Secrets At Maple Syrup Farm (15 page)

***

Giving myself a silent pep talk—
you can do this—
I drove Clay’s truck into Ashford. It was like driving a tractor; it took all my strength to keep it on the road. There was no power steering so white- knuckled I gripped on tight, and tried not to veer off the road. My muscles contracted and shook with the effort. Laughter burbled out of me imagining Mom seeing me drive such a beast. She wouldn’t believe it.

My mind kept drifting to Clay. When he stopped pretending to be fierce, and acted like a normal guy, everything changed. I tried to push the vision of him, face close to mine, our hands touching, out of my head.

On the main street of Ashford I spotted a car bay and wrenched the steering wheel left, scrunching my eyes closed in hope. Probably not the safest option, but when I blinked them open, I was parked close enough to the curb to call it a success.

The Bookshop on the Corner was dimly lit, bathed in a yellow glow from an antique lamp by the door. Lil had raved about Sarah the owner, said she was whimsical, and shy, and knew books better than anyone.

The door sighed as I pushed it open and walked inside. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Books were stacked haphazardly on every available surface, as though they’d topple over if you breathed too close to them. Small laneways like a maze crisscrossed the floor, with piles of books flanking each side. It was like finding an enchanted garden, only full of books. The higgledy-piggledy nature of the store was welcoming, and warm. How did they all do it here? They knew instinctively how to decorate their stores so you never wanted to leave.

As I approached the counter, all I could see were a pair of silver ballet flats crossed over at the end of slim ankles.

“Hello?”

The shoes dropped and a twenty-something girl sat upright. She had black bobbed hair, and thick bangs that accentuated her doe eyes. She smiled warmly, almost drowsily.

“Sorry,” she said, brushing her hair down, as if I’d caught her napping. “I was halfway through this chapter and I didn’t hear you.” She held up a book, a bare-chested hero embracing a woman in a glamorous green dress adorned the cover.

“It must be good,” I remarked, smiling. Imagine being able to loll away reading in the tranquility of the bookshop—what a wonderful life that would be.

“It is,” she said. “But then, they all are to me.” Sarah was softly spoken, and small, almost doll-like. “You’re looking for…” She took in my clothes, my scruffy old jeans, and thick parka. “Books about maple trees.”

“How did you know? Is everyone around here psychic?”

She laughed, and somehow managed to snort, which seemed at odds with her tiny frame. “Sorry, that always happens,” she said. “It’s my job to know books, but I had a phone call from a rather serious-sounding guy asking me to have a hunt through the store, so you wouldn’t
waste time
here.” She gave me a sheepish look. “But of course I told him finding good books cannot be rushed.”

“Clay called?” My mouth fell open.

She nodded. “He sure did. I told him he’s welcome here anytime, but he declined the offer, sadly.”

“That’s Clay.” I laughed. “I’ve just spent the last few hours trying to get a shovel deep into the frosty ground, and all I can hear is the
twang
it made each time it bounced back up. Farming is hard! A few stolen minutes to read will surely help.”

“Won’t be long and the ground will thaw out. That should make the work easier,” Sarah said, dragging me back to the present. She daintily stepped around books piled perilously atop one another, in columns taller than me.

I smiled in response.

“Follow me, lovely. I have a selection for you in the reading room. I thought you could sit there awhile and see which ones you liked. I’ll make you a pot of tea.”

In Ashford, no one hurried, they all made a person feel welcome. Sarah was more unassuming than the other girls, quieter, more like me. I felt at ease with her instantly. “Thank you.” I followed her through the labyrinth-like store, to a small room off to the side. It had floor-to-ceiling shelves, crammed with books, and a fire in between. It was furnished with old high-back chairs with matching footstools. It was as cozy as it was warm. If I sat there reading, it wouldn’t be long before I drifted off to sleep. The room had a languid atmosphere about it.

“Take as long as you like,” Sarah said pointing to a glass coffee table where a bunch of second-hand books were stacked. “There’s a few cookbooks about maple syrup, and also some about tree tapping, and the traditions behind it. I’ll bring you that tea.” She plumped up a cushion before retreating with a little wave.

