Excerpt from Go as a River by Shelley Read, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He didn't move out of playfulness, I sensed. I stood frozen out of fear and indecision and the disorienting first rumbles of desire. I had known of this boy for mere minutes and less than a town block, yet already he had my insides tumbling like pebbles in a stream. 

I didn't hear the doctor's plump wife or the steel wheels of her baby carriage coming up behind me. When Mrs. Bernette and her toddler suddenly appeared at my side, trying to maneuver a pass, I spooked like a squirrel. 

Mrs. Bernette smiled suspiciously, her thinly plucked brows raised to indicate an unspoken question as she snipped a terse, "Torie." 

I barely managed to nod politely, couldn't even remember the baby's name or reach out with a friendly tousle to his blond hair. 

The stranger took one sly sideways step so Mrs. Bernette could pass. She looked him up and down curiously and smiled feebly when he tipped his cap and said, "Ma'am." She looked back at me with a frown, as if struggling to figure out a riddle, then turned and continued to waddle uptown. 

We actually were a riddle, this boy and I. The riddle went like this: What, once tied together, have bound destinies? The answer: Puppets on the same string. 

"Victoria," he said with casual familiarity, as he finally turned and faced me squarely. "You following me?" It was apparently his turn to be clever, and he grinned with equal amusement at his own wit as with what he'd mistook for mine. 

I stammered like a child caught stealing a nickel before managing a curt, "No." 

He crossed his tan arms and said nothing. I couldn't tell if he was pondering his question or me, or perhaps the happenstance of the moment. 

When I could no longer stand my own discomfort in the quiet, I straightened in faux composure and asked, "How do you know my name?" 

"I pay attention," he said. He was blunt yet somehow modest. "Victoria," he said again, slowly, seemingly for the pure pleasure of the syllables rolling in his mouth. "A name fit for a queen." 

Charm belied his disheveled appearance and, despite my best attempts at aloofness, he could tell I thought so. His dark eyes extended the invitation before he spoke it, and then he said, "Care to walk with me? I mean right here," he pointed by his side, "in a proper way?" 

I stalled, because, yes, I wanted to walk beside him, and yet either propriety or genuine teenage awkwardness held me back. Or perhaps it was premonition. "No, thank you," I said, "I couldn't ... I mean ... I don't even know your ... ." 

"It's Wil," he interjected before I could ask. "Wilson Moon." He let his full name hang in my ears for a moment; then he moved toward me with an extended hand. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Victoria." Suddenly very earnest, he waited for me to step into the space between us and place my hand in his. 

I hesitated uneasily, and then I curtsied. I don't know which of us was more surprised. I hadn't curtsied since I was a little girl in Sunday school, but the gesture rushed through my mind as the only thing to do, so afraid was I to touch his hand. I immediately felt foolish and expected him to laugh, but he didn't. His grin spread to a full smile, bright, immense, genuine, but not the least bit mocking. 

He nodded knowingly, lowered his hand, let it slide into the pocket of his dirty overalls, and stood still before me. 

I couldn't fathom it then, standing there suspended by his gaze, but I would come to learn that Wilson Moon didn't experience time the way most people do, or few other things for that matter. He never rushed or fiddled nervously or found a length of silence between two people an awkward vessel to fill with chatter. He rarely looked to the future, and to the past even less, but gathered up the current moment in both hands to admire its particulars, with no apology and no sense it should be otherwise. I couldn't know any of this as I stood stock-still on Main Street, but I would come to learn the wisdom of his ways and, in time, apply that wisdom when I needed it most. 

Excerpted from Go as a River by Shelley Read. Copyright © 2023 by Shelley Read. Excerpted by permission of Spiegel & Grau. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.