Chapter Text
By 10 AM, Enid had already rescued a six-foot Fraser fir from an unambitious family, explained to a toddler that candy canes grew in boxes rather than on trees, repaired a torn ribbon on the south hillside, and sung “Last Christmas” three times. The portable speaker clipped to the tractor’s dashboard continued its seasonal campaign from the lane below, where a cheerful saxophone urged every living creature within range to believe in December. Enid believed in December professionally. That distinction mattered, although she rarely admitted it. Professional belief meant fastening her parka over two sweaters, tying a red plaid scarf at her throat, loading the wagon with pruning shears and colored tags, and greeting customers with a grin bright enough to guide them through near-identical trees. It meant telling a couple from Hendersonville that their lopsided selection had “character,” then turning it a quarter rotation before they saw the bald patch. It meant memorizing which rows held the best seven-footers and which ones needed another season to grow into themselves. Every morning she rose in the small upstairs bedroom of the farmhouse, clipped her blonde hair back, fed Bart half his breakfast from her hand, and went outside to help sell strangers the version of Christmas they had driven up a mountain to find.
Briarthorn Farm occupied forty-seven acres of slopes, fields, barns, lanes, and tree rows whose arrangement lived in Enid’s mind more clearly than any map. Blue tags marked firs under five feet, red tags marked the six-to-seven-foot trees that caused bloodline feuds, silver tags went on the grand specimens requested by people with ceilings high enough to support holiday hubris, and white tags meant a tree needed shaping before anybody armed with a saw came near it. She had spent all morning moving through the middle hillside, replacing tags that yesterday’s gusts had torn free and correcting the enthusiastic mistakes of two weekend workers who seemed convinced every tree achieved market readiness through optimism alone. Her gloved fingers worked quickly around the ribbon ties, making loops that stayed secure while leaving the branches unharmed. Fraser firs demanded patience. A careless pull damaged a tip; a careless cut changed the form of the tree for years. Uncle Marsh had taught her that during summers when she was young enough to consider farm work an adventure and old enough to insist on using grown-up shears. Her father used to stand beside Marsh and applaud each crooked trim. Memory offered that image so clearly that Enid pressed a tag into the nearest branch harder than necessary, then loosened it and patted the needles in apology.
“Please forgive my emotional instability,” she informed the tree. “Seasonal allergies. You are doing amazing.”
Bart, stationed three rows over with his front paws crossed and his immense white head raised, regarded her with patient concern. His coat had collected burrs along one side during his morning inspection of the creek path, and a small twig rested above one ear. Three winters earlier, Enid would have photographed him, added a ridiculous caption, and sent it to her father before lunch. Two winters earlier, on the first day could get out of bed, she had brushed mud from that fur while Bart placed his chin across her knee. Since then he had appointed himself her escort, counselor, alarm system, reluctant audience for sing-alongs, and sleeping arrangement dispute. Whenever she went into the fields, he went too. Whenever she climbed toward the high ridge, he followed. Whenever she stayed out later than Aunt Cordelia preferred, Bart transforming the scolding into a sigh and a plate kept warm by the stove.
A shriek from the wagon lane drew Enid’s attention downhill. A little boy in a puffy blue coat discovered that a tree stump could become an excellent throne, and his younger sister discovered that she objected to his coronation. Their parents stood beside an eight-foot fir while trying to negotiate royalty, tree transport, and a thermos. Enid tucked the remaining tags into her coat pocket, whistled for Bart, and headed toward the family.
“Okay,” she announced upon reaching the stump, “I can see this kingdom has entered a complicated succession crisis. Luckily, Briarthorn has a strict policy that all monarchs must help carry their own Christmas trees.”
The boy looked at her. “I’m the king.”
“Congratulations. It comes with responsibilities and zero extra cookies unless your parents approve.”
His sister planted both mittens on her hips. “I’m the queen.”
“Excellent. Dual monarchy. Very progressive.”
Their mother gave Enid a look full of gratitude and fatigue. “They picked that one, but my husband thinks it will fit on the car, which means I’m currently married to an optimist.”
“Optimists keep our baling machine in business,” Enid said, circling the tree and evaluating its lower branches. “This one will travel fine once we wrap it. Your roof rack might need a moment of silence first.”
While the parents laughed, Enid crouched beside the children and explained the ceremony of cutting a tree: how somebody needed to hold the trunk steady, how the saw belonged to the adults, how a fresh fir had to be treated kindly because it had spent years growing for this exact assignment. She avoided discussing the fate of a tree after New Year’s Day. Children tended to ask follow-up questions, and Enid’s ability to frame mortality as festive recycling had deteriorated over the last few seasons. Once the father began sawing, the little girl took Enid’s gloved hand. Enid let her. That was part of the job, too. She watched the tree come free, clapped when it tipped into the father’s arms, then helped drag it to the lane while Bart walked behind, his tail receiving reverent pats from both newly allied sovereigns.
At the baling station, she fed the tree through the metal funnel and watched the branches fold inward under netting, compacted into a manageable green column that made the mother forgive her husband’s ambition. Enid tied the family’s claim ticket to the trunk, handed the children each a sticker, and received an unsolicited hug from the queen. Warmth filled her chest at that, followed by the sharper emotion that followed whenever a happy family existed around her. But she had learned to live with that duality. Joy came first; grief next. Arguing with either accomplished very little, so she smiled until the customers headed toward the cider house and then turned toward the next task before her face forgot its job.
The old tobacco barn stood uphill, its broad doors open to accommodate the wreath tables and bundles of clipped boughs Cordelia sorted by hand. At this point in the season, the barn operated like an evergreen factory run by a benevolent general. Wire spools rolled across tabletops, red berries occupied bins near the back wall, ribbons waited in wooden crates, and completed wreaths leaned in orderly rows for collection. Enid stepped inside to take another packet of tags and found her aunt bent over a nearly-finished wreath.
