Down on the Charm

by E L Wilder

  She circled the courtyard, peeking in doors and discovering one surprise after another. A woodworking shop called The Carving Artist tucked in the southwest tower. A textile and clothing atelier called the Knits of the Roundtable in the hayloft. An organic produce stand operating out of an old donkey wagon, a quaint hand-painted sign announcing, perhaps unnecessarily, “Veggies for Sale.” Parked beside the stand was a large refrigerated truck with Bennett Farms stenciled on the side and the tagline “Farm-to-Table Fresh.”

  Even though it was a fair summer day, she felt suddenly too hot. Her breath came in strangled gasps. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The Bennett family had been charged for centuries with guarding this land, keeping it safe and keeping it secret. And here it was exposed, filled with strange faces and being converted into some bucolic shopping mall—a hipster-inspired, pun-plagued, farm-fresh nightmare.

  She felt lightheaded and on the verge of being sick. She steadied herself on the edge of the donkey cart and tried to tell herself she was actually being melodramatic this time, but the message didn’t take. The melodrama was real, not just in what she was seeing here at that moment but in the potential of things to come. Of what might follow once the loading trucks were gone, and the construction debris had been cleared, and the scaffolding deconstructed. School kids. Employees. Shoppers. Ungodly mobs of tourists.

  Hazel was dumbstruck. Was her sister responsible for all of this? Impossible. Juniper had always been the practical one, the steady rock that the Bennett family’s future would be built upon. Devoted wife, inspirational mother, dauntless plowwoman, simple farmer.

  Summoning disaster in spades was Hazel’s job.

  She had to find Juniper now and talk some sense into her before it was too late and a purveyor of artisanal ice cubes moved in or a vegan coffee shop laid claim to the southwest tower.

  Though, honestly, at that moment she could go for a good cup of coffee, maybe iced but preferably Irish.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Oh no it isn’t!”

  The shout cut through both the din of the courtyard and the unbridled panic galloping through Hazel’s thoughts—though throat-punched, drop-kicked, and pinned them for a three-count was more accurate. A woman emerged at the top of the staircase leading to the Doughn’t Even Bakery. She wore a bib apron and hairnet and a dusting of flour, but Hazel knew her instantly and would have even if she’d been gone for a hundred years. For the moment at least, she cast aside all of her worries, and her heart bloomed with joy.

  “Charlie Trinity Campbell!” Hazel squealed, alarmed at the pitch of her voice but unable and unwilling to check herself.

  The woman grinned, whipping off her hairnet and unleashing a glorious afro, its corkscrew curls drifting nearly to her shoulders like a canopy of settling fireworks.

  “Hazel Roisin Bennett!” Charlie shouted back so loud she likely turned every head in a three-mile radius. Hazel rushed forward and met Charlie at the base of the stairs in a hug that stretched the line between friendly greeting and wrestling maneuver. “Or should I call you Helena Rose?” Charlie added playfully.

  “Shhh,” Hazel hissed into Charlie’s ear. “I’m going incognito.”

  “Well, I must be dead,” hooted Charlie, not bothering to adjust her volume for the proximity, “because the afterlife is the only place I thought I’d ever see you again.”

  “Hey now,” said Hazel. “I’ve been busy, but point taken.”

  “Oh I know you’ve been busy. I’ve been keeping up with your weekly exploits when I’m at the Genny.”

  Hazel cringed. “Ugh. I was afraid of that.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t believe half of what I read, and I haven’t read half of what I believe.”

  “Charlie,” said Hazel, pulling back from the hug. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I used to say the same thing to my grandmamma,” said Charlie, pointing an admonishing finger at her. “But believe you me, it makes perfect sense. Now, if I’m not dead, what the hell is Hazel R. Bennett doing back in little ol’ Vermont? Are you shooting a movie here?”

  Hazel blushed. “I thought you said you read the tabloids.”

  Charlie shrugged and grinned. “Just what I can before it’s my turn at the checkout. And I read about this one online. It is everywhere.”

  “Great . . .”

  “Girl, I don’t know what you learned while you were away,” she said. “But you got horrible at picking men.”

