Chapter 1
Katie and Jared rode their bicycles into the old town square, a weathered remnant of days when city life revolved around a singular point. At its head was the town hall, an imposing brick building with a clock tower and elegant stone lions to guard its main staircase. Around the perimeter were storefronts with large glass windows and second-story apartments where the proprietors would live when such things were fashionable. The stores were now anything but fashionable. The windows had long since dulled to a pasty gray while the bricks slowly crumbled under the progressive weight of time. But it was the park that lay at the center of things that kept this place alive and vital. It was not elegant, only a plot of manicured lawn with a large willow tree at its center, its graceful branches arching above like some vast umbrella providing shade for those below. It featured diagonal sidewalks with small monuments at each corner, memorials to some distant events in the city’s past with plaques now worn and difficult to read. Jared liked the one with the old cannon barrel the best, a place where he could climb and pretend to fire volleys of shot into the opposing storefronts leaving only desolation in his wake. Katie discouraged such dreams of carnage, but such were the aspirations of an eleven-year-old boy.
It was a bright summer morning, a magical time when children were momentarily free from the relentless expectations of parents, a time when they could set their own agenda and pursue their own dreams. The two siblings often came to the old part of town for its simple charms, its superb climbing tree, and the peculiar collection of merchants that surrounded the green. This was a different place, where time seemed to slow down and people didn’t seem in quite such a hurry, a place where grown-ups took the time to say hello and knew even the children by name. It was also close enough to home to reach by means of adolescent transportation, thus eliminating the tedious process of negotiating a ride from their parents. Most of town was strictly off-limits for bikes due to the congestion of suburban life, but the square was still close enough and safe enough to reach on their own. Here they could just be kids, free to play and explore until the town clock struck twelve.
The two pedaled purposefully down the road before jumping the curb and coming to a stop alongside the laundromat, where a heavy rain spout served as a perfect spot to lock their bikes. Jared sported a multi-colored BMX with trick hubs on the front wheel while Katie rode a mountain bike with a decidedly feminine lavender finish. Neither seemed like