Cordelia’s red hair curtained across the front of her flannel, tucked out of the way whenever she leaned forward. A pencil rested behind one ear, and a small strip of green florist tape adhered to her wrist. Her hands had several fresh nicks, every one of them earned in service of beauty, commerce, or both. She glanced up when Enid entered, taking in the empty tag bundle, the red cheeks, the untied scarf, and the pine needle clinging near Enid’s collar.
“You ate breakfast?” Cordelia asked.
“A bagel and half a gallon of moral superiority.”
“That second one has no protein.”
“It’s sustained morning talk show hosts for decades.”
Cordelia snipped the wire. “There’s chili in the cider house at noon. Marsh put extra cornbread aside before Dale comes through and mistakes it for communal property.”
“Uncle Dale believes every food item within reach is communal property.”
“Which is why the cornbread has your name on it.”
Enid smiled. She picked up a packet of tags from the workbench, checked the colored counts, then leaned back against a post for the small pause Cordelia rarely ordered but frequently engineered.
“Busy morning?” her aunt asked.
“Blue-coat dynasty secured a tree and resolved its internal power struggle. Mrs. Danner came back because her wreath had one berry fewer on the left side than the right. I adjusted it, then she decided asymmetry was artisanal, so I adjusted it back. Somebody’s golden retriever tried to court Bart and was politely rejected.”
“Bart prefers long-term commitments.”
“He prefers judging people from a seated position.”
“Useful family trait.”
The last remark passed lightly enough, though Enid caught its edge. Cordelia worried in practical ways. A second serving. An errand that placed Enid near customers instead of alone by Judas Creek. A comment inviting laughter whenever the day began slipping inward. The woman had never asked Enid to stop grieving, which remained one of the reasons Enid loved her beyond speech. Cordelia simply built rails along the steepest passages and trusted Enid to keep walking. Farm season gave both of them somewhere to place their hands. There were trees to sell, boughs to bind, wagons to drive, children to redirect from dangerous saws, online orders to fill, cider urns to refill, and end-of-day receipts to reconcile. The tasks formed a road through December, and Enid traveled it at full speed because slowing made space for rooms in Asheville, reading glasses on a kitchen counter, boots beside a back door, and a college acceptance packet she had once stored under her bed until the deadlines turned into history.
A low engine note reached them from the mountain road.
Enid had heard plenty of vehicles during business hours: minivans drifting into the gravel lot, trucks hauling trees, station wagons bearing children and grandparents and the occasional badly secured inflatable reindeer. This sound belonged elsewhere—deeper and smoother, more suited to a procession than a shopping trip.
Bart moved beyond the doorway, ears forward, his interest sharpening.
“That’ll be the rental house people,” Cordelia said, returning to the wreath. “Hargrove place is booked ‘til January.”
“‘Til January?” Enid pushed away from the post. “Somebody voluntarily rented that house during winter?”
“Somebody from out of state.”
“Do they know the plumbing sounds possessed and the main staircase is trying to split itself into firewood?”
“Historic charm.”
“Historic tetanus.”
Cordelia’s mouth curved. “Go see what they’re driving.”
“I refuse to spy on tourists for free.”
“You’re clocked in.”
“Compelling legal argument.”
But Enid had already reached the barn doorway before the exchange ended, one hand shielding her eyes from the pale midday glare across the field while she looked down. The Hargrove farmhouse lay a quarter mile away, separated by a run of slope, a narrow road, and enough trees to give renters the illusion of solitude while allowing Cordelia to track their arrival, garbage schedule, and winter preparedness. Enid knew the house from childhood bike rides and from several seasons of renters who appeared for leaf color, declared the place “enchanting,” then called the property manager after learning that old mountain houses possessed opinions about temperature. Its brick exterior, black shutters, and wide porch made it grand in a worn, watchful manner. Bare vines gripped the porch columns each December. Inside, according to a woman who once rushed into Briarthorn to ask about heaters, every room held a fireplace and every fireplace lied.
The vehicle rounding the bend solved the question of whether this season’s renters would be memorable.
A black Cadillac hearse rolled along the road, its polished length following the curve past the lower field before slowing in front of the Hargrove drive. It reached the gravel entrance and climbed toward the house, carrying a family whose holiday retreat choices had abruptly become Briarthorn’s best source of entertainment.
“Cordy,” Enid called over her shoulder, “the rental people have arrived in a hearse.”
“Funeral directors?”
“Hopefully, yes. Otherwise they are committing incredibly hard to a… theme.”
Cordelia joined her, wiping both hands on her apron. Marsh emerged from the equipment barn at nearly the same moment, a screwdriver held in one hand and his green work jacket open over a worn thermal shirt.
“Cadillac Miller-Meteor,” he observed.
Enid turned. “Excuse me?”
“Early sixties. Maybe sixty-three. Beautiful restoration.”
“You identified the hearse from halfway across a hillside?”
Marsh adjusted the bill of his cap. “Some people recognize shoe brands. Some people have worthwhile interests.”
Cordelia gave him an affectionate look. “Should I be concerned that you find their arrival inspiring?”
“Depends whether they let me look under the hood.”
The hearse settled in front of the porch. Its driver’s door opened first, and a short, broad man in a pinstripe suit stepped onto the gravel with a flourish large enough to register from Briarthorn’s barn. His black hair shone neatly above a face built for delight, and whatever he said to the woman emerging from the passenger side made him reach for her. She rose in a long black coat, tall and elegant. Her hand found his as they looked toward the Hargrove house.
“Oh,” Enid murmured. “They are absolutely here on purpose.”
Cordelia tilted her head. “She dresses well.”
“She looks like she owns a raven that gives her legal advice.”
“Perhaps it does.”
