Read Online Black Locust Letters by Nicolette Jinks - Free Book Online

passed, during which time Betty worked overtime to
prepare for a War Orphans Drive which was to take place the
following evening. She'd been skipping breakfast to get to work
before anyone could alter the news (so far nothing alarming), and
so she went to a diner for a cheeseburger and a strawberry shake to
celebrate trudging through her hefty to-do list.
    She
was diving through the whipped cream on her shake when the door
swung open and Clarkin and a bombshell brunette entered the diner.
As it was lunch during a busy hour, they took the only table open
to them, one which was three away from her own mini-booth. Clarkin
took his seat with a relaxed ease that he'd never shown around
Betty, and the woman gave him a smile which showed off perfect
teeth.
    The
woman was a hair taller than Betty, with a natural grace that
implied she'd spent time training, and there was a hard set about
her lips and a quickness to her smoldering gray eyes that made
Betty think the woman had been one of those who had served on the
front. A spy, perhaps. She spoke with cheer and frequently touched
Clarkin's hand or shoulder, once brushing his shin with her toes as
she crossed her legs. Betty's perspective made the woman's antics
all too clear, but Clarkin's own expressions were hidden, as he sat
with his back to her. Betty's shake started to melt.
    Not
one to be put off her well-earned food, she ate it quickly, leaving
a bit in the bottom when the woman met her gaze and winked.
Disgusted, both with the woman and with herself for feeling the
green monster jealousy, Betty left three ones and abandoned the
diner.
    At
home, a letter sat in its customary place. Every day after work, a
letter waited for Betty on the windowsill, and every day, she
picked it up, smelled it, and put it away in the door.
    She'd been pondering those words ever since, and without
context of any sort, they made no more sense now than they had
while she shook sugar into tea in the frantic few minutes of paid
advertisements pouring through the radio speakers.
    Misery sank in again, and she took all the letters out of her
drawer and laid them on the mattress on the floor in the warmest
corner of her home. The titles were each different, though the
address was the same. One was written to Her Grace. Another to Her
Sweet Voice. Yet another to Her Tender Smile.
    No
one had ever spoken to Betty like this. She found the ribbon made
of a farmer’s baling twine, and she slowly untied the square knot.
She put the twine beside her knee, settled the pounding in her
heart, the worry that whatever was written inside was less than
complimentary, and she opened the top fold of the
letter.
    A
steady hand wrote:
    To
The Swell of My Song: I know not if my advances are
welcome, but it is my intention to make your sun gleam brighter. It
is my desire to make the hardships of toil and labor lighter with
my every deed. I...
    Betty stopped reading.
    Everyone knows no good comes from the deeds of a devil. Even
if she didn't think that the writer was a devil, but rather some
other race that never was. Betty frowned.
    It was
impossible to continue this way. She stayed up late at nights,
finding the words to be wary of, spent her mornings being paranoid
until the day she had to know what was going on, and she was
determined that day would start today.
     

Chapter
9
    The
day was too fine, brisk yet but beautiful, for anyone else to be
indoors—even the librarian read outside. For Betty's part, she was
happy or perhaps relieved to have no witnesses to the way she read
through one paper then the next, grateful for their careful
preservation, if banal content.
    First clues were in Steven Meyers' Nature Watching column,
and after six months she followed a duck recipe over to Mike Cady's
A Woman's Guide to Her Oven column. Before three weeks were up on
that, though, the editor ceased that column citing factual
inconsistencies. Betty thought they may use a hunting tips series,
but by the end of the second month,