This is the first part in a series of excerpts from Dallas writer Callie A. Bentley’s unfinished novel A Legend of Fire.

Past

The day Jesse and his family moved into the house down the road from us, Janey and Jolie and I climbed a tree in the woods behind their house and spied on them with Uncle Jim’s binoculars (he was an avid bird watcher) swiped from their case in a drawer in Granny’s buffet where in later years I would search for sewing needles. Janey and I were fourteen; Jolie was thirteen. Jolie had taken our dog, Sammy, on a jaunt down the road toward town that morning and came home beside herself with the news that someone was moving into the old Bird house—the only other house on our road, which had had a string of renters over the years but none who’d ever stayed long, and it’d been a while since anyone had lived there, so the house was still known by the name of its last owners—the Birds, Uncle Jim’s parents, who had died tragically and before their time like so many members of our family. Uncle Jim had been trying to sell the place for years and so didn’t ask many questions when the Calloways turned up wanting to buy it. He knew they had kids but not how many or their sexes or ages, so Jolie’s report of spotting three teenaged guys was the first we knew of just how lucky our summer was turning out to be. In fact, we had a hard time believing our luck; a family with three hot guys, and we were their nearest neighbors. We couldn’t have dreamed up a more fortuitous turn of events. So it seemed at the time—but of course we weren’t really thinking of any very distant future, not in any realistic terms. We were thinking of our more immediate entertainment. It was mid-June; we had the whole summer before us.

Not surprisingly, it was Jolie’s idea to climb the tree. “It’s the only way we’ll be able to get any kind of good look at all,” she cajoled Janey and me as we followed her the back way through the woods, cutting across Old Kelsey Road, the road that led to the ghost town.

Janey and I glanced at each other. “I feel kind of funny spying on them though,” I offered.

Jolie eyed me over her shoulder, exasperated, and waved the binoculars in my face. “What good are these if we can’t put them to use?” Then she grinned. “Or we could just go up to them and introduce ourselves,” she threatened.

My debilitating shyness kicked in and I blushed furiously. “Fine. We’ll climb a stupid tree.”

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t introduce ourselves,” Janey mused. “I mean, we do want to meet them, right, not just spy on them all summer?”

“Yeah, but Jolie’s right, we should gather information first,” I countered quickly. “That’ll give us an edge when we do meet them.”

“So says our future historian,” Jolie scoffed, rolling her eyes. Janey just smiled and squeezed my arm.

We’d played in those woods a lot with the last kids who’d lived in the house, so we knew them pretty well, and there was an oak tree, always “base” or “home” when we’d played tag or hide-and-seek, that suited our purpose perfectly. Jolie and Janey, the athletes, scrambled up the tree easily enough, and I followed at a slower pace, grumbling the whole way. Finally I emerged between two of the upper branches between them, balancing myself precariously.

“You all right, Ames?” Jolie asked, stifling a laugh I could tell, already gazing through the binoculars holding them with both hands like the ten-foot drop to the ground didn’t concern her at all.

“I don’t especially like the seating arrangement, but other than that I’m fine,” I sniffed, feeling my left foot slide a little and clutching Janey’s arm.
Janey was peering over Jolie’s shoulder. “Here, Jole, give me the binoculars, I can’t see very much.”

“Wait a sec.”

“Jolie, you made us climb the tree, let us have a turn,” I ordered, pulling big-sister rank on her.

She didn’t argue, just stuck out her tongue as she passed the binoculars to Janey.

Janey promptly squealed so shrilly that I started and almost went catapulting off of my none-too-stable perch. “Oh my God, do you think they’re all in high school? That one looks a little older…ooh, a college guy, maybe…I’ve always wanted to seduce a college guy…”

“Give me those,” I snapped, snatching them from her and almost losing my balance again but biting my lip to keep from crying out, not wanting to give Jolie the satisfaction of my discomfort even if I did end up breaking my neck.

I could only see one of them, out in the backyard filling up a big plastic tub full of water from the hose for two sizable Dobermans. He definitely wasn’t the one Janey thought was in college…he looked pretty young, distinctly adolescent in his backwards baseball cap, baggy tank top, cut-offs, flip-flops, wiping sweat from his forehead with a careless swipe of his forearm, face flushed. My heart melted. I knew that one would be mine. I didn’t share this observation with Janey or Jolie as Jolie snatched the binoculars back from me. I just held it close, warm and fuzzy, something to daydream about later. I was much more comfortable in daydreams, then, than in real life.

For the next hour or so, until we were so hot and uncomfortable we were forced to disembark from the tree and head home for water and the relief of our swimming pool, I took the binoculars whenever it was my turn but looked only for the one boy, watched only him when there were others there and passed the binoculars promptly on if he wasn’t around. I didn’t join in Janey and Jolie’s excited speculation about the rest of them, but they were used to me lapsing into silence for extended periods so I don’t think they noticed.

Look for Part II on Renegade Bus tomorrow.