Let me be straight. I have no excuse for why I didn't update this for so long. It would be an explanation longer than this chapter for me to tell you all about the shit that has happened in my life recently, so I won't offer any excuse to you. I felt horrible about leaving this thing open like this, so I have decided to close the book on The Summer Run.
This is actually not too far straying from my original plans. After last chapter, I had four more planned to get to the end. Along with this there will be an epilogue chapter, so really, I only cut two chapters. Those chapters contained some events from Anna's search for Elsa that were really no contingent to the story anyway, but would have offered some depth to their search for her. I apologize to anyone who thinks this makes me a bad author; I simply have too much going on to finish this out completely. Perhaps in the future I will upload those two chapters, but I do not know.
As I said, there will be an epilogue chapter after this. I will get it out soon.
Anna shivered in the jacket she wore, rubbing her hands together to try and warm them up. "She couldn't run off to somewhere warm, could she?" She grumbled. Marcus smirked down at her, seemingly completely at home in the cold weather.
"We don't know if she's even here, Anna. It was as much a surprise to me as it was you when your dad got that letter. Elsa might be long gone from here by now. Besides, it isn't that cold."
"Speak for yourself!"
"How did you survive in New Hampshire if you think this is cold?"
"I've never done well with cold, so that's why."
"I don't think we'll be here long, so just bear with it."
Anna didn't respond to his words but took them as slight comfort. She and Marcus had departed New Hampshire three weeks ago, after Anna had made the decision to leave Arendelle University for good. It was now late April, but for whatever reason, Michigan was as cold as ever. Being on the shore of Lake Huron most likely contributed to it being so bitterly cold here, but still. It was almost May. This is crazy.
Since Elsa and Anna's relationship had been discovered, things had changed drastically. Anna ended up being kicked off the soccer team for failure to report to meetings with the coach and the athletic director. Since the day that Anna stormed from her coach's office, just three weeks after Elsa's disappearance, she had never gone back to the Freeze. She just couldn't walk around in there knowing that it was her fault that Elsa was now a legend and pariah of AU.
She spent most of the rest of the semester doing her best to be a zombie. She went to class, didn't speak, didn't volunteer answers to questions. Didn't talk to anyone. She left class, went home and got her homework done, then usually spent her time bouncing between spending time with Idun, and then maybe Kristoff and Sven. Initially, Idun was furious with Anna for the way she behaved about Elsa, thinking that Anna was just acting selfishly. After seeing how unhappy Anna was, for weeks on end, Idun turned around. She realized that what Anna and Elsa had was genuine and her friend was taking it the hardest way possible.
Fall semester ended, and Anna went home to a supportive brother and father. During her time there, her dad spoke to her at length of chasing her dreams, and if she wants something she must go and get it. Her brother wasted no time in making sure that she knew how dumb he thought she was for letting Elsa run off. She shrugged them off and went back to AU for the spring semester. Once there though…things began to happen that were off.
First off, Marcus had quit his job for some mysterious reason, although he still made sure to contact Anna as soon as she returned to school. Secondly, her father started dropping strange hints that he would never be angry at her if she decided to take a break from school. Then, to cap it all off, at the start of February, her dad sent her a package. Inside was a single letter that was addressed to him by name. However, in the unsigned letter, references to a series of places were made as being nice places to vacation.
At the bottom of the letter, the last line read Bring Marshmallows with Stripes. Anna's father, having been told of both Anna and Marcus' nicknames, immediately figured that the letter had been a roundabout way for Elsa to contact Anna and Marcus. Anna put it all together and decided that she would drop out from AU and start searching for Elsa, and Marcus joined her.
Since mid-February, the pair of them had been hitting all the locations on the letter, in order. It had been a long trip, and Anna's father had been donating plenty of money to their journey. Marcus had taken it upon himself to be Anna's right hand during the search and she was grateful for him being there.
"What are we supposed to be looking for here? This town is tiny." Marcus asked as they sat down in a small café near the shore of the lake. Cheboygan was a tiny town of just over 4000 people and nearly no real serious features to make it notable. Admittedly, that made it a great candidate for a hiding place for a woman running from the law.
