The Lilac Tunnel: My Journey with Samantha

Hiking sounds fun, I tell Samantha, and her face lights up: a picnic, too, with Mrs. Hawkins packing lunch. She changes out of her play clothes and links arms with me, practically skipping back toward the main house.

After breakfast, Mrs. Hawkins loads a pack basket with sandwiches and fruit, helping Samantha wear it like a backpack, and soon we’re climbing the trail, the woods cool and green around us, cookies wafting from inside.

The path winds steeply up, roots and stones underfoot, Samantha pausing to pick wildflowers for a bouquet, she decides, for Grandmary, and rocks for Uncle Gard, one gleaming white quartz she calls a moonstone. Flushed and breathing hard, she still looks happy, tucking the quartz carefully into her pocket like it’s a treasure.

Piney Point is her favorite place, she tells me, because everyone she loves is here together, Uncle Gard, Grandmary, the admiral, now Miss Cornelia, but best of all, having a friend to explore with. She presses the moonstone into my hand to keep, so I’ll always remember this.

Soon I’m carrying a small pile of rocks and a full bouquet, my arms aching pleasantly from the weight of it. We spread lunch across a flat boulder warmed by the sun, and I’m biting into a sugar cookie when voices drift up the trail below, the admiral’s deep rumble and Grandmary’s, too absorbed to notice us.

It’s a difficult decision, Grandmary says, since Samantha’s grown so used to their rambling house in Mount Bedford. Change can be good, the admiral counters. Traveling far and living somewhere new is a significant change, she replies, and their voices fade around the bend.

Samantha turns to me, ashen: they want to send her away, somewhere else entirely. She flies down the hillside as if outrunning her own future. Wildflowers scatter from my hands as I chase after her, my breath ragged, rocks tumbling loose from my pockets somewhere along the way.

We spend the whole afternoon at Wood Tick Inn with her pacing, desperate to know more but unwilling to just ask Grandmary. That would give away the eavesdropping, and it wouldn’t be proper. I understand a little, remembering how scared and angry I felt learning I’d spend the summer at Dad’s, though at least I could talk to Mom about it. Samantha can’t even ask.

Samantha barely eats at dinner, pushing food around her plate, and Grandmary sends us to bed early, worried she’s coming down with something. Heartsick is closer to the truth, though I keep that to myself.

Neither of us can sleep. Harmonica notes and the admiral’s laughter drift up faintly from the porch through the open windows, and Samantha decides we should go listen. We leave Wood Tick Inn and make our way to the main house, unseen in the dark, holding a weak-batteried pocket torch from Samantha’s nightstand that keeps flickering out on the walk down. I shiver and hurry after her regardless. She seems to know exactly where she’s going.

Spotting the porch glow ahead, Samantha cuts the torch and presses a finger to her lips. We creep close enough to see Uncle Gard polishing his harmonica on the steps, Grandmary and Cornelia rocking under the gaslight, listening to the admiral discuss modern inventions, the Wright brothers and their flying machine. Grandmary says she’s happy enough with train travel and has no need for newfangled flying machines, one change we can all live without. Gard lowers his harmonica, telling her not to fear change so much, without it there’d be no butterflies. The admiral chuckles as Grandmary waves him off and turns to Cornelia, curious about boarding school, apparently a lovely experience for young girls.

It can be, Cornelia agrees, an adjustment, but girls do get used to somewhere new. Samantha gasps: they’re sending her to boarding school. She stifles a sob and bolts down the path, and I chase after her into the dark woods, branches snapping all around, until something catches my ankle and I go sprawling. A hand grabs my shoulder and I scream.

It’s only Uncle Gard, crouching over me in the dark, anxious, asking why I’m running and where Samantha is. Still catching my breath on the log I tripped over, I watch her step out of the shadows and collapse into his arms, crying that they’re sending her away.

Where did Samantha get that idea? Between shaky breaths, she explains what we overheard, on the hillside and again tonight. He smiles: Cornelia’s sisters might be headed to boarding school, but what we really heard was a marriage proposal, the admiral asking Grandmary to marry him and move to England with Samantha. No telling if she’ll say yes, but one thing’s certain, Grandmary would never send her away.

Relief floods through me, warm and sudden. Grandmary’s worry was about Samantha adjusting to England, not boarding school alone. And if she ever were sent away, Uncle Gard adds, he’d pack his own satchel and go, too, scooping her up and marching a few mock steps toward the house until her tears turn to giggles.

Uncle Gard walks us back to Wood Tick Inn, drags our mattresses onto the porch so we can sleep under the stars, hugs Samantha again, winks at me, and heads off whistling into the dark. Feeling better? I ask. She does, boarding school sounds dreadful, but England sounds exciting. Does she think Grandmary will say yes? She tilts her head, recalling Mrs. Hawkins telling Elsa the admiral proposes every single summer.

I laugh, then ask how she’d feel if Grandmary actually said yes this time. Looking up at the stars, she smiles, it might be nice to have a step-grandfather. So sure of herself. I wish I felt that way about my own stepmom, but I don’t, still wanting things back the way they were with Mom and Dad together. She studies my face, asking what’s wrong.