  “Hey!” Had anyone else made that comment it would have stung, but somehow, coming from Charlie, it was exactly what she needed to hear. Nobody aside from Gammy had ever been able to give it to her straight and true like Charlie Campbell. Unleavened, no sugar.

  “Oh no,” said Charlie, wincing. “I’ve already opened my big mouth. I’ve spent the whole day making doughnuts for some corporate retreat up in Burlington and I have more oil burns than a knight at a castle siege.” She held her arms up as exhibit A. “It’s a bad excuse, but it’s the only one I have.”

  “It’s okay,” said Hazel with a grudging nod, slowly cracking a smile. “It’s true.”

  Charlie glanced over Hazel’s shoulder, and she cocked an eyebrow, then muttered, almost to herself, “I should be Miss Cleo because I just told your past, present, and future!” She punctuated each word with a sassy finger jab and then finished by dramatically pointing across the courtyard.

  It only took Hazel a second to spot the target, a man on a tall ladder touching up the barn’s green trim with broad and steady strokes of his paintbrush. He stopped for a moment to remove his ball cap and wipe his forehead. Hazel’s heart lurched in her chest. Any more cardiac gymnastics like this today and the only result of her homecoming would be her death.

  She instantly knew the tanned complexion, the hopeless nest of bronze hair, the relaxed posture.

  “Is that . . .”

  “Tyler Cortez,” Charlie said, finishing the thought for her.

  No, no, no, Hazel thought, her mind whirring like an out-of-control fan blade. This is all wrong. The Bennetts could be here. Charlie could be here. But he is not supposed still to be here . . .

  Hazel stumbled for something to say, but her tongue suddenly felt uprooted, disconnected from the rest of her. Finally it managed to flap out a few coherent words. “Does he work on the farm?”

  “Nope,” Charlie replied, a fiendish curve at the corners of her mouth. “Ladle Creek Construction. They’re the company your sister hired to fix up the East Barn.”

  Hazel could hardly believe it—both of her childhood besties here in the same space.

  “Not that I’m not excited to see you two here,” Hazel said cautiously. “But what are you doing here? What the heck is going on around here?”

  “I work here, girl. Apprentice baker and proud of it. And someday with enough burns, I just might make head baker.” She winked. “I got ambitions. Just like your sister.”

  “And him?” Hazel asked. What of his ambitions?

  “Tyler?” asked Charlie. “Just paying the bills. This week it’ll be Ladle Creek Construction, next week he might be down at the Genny serving creemees . . . and fixing the machine when it breaks. Jack-of-all-trades, that one.”

  Hazel shook her head defiantly. This couldn’t be the life Tyler had carved out for himself. She wanted, no she needed, answers. She started in his direction, but Charlie put a hand on her shoulder. “I wouldn’t do that,” she said. “Now might not be the best time to reappear. His bossman is not the union-supporting, loitering-loving type, if you catch my drift. Honestly, I’m not sure what that guy loves other than ticking people off all the livelong day.”

  As if on cue, a man of generous proportions—horizontally if not vertically—appeared at the base of Tyler’s ladder, a bouquet of shouts and curses at the ready. Something about Tyler not being able to paint his way out of a paper bag but certainly being able to paint his way out of a job. “Speak of the devil,” said Charlie. “Eric Moore in the flesh. He’
s in rare form today,” she added, clucking her tongue. “Even for him.”

  Hazel noted the angry-looking blonde woman had reemerged from her shop and was beelining toward Eric.

  “Oh now it’s going to be a battle royale,” said Charlie. “That there is Ruby Northinger, owner of Kindred Spirits, purveyor of the finest whiskey you’ve never tasted and recent addition to a lengthy list of people who would like to see Eric Moore’s face on the underside of their bootheel.”

  Ruby reached Eric and quickly tore into him. Whatever she was saying was lost on Hazel from this distance. What wasn’t lost was Tyler’s relief at the diversion. He looked around, seemingly checking how many people had witnessed his dressing down, and then spotted Charlie and Hazel across the courtyard.