Anna shrugged. "I don't know. There were no other clues apart from the letter just saying Cheboygan is nice. I'm not even sure where to begin. In the other places, at least we had a destination, like the hunting lodge outside Harrisburg in Pennsylvania."
Marcus nodded with a sigh and looked over the menu, ordering a coffee and some pancakes. Anna just ordered orange juice and eggs, then stared out the window. It had been nearly two full months since she started this trip with Marcus to find Elsa, and they had found diddly squat so far. In a way, Anna felt more alive now than in all the months that she had no idea about the woman she loved and her whereabouts. At the same time, she felt yet more hopeless than before.
It was like having even a sliver of hope was far more painful than having no hope at all. She been dreaming every single night about the first time she ever kissed Elsa, in the hotel in South Carolina during that tournament. Their first night together, all primal and passionate as it was, and waking up next to her in the morning.
Everything seemed so simply back then. It was just love and passion and romance and two people being together. No laws. No judgement. Nothing like that. And she had ruined it all. That day, so long ago, when she accosted Elsa about the rumors of her sleeping with Kida and they ended up locking lips ever so quickly in the Freeze. The lipstick on Anna. Kristoff and Sven making the connection. Someone else had done it too, and that marked the beginning of the end.
The waitress brought their drinks to the table, and Anna, feeling lost enough already, decided to try something. "Excuse me miss, does anyone live here with long, platinum blonde hair? She would be relatively new in town."
The waitress thought to herself momentarily before shaking her head. "Not that I know of, but you might want to try and ask Rafi. He knows just about everyone in Cheboygan. If someone new was in town, he would know."
Anna smiled warmly as a clue began to flare. "Where can I find…Rafi?"
The waitress laughed. "Oh, Rafi is a nickname. His real name is Babo Rafiki. A wonderfully pleasant, wise old man who talks to anyone." She left with a quick nod and a smile, leaving Anna and her friend to their drinks.
Marcus hummed pleasantly at the taste of his coffee. "Well…better than nothing. Plus, who wouldn't stop and talk to an old man? I'd bet my right boot that he would make sure that he spoke to somebody new if he saw them."
Anna snickered into her orange juice, watching him over the top of the glass. "You would walk around without a right boot?"
He shook his head, glaring at her. "Of course not, whippersnapper. Idina would murder me."
"Seriously? Why?"
He put down the cup, an eyebrow cocked at her. "She's an athletic trainer, remember? Walking around without a shoe on would mess my foot up so much, and she'd have to fix me. She'd probably make me wait with a sore foot to punish me first though." He groaned.
"Married life really that tough?"
"I don't know that tough is the right word," He looked out the window, taking another sip of coffee. "Being married is…it's a dance. When you first get married, the dance is messy. You were so used to dancing solo that now having a partner results in trips, slips, and sometimes you step on your partners toes. Sometimes, the stumbles are big, and sometimes they're small. In most situations, you and your partner help each other up and you laugh off the hurt. Sometimes, when you step on your partners toe, you end up breaking their foot, and they don't want to dance anymore. That's called divorce."
Anna thought about her mother and father from that standpoint. What a stumble they had, and that too…was her fault. Her life choices resulted in the stumble that tore her parents apart, and now again, her life choices were tearing her and Elsa apart. Or already had torn them apart. Though they had never made it to the married stage, it was nice to believe that they would have gotten there eventually. Anna knew, deep inside, that she loved Elsa unconditionally. She deeply hoped that the feeling was mutual but…she had to find Elsa to find that little bit out.
She and Marcus sat there in silence, eating their food quickly and leaving just as fast, payment left on the table and directions to "Rafi" in hand. Apparently, the old man spent a lot of time in a park near the center of town, feeding the birds, so that's where they were headed. The small town looked like a great place to live, really. Anna loved the small cottages and quaint colonial style homes, the small town, close knit feel of the place. Nobody here knew about Elsa and AU and their relationship. It would be like starting all over again.
