The Secret Nook - Chapter 5 (Back in Time)

She checked the speedometer, gratified to see the needle hovering around 60 mph – the legal speed limit. The journey from her Charlottesville apartment to Clifton Forge, roughly from east to west, was only around 80 miles as the crow flies, but the winding track and steep climb up into the Blue Ridge Mountains took its time.  Meadow was still able to spot some beds of snow at various points in the higher elevations, but they were mostly gone now that summer was about to make its grand entrance.The Ford-150 pickup easily handled both the climb and the turns.  Les had been insistent. He knew that Meadow had sold her mother’s old car after she died and had resorted to taking public transport in the decade since. There was a Greyhound that would carry her to Clifton Forge, but moving around in that part of the country would have proved difficult.“Take it … please,” he said. “It’s a good truck – almost new – and it’s not bad on gas.”When Meadow pointed out that he might require it himself, Les rubbed his chin and reminded her that his son had a spare old Chevrolet Impala in his garage that he would have no trouble using.“Actually, I gave that car to him a long time ago.  He never drives it.  Think he’s hoping it will be a classic someday.  It will be a blast from the past for me.”She smiled to herself now, enjoying the irony of traveling to uncover her own past, and the journey was only 80 miles long.  This wasn’t going to be some grand novel about a woman journeying back to Europe or Egypt to unearth her exotic past.It was odd that her most formative years were spent in a region so near that she could almost see it, yet she had never visited it following the deadly crash and her mother’s move to the long-term facility in Charlottesville, near to Nana’s historic home. It might as well have been in California.  The trauma of those early years had somehow stripped her childhood from her, along with any sense or longing to revisit it.  But the dream had now changed all that and she felt a certain exhilaration at climbing through all that beauty – the trees, wildlife, quaint towns, rivers and lakes, and the magical sky.She suddenly remembered one of her parent’s lessons they frequently gave when on car rides.  They were driving from Washington D.C., just across the border from Virginia, and working their way back to Clifton Forge. She had made the comment about how the topography seemed to be always changing.“That’s what’s so wonderful about living in Virginia,” her Mom had responded.  “For such a small state it’s remarkably diverse, divided into three sections.  There’s the Tidewater, though some call it the Coastal Plain.  The Chesapeake Bay is part of it, along with some great harbours.”“And then the Piedmont,” Meadow had chimed in, eager to show that she clearly listened to her teacher in class.Mom smiled.  “That’s right, honey.  It covers almost the entire middle part of the state and is called a plateau – roughly level, but diverse.  And then there are the mountain ranges – Blue Ridge and Appalachian – that track through the west and northwest.  In just a couple of hours we’ll climb from sea level up to 6,000 feet. It’s nice that your father’s government job supplies him with this four-wheel drive, especially in the winter.”Meadow thought of her father’s Jeep – forest green in colour and branded with a federal decal on each door. She and her Dad had crossed rivers in it, drove almost to the top of Mt. Rogers, and frequently slept out beside it under the stars in the summertime.The closer she came to Clifton Forge, the more nostalgic, but tremulous, she became.  It had been almost 15 years now and had likely changed, but in this part of the state progress tended to take a bit longer than in other areas.  Meadow recalled how her parents had been oddities in the town.  Clifton Forge still held to its historic connection to America’s great founding era.  So, when Ethan and Elizabeth Hartley had been relocated to Clifton Forge from Alexandria, it caused a bit of a buzz.  They were clearly educated, refined and reserved when it came to subjects like politics, race or anything else that could quickly introduce dissension.People got to like Elizabeth almost immediately.  She taught their kids in grades four and five and displayed such genuine enthusiasm for their learning that their parents realized the benefit this would have for their children.  When she was off giving birth to Meadow in a Roanoke hospital for a few weeks, her various replacements proved wholly inadequate at enticing the students – to the point where some of the parents questioned the principal concerning how long their kids would be “undereducated” until Elizabeth returned.Her father was different. The inhabitants of Clifton Forge had an immediate respect for him since he, like they, was diligent about preserving the region’s history.  The difference was that Ethan Hartley was a professional in history – educated and experienced in unearthing the past and applying for federal funds to assist in the preservation of old structures, family genealogies, and, especially, anything to do with inhabitants who had played a role in America’s great Revolutionary War. He had been fascinated learning how the region had been largely split in its loyalties to the British or the upstart American rebels under George Washington.  The conflict had deeply scarred places like Clifton Forge since it pit members of the same families against one another.  But when the war had ended and independence was finally legitimized, many small communities in the region remained half-empty. Thousands of soldiers had been either killed, taken as prisoners, or simply refused to come back to an embittered community.  The entire process took time, but recurred only 80 years later as the Civil War tore them apart once more, only with far greater consequence.  Virginia had been deeply divided over slavery, and racism remained as one of its more tragic vestiges.These were minefields that her Dad learned to navigate with a kind of wisdom and respect that resulted in everyone he encountered openly unfolding their history and knowledge. The government soon enough recognized that in Ethan Hartley they had secured someone able to get more done on the history and heritage file than any who had preceded him.  He was, in reality, a diplomat with a penchant and training for history.Into all this, Meadow arrived – eager for life, emotionally secure from being so loved, and always inspired regardless of which direction she looked in the midst of all the natural grandeur.  She had always thought that her gifts for drawing perspectives were directly linked to the giant vistas that had entertained her every morning on the way to school.  She retained those images in her head while the other kids discarded them in favor of cartoons or television programs.  Elizabeth had always brought her home from the same school where they learned and taught together and, following some kind of drink and a cookie, Meadow traipsed out to her father’s woodshop, where he had permitted her to set up her own mini-studio, replete with two easels and paints and pencils galore.Every afternoon in that wonderful place, she put down on paper or canvas what she had seen that day. Sometimes the subject was people or animals, but in most cases, it was mountains, streams, aged roadways, even insects.  Eventually Ethan would arrive home in time for dinner, but not before heading out to the shop on the pretense of having to work on something, but, really, to get a picture of what was going on inside his daughter’s head through the paintings she had hung that day on pieces of wallboard.Meadow would faithfully follow him and they would talk over layers, strokes, colours, perspective, and the subject of light.  For Ethan and his wife, it was strikingly clear that their daughter was, likely, at a prodigy level – a conviction strengthened and enlightened by their own levels of education.  So, it wasn’t really to enjoy Meadow’s works but, instead, to gauge her progress that Ethan took that short journey back to his shop.  At night, lying in bed or on one of their frequent walks, Ethan and Elizabeth compared notes on how best to arc their daughter’s future path.Thinking of it now, behind the wheel of the Ford truck, Meadow supposed that she had been only distantly aware of just how involved her parents were with her gift.  What she clearly recalled was just how delighted they were every time she produced something new.  Her work had been good enough that they likely found it difficult to produce any real criticism that would help.She was thinking of those tender moments when she rounded a corner and spotted a sign denoting the entrance to Clifton Forge, population of around 4,000 people.  The years suddenly fell away and a sense of curiosity mixed with dread overtook her thoughts.