The first book had a maple syrup farm on the cover. Almost as pretty as Clay’s farm, with the bare trees, and lush snowfall. I sat down to read. There were recipes for snow taffy made with maple syrup and fresh clumps of snow. There were pictures of children helping make the taffy, their cherubic faces gleeful. There were recipes for maple candies, in all sorts of shapes, but my favorites were the ones that looked like maple leaves.

I read all about the traditions of maple syrup tapping, and how it came about quite by chance. I hoped Clay wanted to tap the traditional way when I gazed at pictures of farms tapping the high-tech way. They showed big, modern properties, where the trees were fitted with brightly colored plastic pipes that ran from the tree trunks all the way down to their factories—it took the beauty away. The trees looked as though they were hooked up for medical treatment, like the life was being sucked from them.

Sarah pottered back in with a pot of lemon-scented tea, and sat in the chair opposite. “Anything take your fancy?”

“I’ll take them all,” I said, happily. “I see there’s a tradition for maple farms, a Sugaring-Off Festival. Once the season is over, and summertime rolls around they celebrate! Maple-syrup-flavored food, music, the whole kit and caboodle.”

“Wow, I didn’t know that,” Sarah said. “You guys should host a party at the farm! That’ll draw a huge crowd, I’m sure. We had a Chocolate Festival last year, at Easter time, and we were frantically busy. Brought a lot of new faces into the town, gave us all a much needed boost.”

Could we host a festival? My mind spun with ideas. If Clay consented to a festival, surely he’d sell the syrup he made. It would be good for everyone in town, too. “I missed a Chocolate Festival?”

Sarah laughed. “Afraid so. But here’s your chance to host your own party!”

Doubt crept in. “How would I even go about organizing something so big?”

Sarah fussed with a stack of books on a small table, their weight making the wood of the tabletop sag. “Well, we’d all help out. There’s nothing like a social event to get the town to rally.”

“Do you think Lil and Damon would cater it?” Lil had told me all about their catering business, and how quiet it had been lately.

“Of course! They’d love to do it. You could charge an entry fee, and that’ll cover costs. Maybe hire a band?”

“It would be a great way to help spread the word about the farm too. Clay could really build up a decent business…” But would he be keen? He was desperately private, but this would be an amazing opportunity for him going forward, I just hoped he wasn’t too stubborn to even consider it.

“Read up on what they do at these festivals and let us know. We can help you hang up fliers, and start a Facebook page, that kind of thing. The sooner you start advertising the better.”

“You’d all help out, just like that?” I said, taken aback. It would be a monumental amount of work.

She smiled. “That’s what friends are for.”

These people, they were different to anyone I’d met. They’d offered their friendship, their trust, without a second thought. I’d always been wary about new people in my life. That same old barrier I put up to protect myself. I didn’t let anyone close enough to be able to hurt me. My father had left, as though I was as insubstantial as air. As a child, I’d struggled to come to terms with it. He’d been there every single day, and then he wasn’t. So what were we to him? A stopgap until something he determined as better came along? With the Aunt Margot feud, and subsequent alienation of the family, it felt as though people abandoned us like we were yesterday’s newspaper.

Could I fall into friendships with these girls, and then leave? Maybe it was time for me to stop worrying about anything other than living in the moment. I was missing out on so much, standing on the edge of life, waiting for something that might never happen.

“I’ll ask Clay and see what he makes of the Sugaring-Off Festival.” If I he said yes, then I’d be committing to staying until around June or July when the weather heated up. At that moment, that appealed to me. It dawned on me that I was genuinely happy here.

“You just let us know and I can knock up some designs for fliers on the computer for you.” She grinned.

“Thanks, that would be great. I can’t believe you had so many books on maple syrup. I expected you wouldn’t have any…”

She poured our tea and handed me a cup. “I’m a book hoarder by nature, so that comes in quite handy. I never throw books away. Their covers can be torn to oblivion, or the pages water damaged but they’re still redeemable.” She gave a fluttery little laugh. “Though not everyone would agree. But the books, well…they kind of speak to me.”

She had depth, such personality, even when sharing her foibles. “What do they say?” I asked curiously.

She held her cup aloft and winked. “
Read me
, usually.”