A rear door opened, followed by the appearance of a teenage boy with a compact build. He wore stripes with a jacket that bulged at several curious points, dragging a reinforced bag. Marsh narrowed his eyes at it, perhaps assessing tools, perhaps noting explosives, perhaps wisely deciding that certain inquiries belonged after introductions.
Then the final passenger stepped out.
At first Enid registered only another blur of darkness: black boots meeting gravel, black coat buttoned to the throat, black hair divided into two braids. The girl was small beside the others, younger than the parents and close enough to Enid’s age that curiosity sharpened. She closed the car door with a gloved hand and turned toward the farmhouse, offering neither visible excitement nor complaint. A rectangular case rested in her other hand; after a second look, Enid realized it contained a typewriter. An actual typewriter. Metal latches, rigid sides, handle held and all.
Nobody brought a typewriter to a vacation unless they had either written a manifesto already or intended to begin one.
“Well,” Enid murmured, “that family makes our holiday sweaters seem restrained.”
Cordelia glanced at her niece instead of the new arrivals. “The daughter looks about your age.”
“Does she? Hard to tell. She might be four hundred years old and thriving.”
“Still within your peer group, considering your morning energy.”
“Rude.”
“Truthful.”
Down at the Hargrove driveway, the unloading continued. Suitcases came first, all dark, all orderly. The boy produced a duffel, a metal toolbox, and another reinforced bag, which he held close when his father tried to peek inside. From the rear of the hearse, the elegant woman supervised the removal of a glass-sided structure containing a single black flower. Enid stared at it, certain at first that her distance had confused the details.
Marsh stepped farther out from the barn. “Greenhouse.”
“Portable greenhouse,” Enid corrected. “For one flower. They literally transported a botanical penthouse in a hearse.”
Cordelia made a thoughtful sound. “That woman and I may get along.”
“You grow dahlias in the dirt like a mortal.”
“Maybe I’ve been limiting myself.”
Cordelia returned to the wreath table after another minute, having absorbed enough information: the neighbors appeared eccentric, financially committed to their aesthetic, and potentially interesting. Marsh remained a little longer, studying the car. Enid lingered longest, because the girl in braids had set her typewriter case on the porch and turned to gaze across the road.
The far distance should have made it useless; a person scanning fields from a rented house was hardly an encounter. But Enid experienced the odd, abrupt sense of having been caught, even though the girl’s face remained too far away to tell and the slope held more noticeable things: fir rows, customers, a wagon lane, barns, the farmhouse, mountain beyond mountain beyond mountain.
Bart gave a single low sound from beside her, more greeting than warning.
“You see the Gothic exchange student too?” Enid asked.
His gaze stayed fixed toward the Hargrove porch.
“Okay, fine—resident? Heiress? Minor member of a traveling funeral dynasty?”
Marsh’s eyes shifted from the Cadillac to Enid, and the corners of his mouth twitched. “Those tree tags won’t attach themselves.”
“That is exactly the kind of anti-Christmas-magic thinking that keeps this farm from achieving greatness.”
“Middle hill needs finishing before lunch.”
“Yes, boss.”
With the packet tucked safely into her pocket, Enid turned uphill with Bart trotting beside her, and glanced back after a few steps. The family had begun carrying their belongings into the house. The father disappeared through the front door, speaking with his entire body. His wife followed with the greenhouse, aided by the son. The girl remained on the porch for an extra moment. She looked at the farmhouse, then at the road, then toward the Briarthorn fields once more before lifting her typewriter case and going inside.
Enid climbed the lane faster than before. Movement had always offered a distraction from thoughts she preferred to leave unexamined, and tagging trees supplied enough tiny decisions to occupy a whole afternoon. Red ribbon for the first tree, silver for a broad eight-footer whose top needed a minor correction, white for a younger fir with an ambitious left side and an underdeveloped right. Customers moved in and out of the field. A father asked whether a tree could survive indoors until New Year’s Day; Enid gave him care instructions and restrained an impulse to say that survival frequently came down to water, cooler temperatures, and a household willing to notice distress before needles began falling. A group of college students took seventeen photographs beside a fir and bought a wreath instead. Two women with matching knit caps requested the “most Christmas-looking” tree on the property, and Enid escorted them to a row she trusted because Christmas-looking, in retail terms, meant easy to secure on top of a Subaru.
Her performance met every cue. Each family received the version of Enid Sinclair who knew the fields, adored the season, and considered every tree a source of pride. Beneath the smile, however, a new thought kept lifting surfacing: the dark-haired girl had brought a typewriter to the dead Hargrove house for the winter. She had declined help carrying it. She had stood on the porch and searched the mountain. But none of those observations amounted to a reason for interest—which was odd, considering Enid collected memories easily and forgot them by supper.
But this damn girl refused convenience.
Maybe it was the braids. Maybe it was the hearse. Maybe it was the total absence of enthusiasm at arriving in one of the prettiest places in North Carolina during the busiest, loudest, most aggressively decorated part of winter. Most people looked at Briarthorn and found what they expected: an ornament, a postcard, a tradition available for purchase. Yet the girl on the porch had surveyed everything in a way that felt more like examination than admiration.
Enid found herself resenting that, then enjoying the resentment because it constituted a fresh emotion and fresh emotions had become scarce.
By noon, clouds had gathered over the upper ridge and the temperature had lowered. Enid drove the tractor back toward the cider house with Bart seated in the trailer while the speaker reached a dramatic rendition of “O Holy Night.” Her father used to cry at that song every year. During childhood, Enid considered it proof that adults were embarrassing by nature. At fifteen, she began watching for the moment Murray’s eyes turned wet during the final chorus, because that was when Esther crossed the living room, placed a plate of cookies in his lap, and kissed the top of his head.
Enid cut the music before the song reached its final rise and climbed out. Bart jumped after her and pressed his shoulder against her leg until she scratched him.
