Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) Read Online Free PDF

“Don’t
know. I could find a job, I
guess.”
    Her mother
didn’t have the money to take her and
Anne anywhere special. Julia had counted on spending her vacation
in Salzburg, but now that summer was here, the three months ahead
seemed to stretch out endlessly. Uni would only start at the
beginning of October, leaving her plenty of time to get a summer
job and save up, but frankly, she wasn’t stoked about the idea.
Last year, picking orders in a musty garment factory had driven her
absolutely nuts after two weeks.
    “Axel told me
he was planning a trip to London,” Gran said. “Didn’t he go last week?”
    Julia shook her
head. “Florian got sick, so they
postponed.”
    “Why don’t you join them? That might cheer
you up.”
    Julia looked down at her hands, feeling caught. Her
grandma seemed to have a sixth sense for these things. If anything
was ever the matter with her, Gran always knew immediately. “I’m
okay, thanks,” she replied, not wanting to worry Anne and her mom.
She quickly dug around in her backpack to find her report card.
“Here, have a look at my scores.”
    Gran
chuckled. Julia couldn’t help but smile
as well. This was stupid – she sounded like she was trying to prove
her life was great by showing off her grade point
average.
    “Julia had
the highest score in Music Ed,” Anne chimed in, beaming proudly at
her sister. “She played one of her own
songs.”
    “Why don’t you play it for Gran later?” her
mother suggested.
    Great. She’d
feared as much – having to play the
infamous song that reminded her of that one particular person she
wanted to forget about. “Yeah, I will. Let me drink my tea first,”
she grumbled.
    When Julia
fled into the back yard after finishing
her tea and her reluctant musical performance, her grandmother
followed her, falling into step with her on the path along the
rhododendrons.
    “My sweet
Julia, what is the matter with you?” she
asked gently.
    Julia sighed
deeply. “It’s nothing, really. I just…
have to let go of things I should have left behind a long time
ago.” She slumped down on the bench between two large
bushes.
    “So what’s his name?” the old woman asked
after a few beats of silence.
    “Michael,” Julia whispered, her voice
catching in her throat.
    “Did you
write that song of yours for
him?”
    “Gran,
you really are a psychic,” Julia exclaimed huffily.
    Her
grandmother gave her a lopsided smile that border ed on a grin full of mischief, then looked serious again.
“He inspired you, and t hat is beautiful. You will always have that. The love you felt for
him is not lost – you will learn to give it to someone else, once
you’ve left his memory behind.”
    “Give it to
someone else? I don’t know if I can. It all felt so intense that it
left me drained. Even if I know now that
he didn’t deserve my love.”
    Julia fell
silent, her eyes trained on the dark-green witch ball on a
stick standing next to the rhododendron
bush. In the convex glass of the sphere, she looked alien, a
strange, distorted version of her staring back from a far-away,
green-tinted world. How nice it would be to crawl away and
disappear inside a dream bubble like that.
    She closed
her eyes and fought back new tears. This was ridiculous – she
should cheer up. Gran had said such sweet and wise things to her.
Still, she couldn’t help but bawl when her grandmother settled on
the bench too and put an arm around her shoulders. “You should
allow yourself to mourn the things you lost, dear girl. But please
remember to cherish the things you still have.”
    Gran was
right – she still had all the poems she’d
written in her diary while sitting under her oak tree, dreaming of
Michael. She still had her song – the haunting melody she’d
performed during the graduation ceremony in front of an enthralled
audience. Her mother had been so emotional when she’d brought Julia
a bunch of flowers on stage right after the performance. These were
moments