From the novel The Return of Elias Thorne by William Hammett
Copyright 2024, 2025
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
Lacy McGill leaned against the kitchen counter, cradling a mug of black coffee between her palms. The sun spilled through the tall window over the sink, laying golden stripes across the hardwood floor of her farmhouse kitchen. Outside, the trees that lined the old stone wall fluttered with the earliest hints of spring. In Hope, New Hampshire, the thaw came slowly, but it always came. Kind of like memories, she thought.
She wore an oversized cable-knit sweater over a pair of jeans frayed at the knees, and her long, dark hair was pulled back in a haphazard knot. A few strands fell loose, brushing her cheekbones as she stared at the laptop screen. The email still sat there. Unread for the third time.
No, that wasn’t true. She’d read it. Again and again. Every word had burrowed into her chest like a shard of glass.
Lacy,
I’ve just returned from the Amazon. I have seen things—lived things—that changed everything. The Konani taught me more than I expected. On the last night, I took ayahuasca and went on a vision quest. I saw you. Us. Our future. I know now that our paths were never meant to diverge. I’ll be in Hope next week. I want to see you. Please.
—E.
Elias Thorne.
Just seeing his name again was like biting into something sweet only to realize it had gone sour.
Lacy took a long sip of coffee, closing her eyes. Elias had been more than a lover. More than a colleague. He’d been the spark in her bloodstream, the one man who saw past the academic polish and saw the woman who once climbed mountains in Bolivia and chased legends in forgotten ruins.
They’d been on a dig together in Turkey when it happened—when everything changed. A stolen kiss beside an ancient cistern, the scent of dust and lemon trees in the air. Nights under canvas, the stars spread like spilled salt across the sky. They’d talked about everything. About nothing. She thought she knew what forever looked like.
But Elias had disappeared into the jungle two years ago without warning, choosing the Konani over her. No call. No letter. No explanation.
And now he was coming back.
She rubbed her forehead, trying to will the ache behind her eyes away. What did he expect? That she’d run to him with open arms? That two years of silence could be erased with talk of visions and destiny?
The back door creaked open. Lacy turned, startled.
“Hey, you left this in the staff lounge.” Vance Williams stood in the doorway, holding her scarf. His easy smile slipped into something uncertain when he saw her face. “Everything okay?”
She forced a smile and took the scarf. “Thanks. I was looking for that.”
Vance wasn’t Elias. He was steady, kind, and made a mean risotto. His students adored him, and so did most of the faculty. They’d started dating a few months ago after running into each other at the local bookstore. He’d recommended a poetry collection. She’d been charmed.
Vance set the scarf down on the table and walked toward her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She hesitated. “Just … long week.”
“It’s only Wednesday,” he said gently, brushing a strand of hair from her face. He studied her with the same care he gave his Shakespeare lectures—attentive, invested. And yet, part of her shrank from the touch. Not because it was unwelcome. But because it wasn’t quite enough.
“Want to get dinner at Milo’s tonight?” he asked. “I can make a reservation.”
“Sure,” she said, too quickly. Then softened. “I’d like that.”
He kissed her cheek. “Pick you up at six.”
When he was gone, the silence filled in like rising water.
Lacy turned back to the laptop. Her fingers hovered over the keys. She could delete the email. Pretend it had never come. But her heart thudded traitorously, and the old ache stirred. The part of her that once jumped off cliffs into cold rivers, that once traced ancient scripts by flashlight in forgotten tombs—that part was awake now.
Her phone buzzed. A new message.
From: Elias Thorne
Subject: Soon.
I’ll be at the River’s End Café on Saturday. Noon. I’ll wait as long as it takes.
She closed the laptop.
The River’s End Café was small and tucked behind the town’s old mill, its deck hanging out over the rushing water. It was where she and Elias had their first real argument—about Nietzsche and myth-making, of all things. He’d accused her of hiding behind theory. She’d told him he romanticized suffering. They’d fought, then laughed, then kissed against the brick wall like they had no past and no future.
And now he wanted to meet there.
Lacy stepped out onto the back porch. The wind still had a bite, but the sun warmed her face. Across the field, the mountains stood serene and eternal.
She had made a life here. A good one. After Elias vanished, she’d left Brown, left Providence, and traded lectures and papers for the simplicity of Hope. Her students were younger, their questions messier, but she’d found solace in that rawness. She planted tomatoes in the spring and read Victorian novels in the fall. She went to Sunday markets and baked bread. She taught history, but she lived in the present.
Or she had.
Now, Elias was coming back, speaking in riddles and fate. And damn him—damn him—her heart still stirred at the thought of him.
She went back inside and climbed the stairs to the small study she had converted into a writing room. Books lined the walls, interspersed with relics from her past life: a carved talisman from Morocco, an obsidian shard from Guatemala, a photograph of her standing knee-deep in a Peruvian river, grinning like a woman who had never known what it meant to give up.
She stared at the photo for a long time.
She had given up. Hadn’t she?
The question settled into her like sediment, fine and inevitable.
When she taught history, she told her students that time was a river, always moving forward, carving its course into the land. But sometimes, she thought, sometimes it circled back.
Lacy sat at her desk and opened her journal. The leather was worn, the pages crinkled with ink and marginal notes. She wrote:
Elias is coming back.
He says he saw our future. But I’m the one who has to choose it.
She underlined it twice. Saturday wasn’t far off. And neither was the past.
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