Inside, the lunch rush had filled the gift shop with people warming their hands around paper cups of cider and debating ornaments. Beeswax candles occupied a shelf near the register, local honey sat arranged in jars beside the window, and Cordelia’s knitted animals had already lost half their inventory to grandparents susceptible to small scarves. Dale worked the register while wearing an apologetic expression. Enid slid in beside him, corrected a discount he had applied backward, wrapped three candles for a woman purchasing hostess gifts, found the food Cordelia had set aside, and ate it in quick spoonfuls while answering a customer’s question about tree disposal programs.
“City collection usually chips them for mulch,” she explained, giving the customer a printed care sheet. “Some wildlife organizations take untreated trees for habitat projects too. Check with your county after Christmas.”
“What do you do with yours?”
Enid’s spoon halted briefly over the bowl. “We keep one in the farmhouse through New Year’s, then my uncle chips it for the walking paths. It gets to stay on the property.”
“That’s sweet.”
“It has seniority.”
The customer laughed and carried her purchases out. Enid took another bite, letting the heat steady her, and turned when Cordelia entered through the side door with an empty bough crate under one arm.
“After lunch, I need a basket made up for the Hargrove renters.”
Enid nearly dropped her spoon. “Already? They brought their own greenhouse. They appear self-sufficient.”
“Rental welcome basket. Cider concentrate, honey, candles, road information, emergency numbers.”
“Maybe include an exorcist contact.”
“That can be your contribution.”
“Are you sending me?”
Cordelia’s attention became suspiciously focused on arranging jars. “You know the road.”
“So does Bart.”
“Bart has limited customer-relations skills.”
“Bart has tremendous gravitas. People respect him.”
“People give him treats. Different business model.”
Enid finished the food and sighed. “Fine. I can bring them a basket tomorrow.”
“This afternoon would be hospitable.”
“This afternoon we have customers, trees, several families who may place themselves directly beneath a falling fir, and a register system Dale is currently negotiating with through prayer.”
From the opposite side of the shop, Dale raised a finger. “The Lord is listening.”
Cordelia assessed Enid for another quiet second before conceding. “Tomorrow morning.”
“Excellent. Plenty of time to research proper etiquette for greeting hearse owners.”
“You could begin with ‘hello.’”
“Too conventional. They may be insulted.”
Late afternoon shifted the farm toward closing.
The final wagon ride returned from the hill with children shivering beneath blankets and parents guarding saws, mittens, and fragile harmony. Enid helped secure two trees to vehicle roofs, swept fallen needles, carried unused tags into the barn, and checked the south gate before Marsh latched it for the evening. Cordelia counted the register in the cider house while Dale stacked empty apple crates by the side wall. Customers disappeared down the mountain one vehicle at a time.
Enid collected her speaker from the tractor, switched it off, and found Bart waiting by the porch steps, attention sharpened toward the Hargrove place again. From this angle, the neighboring house appeared partly through bare branches, its windows beginning to glow as the new family settled inside. Someone had started a fire or turned on several lamps in the front parlor. Another square of amber appeared upstairs, in a room facing Briarthorn. Enid knew that room had once served as a study; one summer renter had complained its desk drawer contained a dead beetle and three decades of dust. Tonight a figure crossed that upstairs window, then returned carrying something rectangular.
The typewriter girl.
A lamp came on beside her, framing the brief outline of braids and shoulders before she sat. Even at this distance Enid could tell she had placed the machine in front of the window rather than choosing any other desk position. One hand moved over the case; the other reached toward a stack of paper.
Enid stood on the porch and found that she had forgotten what she meant to do next.
Bart sat beside her, watching the same upstairs window.
“You are developing an unhealthy fixation,” she told him.
The dog remained silent.
“Fine. We are developing an unhealthy fixation. Team effort.”
From the farmhouse, Cordelia called that supper was ready.
Bart followed Enid inside after a final look down the road. Before closing the door, Enid gave the distant study a small, private nod.
Tomorrow, she would take the welcome basket down the mountain road.
Tomorrow, perhaps, she would learn the girl’s name.
Wednesday began work at 6 AM on the first morning in the Hargrove place and concluded, by 6:14, that the building held promise.
The pipes complained whenever a faucet turned. One converted fireplace in the upper floor emitted a faint clicking sound before producing heat, suggesting either poor maintenance or resentment. A fracture crossed the third step of the central flight in a manner that would eventually injure somebody inattentive, which excluded her immediate family except Pugsley when occupied by detonators. Most satisfactory of all, the study window faced an expanse of winter fields belonging to the neighboring Christmas tree farm, a view so aggressively pastoral that it acquired her interest. Rows of firs descended along the slope in dark green ranks; the farmhouse sat beyond them with its front porch and metal roof; barns gathered around the lane in a rural tableau whose brightness struck Wednesday as an elaborate method of denying mortality. Every tree displayed for purchase had been cultivated for years, selected for beauty, severed near its base, brought indoors, dressed in ornaments, and discarded when its needles fell.
Although, after considering it, that did make Christmas more honest.
Her Olympia SM3 occupied the old desk beneath the window, aligned exactly to the edge. Four reams of cream paper sat inside the left drawer, her black notebook rested to the right, and page 113 of the Lavinia Whitlam manuscript had already received the date in its upper corner.
At 6:16, Wednesday fed a fresh sheet into the machine and resumed the chapter in which her protagonist obtained several rolls of Scheele’s Green wallpaper from a merchant recently widowed and eager to liquidate stock. Lavinia understood the value of opportunity. By 7:10, the merchant had revealed a habit of touching women’s wrists during conversation, an error Wednesday awarded with an early indication of digestive distress three scenes ahead of schedule. By 8:30, she had completed twelve hundred and eighteen sentences’ worth of conflict, motive, and botanical reference, then removed two excessive adjectives with the satisfaction of excising diseased tissue. Through the window, Briarthorn began moving long before the frost had fully receded. A truck arrived. A tractor crossed from the farmhouse toward the lower field. Figures emerged in winter coats, moving in routes determined by work rather than leisure.
