you’ll always be my dad,” she said. “No matter what.”

  He smiled and gave her ponytail a gentle tug. Then he nodded toward Cassie’s sister. “Tigger’s still a baby even if she doesn’t think so,” he said quietly. “Y’all keeping an eye on her?”

  Laura and Cassie glanced at each other and swiveled their eyes back to him. “Yes sir,” they said in unison.

  He turned toward Sean. “Young Mr. Halloran. It’s good to see you, son.”

  “It’s good to see you too, sir.” Sean spoke with so much respect that she half expected him to salute his hero. Her father, Elliott Gantt.

  “I understand your brother enlisted,” her dad said.

  “Yes sir.” Sean came closer to his idol but not too close. “He’s in boot camp.”

  “You must be proud.”

  “Yes sir, I am.”

  “I hope he’ll never have to go to war. If he does, though, he’ll make you prouder still.”

  “Yes sir. I know he will.”

  Laura’s dad stole a few berries from her pail. “Y’all behave, now.” He studied Tigger, his expression softening. “You too, Tig. Be good for your big sister.”

  “I will,” she chirped.

  “You’re always a good girl, aren’t you?”

  Tigger nodded and gave him an angelic smile, drawing a laugh from him and a subdued grumble from Cassie.

  “I’ll get back to work,” he said. “That wood won’t make itself into anything useful.”

  “Bye, Dad,” Laura said. “See you at supper.”

  “Yep. And we’ll have cobbler again, I hope. You and your mama make the best blackberry cobbler in Georgia.” He swiped a few more berries, their color nearly matching the neat lettering on his muscular arm—“life everlasting.” A memento of his army days, it was his only tattoo.

  A bright yellow butterfly wove a wobbly path above his head as he waded through the brambles, finally disappearing in the tangle of green. He would come out on First Street, a block from his workshop in downtown Prospect.

  “I wish he wouldn’t keep checking on us,” Laura said. “I mean, come on. We’re twelve.”

  “Yeah, maybe he needs to loosen up a little.” As Sean approached, Cassie lowered her voice. “Just be glad he’s not like Sean’s dad. What a creep.”

  Sean came closer, his pail bumping against the leg of his too-short jeans. He scowled at Cassie. “I heard that.”

  She scowled back. “Sorry, but it’s true.”

  “That doesn’t mean y’all have to go around yammering about it.”

  “You have to tell somebody,” Laura said.

  He squinted at her. “Tell somebody what?”

  “Don’t play dumb.” She lifted his floppy sleeve so Cassie could see the new bruise on his sun-browned shoulder.

  He yanked the sleeve down, moving so quickly that berries spilled from his bucket. “Mind your own business.”

  “You are my business,” Laura said. “You’re my friend.”

  He walked off without answering, his head high and his shoulders stiff.

  Cassie wrinkled her nose. “What’s wrong with him lately?”

  “Everything’s worse since Keith enlisted.” Laura’s eyes watered. “Now Sean’s got nobody to watch his back.”

  “His brother must’ve been sick of looking after him. Like I’m sick of looking after Tigger.”

  “Don’t say that. You’re lucky to have a sister.”

  “Yeah, I’m real lucky. I’m always stuck watching her so she won’t wander off. Sometimes I wish she would.”

  “Cassie!”

  “You know I don’t mean it. I’m just so tired of having her tag along. Tigger the Tagger.” Cassie stared into the distance, her eyes rimmed with smudges of the mascara she’d borrowed from her mom’s bathroom. “Someday I’ll get out of here. Out of Georgia. All the way to Hollywood, maybe.” She brightened. “Mom bought some new nail polish. Sunset Boulevard Red. Let’s go paint our nails.”

  “My dad doesn’t want me to paint my nails until I’m older.”

  “You’re older than you were yesterday, so you’re older. Come on. He won’t even notice, and your mom won’t care. She’s cool. Hey, maybe we can talk my mom into renting a movie.” Cassie popped a berry into her mouth and walked away.

