Drizzled with Death(29)

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The back of the shop area houses a small office, and it was there that I spent a lot of my time since it was built the previous year. We always used to do the books in the main house den, but as the business has grown, I said I wanted to keep things separate for tax purposes but really it was so people would stop using up all the sticky notes. Besides, once something was on a sticky note, I wanted to be able to find it again, and in a shared office, peopled by family members, my notes kept getting stuck to the inside of a wastepaper basket more often than not. No one else liked the shop office as much as I did, and I was putting my own stamp on it.

I paused on the porch of the sugarhouse, looking carefully at the floorboards for any sign of a large cat. A bit of hair, a claw mark in the wood. Even a bit of dried-on feline drool. Zip. I pushed open the door and entered the familiar space. The rough wooden walls and long workbenches were worn smooth in places by generations of Greenes boiling down sap. Down under the bench in the corner my great-great-grandfather had carved his initials in the wall, and when I was six, I found them one summer day playing hide-and-seek with my siblings. When I bragged about discovering them, they said they already knew about them. That’s the thing about being the youngest in a family with a long history in one spot. There’s no new territory to explore unless you make it up yourself or find a new way to look at a place already traveled.

Which was exactly why I was so committed to making the sugaring operation a success. Everyone else had filled a niche in the community. Grandma and Grampa endowed scholarships and funded the building of a new high school. My parents created a summer artist colony in a back parcel of land. Celadon was the driving force behind the historic preservation of the local opera house as well as many other neglected buildings. Loden used his law degree to offer pro bono services to community members in need. What I wanted, more than anything, was to put my own stamp on the community. Building the sugaring business using organic and sustainable methods was my way of doing just that. Our website played an important part in making that happen. Once a week I posted a new recipe or article on green living on our blog attached to the site. I even started selling green products such as stainless steel water bottles and cloth shopping bags with the Greener Pastures logo on them.

I wandered through the shop, running my hand over the stock and checking for dust. Not many people came to the sugarhouse in late fall, but we still did get the odd customer looking for a gift. At this time of year, between fall foliage and skiing, most people who stopped by were locals, but I still wanted to make a good impression. I had made a good case for Internet sales a couple of years before, and their success was one of the reasons I was listened to when I made the suggestion to add a shop onto the sugarhouse. Even Celadon had to stop complaining about crass commercialism sullying the family name when I reported on sales figures and reminded her we were donating all post-tax profits to environmental causes.

I heard creaking on the wide maple floorboards and looked up to see my mother standing in the sugarhouse doorway. Her finger was stuck as a place marker in a book. I squinted at the spine and noticed the title, The Casting Out of Evil Spirits from About One’s Person. I had to assume she was looking up what to do about Alanza. God forbid Alanza should cling to any of us in this life or any other.

My mother considers herself to be psychically gifted. She reads tarot cards, dowses, and sees auras. She uses Ouija boards for information the way most people use the Internet. I’m not saying I believe she can do all the things she believes she can, or that such things are even possible, but she is right about enough stuff that I can’t help but try to be open-minded.

She wandered through the sugarhouse, pausing near the evaporator, her peasant skirt swirling and her bracelets jangling as she walked. Everywhere she goes, she swishes and jingles. With her around, it’s like Halloween an extra 364 days each year. She stopped in front of a bench we use to hold jugs.

“Why do I want to bring in a love potion and sprinkle it everywhere in this room?”

“Because you always want to bring in a love potion. Did you need me for something?” I hoped an abrupt topic change would keep her from talking to me about my love life. The last few days had been hard enough without that. She had been following me around all week telling me my aura looked a bit tarnished and plying me with herbal teas designed to realign my chakras.

“Your grandmother was hoping you would run over to Felicia’s to drop off the pickles for the swap.” My mother placed her hand on the bench and squeezed her eyes shut. Grandma and several other women in town had swapped jars of homemade pickles for holiday tables for years. Each of them had a specialty, and the swap allowed all of them to enjoy a variety of excellent choices for no extra effort.