One of them caught her attention through consistency rather than novelty.
The blonde girl from the previous afternoon appeared beside the tractor in a pink coat, an enormous white dog accompanying her. She opened a gate, exchanged something with a red-haired woman outside the barn, then crossed into the tree rows carrying a bundle of colored material. Her movement suggested familiarity with every rut and incline. Where visitors approached the trees slowly, their attention divided by photographs and children and sentimental demands, this girl traveled among them in a direct line, pausing only to fasten or alter the ribbons tied to branches. At one point she reached overhead to secure a tag, rose onto her toes, lost her footing on the slope, recovered with an exaggerated bow toward the dog, then continued.
Wednesday registered the incident, returned to Lavinia, and typed the sentence:
Her competence possessed no sign of fragile performance; it came from long acquaintance with living things and the cruelty required to cultivate beauty for slaughter.
After reading it, she frowned. Lavinia had no established interest in agriculture. More importantly, the sentence had arrived from an irrelevant source.
A measured knock rapped the study door at 9 AM.
Wednesday recognized her mother’s habits: both the choice to wait until she had completed three uninterrupted writing hours and the certainty that entry would occur regardless of invitation.
“Enter.”
Morticia appeared with a porcelain teacup. Her black dress swept silently around her ankles, and a single silver ring marked the hand curled around the saucer. “Your father is exploring the cellar. He found old coal bins and has declared himself overcome with affection.”
“An entirely predictable response.”
“Pugsley located a stone retaining wall in the rear garden. His happiness concerns me only because he has gone silent.”
“Silence means he has entered the planning stage.”
“So I inferred.” Morticia placed the cup on the corner of the desk, well clear of the manuscript. “How does the house suit your novel?”
“The plumbing is articulate, the wallpaper disappoints, and the desk faces a commercial plantation devoted to ritual arboreal execution. I expect progress.”
“Lovely.” Morticia followed her daughter’s line of sight toward the neighboring fields, where the girl in the pink coat had appeared at the edge of a lane. “Briarthorn Farm. I spoke with the woman who owns it yesterday evening.”
Wednesday’s hands hovered above the typewriter keys. “When?”
“While your father expressed admiration for the hearse’s performance to a gentleman across the road,” Morticia explained. “Cordelia came to introduce herself and inform us that winter storms interrupt electricity here. She offered firewood, emergency lanterns, and advice regarding the boiler.”
“Useful neighborly aggression.”
“On the contrary, I found her delightful. Her husband seemed quieter, although your father has already received an invitation to inspect his tractor.”
“Father collects companionship at a rate that suggests contagion.”
Morticia gave the farm another contemplative glance. “Their niece lives with them. Enid. She works the property.”
The girl by the lane bent to retrieve something from the ground. Enid. The name suited neither the pink coat nor the almost-offensive blonde of her hair, which made it worth remembering.
“Her duties appear extensive,” Wednesday murmured.
“An assessment based on research?”
“Observation. She was in the fields before eight. Since then, she has altered tags on forty trees, assisted two customers, guided a wagon, and rebuked the dog for an infraction he received with impressive dignity.”
Morticia’s eyes shifted toward Wednesday, lips curled. “Then your view provides more than inspiration for horticultural murder.”
“My protagonist has already acquired the relevant pigment. Expanding her victim pool into seasonal retail would be gratuitous.”
“Your restraint does you credit.”
A shout of joy erupted from the lower floor, followed by a dull metallic clang and Gomez calling, “Cara mia, the cellar has a trapdoor!”
Morticia’s expression softened. “Your father requires supervision.” She sighed, then gestured to the cup. “Cold coffee lacks elegance unless one intended it from the beginning.”
Wednesday waited until the door closed, lifted the cup, and drank. Bitter, unsweetened, and black.
Perfect.
Across the road, Enid Sinclair disappeared behind a row of firs with the white dog following close, and Wednesday returned to her manuscript with the practical conclusion that a name assigned to an observed figure did nothing to alter her day.
Enid had learned that delaying a welcome basket became more difficult when the person requesting delivery possessed a farm, a schedule, and a talent for placing the basket directly by the front door.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” she told Cordelia after emerging from the cider house with a mug of cocoa and discovering the arrangement on the porch bench.
A jar of honey sat beside a bottle of cider concentrate, four beeswax candles, a knitted ornament shaped like a sheep, printed emergency numbers, driving directions for reaching town during road closures, and a packet of matches tied with green twine.
“Of course I am,” Cordelia said from behind the screen door. “Accidental hospitality is inefficient.”
“They have candles. They literally arrived dressed for a family portrait in an ancestral crypt. Candles are implied.”
“People can own more than four candles.”
“People who arrive in hearses own, like, four hundred.”
Cordelia came onto the porch. “Deliver it after the wagon run. Their family deserves a proper welcome, and you could stand to meet somebody your age.”
“I meet people my age all the time.”
“You sell trees to them while their parents pay.”
“That’s still social interaction.”
“It’s retail.”
Enid took a sip of cocoa, hoping steam could supply a distraction her face lacked.
Last evening’s curiosity had survived sleep, breakfast, three rounds of customer assistance, and a prolonged struggle with the baling machine when a Douglas fir entered sideways. At inconvenient moments, her attention wandered down the road, where the hearse was parked. Twice, she spotted the dark-haired girl in the upper study window, seated at a desk for hours at a time. The first sighting occurred during a tractor pass toward the lower field, quick enough to dismiss. The second happened when Enid deliberately chose the lane with the clearest view of the house, which carried more proof than she liked.
“Maybe they want privacy?” she offered. “The whole gloomy house in winter, isolated road, weirdly formal luggage thing—it screams retreat from society.”
