four months later

Listening to the door close behind him and the creak of the old oak floorboards of S. M. Neely's general store under his bootstep, Arthur quickly scouted the place for necessities and sundries. One after the other, he tucked two tins of coffee, a can of kidney beans, a can of sweetcorn, two tins of salmon, and a loaf of bread under his arm.

"You mean to pay for those, right?" the Blackwater grocer asked from where he stood behind the counter.

"Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on," Arthur grumbled quietly in his drawling brogue as he took a pack of cigarettes from the shelf and stuffed it in his satchel. He shot a cursory glance over his shoulder at him. "You keepin' a tab?"

After just a second of understanding flitted across his face, the man hurried to reach beneath the counter for a pad and pencil. "Well, now I am."

Nodding with an inaudible huff, Arthur returned his gaze to the fresh food in the display before him. He grabbed three carrots for Boadicea and reached for a peach for himself. But his hand passed a pile of gorgeous, succulent green pears.

He slowly took one and turned it over in his hand, admiring the uniform smattering of freckles and the bright, ripe blush of red across one side of the skin. Lost far away in reverie for a moment, he dipped his head, the brim of his black hat covering his eyes as he smirked, just a little.

Long ago, she'd told him it was her favorite fruit. Long ago, he'd kissed a freckled, blushed cheek just like that. Long ago, he'd picked one while she'd slept and left it for her, along with a misleading, brokenhearted letter explaining why he couldn't let himself love her, that he was no good for them, and that he was trying to protect them.

But her love remained steadfast; it was always there. Even now, somehow, he felt it.

He promptly lifted the ripe fruit to his mouth and took a bite, unprepared for the luscious, fragrant juice that readily spilled from it down the corner of his mouth, quickly slurping it back and wiping at his chin with his forearm.

Eliza's favorite fruit. Boy, was there a reason.

"Sweet Anjou, that," the shop owner remarked.

"I know," Arthur said past his mouthful of sweet, tender flesh as he turned to continue perusing the shelves.

"Very popular," the man continued unprovoked. "One a' the sweetest things I got. I like it even better than peppermints or wild clover honey. Some folk like 'em even better than peaches and strawberries. 'Course, I can't pick a favorite between all those."

Arthur almost rolled his eyes as he craned his neck to look at a high shelf, not because the man was too chatty, just because he didn't care to chat himself. Certainly not about dull pleasantries.

"Good for a pick-me-up," the man added, pencil positioned at the ready in his hand. "Maybe you'd like another for the road?"

"Just the one'll do," Arthur mumbled. He passed the sweets display and noticed a bag of candies, sassafras from the looks of it, and remembered that they were one of Isaac's very favorites. How his eyes would twinkle and his grin would brighten each time he dug his little hand straight away into Arthur's shirt pocket, knowing their unspoken understanding—that one wrapped sassafras would be there, tucked secretly as a special surprise just for him. Unknowing that the shirt pocket was his father's.

Arthur's expression faltered into a weakly broken frown as he swallowed what was left of the bite of pear and took one of the bags of candy, tucking it under his arms with the other things.

He took a quick step in the direction of the counter to finish his shopping and pay, when he stopped to look more closely at something on the shelf that had caught his eye—a brown leather-bound journal with a leather strap reaching around from the back cover and securing it closed. No gaudy embossing or embellishments, but still just as good or even better than the one he'd had before.

He shifted his boots and let out a long sigh through his nose as he looked at it. Truth was, he knew it to be a foolish, pathetic notion that anything in his life was worthy of note, that anything about his life meant anything at all.

He turned and moved to continue on his way, but he didn't make it another step before something without words called to him, and he looked back at it again. His brows drew a bit as he eyed it where it sat.

Shifting the items under his arm and passing the bitten-from pear to that hand, he reached for the journal and ran his thumb over the cool, smooth leather. He thumbed the front cover open and tossed it back, flipping through the blank cream pages, his eyes imagining them filled.

"How much for the journal?" he asked flatly without turning.

"Dollar forty-five," the man answered. "That's genuine, artisan-bound leather."

Nodding and taking it from the shelf, he finally made his way towards the counter. "Got a pencil you could throw in?"

"Sure, for five cents."

...

"I bought this new journal, after the last one got destroyed in that fire all those months ago, whenever it was.

Haven't written or drawn much in the past few months, but I was missing it more than I thought I would, and finally near a store, so here I am, I guess.

After all that business up North and the fire, we spent a few months in the wilderness, traveling down from the Northern Grizzlies, stuck mostly in the western foothills of the mountains during the worst of the winter. Food was easy to find and life was good…"

.

Dear Readers,

Thank you sincerely from the bottom of my heart to each of you who are reading and who shared your thoughts on the last couple chapters. I can hardly believe that I see such words and feelings about my writing like, "chills," "goosebumps," "spectacular," "perfect," "amazing," "insanely good," "incredible," and that chapter 27 brought you to tears. You guys blow me away; I just can hardly fathom it except to believe that you truly do care about these characters too, which means more to me than I can express.

We're in the home stretch now. There are a handful of chapters I hope to write to tie a bow on this series, but each of them won't be long, I don't think. Not super exciting stuff, but I still want to make it to the finish line. And despite really not doing well these days, I really hope I do. I've been envisioning it for at least 2 years.

Thank you sincerely so much again,

Rosie