Chapter One:

"We must admit there will be music despite everything."-Jack Gilbert

Dear God Almighty, she thought to herself, this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Of course, Lillian knew that if a rough break-up was the worst thing that ever happened to her, she was a lucky woman indeed. She was only twenty-one, though, and she'd had a lucky twenty-one years so far, so she forgave herself the hyperbole and allowed herself another internal groan: this is, by far, the worst thing to ever happen to me.

It had been two weeks since she had ended her relationship with Abbott-or, rather, it had been two weeks since she had begged Abbott to stay, to love her, because she was sure that no one else would. She'd hated herself for it then, and she hated herself for it even more now, with the hindsight that only two weeks and a rickety train window can provide. Anyway, he had said no, and closed the door quickly and quietly as if four years could be done away with as easily as that. Open and shut.

So Abbott was gone, and Lillian was still here, although here was different than it had been two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, Lillian had lived in a tiny, cramped apartment in the city, overlooking a gray parking lot and the nest of four pigeons that seemed to have IBS. It was a dirty window. Now, though, she was on her way to the country, with its rolling hills and whisps of white dandelion fuzz that looked like a baby's hair. Lillian would never have Abbott's babies now, a thought which sprung tears to her eyes that were equal parts sadness and self-loathing.

Of course, Abbott's departure was what had brought her to this train window, at least indirectly. If her boyfriend had stayed, Lillian would have stayed, too, in the apartment with the parking lot and the pigeons. Because he had left, she had been forced to reconfigure her life, and her hair was already cut about as short as it could go, so a trip to the hairdresser wouldn't do. No, Lillian had decided, she needed to start over completely. Originally, she had planned on perhaps another tattoo, and perhaps a cat-until the letter in the mail.

"Remember that great-aunt you met when you were four months old, Lillian?" Thus had her mother's letter begun. "She's died," her mother continued, blunt as ever, "and she's left you her farm. You can sell it, I suppose, and move to an apartment with a better view." But, suddenly, Lillian did not want an apartment with a better view, nor did she want another tattoo or a new cat. She wanted a new life, on a farm bequeathed to her by a woman whose existence she only knew from Christmas cards that smelled faintly of manure.

And so here she was, sitting alone on a train pulling into a station that was tinier than a train station had a right to be, with the deed for a house she had never seen clenched in one fist, and a case with all of her clothes in the other. Alone, she couldn't help thinking. I am all alone, and this isn't going to fix it. Seeing the station brought the situation into astonishing clarity. What a stupid goddamn thing to do.

But she was here, and she had signed the deed. She officially owned a dilapidated farmhouse in a town she assumed was called Bluebell, based on the faded blue sign that read "Welcome to Bluebell" just outside the train window. She was officially living in a town named after a brand of ice cream known best for a listeria outbreak. Christ Almighty.

"Christ Almighty," she muttered to herself. A hand suddenly gripped her shoulder, and Lillian turned. The hand stayed right where it was.

"I'd refrain from 'Christs' and 'Gods' and even 'Mother Marys' around here," said the person to whom the hand belonged-a young woman with long purple hair, braided up in a crown on her forehead. Her face was all eyes.

The purple-haired enigma continued: "They won't get mad at you, but they...think differently here. They believe in a harvest goddess, a lady of the lake, if you will. She has green hair and only emerges if you throw turnips or whatever into her lake."

"Turnips or whatever," Lillian said skeptically.

"I never said I believed it," the woman said, "only that you'll stand out if you don't act like you do. It's the one thing they can agree on."

Before elaborating on who they were, or even giving Lillian her name, the woman stood up, patted her cheek like a kindly grandmother, and swept up the aisle and off the train. Lillian could only follow-at a distance.

And just like that, Lillian was off the train, standing just in front of the "Welcome to Bluebell" sign. Despite having just exited, the woman had completely disappeared, leaving only a rail-thin, elderly man at the station. He hobbled from his cart-his cart!-holding a cardboard sign in his hands. For some reason, it made Lillian sad to see her name written on this sad piece of cardboard; each letter of Lillian Faye become progressively smaller, until the last "e" was barely visible at all. It was such a human thing, and it made this man seem even frailer. She wanted to like him, badly.