“Then they may accept a basket and retreat again.”
“Could Marsh bring it?”
“Marsh has already spent twenty minutes discussing their automobile with Mr. Addams, whose enthusiasm may keep him occupied until spring.”
“Dale?”
“Dale believes the wicker handle makes him look ‘dainty.’”
“Bart?”
Cordelia glanced toward the dog, who lay on the porch with his muzzle on his paws, following the exchange with peaceful interest. “He would eat the sheep.”
“That sheep looks haunted enough to protect itself.”
“After the wagon run, Enid.”
Her aunt returned indoors before Enid constructed another objection.
Bart raised his head. His expression conveyed the troubling impression that he supported Cordelia’s position.
“Traitor,” she muttered, lowering herself onto the porch step beside him. “A loyal dog would fling that basket into Judas Creek and save me from whatever interaction she’s engineering.”
Bart leaned into her shoulder, nearly displacing the cocoa from her hands.
“Fine. You’re forgiven because you’re emotionally manipulative and beautiful.”
Lunch-hour customers crossed the gravel lot with shopping bags, tree claim tickets, and cups of cider. Several greeted Enid, who returned each hello and maintained the outward appearance of someone taking a break rather than contemplating a quarter-mile journey with disproportionate nervousness. She met strangers constantly; she chatted easily; she could make a child laugh while hoisting a tree through a baler and calculating whether its parents intended to secure it with prayers instead of rope. Whatever happened at the Hargrove front door would last three minutes maximum. She would offer the basket, identify herself, receive gratitude from one or more elegantly alarming relatives, and leave. During none of that would the typewriter girl’s braids, expression, or stillness have any meaningful relevance.
Until her mind produced the study window again.
“You’re not challenging my anxiety. Do better,” Enid told the dog.
Bart simply closed his eyes.
The afternoon wagon run gave her a temporary reprieve. Twelve customers gathered beside the tractor for a ride through the upper choose-and-cut rows: three families, an elderly couple, and two women who brought thermoses and debated trees with respect-worthy seriousness. Enid loaded a crate of saws beneath the bench, checked that each child remained seated, warned everybody against attempting to disembark while the tractor moved, then climbed behind the wheel with Bart boarding at the rear in his role of farm dignitary.
“Welcome to the Briarthorn luxury transport experience,” she announced over her shoulder. “The heated seats are available only through imagination, the scenic views are complimentary, and our onboard guard dog accepts affection in place of gratuities.”
One child raised a mitten. “Does he bite?”
“Only people with terrible Christmas opinions.”
“My dad hates colored lights.”
Enid glanced toward the father, whose expression turned nervous. “Bartholomew will need time to process that.”
Laughter rippled through the wagon, easing everybody into the cold ride.
Tractor tires pressed along the lane toward the upper slope while Enid gave the usual remarks about the farm: Fraser firs grew especially well at mountain elevation; trees in the section ahead ranged from six to eight feet; customers could mark their selection with the ribbon supplied at departure; anyone seeking a larger tree should consult staff before deciding their living room could absorb an evergreen the size of a small chapel.
Then a figure appeared on its porch: the typewriter girl, carrying a notebook in one hand.
Enid looked back toward the lane quickly enough that a rut jolted the tractor and produced delighted squeals from the kids. Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Through a surge of unreasonable embarrassment, she realized that being observed while driving a tractor felt more intimate than carrying one hundred trees beneath public scrutiny. Still, she kept the speed steady, delivered the wagon to the upper field, helped families down, and began guiding each group toward suitable rows.
From the porch of the Hargrove house, Wednesday had gone outside because twelve hundred words produced an unacceptable recurrence of botanical imagery.
Lavinia had murdered one husband, manipulated two pharmacists, acquired poison pigment through social engineering, and maintained a private record of each man’s symptoms with admirable consistency. Her sudden observation that a parlor fern required attentive care reflected contamination from external stimuli rather than character development.
Wednesday considered a walk through the property an efficient method of correcting the problem.
Morticia had filled the rear parlor with black dahlia equipment and a volume of Christina Rossetti. Gomez occupied the cellar, where he had discovered a rusted coal chute and invited Marsh to examine it later in the week. Pugsley had taken several lengths of measuring string, a shovel, and his metal case toward the retaining wall, which made Wednesday revise her assessment of potential quiet. The front porch, at least, offered temporary distance. She stepped outside with her notebook, intended to list structural faults visible from the exterior, and instead found the neighboring farm in active operation.
A tractor climbed through the fir lanes, pulling a wagon occupied by customers in brightly colored coats. Its driver was Enid. Her pink parka made identification simple; the white dog occupying the wagon’s rear erased remaining uncertainty. Even from the porch, Wednesday saw that she addressed the riders while steering, one arm resting along the side of the seat whenever the path leveled. Upon arrival at the field, Enid stood from the tractor, stepped down, and moved from customer to customer. A small child reached for her mittened hand. Enid accepted it, leading the child toward a suitable tree and lowering herself to listen.
Wednesday wrote in her notebook:
Enid Sinclair.
Height: approximately 5’3.
Occupation: farm labor, sales assistance, tractor operation, canine allegiance.
Behavioral observation: displays brightness as both offering and barricade.
She considered the final term. Barricade implied a threat from which protection was necessary. Evidence remained insufficient regarding source, duration, and severity.
After crossing out none of the entry, Wednesday closed the notebook.
“Taking field notes, my little storm cloud?”
Gomez’s question arrived from the doorway. He wore a wine-colored smoking jacket despite the cold, his shirt collar open, his mustache arranged with customary elegance.
“The neighboring farm provides a clearer illustration of commercial mortality than most cemeteries,” she replied.
“Ah, yes. Beautiful young trees cut down at their prime, adorned for a brief interval, then abandoned when the season turns. Romantic and tragic. Your mother and I should purchase one.”
