A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff Read Free Book Online Page B

flowers.
    “It’s a funny thing, Fate.”
    Cady looked up from her flowers.
    “There’s no controlling what Fate hands you,” the man went on, pulling the suitcase to his side. It was a very old suitcase, boxy and large as a small child, with worn corners and three small dimples near the left clasp. “And in my experience, it rarely seems to give you exactly what you need at the exact moment that you need it.”
    Cady wrinkled her eyebrows. “Sir?” she said. Maybe he thought she was someone else.
    “Just remember this,” he said. “It’s the way we deal with what Fate hands us that defines who we are.”
    “Uh, sure,” Cady said, turning her attention back to her wildflowers. Maybe she’d find some more blossoms in the backyard. “I’ll keep that in mi—”
    But when she looked up again, the man in the gray suit was no longer there.

11

    V
    I T HAPPENED, NOW AND AGAIN, THAT V THOUGHT SHE SAW HER. Caroline. It was a common phenomenon, she’d been told, among parents who had lost their children. A photo in a magazine might remind her of Caroline’s high school graduation, the way she’d mugged for the camera like she just knew this was the beginning of a fabulous adventure. A woman she passed in the grocery store might make V recall the last night she ever saw her—the way Caroline’s secret smile should have hinted that she was about to run off to elope with a man her mother had never met (a “real charmer,” that’s about as much as Caroline would ever divulge about him). But no matter how many times it happened, the sting never lessened. When V had set eyes on the crow-haired girl with the flowers . . . it was too much.
    Wha-pop! The door slammed shut against its frame as V stepped inside what she had surmised would be her new home. She took a slow look around. Racks of clothes, shelves of books, shoes, tennis rackets. This certainly wasn’t a peanut butter factory anymore.
    V had recognized the property immediately, as soon as it had appeared through the trees at the end of the long dirt road. The large white two-story building with the turrets on either side was a little worse for wear, maybe, but it was, without a doubt, the very same building from the old pictures on the jars. The Darlington Peanut Butter Factory. The roof of V’s mouth watered even now with the memories.
    There had never been anything like a jar of Darlington peanut butter. As soon as a dollop hit your tongue, your entire body melted into happiness. As a young girl, V hadn’t been able to get enough of the stuff. Her parents hadn’t, either. The whole town was nuts for it. The whole state. The factory could hardly churn out jars quickly enough, people bought so many. But the most amazing part of the whole operation—V remembered the stories distinctly—was that the factory’s owner, the maker of every jar of peanut butter the place produced, had been Fair. She had not even a wisp of Talent, that’s what they said, and yet somehow she had managed to stumble upon the world’s most perfect peanut butter recipe. Thousands had tried to replicate it, but no one ever could. The Darlingtons kept the secret carefully guarded.
    And then, suddenly, when V had been just a little girl, the factory had shut down. There was outrage throughout the town. Schoolchildren went on hunger strikes, refusing to eat their lunches. But it didn’t make any difference.
    There was no more peanut butter.
    Rumor had it that the peanut butter maker’s husband—a stodgy, surly type—shut down the factory after his wife’s death, purely out of spite. Others swore that the woman’s good-for-nothing son had gambled away the family’s entire fortune.
    V sighed, touching two fingers to her locket. Whatever the reason the factory had shut down all those years ago, it was a shame. She could very much use a taste of happiness at the moment.
    The smell of vanilla and butter (a cake, perhaps?) guided V past the front door, and a soft melody, broken