Secrets At Maple Syrup Farm (12 page)

“Oh Mom, yes! And it’s almost like someone else is holding the brush…which is great because my hands are a mess. But it’s like…” I struggled to sum up how it felt to paint scenes here, the magical world I’d stumbled on, the colors, the light so different from Detroit. “It’s like, the darkness of my past paintings has been replaced with an epic kind of…translucence. Does that make sense?” I hadn’t acknowledged it until that moment that my art had morphed into something deeper, more complex than before. And instead of using angry hues of scarlet, and charcoal, I daubed the canvas with bolder choices: limes, teals, dashes of cobalt, splashes of rose. Aside from the beach scenes I’d painted for Mom, my previous work was almost volatile, hostile, as I dealt with pain I couldn’t outwardly show.

“It makes perfect sense, honey. I had an inkling it might be so.” Her voice returned slightly slurred, a marker things weren’t going as great as she made out. “You need to have a nice long bath, and throw in some Epsom salts. That will help your aching muscles, and those precious hands of yours.”

Mom had an old-fashioned remedy for everything, from washing my hair in beer to make it shiny, to drinking apple cider vinegar for a boost of energy. “That’s a good idea, Mom. I’ll do that when I hang up. So how’s it going with Aunt Margot? Is she coping OK?”

“Yeah, she’s doing just great,” Mom said, lowering her voice.

“Is she really?” For someone not used to the day-to-day tasks involved with Mom’s care, it would take some adjustment.

“Well, of course she is. We’re having a blast.”

“You are?” Aunt Margot must realize her behavior toward Mom in the last decade or so had been callous. Maybe she was trying to atone for it now. It made me smile, to think perhaps they’d gone back to the way they were when they were younger, before Aunt Margot morphed into someone who only cared about money. But that kind of neat fix, the letting go of grudges, didn’t ever come naturally to Aunt Margot. And on the phone, she certainly hadn’t sounded like she’d chilled out.

“You stop worrying. I can hear it in your voice.”

I held in an anxious sigh. “OK, I’ll try. I just miss you like crazy.”

Her voice softened. “I miss you too, honey. But things are fine here, same old same old, and nothing to report. Whereas you, I want to know
everything
!”

I absently plucked at the tassels on the bedspread. “I’ve made a couple of friends already. Lil and CeeCee from the Gingerbread Café. They’re so sweet and welcoming, it kind of feels like I’ve known them forever. At first it was a bit of a culture shock, these people being so flamboyant, and comical, wanting to include me…”

“Oh, yeah? You’re gonna meet a lot of people like that. It’s the beauty of traveling. Tell me about them.”

How could I sum them up in just a few words? “They’re always laughing, and joking, wanting to fatten me up. Lil’s teaching me to bake.”

“Baking? I bet that’s been such fun! So I take it the café’s not like the diner then?”

They were worlds apart. The diner consisted mainly of frozen meals, zapped in the microwave, or hamburger patties grilled till they blackened, but at the Gingerbread Café everything was made from scratch. I laughed, and said, “Nope, nothing like the diner. The girls say the secret to their food is that it’s all made with
love
.”

Mom giggled. “I like the sound of your new friends.”

“You’d love them. Hey,” I said, “while I remember, I tried the home phone first. It says it’s cut off? I thought I paid that bill a month or so ago?”

“Oh, darling, I gotta run. That’s Aunt Margot back from shopping.” A rash of voices came down the line; it sure sounded like a lot more than one person. “Let’s speak tomorrow?”

“Sure, Mom. But you do need a home phone in case of emergency. Will you let me know? I can check the account online.”

“I’ll get Aunt Margot to check. Remember you’re taking a break!” she said hurriedly.

I frowned.

“Goodbye, darling.” And with that she clicked off. I stared at the phone for a minute. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about the journals we’d found that day.

Making a mental note to check the phone bill online, I went to run the bath, pushing the worry away as best I could. Otherwise, it’d build up into a giant ball of stress, and I’d end up with a migraine, which I couldn’t afford to have, needing to lie down in a dark room until it passed.

But, Mom hung up far too quickly… Maybe she was just tired, or wanted to greet Aunt Margot properly. Shopping at this time of night though? I took a deep breath. It could have been for a quart of milk. Or filling a prescription? A light globe, even. They were both adults, and I was fussing over nothing. It was so hard to disengage from my role as Mom’s carer.