We both fell back into our chairs, laughing.

***

“Don’t you think it’s ugly?” I pointed to the high-tech method. “Tapping them that way?” I said to Clay, who sat opposite me in the warmth of the cottage. We were flipping through the books, learning all we could about the trees.

“Yeah, I don’t like the idea of that. It’s not how I imagined it would be. We’ll do it the traditional way. It’ll be more work, but it seems the right way somehow.”

We agreed on something. At last! “While we’re at it…” I flipped to the chapter about maple farm traditions. “In June or July, farms host a Sugaring-Off Festival, to celebrate a successful season, and sell some syrup! What do you think? Sarah said she’d help us organize it, and I thought Lil and Damon could cater…”

“No, no way,” he said abruptly.

I frowned. “Can you just think about it?”

He let out a long, impatient sigh. “Lucy, what if the syrup doesn’t work? We’ll have all these strangers here to celebrate my failure. No thank you.”

“What if it does work? We can always organize it after we’ve tasted the first batch.” There was something driving me to help Clay. Once I left I wanted to know he’d be OK. If people knew about the farm, and when the syrup was tapped, at least he’d have an income. I was so used to worrying about money after doing the math for Clay I knew he needed to sell every bottle of syrup he made, in order to last until the next season. The festival entry fee split with Lil and Damon would be another buffer for him. And then the maple syrup sales on top of that.

“I’ll think about it.”

For Clay, that was as close to a yes as I’d hoped for. I hid a smile. “Great. I’ll make a list of things we need to do, just in case.” His mouth opened to protest, so I quickly said, “A very small list.” And flashed him a cheesy grin.

He shook his head, like he couldn’t be bothered arguing with me. “What does it say about the fire pits?” he said, pointing to a passage underneath a picture of the vats of syrup bubbling away.

“There’s chapters of information about the fires, and the right temperatures to aim for. I’ll leave the books here. You can read them tonight.” Then he could sit down, and relax rather than tackle another huge project before I returned. As fit as he was, surely he needed downtime like the rest of us.

“No, you read it.” His voice was firm. With a slight incline of my eyebrows I read the piece about when to light the fire for the syrup, and how long it would take to boil down.

“Right, I’ll get those ready,” he said. “And what does it say about the spiles?”

Again, I read, half impatiently. He could have read his uncle’s journals, and seen the sketches, which had all the details about the farm and how to tap the trees. “Your uncle does explain it better, in layman’s terms. I’ll bring the journals back?”

“Just read these to me. I’m not interested in an old man’s musings.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “How can you not be? He gave you this place! Does that mean nothing to you?”

“It means everything to me.” His face was dark. “But I don’t need to know his private thoughts. Not all of us are as meddlesome as you.”

“I’m not meddlesome! I’m interested. There’s a big difference.” Just when we were getting somewhere he had to throw in a comment like that. “You know people say they’ve seen your uncle at dusk walking the length of the maples, touching them, gazing up at them, like he used to do.”

Clay guffawed. “I don’t think so.”

“Isn’t it a beautiful idea though? Him being so connected here, that even in death, people still see him.”

“They couldn’t tell who they were seeing from the road. Idle gossip, another reason to stay away from town.”

I held in a sigh. “They’re good people, Clay. They respected your uncle, and his need for privacy. You’re a lot like him you know, except maybe he wasn’t as surly as you.”

“Yeah? I can’t see how they’re good people when they sit round jaws flapping about a dead man. Seems to me like they’re bored. And you’re no better if you’re joining in.” His eyes blazed in that special Clay way, but it seemed like bluster to me now. I was so used to it from him.

I lowered my voice to a more reasonable level. “They speak about him fondly, Clay. Almost as if by seeing his shadow, they’re keeping a part of him alive. I’ve only met a handful of people but they
do
care.”

“How is that caring though, Lucy? To me that’s gossiping.”

“What happened to you, to make you so closed up?” I faced him. Trying to read the look in his eyes as they darkened.

He sucked in a breath, like he was losing his patience. “Lots of things, Lucy, and number one was confiding in people. OK? Telling them your weakness, so they can exploit you quick as look at you!” He clenched his teeth against whatever memory his words brought back.