The Mill’s Secret

Absolutely lost, I floored the tiny red Fiat over the next hill, past the unfamiliar green fields and quaint villages serving as a backdrop to a glorious display of monstrous mountains that looked like they were going to swallow up everything. I knew we had to be arriving late that night in Paris.

We were still lost in Switzerland, but Mom had nodded off, her face pressed sideways to the window. I thought it best not to worry her.

She looked old, her cheeks droopy, the bags sagging around her eyes and wisps of gray poking through her bright-red dye job. She looked weary.

I tried unfolding the map, looking for the name of the little town we seemed to be going through. The streets had no names, only signs pointing from one town to another.

I had lost our way more than an hour before — and only now began to panic.

But then, reaching the crest of another hill, my eyes opened wide. I gasped, I reached for my jacket and pulled out a postcard from a pocket and placed the card on the dash in front of me as the Fiat lurched to a halt. Mom stirred, then jolted up with a scream as if awakened from the dark recesses of a pending nightmare.

“Wha-what, what is it? Why’d we stop?”

Then she looked in front of us, she looked down at the postcard, and back up. “Oh my God! How’d…