I lolled in the old-fashioned tub, the steaming hot water like a tincture. My muscles had stretched and snapped to the point they throbbed in time with my pulse.

I’d thought farm life would be a cinch. A little garden work, some sweeping, maybe the odd hay baling, but not this. Heaving wood from one pile of junk to the next. Ripping down walls, pulling up floors, and carting it all away for hours on end so that my arms eventually numbed and I had to glance down and check they were still attached to my body.

With the bathwater lapping softly, I was tempted to close my eyes, and sleep, so I extricated my aching limbs as gently as I could from the bath, and threw on a robe.

I pulled the comforter back, and sunk into the soft mattress with a sigh. Getting into bed after a hard day at the farm was bliss as my body became one with the squishiness of the underlay. The moon had only just risen, but it was almost lights out for me. I tossed and turned like a cat to get comfortable, and then grabbed the first journal from the pile.

The pages were yellowed with age, and musty. The first entry was dated almost thirty years before, the handwriting elegant with loops and swirls.

Time moves slow here. The winter winds squall outside in the pitch of black night. Almost as if she’s here with me, talking to me the only way she can, through the elements. I miss her every second of every day, but more so in the dark of midnight.

I thought I saw her today, her reflection in the window as I wandered back from the copse of maples. I ran, ran like a man possessed, hoping to catch her. But the shadow faded as I neared. It’s as though she’s there, hovering on the edges of my life, in the mirror, the lake, the glint of sunshine on a piece of metal. I see her but I never quite catch her. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I like to think she’s waiting for me. In this place or the next.

My chest tightened.
In this place or the next
. She died? The passage was poetic, haunting. Was the author Clay’s uncle or a previous long-forgotten owner of the Maple Syrup Farm? I flipped the page, careful not to rip the delicate parchment. I gasped. On the next page was the most exquisite drawing. It was a woman’s face, close up, and even in faded lead pencil, her eyes were radiant; she was breathtakingly beautiful. My skin prickled. Was he an artist? The following page the writing continued.

I woke, like I always do, with the feeling that I’m being pressed from my head down to my feet. A heavy weight, it knocks the breath from my lungs, and makes me scrunch my eyes closed in pain. I lie there, unable to move, my heart sore with the knowledge I’ll never touch her again. Never feel her heart beat next to mine.

Another sketch, of the same woman, this time with her lying in a bed, her hands under her head. The beauty of it took my breath away. I looked for the artist’s name but there were no markings. I suppose he wouldn’t sign his own journal. Imagine being able to draw like that…so detailed, and lifelike, I could almost feel her shallow breaths float from the page.

This place it will save me from myself. Nowhere else have I felt the vibration from the land, like a sign I belong.

He wrote so beautifully, but it was full of melancholy. Maybe as I continued reading there would be more clues as to who he was and I’d learn more about his art. Tomorrow, I’d sketch, hoping one day I’d be as good as he was.

My eyelids grew heavy, so I tucked the journal away, and fell into a dream-filled sleep. When I awoke, all I could remember were the colors, great swirls, and lashings of paint on a too-white canvas. Hazy visions, of her eyes, the girl from the sketch.

As though I knew her.

Chapter Eight

A few weeks later I was stepping into the Gingerbread Café to find Lil grinning and holding out an apron. My daily baking sessions had been a highlight, and I’d learned so much in those quiet mornings, while the town still slept, and it felt like Lil and I were the only people in the world. She was so patient, and explained each step carefully, waiting for me to jot down notes, or ask questions.

“In celebration of the Maple Syrup Farm running again I’m going to teach you how to make fudge. Specifically maple walnut fudge. It’s easy, it’s delicious, and you can go ahead and throw just about any flavor in and it’ll work.”

I pulled the apron over my head and tied the strings at the back. Lil had the bench laid out with ingredients, and mixing bowls. “Fudge sounds great! What should I do?”

“It’s as simple as melting all the ingredients, and then pouring the mix into a baking dish and putting it in the fridge to set.”

