Down on the Charm
Page 21
“Next to ‘a girl wrecked my truck,’ ” he said.
“Touché.”
The clopping of hooves and revving of tractor engines echoed down the road. At long last, the parade line emerged from the Tanglewood, setting the crowd hooting and hollering.
An apple-red tractor—strictly the non-steam variety—lead the way. David sat in the driver’s seat. Hazel noted that he looked just as tired, but that he also glowed as he waved enthusiastically to the crowd. The tractor pulled a wagon decorated with hay bales and a few antique farm implements—a butter churn, pitchforks, and threshing flails.
A banner stretched over the wagon read, “Still Farm Fresh After 250 Years!”
The float featured life-sized cutouts of Bennetts throughout the ages. A few caught Hazel’s eye, including a petticoat-wearing matron marked as Hestia Bennett and a Revolutionary War Minuteman marked as Theophilus Cincinnatus Bennett.
“My man, Theo,” said Charlie, thumping her chest with a closed fist.
Harper and Link stood amidst the cutouts, each dressed in period costume—Link as a Union Army soldier in honor of Abner Bennett, who died at the Battle of Gettysburg, and Harper dressed in a floral peasant blouse and rose-tinted glasses as a young Amy Bennett.
This was one of the crowning pieces of their Athlons, and as a result mom had gone a little light on the research paper.
A series of floats followed, each pulled by pickup truck or tractor or horses each dedicated to a business in the East Barn. There was the Knits of the Round Table float featuring the three young woman—and an old woman who looked like she’d rather be doing just about anything else.
The Doughn’t Even Bakery float passed. Bretta stood on the float beside a hay-bale shaped and spray-painted to look like a giant cake. Her black braid whipped about wildly as she threw fresh croissants in paper bags to the crowd. “Didn’t want to be on the float, Charlie?” Hazel asked.
Charlie made a face. “Oh heck no. No way I’m dancing in a moving vehicle after what happened. I’m still bruised in places that were never meant for bruising, mon amie.”
Noticeably absent from the parade, at least in Hazel’s mind, was representation from Kindred Spirits and Ladle Creek Construction. It turned out somebody had submitted a few documents to the authorities that really piqued their interest. Both businesses had all but dissolved in the last two weeks as Ruby Northinger and Jess Tully, along with the partners at CDK Ventures, were embroiled in their own legal troubles.
At last, a team of horses came into sight pulling a black carriage.
Hazel gasped.
She hadn’t seen the fully restored carriage yet. Tommy Wilkins had done one heck of a job. “Tyler,” she gasped. “It looks amazing. I never thought I’d say this, but Tommy Wilkins is a genius.”
Juniper sat in the driver’s box, reins in hand as she effortlessly guided the team. Their mom was seated next to her, looking every bit the regal gypsy queen, an accordion of bracelets jangling with each wave to the crowd.
“I thought Juniper was going to ride at the head of the parade,” said Tyler.
“She was,” acknowledge Hazel, “but she decided that wasn’t in the spirit of the new Bennett Farms. It’s all these people that are going to make the farm great.”
Juniper spotted Hazel and pointed to her and then tapped the seat next to her.
Hazel smiled and shook her head.
Even though she hadn’t received the homecoming she had originally envisioned, she thought that perhaps she had received the homecoming she needed. For the first time in a long time, she felt centered, even though she wasn’t center stage. There was a quiet beauty in her newfound anonymity. Here, nobody cared that she was Helena Rose. Nobody asked to take a selfie with her. She was free to be Hazel Bennett, and for the first time in a decade, she was content to make it up as she went.
“I’ll catch up with you guys later,” she said to Charlie and Tyler, and then she set off, keeping pace with the carriage until it had passed the crowd and was starting to round the far edge of the barn. Then she dashed forward and jumped up onto the side step.
“Hey, you!” Hazel hollered up at Juniper.
Juniper turned back, beaming. “We did it!”
“You did it,” she corrected. “I just jumped on for the ride.”
