The month of August 1943 was one Alyssa would never forget. The air was full of the hazy smell of summer: sweet, cloying, like every flower was fighting for their last chance to be smelled.
It was underneath one such patch of fragrant blossoms that John lay waiting.
Alyssa was still young when Jonathan Smith came into her life. Touched by the rosy cheeks and glassy eyes of adolescence, she presented a pretty little picture – and a flagrant disregard for rules.
No matter how many times Cook scolded her, spanked her or threatened her with a week of hunger, nothing could keep her away from the woods behind her home.
The trees called to her. They whispered sweet urgings in the dead of night. The wind that whistled so falsely in stone corners, beckoned her. Even the moon came out to show her the way.
But it was the flowers, those small, enticing seducers, that screamed her name.
What else could she do but wander?
She didn’t want to show it to anyone. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she should have. But the summer was dying and Alyssa felt her las chance for adventure burning in the rusted dog tag. After all, what better adventure could there be, than unearthing a treasure?
It was the silver that caught her eye. It blinded her one morning and brought a scowl to her delicate features.
“What are you?” she whispered, bending down to search for the source of the flash. What she found was nestled between leaves and needles and forest bedding. It was a rusted dog tag, bearing a simple name:
Smith, Jonathan (John)
The name meant nothing to Alyssa, and yet she couldn’t get it out of her head. She rubbed the only remaining patch of silver, feeling her skin catch over the engraved letters.
“John.”
Alyssa wrinkled her nose. The name sounded suddenly strange to her. She knew a few Johns, useless little boys who threw mud. But somehow she didn’t think this John would be a boy. He would be a man.
“Alyssa!”
She jumped. It was like a sharp rap over her knuckles. She clutched the dog tag behind her back as she spun around.
“What are you doing here?” her uncle asked. “Alone, in the woods?”
Alyssa gulped. Her uncle’s voice was low and poisonous. He stood next to one of the climbing oak trees, fingering the loose bark. He was dressed in a dark suite and the toothbrush moustache was black as ever.
“Nothing uncle,” she whispered.
“What’s that?”
Alyssa clutched the dog tag tighter. “Just something I picked up.”
“Give it to me.”
She didn’t want to, but her uncle’s eyes burned her face. Slowly, step for step she made her way to where he stood. He held out a long-fingered hand. When Alyssa placed it in his hand he barely glanced at it, but held her gaze.
“You’ve been naughty again Alyssa,” he said, softer now. He bent down to her eyelevel and her lips pursed. “You should be punished.”
His fingers snapped off a piece bark. The crack was louder than it should’ve been but it broke the spell. Alyssa looked away, spite burning at the loss of her discovered treasure.
“I shall go home straight away then,” she breathed.
She turned and sprinted back to the mansion, shoulder just slipping from her uncle’s grasp.