  Charlie raised her hand in a sheepish, apologetic wave, adding a quiet, “Sorry, dude,” that he couldn’t possibly have heard. Tyler quickly visored his eyes with his hand and leaned precariously in their direction, doing a double-take as he registered Hazel’s presence.

  Charlie snorted in a fit of laughter. “Seeing is not believing, apparently.”

  Tyler turned suddenly back to his work, painting with a swordfighter’s ferocity, while the battle raged at the base of his ladder.

  “Oh, Tyler,” Charlie moaned. “As smooth as chunky peanut butter.”

  At least some things never change, Hazel thought.

  “I could watch this all day—seriously, all day,” said Charlie, “but I need to go earn some more oil burns before I create my own angry boss and get tossed out with the day-olds. You should meet me back here at quitting time.”

  “I’d love to,” said Hazel. “I’d give you my cell, but I haven’t turned it on since I got here and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.”

  “No worries, mon amie,” she said. “I myself am permanently sans phone.”

  “Really.” A little tech detox was one thing, but there was no need to go full draconian. The thought of being completely without a phone, or the option of one, struck her with more than a little terror.

  “No life plan or data plan for this girl,” Charlie explained. “We’ll do it the old-fashioned way. I’ll walk out to the old Bennett casa once I clean up the joint. And I’ll try to rescue Rapunzel over there and bring him along. If he lives through the day.”

  The thought of facing Tyler filled Hazel with equal parts joy and dread. It had been an emotional enough day; perhaps that one reunion could wait.

  “Charlie, I don’t know . . .”

  Charlie waved away her concerns. “Pshaw! You’re going to need to talk to him at some point.”

  Given his reaction upon seeing her, Hazel wasn’t so sure Tyler agreed, but she smiled politely and responded with what little enthusiasm she could muster. “The old gang back together.”

  Charlie threw her arms around Hazel’s neck one last time. “It’s so good to see your flesh face and not your print face.”

  After Hazel had muttered her own goodbyes, Charlie retreated up the stairs and disappeared inside the bakery, the screen door banging behind her.

  Hazel spared one last glance for Tyler, stranded atop the ladder. She could never have imagined that everything would fall back into place so imperfectly—the solitude she’d craved had shattered, but at least, among the faces, she saw friends and family.

  She scanned the courtyard once more, this time looking for any signs of her sister. Hazel’s gaze fell on the tractor garage’s massive sliding door. It hung ajar.

  Of course.

  She crossed the courtyard and slipped inside.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Hazel followed the sound of Juniper’s cursing through the rows of dilapidated tractors. A better name for the tractor garage might have been the tractor museum. The garage’s back door hung wide open, which did little to dispel the mustiness that hung in the air but at least provided enough light that she wouldn’t bang her shin. In the East Barn, that was sometimes the best for which one could hope.

  Hazel found her sister diligently working beneath one of the ancient machines, her Carhartt-clad legs sticking out into the aisle, her boots kicking the floor in time with each curse and clank of metal.

  “I hope you don’t use that mouth around Harper and Link,” said Hazel.

  The feet stopped drumming.

  “No way.” Juniper’s voice crept from beneath the tractor like an animal from its burrow. With much effort, she dragged and scooted her way out from beneath the ancient machine, gripping a wrench, her frontside blackened from face to T-shirt with grease. She looked barely a day older than the last time Hazel had seen her—though she sported a new pixie undercut with pink highlights, and her vibrant sleeves of tattoos had crept further up her forearms. Beneath the blatant badassery was a devoted wife, tireless mother, gifted farmer, and relentless pain in the ass. But a fool enough to open Bennett Farms to the wider world? Hazel still had a hard time believing it.

  “You should get one of those wheely things that mechanics use,” Hazel suggested.

  “A creeper.”

  “Great name,” Hazel mocked. “I’ll stick with wheely things.”

  After a moment of silence, Juniper grinned from ear to ear.

  “Here,” said Hazel, holding down a hand to her sister.

  “I’m covered with grease and—” she started to say, but Hazel grabbed hold anyway, hoisted Juniper to her feet, and pulled her into a hug.