"I'm Rutger," he said. Couldn't he sound less old, less broken? She wondered, feeling pity for him combined with frustration that he had to be so pitiful in the first place. Maybe it was just that everything in the last few weeks had made her want to cry or rip her hair out or just scream loud enough to wake the dead.

"I'm Lillian," she said, extending her hand, because what else was she supposed to do? Cry? Rip her hair out? Scream? She smiled instead, because that was the acceptable thing to do, at least until you were well within the confines of your very own dilapidated farmhouse. Alone, as usual.

But then Rutger smiled, and tipped his tiny green hat. It made her feel a little bit better. "We're going to escort you to your home! Our Lillian-Goddess rest her soul- was a true treasure, and it's both for your sake and for hers that we are so excited to welcome you to Bluebell."

Lillian had not even known her great-aunt's name. Lillian, indeed.

"Goddess rest her soul," she murmured, to be polite. Just then, a golden head popped out of Rutger's cart.

"Welcome, welcome, Lillian!" The voice managed to convey excitement, despite the fact that it was delivered in a slow, drawl, each word extended to its limit.

Now this had the potential to make her feel better, surely. The boy-the man-in Rutger's cart was standing now, tall enough to block the sun. You could almost describe him as lean, but not truly. He had a brawn to him that had to come from farmwork: shoulders and arms rounded with muscle, thighs she could tell were strong as anything beneath the corduroy of his pants-but, then, she shouldn't be thinking about another man's thighs. Even now, it felt like a betrayal to Abbott. Stupid.

He jumped down, and Rutger held his hands together in delight. The old man truly was an open book; it was clear that he cherished the younger man, whose name she was so eager to learn.

"Ash," he said, holding out a muscled hand. Could hands be muscled? Oh, yes.

"Lillian," she said for the second time in two minutes, with an unfamiliar roiling mass of guilt and desire and confusion and sadness in her stomach. It went away the second he smiled; nothing could compete with a grin like that.

It felt good to think like this, to allow herself to be excited about the possibility of something new. Okay. Okay.

"I have this deed," she said, fumbling in her hands, hating that her hands were so sweaty. She didn't have to worry, though, because neither Ash nor Rutger reached for it.

"Oh, we know," Rutger exclaimed, hands still clasped like a prayer. "Ash and I have been cleaning the ol' farmhouse up for you, and we left you a little surprise." His eyes quite literally twinkled. Honest to God, she thought, it's going to be so hard to be cynical here. I'm not sure why I bother.

"We're so happy you chose Bluebell," Ash chimed in. "Though I'll bet Ina's bothered."

"Hm?" Lillian asked halfheartedly, in truth not really caring who Ina was, or wondering why Ash thought there was any choice involved at all. For all intents and purposes, Bluebell had chosen her.

"Shall we?" Rutger interrupted Lillian's daydreaming about a life of soft cows and muscled thighs with a clap of his gnarled hands.

But he, too, was interrupted, his voice subsumed by a much larger clap. If Lillian had not seen the blue sky in her peripheral vision, she would have assumed it was thunder. Rutger and Ash knew better, though, perhaps with years of experience in a place wilder than she yet knew.

"Fire," they said, almost at once, and Lillian's stomach rose up into her throat. She couldn't help but admit, though, that the spike of adrenaline felt almost welcome as Ash grabbed her arm almost roughly and they all ran to the cart. It wasn't a good feeling, but it wasn't sadness. It wasn't emptiness.

That welcome feeling turned sour quickly as they rounded the bend, as Lillian saw Bluebell for the first time. Almost exactly in the middle of town, in what looked like a charming small town square, a pillar of smoke rose straight and dark and true. Flames licked stone and wood, eating them so fast Lillian could barely stand to watch.

She didn't know then what building Bluebell was losing, but she could hear the screams of the people in the town square, and she said a quick prayer to God or Christ or Mother Mary or even Goddess-anyone-that no one was inside. She could hear, too, Ash and Rutger breathing, fast and quick, not even daring to say a word, to take a breath deeper than a pant. Over and above everything else, though, even so far away, Lillian could hear the flames. She could hear the fire, crackling as it fed, roaring and raging and louder, louder.