“OK.” I opened a can of condensed milk, and broke up a block of white chocolate. Lil added them to a pot, and flicked on the flame. In Lil’s kitchen I felt at home, she glided around me, fussing with things, and it was one of the times in my long day that I could just be me. My worry floated away—nothing mattered except the recipe in front of me. When Lil would show me a complicated technique, and produce a cake that was art on a plate, I was in awe. Her art and my art were vastly different, but our motivations were the same. She poured every ounce of herself into what she did, and you could see her passion reflected back in the dish. It was amazing watching her create something out of a few basic ingredients.

“What else?” I asked as she stirred the pot, the scent of the condensed milk sweetening the air. “Add the butter, the maple syrup, and then the walnuts. You take over.”

I added the ingredients to the pot and took the spoon.

“And remember, don’t have the heat up too high or you’ll scorch the chocolate.”

I ducked my head to check how big the flames were. “Is that really it? It’s so simple for something that tastes so amazing!”

Lil laughed. “It’s that simple. Now pour that into the dish and we’ll put it in the fridge to set.”

With great care, I tipped the molten mix into a dish lined with parchment paper, and put the pot in the sink. “If there’s not a piece of this left when I come back tomorrow I’ll cry. I mean it, I’ll throw myself to the ground and pummel the floor, like a toddler.”

“I promise I’ll save you some.” She rubbed her belly. “It’s not me who eats all the food, it’s the baby I swear it. It was that one time, I sat down to eat, and accidentally inhaled the whole pie and no one has let me forget it!” Her face was radiant with laughter.

“You’re pregnant?” She nodded. “I didn’t know! Congratulations.” I hugged her.

She lifted her apron, and you could just make out a slight swell to her belly underneath her sweater. “Thank you. It’s this little munchkin, you see. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.”

I gave her a wide smile. “So if there’s no fudge left, it’s the jellybean’s fault?” I pointed to her belly.

“Exactly.”

We giggled as Lil put the dish of fudge into the fridge.

“Now that’s done we can eat. All that talk about food has me hankering for something.”

I wiped down the bench while Lil sliced bread and toasted it.

“So tell me all about the hunky Clay,” she said, taking slices of bacon and sizzling them in a pan. “You always avoid my questions about him.” She waggled her eyebrows. “What’s he really like?”

“I do not avoid your questions about him!” I laughed. These last few weeks with Lil had taught me so much about friendship, and the way in which we bantered back and forth was natural now, rather than my first awkward attempts at fitting in. When the toast popped, I slathered them with butter. “For starters, he’s the most argumentative guy I’ve ever met. You can’t say anything to him without a rebuttal of some sort. But that might be because I find it hard not to disagree with him. He keeps the day’s plans to himself…like some kind of power trip, and I tend to get uppity at him. I like knowing what’s in store. But he prefers to bark out one-word orders, like Fence! Paint! Clean!” I did an impersonation of Clay pointing, eyes fierce.

Lil giggled as she tonged the bacon atop the toast, and added a slice of cheese, which flopped, melting quickly. She added a handful of peppery-scented rocket and a pinch of salt and pepper.

“So what’s his secret? Why does he hide out there?” Lil’s voice was light, and I knew she was more interested in what made Clay tick than idly gossiping. He was new, and didn’t want to make friends, which made him stand out even more.

“I don’t know, Lil. I think he’s just one of those people who likes solitude. We found a bunch of journals hidden under the floorboards, and he didn’t blink an eye. Wasn’t the least bit interested in reading them. But I tend to think sometimes the whole broody guy thing is an act. I catch him smiling at me, or sizing me up when I lift piles of wood that weigh almost as much as I do, but then he catches himself, and turns away.”

“He’s a puzzle all right.” Lil’s eyes lit up. “What are the journals about?”

I wasn’t sure if I was meant to keep the find to myself. Maybe Clay was intrinsically a private person, but the journals weren’t his, so he probably wouldn’t care. “They’re mainly about a woman. I think she passed on. But they have the most intricate sketches accompanying the writing.”

“Hmm,” she said, absently. “Jessup was a lot like Clay. He kept mainly to himself.”

“They must be his, then. The person who wrote them lived alone.” I shrugged. “But whoever it was, their work is top notch. I dare say professional.”

“Maybe you were meant to find them, being an artist yourself.”