“Mother brought a dahlia. It may object to competition.”
“Then two tragedies in one parlor. Magnificent.” Gomez stepped beside her and followed her attention toward the wagon in the field. “The Sinclairs are charming. Marsh possesses a John Deere from the seventies with an engine so lovingly tended I felt the stirrings of envy, although fidelity requires me to remain true to our hearse.”
“Your moral restraint is moving.”
“His niece manages much of the customer work. A lovely girl. Enid, I believe.”
“You believe correctly.”
Gomez gave her an interested look, full of paternal delight and an inclination to interfere.
Wednesday turned toward the road before his expression completed any theory.
“Mrs. Sinclair has invited us to visit the cider house whenever we desire,” he continued. “She makes wreaths. Your mother expressed fascination with the darker ribbons.”
“A predictable alliance.”
“Perhaps tomorrow we shall go together. It would be neighborly.”
“Neighborliness is a pathetic foundation for social obligation.”
“Yet sometimes it brings extraordinary people to one’s doorstep.” Gomez slid one hand over his heart. “Your mother arrived at mine carrying carnivorous lilies. I have respected horticulture ever since.”
“Your anecdote proves only that predatory flowers improve courtship outcomes.”
“It proves that one must remain receptive to interruption, querida. Solitude nourishes the mind. Intrusion, when properly chosen, nourishes everything else.”
“Your claim relies on sentimental methodology.”
“My finest discipline.”
A commotion rose in the upper field. One of the customers had cut a tree larger than anticipated, and the fir tipped at an angle that sent two children running in exhilarated circles while Enid called instructions to the adults. She reached the trunk, braced it with another worker, and managed the descent with an expression that moved rapidly from concentration to laughter. During the final moment, she looked down the slope, perhaps monitoring the tractor, perhaps glancing toward the house.
Her gaze landed on the porch until she turned to guide the tree toward the lane, her movements quicker than before.
Wednesday experienced an inexplicable impulse to dissect whether the glance had carried recognition, curiosity, or simple accidental alignment, an impulse she filed beneath distractions requiring future containment.
“I am returning to work,” she said.
“Of course, my little death trap,” Gomez replied. “I shall tell your mother you were conducting rural surveillance.”
“Tell her the study’s floral wallpaper weakens Lavinia’s motives. She will understand.”
“She always does.”
Back inside, Wednesday set the notebook to the right of her manuscript and reread the last page.
Lavinia had entered a room containing her newly applied green paper, noting how the color altered the complexion of her visiting brother-in-law, who would soon develop symptoms of poisoning. A marginal reference to a fern waited halfway down the page, useless and newly irritating.
Wednesday drew a line through the plant, replaced it with a bell jar containing pressed foxglove, and proceeded for ninety-seven sentences before the tractor returned from the field.
Her head lifted at the sound instinctively.
By the time Enid parked near Briarthorn’s barn, she was certain that the girl on the Hargrove porch had looked at her and was equally certain that admitting this mattered would make her seem insane.
She helped remove saws from the wagon, directed customers toward the checkout area, and accepted a child’s excited account of selecting “the biggest tree in the entire world,” despite its accurate classification as an average six-footer. When the final group moved toward cider and payment, she checked the time and found that evening had approached far faster than expected.
Cordelia found her at the edge of the lane with the welcome basket looped over one arm. “You look like you’re planning an escape route.”
“I am evaluating the logistics of delivering perishable neighborliness in freezing temperatures.”
“Honey has remarkable resilience.”
“Maybe I should add cookies. Cookies make it look like I went because of cookies and not because you ordered me to walk down there.”
“Add cookies, then.”
Enid sighed. “That was supposed to be resisted so I could accept defeat graciously.”
Cordelia turned toward the cider house. “Tin on the counter. Take six.”
Enid followed her inside, caught by her own strategy. Within five minutes, a paper packet of ginger cookies rested inside the basket beside the candles, Bart had risen in anticipation of an expedition, and Cordelia had wrapped an additional scarf around Enid’s neck.
“Take the road, not the field path,” her aunt instructed. “Mud is freezing along the ditch.”
“I know.”
“Return before supper.”
“I know.”
“Mr. Addams seems friendly.”
“Marsh met him. I gathered that he appreciates vehicles and grand declarations.”
Cordelia paused at the door. “Mrs. Addams has a daughter named Wednesday.”
Enid’s hand tightened around the basket handle. “Wednesday?”
“Wednesday Addams.”
“That is either the coolest name I’ve ever heard or a lifelong burden she’s committed to out of spite.”
“Perhaps ask her.”
“I’m delivering honey, not conducting an interview.”
“Of course.”
Enid narrowed her eyes. “You’re smug.”
“I’m fifty-six years old, I own acreage, and I know when to send cookies down a road. Smugness is one of the rewards.”
Basket tucked against her hip, Enid walked down the road in the fading afternoon, her boots finding familiar firm places along the gravel verge. The Hargrove Farmhouse appeared larger at ground level compared to the hillside, its dark brick front rising behind the bare vine lattice and black shutters. Near the garden, the son was kneeling beside a section of old stone wall, measuring something with string while an object beside him resembled either a toolbox or a municipal concern.
He looked up when Bart approached. “That dog is huge.”
“His name’s Bartholomew. Or Bart when he’s being cute.”
The boy stood, considering Bart. “Can he pull a sled?”
“He can. Mostly he chooses whether the sled has earned his cooperation.”
“I’m Pugsley.”
“Enid. Neighborly basket delivery service.”
“Mother will like that. Father will kiss your hand if you give him the opportunity.”
“Good warning.”
Pugsley pointed toward the front porch. “They’re inside. Wednesday’s in the upper study. She comes down after she reaches two thousand.”
“Two thousand what?”
“Words she plans to keep. Sometimes more get killed first.”