“Ha! I might still be festering in a jail cell if not for you.”
They were silent for a moment, the three of them. “I still can’t believe it,” her mother finally said. “Ronnie was a part of this family as much as anyone. Let this be a lesson to us all. Family can’t be ignored. It’s something we must continue to cultivate and tend to.”
“Otherwise it withers,” added Hazel thoughtfully.
Her mother looked at her, a naked expression of pride gleaming in her eyes. She kissed Juniper on the side of the head. “My girls. Home again. Now get inside, Hazel, before you get yourself run over.”
Hazel managed to open the carriage door with her casted arm, albeit awkwardly, and jumped inside, settling on one of the plush seats. She was pleased to see it no longer exhaled dust clouds. She pulled the curtain up and looked out at the passing fields dotted with grazing sheep and cows. It was good to be home.
A voice drifted into her head like dandelion seeds on a dull summer breeze. You could at least pull the shade back down. Some of us are trying to nap.
Clancy lay, curled in a ball on the opposite seat, nearly invisible against the black velvet interior.
“You don’t have to be so catty about it.”
I told you before. I am not a cat.
“How am I supposed to know? You still won’t tell me a darn thing.”
Clancy yawned and stretched, turned circles, and wildly flicked his twin tails.
Fine, fine, fine. I think you’ve proven you have at least a modicum of potential. Maybe it’s time we got familiar.
NOTES FROM THE FARM
I hope you enjoyed your time on Bennett Farms with Hazel, Charlie, Tyler, and the rest of the lovers, laborers, and loiterers on Bennett Farms. This is only a beginning. There are twelve books planned for the Farm to Fable Paranormal Cozy Mystery series, each of them packed with the same sort of action, mystery, and humor you found in Down on the Charm. What’s next? What really lies beyond the Postern? Will Hazel ever find the Book of Bennett? And what’s with her weird dream about the hedge maze? All of these will be answered in good time.
PREORDER BOOK 2
Book 2, A Familiar Sense of Dead, is coming on December 12, 2019. You can preorder your copy today to ensure the next mystery on Bennett Farms shows up on your Kindle on day one!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
They say it takes a village to get things done, but I somehow got by with a ragtag team of superdedicated and supertalented individuals. First and foremost, I want to thank my spouse whose endless and unwavering support, keen editorial eye, and spot-on feedback made this book so much better than it would have otherwise been. I owe a lot to Gemma Thorne, who has designed my gorgeous covers and walked me through the publications process in painstaking detail, answering my thousand-and-one questions. Endless thanks are in order for my two beta readers, my brother Devin and my friend Meg, both of whom turned this thing around in record time and pointed out typos and errors that just defied human logic. And last, but not least, to my readers and my three children, who make this whole endeavor worthwhile. The magic of writing, like the magic of Bennett Farms, was meant to be shared.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
E.L. Wilder here! I’m a Vermont author and the misguided creator of the Farm to Fable Paranormal Cozy Mysteries and the Homespun Psychic Cozy Mysteries. Vermont is a contradiction of nature and culture, tradition and progress, practicality and whim, maple syrup and Ben and Jerry’s. And I am nothing if not a product of my environment. Especially the Ben & Jerry’s. Fortunately, when I’m not writing or editing, I stay fit by tending to a flock of children and chickens. To be clear, those are two separate flocks (and I try not to confuse them, despite their striking similarities).
MORE FROM E.L. WILDER
Farm to Fable Paranormal Cozy Mysteries
Down on the Charm (Book 1)
A Familiar Sense of Dead (Book 2)—coming December 12, 2019
Scrying Over Spelled Milk (Book 3)—coming January 9, 2020
Homespun Psychic Cozy Mysteries
(this series is currently exclusive to my newsletter subscribers)
Poisoned Alpacas and Psychic Stitches (Book 1)
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PREORDER BOOK 2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONNECT WITH E.L. WILDER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MORE FROM E.L. WILDER