I Lied: its in progress again ;)

Love you all

Hi! I'm Charlie, I am a girl and this is my first Tuck Everlasting fanfic I know this chapter is kind of boring but I promise to speed it up in the next chapter. I felt I had to fill in the gap of time before I got started on the real story, thanks!

Since I could not find Jesse Tuck's age I'm making him 17, just a guess. I much prefer this to the ages in the book because I completely disagree with Winnie being 10-11, I think it's untrue because I really don't think that a 10-11 year old would be mature enough. So just humor me and pretend she was 13 or even 12 or something. And since we don't really know where Treegap is I'm going to pretend it's in… hmm.

January 14, 2007

2 years ago I realized I might have made the biggest mistake in my life, and in anyone else's for that matter. I've been searching for them for a long time now, the Tuck's I mean. I stopped counting past 20 years. Yes, they said they would return for me but they didn't.

A week ago I flew to Florida, where I am now, and hoped to find a way to get away from my sorrows, the desperation to find someone that is like me. Some people would give anything for what I have. If the book I read yesterday is as true as the author claims, then they might even give their souls.

The day the Tuck's left I went back to that spring and sat, wondering if I should drink from it or not, of course at that time I was only 11 and wanted to spend forever with Jesse. Thank God that I didn't drink it that day, I would have been stuck in an 11 year old body forever. I put it off, the drinking until the mayor decided that the woods with the spring in them would be obliterated for the city's purposes. By then I was 17, the same age I've been for…a long long time. I'll not tell you yet how long I've been 17. It might just scare you. I chuckle to myself as I write this. Amazed at how sane I sound, at least to my own mind. I certainly don't feel this way.

Sadly, I leave tomorrow to go back to Treegap, or as it is now called, McArthur, Ohio. McArthur's been left mostly the same since the New Mine, now very old, closed. After mining all the land, the miners left and the trees grew back. Now, the spring is somewhere underground.

If you've read my story, you're probably wondering how I'm still alive if I gave the water to a stinking toad. It's a long story that you'll find out through my diary entries but for now all I will tell you is how I'm still alive. Which I technically am not, I did drink the water, just not the same one that Jesse left for me.

I still remember that night.

I had finally gotten to the point when I was not thinking about Jesse and the choice I had to make every waking second, when the mayor announced at the county fair that they would be mining in the area of the old forest. That broke my resolve, for I had finally been sure of my decision, thinking that I would always have that choice, if I changed my mind to go back and drink from the spring.

I was at the fair with a large group of friends and a possible boyfriend (though I had less interest in him than in the toad I gave the everlasting life to) so I had to feign sick and go home. I had only until the morning to get that water and, with my father staying up late because of his extensive insomnia I had to wait until he fell asleep in his chair, creep past and race into the woods holding the sling I had tied together to hold the three water containers, large milk bottles with corks. Three just in case I ended up chickening out again. I raced out into the forest and to the spring, filling all the bottles to the very top and setting them on the flat, dry, ground underneath the huge tree.

I remember making up my mind in the middle of the night, still sitting up against that tree popping the cork off one of the bottles and drinking the whole thing, wondering if it had worked. Now that I think back on it, I realize that a 17 year old making an impulsive decision in the middle of the night was probably not the smartest idea but it's not like I could go back on it.

Time passed, 3 years to be exact. I waited for the Tucks to come back and see if I had made a decision. And waited. And waited. My parents married me off to a stuffy young man. The same stuffy young man that had gone to the fair with me that night. He wasn't horrible, but he was nothing like Jesse, luckily though I didn't have to live with him very long before something happened that made me realize that I should find my true love instead of waiting around here hoping for it to find me.

Me and Ulysses (my husband) were on a picnic, him sitting on the bright summer grass, sneezing because of his allergy to the grass, and me standing my the edge of the field under the trees picking wildflowers. I heard the crackling in the brush before I knew what was happening. The sound of a large animal racing through the forest straight towards me. I heard a horn and wondered what was going on. I glanced back at Ulysses. The great blubbering baby was sitting in the middle of the blanket, as far from nature as he could get while outside. And when I turned back, before I got a chance to react I was on the ground. I felt the pain all the way through my body, it felt like I had been ripped in half.

I sat up and tried to fight back the tears that the pain had brought. The horrifying pain still shot spasms through my body and I felt like I was more a puddle of goo than a person. I saw horse hooves passing me and finally the woods were empty once again. I wondered why the horses had been riding through the woods then I remembered. There had been a fox hunt today. I had just been trampled and should be dead. But I wasn't was I? Ulysses ran over to me panting and sneezing horribly.

"Oh, my dear lay back down," He said pushing me back against the grass. He looked horrified and I soon figured out why, the pain that was still coursing through me was actually the affect of being trampled straight over by the whole gang from the fox chase. My body should be ripped in half. But actually was only trampled down the middle.

"I'll go get help," he said not sounding very convinced himself that I would live. He ran off toward the group of horse men watching from a few meters away. He yelled at them then ran over to our buggy, then they all left me. Idiots, if I was dying, why would they leave? But just as well, I was almost all well again now, the great dents in my body where the horses had trod had almost repaired themselves and the pain now was nothing of what it had been, though still greater than anything I had ever faced in my life.

After that point it's not so clear to me as I finally went through the shock that went with my ordeal. Only realizing when I got there that I had been headed toward the Tuck's old house, the only thing left standing at the edge of the woods where the workers had stopped for the day.

After that I stayed there for days, not eating for the shock, not only of my accident but also that the water had actually worked.

I guess that everyone had been horribly worried during that time, I didn't really care. My parents had already given me away, and I didn't care about Ulysses. Though he was handsome enough, his timid ways had always thouroughly repulsed me.

After that, their searches for me, and signs posted everywhere, I guess they just gave up. I lost track of time and stayed in that house for a very long time, at least it seemed like a very long time though now it seems like a day, I've been alive for so long.

I did leave the house, mostly to sneak into town and steal food that had been left in the unlocked stores, I figured it would be better this way, people not knowing I was alive would give me more of a chance to leave when the Tucks returned. They didn't. I waited, patiently for me, for them to come back. For 20 years I waited. That's what I've been doing since. Now I suppose I should tell you how long I've been 17, since you know everything else. 127 years. It was 1880 when I drank that water.

I suppose I should go back soon, to Treegap, or McArthur. I'm not ready to give up yet, though it does get tiring to do the same thing for as long as I've been doing it. About ever 60 years I re-enroll in high school just for something new to do, then go to the college, Hocking, as it is now called, in Athens. I still live in their old house wondering if they will come back. I've searched the internet at the libraries hoping to find some trace of them somewhere. The closest I've gotten is when I found an article from the 1990's where Miles saved someone's life in a fire somewhere in Kentucky. I went to that town and searched but no one knew anything other than that the family had mysteriously disappeared after that.

Sometimes I wonder why they didn't come back, or maybe they did and I was hiding in their house and they expected me to be at home. I doubt that thinking that they would have checked, or at least Jesse would have if he was that devoted. It makes me mad sometimes, and sad others to think about what we had and that he's already forgotten about me.

I suppose I should pack now, get ready to leave to go home, seeing as I've already written late into the night and my flight leaves at 7 a.m.

Winnie

I promise it will get more interesting I just had to get this chapter out! I might continue if you review!

Charlie