Enid stared at him for a second. “That somehow answered less than it explained.”
“She’s writing a murder novel.”
“As one does..”
Pugsley returned to his wall. Bart studied him for another moment before proceeding toward the porch beside Enid, whose heartbeat had acquired unnecessary speed.
One of the front doors opened before she reached it. The woman appeared at the entrance wearing a black knit dress, a dark shawl, and an expression so calm that Enid immediately understood why Cordelia had approved of her. Beauty around Briarthorn usually meant polished mothers from Charlotte arriving in boots too clean for the fields. Morticia Addams, however, looked like beauty was declared illegal and she decided to practice it in defiance.
“Enid Sinclair,” the woman greeted. “What a pleasure.”
“Hi. Mrs. Addams? My aunt sent this over. Welcome-to-the-mountain essentials. Mostly edible and practical, plus one sheep ornament whose emotional state remains unclear.”
Morticia accepted the basket, her dark eyes moving over its contents with genuine approval. “How kind. Please thank Cordelia. She has already improved this winter considerably.”
“I think she feels the same. She was really impressed by your flower greenhouse.”
“My dahlia becomes temperamental when moved. I appreciate temperamental living things; they often reward devotion.”
“That tracks with this farm too, except our temperamental living things are mostly trees, chickens, and relatives.”
A smile touched Morticia’s mouth. “Then our households share foundational principles.”
Behind her, the hall opened into the old house, where a fire glowed in a front room and several dark cases rested near the base of the central flight. Gomez appeared from a doorway holding a glass of red wine.
“Ah! A radiant knight from the forest kingdom!” he proclaimed, setting the glass aside and approaching with both hands open. “Gomez Addams. Your uncle Marsh is a prince among men and a guardian of machinery.”
“He’ll be glad somebody finally appreciates the tractor at the appropriate emotional level.”
“Appreciates? I adore it already.” Gomez stopped before offering his hand. “Come in, come in. You bring gifts; we shall respond with hospitality of questionable normality.”
“Oh, I should get back before supper. Cordelia mainly wanted me to deliver the basket.”
“You must allow us to reciprocate another day,” Morticia said. “Wednesday would be pleased to meet you.”
From the upper room came the sudden, rapid strike of typewriter keys, brisk enough to make Enid glance toward the ceiling.
Gomez’s face brightened further. “Our daughter is immersed in an arsenic-related crisis.”
“Fictional?” Enid asked.
“At present.”
“Good distinction.”
Morticia handed the basket to Gomez, who received the honey with the solemnity of a ceremonial relic. “Wednesday has chosen the study facing your farm for her work. Your trees appear to have captured her interest.”
Enid tried for an ordinary expression and received very limited cooperation from her face. “Our trees do have a certain appeal. Mostly to people who enjoy Christmas and people who enjoy killing them for Christmas.”
“Wednesday favors the second interpretation.”
“Then she might really like it here.”
Another burst of typing sounded above, followed by silence.
Enid pictured the small girl in black at the desk near the window, composing a book about poison while her family received strangers with cider concentrate and funeral-home elegance. Every sensible expectation regarding tourist renters had been replaced by something stranger and, therefore, substantially more interesting.
A scrape of boot against porch boards made Bart turn his head.
Pugsley had reached the steps, coiling his measuring string around one palm. “Wednesday says visitors interrupt her quota, but she comes down for the dog.”
Morticia lifted an eyebrow. “Wednesday has yet to meet the dog.”
“She will come down for him once she sees him.”
Bart sat by Enid’s leg, majestic and apparently willing to participate in whatever prediction had been made about his influence.
“Bart’s extremely selective about who gets his time,” she said.
“Then they may enjoy each other,” Morticia replied.
High above the entry hall, a study door opened.
Enid’s entire awareness drew upward before she could arrange a casual response. One footstep sounded beyond the upper landing, then another. Gomez looked pleased. Morticia looked quietly entertained. Pugsley moved aside to give Bart a clear view of the inner hall. Bart, however, rose from his place beside Enid and placed one paw onto the threshold.
Before the girl from the window reached the top of the flight, the cider house bell rang across the road: three sharp peals, Cordelia’s signal for Enid when a task had gone wrong or supper required rescuing from an avoidable disaster.
She released a breath she had failed to realize she was holding. “That’s me. It probably means Dale sold somebody the display wreath or Marsh set something down and forgot where.”
“How tragic,” Gomez declared. “We were moments from a proper introduction.”
“Tomorrow,” Morticia said, her gaze resting on Enid with a calm certainty that made the suggestion resemble an appointment already written into a ledger.
Enid backed from the threshold, raising one mittened hand toward the Addamses. “Thanks for accepting the aggressively practical welcome basket. Tell Wednesday I said—” She stopped, caught by the problem of sending a greeting to a girl she had yet to meet and already thought about far too often. “Tell her the trees are available for observation at normal business hours.”
Morticia’s smile deepened. “I shall tell her exactly that.”
Bart hesitated on the porch, staring into the hall while the unseen footsteps above paused. Enid clicked her tongue, and he finally turned, descending the steps at her side. Together they headed up the road toward Briarthorn, the cider house bell ringing once more in the distance.
Behind her, from the doorway of the Hargrove house, a girl’s calm question reached the porch just after Enid had crossed beyond clear hearing.
“Who was here?”
Enid resisted the urge to turn around until she reached the bend in the road, where bare trees partly concealed the brick house and the hearse in its drive. Only then did she look back. A dark figure stood just inside the front entrance beside Morticia, small and composed, braids forward over a black sweater, her attention fixed along the route Enid had taken.
Bart stopped beside Enid and looked back too.
“Well,” Enid murmured, attempting lightness, “that was totally normal.”
The dog huffed and resumed walking.
Enid followed, ignoring the spark of hope that surfaced with a stranger’s name.