Tell Me What Your Heart Desires

1. Mira Valley

Mira Valley was the type of town with too many people with too much time on their hands. They had a beautiful forest, friendly locals, and an abundance of space. Someone could get on a bike and just ride for hours taking in the luscious scenery or chatting with the stray people they find on the path.

It came at a point when Mira Valley had solved every problem that could ever occur except boredom. The river may have rustled with crystal clear water in the hills with bountiful meadows, but it didn't change the fact that there was nothing very troublesome about the place.

Of course, there was the occasional broken pipe and a truck that refused to run, but these problems were not permanent and usually were fixed in a few days.

This summer was especially strange, far too quiet and calm, even during what felt like the hottest summer of all time. People would sit on their porches, in their rocking chairs with a cool glass of lemonade in hand because they were too hot to move anywhere else. The kids would be climbing trees, jumping on roofs, ignoring the adults who told them to get down. The jobs would continue like usual, but under the dry summer air, everyone commiserated together.

Mira Valley liked to have one grand festival that went on for a solid week at the end of every summer, where no one would work and they would party all day long. Some cried out for the date to be moved to a closer time, but rules were rules.

This was why Trinity Grace could be found sitting on the curb at the town entrance, twisting some wires in a last-ditch attempt to make a passable wind chime for her mama's birthday present. It wasn't the best one out there, but it certainly didn't look like bits of trash strung together. Trinity had been eyeing the abandoned church's stained-glass windows but had been holding out a better item to strike her eye before she would commit some small-town vandalism.

As the town folks would describe her, Trinity was often everywhere and nowhere at once, either exploring the last nook and crannies of the forest or elbows deep into a new invention. The townsfolk knew her as a passionate woman, oftentimes too absorbed in her own work for her own good and a little on the prideful side, but she had a good heart in her even if she didn't know what to do with it.

Like most people here, she suffered from the troublesome fact of not knowing what to do with her spare time. She was 21, working at the town's general store as both the cashier, the stocker, and sometimes the manager if the owner was out. It was practically her second home, but she hated that stuffy place with its broken air conditioners.

At the roar of a car engine, Trinity lifted her head to see an unfamiliar silver car coming down the road. Dust billowed in clouds, as it slowed down in front of her and she sees a well-manicured blond woman, rolling down her windows.

Trinity coughed, fanning the dust away from her dress, face scrunched up and ready to tell off whoever dared blow dust into her face. That was before she caught a good look at the woman inside the car.

She took maybe three blinks to fully process the stranger in front of her. Even put down her makeshift windchime for a moment.

The woman reeked of the city. She had a proud air around her, perhaps in the rigid way she carried herself or the plain, but expensive clothes that she wore that made her stand out even more in the countryside. Straight blond hair fell to her mid back—must've been done at the salon—and big doe-like grey eyes. Despite being in a car, she had a white, wide-brimmed hat on.

"Is this Mira Valley?" The woman asked, with her red lips pursed in a solemn line, almost like it wasn't sure if it wanted to be bored or annoyed.

"Depends," Trinity scanned the car, where the painted coat is clearly fresh from the shop and sleeker than the cars in Mira Valley. "What's your business here?"