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Chapter 1
Chapter One: Sun on the Sidewalk
The cicadas were tuning up the afternoon, and Larkhaven’s sidewalks had gone the color of lemonade. Mia’s sketchbook was hot against her arm as she walked, her pencils rattling like impatient cousins. She liked drawing the town when it sat still: the dog asleep under the barber’s chair, the half-painted daisy on the water tower, the “Closed for Ice Cream” sign dangling from the hardware store door every day at two.
She knew the crack in the curb by the post office and how it made skateboards sing. She knew which mailboxes leaned forward like they were trying to hear the gossip. Mostly, she knew that this summer was supposed to feel bigger than last summer. She just didn’t know how.
A breeze pushed her toward Handy’s Thrift, where the windows always looked like a kaleidoscope exploded—lamps, hats, a typewriter wearing a scarf. Inside, Mrs. Handy waved her ringed hand. “Sketching today, Mia?”
“Always,” Mia said, and a bell chimed behind her as the door clicked shut.
On the shelf near the back, under a basket of clothespins, she found the envelope. It was thick, the beige of old notebook paper. On the front, someone had written in looping blue ink: To the Finder. It smelled, impossibly, like oranges.