  Laura studied her purple fingertips. Berry stains were allowed—and so was a tattoo, at least for her dad—but nail polish wasn’t. It didn’t make sense.

  She continued tugging ripe fruits from their stems, aware that Sean was slowly working his way back. At last he stopped beside her.

  He reached for a cane loaded with berries that hung like black jewels in the bright green leaves. “Sorry I got mad. I just don’t like it when you tell me what to do.”

  “I can’t make you do what I say, but you sure can’t keep me from saying what I think.”

  He gave her a quick glance and went back to picking. “You’re all right, Gantt. Sometimes. For a girl.”

  Cassie popped up from behind a bush. “Sean and Laura, sittin’ in a tree,” she chanted. “K-I-S-S—”

  “Knock it off,” Sean said. “We’re just friends.”

  “We’re all friends,” Laura said. “All three of us.” She looked over her shoulder. Tigger was singing softly, paying no attention to the rest of them.

  Laura placed her bucket on a patch of relatively clear and level ground. “Put down your berries for a minute.”

  Sean and Cassie cooperated, but they looked hot and tired and skeptical.

  “What’s this about?” Sean asked. “Ordering me around again?”

  “Yes. Listen up, y’all. Hands together, right now. We have a promise to make.”

  Three pairs of hands layered themselves together, stained and sticky with juice, marked with dirt and scratches and bug bites. The girls’ hands were pale and small compared to Sean’s bigger, darker hands. A bruise Laura hadn’t noticed before circled his left wrist like a wide purple bracelet.

  “Me too,” Tigger said, bouncing toward them on her skinny legs. Her glittery pink hair clip was about to fall out of her silky hair.

  Cassie pushed her sister away. “This isn’t little-girl stuff.”

  “I’m not little! I’m almost eight.”

  “Let her stay.” Laura drew Tig’s hands in with the bigger ones. “We’re just going to promise we’ll always be there for each other.” A glance at Sean made her heart hurt. “We’ll look out for each other. Always.” That wasn’t half of what she w
anted to say, but her throat had clogged up.

  The others only stared at her.

  “Say it,” she ordered in a whisper. “Promise.”

  “I promise,” Sean and Cassie said, and Tigger piped up with another “Me too.”

  Sean glared at each one in turn, his shaggy hair half-veiling his fierce blue eyes and hiding most of the tiny scars on his forehead. “But y’all have to promise you won’t do anything stupid either.” He looked straight at Laura. “Promise you won’t go blabbing things that shouldn’t be blabbed.”

  “I promise,” Cassie said. “No blabbing.”

  “No blabbing,” Tigger parroted.

  Laura’s hands were roasting. She felt as trapped as the times she’d knelt at the altar until her legs ached, but she didn’t dare move in the middle of a moment that might have been sacred. This wasn’t church, though. It was pure foolishness, probably.

  “Laura,” Sean said. “Promise.”

  Maybe this was part of being there for him, part of being his friend: promising to do things his way. Because, after all, she didn’t know what kind of trouble she’d stir up for him if she told her folks about his bully of a father.

  She let out her breath. When she inhaled, her lungs seemed to fill with a deep sadness that seeped into every cell of her body.

  “I promise. No blabbing.”

  Sean nodded. His face relaxed a tad.

  A honeybee drowsed over his shoulder, breaking the spell. Laura flexed her fingers but couldn’t free herself from the sticky, sweltering pile of hands.

  Tigger yanked loose, releasing the rest of them too. “Sean, lookit,” she said, picking up her pail. “I got tons of berries.”

  “That’s a lot,” he said. “Good work, Tig.”

  She scampered away, her pale hair catching the light. The sun always seemed to find her, even in the shade.

  Cassie held her juice-stained hand to her heart. “There. We made a solemn vow, signed in the blood of a thousand berries.” Dropping the dramatic pose, she laughed and walked away.

  Sean poured his berries into Laura’s pail, filling it to the brim. “Give ’em to your mom.”

  “You don’t want any?”

  “You think I bake pies and things? Nah. I’m gonna go drown some worms behind the Bennetts’ place.”