"Wake up sparky, I think I spy out wise old man," Marcus remarked, the car coming to a stop in a parking spot. Just in front of then, sitting on a small stone bench, was an old man with a bag of feed, surrounded by birds. Anna jumped out of the car, Marcus getting out after her and following her into the peaceful grass covered park. The chilly wind blew across, rustling the leaves and giving Anna a stark reminder of the same day that she met Elsa. All those months ago when she passed her in the hallway of the Freeze.
They approached the old man and stood by quietly as he continued tossing out the food to the birds around him. Anna was planning to speak once he was finished, but the older man surprised her. "A wonderful day, isn't it?" He said out loud, glancing over at them.
"Uh…yeah it is. A bit breezy," Marcus smiled as he spoke.
The older man nodded. "Quite! I am Babo Rafiki. You may call me Rafi though. How can I help you today?"
Anna stepped forward and gestured to the furniture. "May I sit?" Rafi nodded, and she did. "We're not from around here…"
"Oh that is quite clear to me. Rafi knows everyone in Cheboygan. So the question rings: who are you looking for?" Anna, her mouth still open from being interrupted, noticed the sly twinkle and smirk in the old man's eyes. She let herself smile at the realization that Rafi was a lot younger in the mind than he was in body.
"I'm looking for a woman. She…she's important to me and we didn't exactly part on great terms…"
"Hm…that woman you're searching for…she wouldn't happen to be tall, with pale skin and platinum blonde hair, would she?" Anna's heart rate surged in an instant, her blood began pumping wildly through her veins. She opened her mouth, but again, Rafi beat her to speaking.
"And these terms of yours…they wouldn't have anything to do with Arendelle University, would they? And finally…your name wouldn't happen to be…Stripes…would it?"
Anna snapped. "Yes to all of those things! Do you know where Elsa is!? Tell me!" She reached out, grabbing hold of the older mans hand and clamping it between her own. "Please, Rafi! I love her! Tell me whe-"
Anna recoiled when a cane struck her calf painfully, forcing her to jump off the seat with a yelp. She looked back up to see Rafi standing and wearing a wide grin, wagging the cane at her. "You shouldn't grab an old man that roughly, Anna. Come on."
He started walking and immediately, Anna followed him, Marcus saying that he'll stay by the car. Rafi walked slowly, but Anna would deal with whatever she could right now. This was as close as she had been to finding Elsa since…well, ever. "I'm glad that the letter reached your father. I was unsure if that had happened. She has been most unhappy, thinking that you had given up on her."
Anna could hardly even think straight, and the words literally entered her head and left again. "Where is she!?" She parroted, ignoring the other information entirely.
Rafi laughed lightly. "Oh, young love! Relax, Anna. I am going to take you to her, though I would warn you; you may not like what you discover when you get there."
Anna's chest deepened into a black pit. "Wait what? What do you mean?"
Rafi looked at her with skepticism in his eyes. "I will skip some things for the moment and ask you something: What did you think would happen once you found her? Elsa is still a fugitive, running from the law. Don't bother with telling me anything, because the less I know, the better. Just…be prepared. Your life is going to change today. For better or for worse is up to you."
Anna remained quiet, considering his words and still following him as he walked away from the park. She noted that Marcus was now following them slowly in the car, so she had no worries about leaving him behind. They walked in silence for a few minutes, crossing into a humble little neighborhood, before Rafi said anything again. "Elsa is a good friend of my grandson, Jack. I believe that is why she came here to Cheboygan, although…his profession is probably another reason."
"What profession is that?" Anna asked quietly, not wanting to cause too much of a scene, and also still being distracted by the prospect of seeing Elsa again."
Rafi didn't turn to her, but did stop walking. "Jack is a private investigative detective, and one who is very good at his job. I believe that Elsa came here make use of his resources."
Anna cocked her head curiously. "What resource could she want from a PI?"
Rafi gave her a sidelong look, and all of a sudden, he didn't look like such an innocent old man anymore. "Jack has made many friends in his time. Not all of them engage in particularly 'legal' pursuits. Especially those who craft fake documents." Once he finished speaking, Rafi set off again, not elaborating anymore on what he'd said.
Epilogue next. Have a good weekend.