  “And now so am I,” she said, burying her face in Juniper’s shoulder.

  If Hazel’s homecoming continued being a parade of crushing hugs and weepy reunions punctuated with equally crushing nostalgia and disappointment, she would need to start carrying a family-sized box of tissues at all times.

  “What are you doing here?” Juniper asked, still gobsmacked.

  “I heard you were hiring,” Hazel replied. “And I happen to be looking for work. So long as it’s nothing that’s going to mess up my pedi.” Juniper shot her a withering glare. Hazel winked slyly, and added, “I kid, I kid. Mostly.”

  Juniper grinned, but it quickly faded. Her eyebrows knitted together, and she chewed at her lower lip for a moment before speaking. “Hazey . . . I never thought I’d see you here again. Is everything okay?”

  Everything? How about nothing. Hazel didn’t know where to start, so she just dodged the question. “I’m about a decade overdue for a visit. I needed to see family and I figured this was cheaper than flying everyone out again. Besides, I didn’t even get to see you on the last go-around.”

  Juniper smirked. “Farmers don’t take vacations, you know. Especially this one.”

  It was true. Juniper and her husband, David, had stayed behind when Hazel had flown the family out to LA. As far as she knew, neither of them had stepped away from the farm in years. Yet Hazel saw no look of weariness in her sister’s eyes, only a sparkle of youthful vigor and enthusiasm.

  “Have you had a look around yet?” her sister asked, flashing her distinctive and infectious crooked grin.

  Hazel had been ready to give her sister an earful for what was happening to Bennett Farms, but now that they were face-to-face she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  “The farm looks incredible, Juni,” she lied.

  Juniper blushed, her standard response to praise, her already-sanguine complexion growing downright sunset-like. “We’ll see if it was worthwhile after the grand opening. And if I can ever get this iron beast breathing again.” She whacked the tractor with her wrench. Hazel winced, and not only because of the metallic clang. There was that phrase again. Grand opening. It was like fingernails down the chalkboard of her soul. She tried to ignore it and turn her attention back to the tractor.

  The machine was a goliath of riveted black metal and brass fittings that looked more like a train engine than a tractor. She’d probably played on it at some point as a child, but she couldn’t be certain. The barn was full of antique tractors, and she’d never had an eye, or a heart, for these things. A tractor was a trac
tor was a tractor, and she would be hard-pressed to pick any of the Bennett family heirlooms out of a lineup. But now, as a grown woman, she caught a glimmer of what she suspected her sister had always seen—that there was beauty there. It wasn’t the beauty of fashion and high culture (the kinds of things that had always caught Hazel’s eye), but the hard and unyielding beauty of solid craftsmanship and the promise of hard, honest work made just a little bit easier.

  “It’s a steam tractor,” said Juniper, running her hand down the length of it as she launched into a history report on the antique (their great-great-great grandfather had paid for its construction), including her own travails in trying to repair it over the last two months. Hazel listened, watching her sister’s animated lecture with quiet awe.

  Juniper had been such a tomboy, and while Hazel had been more interested in books and fashion and teenage drama, Juniper had dressed in her grandfather’s too-big flannel shirts, sleeves rolled up, and worked alongside Ronnie and the farmhands, fixing farm equipment, shoveling manure, harvesting apples, shearing sheep, milking cows—any of the unending thankless tasks required to keep the farm operating and the manor standing. She saw only the day-to-day operations of a farm and cared very little about the former grandeur of the Bennett family itself, the nooks and crannies and secrets of the estate . . . and the magic that permeated it. She’d been too sensible for that.

  So it should have come as no surprise that Juniper had cast aside centuries of caution. She didn’t feel beholden to the family history. And besides that, she hadn’t been born with the mark. Maybe she would have felt differently if she’d felt the burden of it bearing down on the back of her neck.

  “I’ve restored and repainted the whole body. Now if I could only get her insides working,” Juniper said, finishing up her speech and patting the tractor affectionately, “she’ll ride at the head of the farmyard parade on the day of the grand opening.”