Below the Tree Line Page 15

  Throughout her exploration she looked for signs of earlier timbering, but if any had been done, it hadn’t been in recent years. Perhaps not even during her lifetime. When this had been Ezekial Bodrun’s land, he’d done nothing with it except perhaps enjoy the solitude or pull out a windfall tree for firewood. But this piece was a good distance from his cabin, so Felicity looked for signs that he might have camped on the lot in earlier years. She found nothing except the usual evidence of recent picnickers who didn’t take their trash with them.

  After a while she crossed onto her own property and followed the slope up to the first of the two plots Old Zeke had sold to her dad, land that had never been timbered and now welcomed a bobcat. The lack of timbering seemed to be a theme in Zeke’s life, though not in her father’s. Felicity walked along the edge, into the center, and settled on a boulder. She tried to see what her dad or Zeke had seen, what had made them so interested in this piece. Fifty years ago, approximately when the transaction took place, it would have looked almost the same. But truthfully, it wasn’t much of a piece of land. It all looked plain enough. Some good trees, but nothing spectacular. She headed back to Sasha’s plot, wondering what she was missing.

  Pulling out a canvas bag, Felicity began picking up old beer cans, plastic water bottles, scraps of plastic, and other detritus of the modern era. She carried the bag hooked onto her belt loop. She found most of the trash within a few feet of the stone wall and the dirt road, but occasionally she found something at the other end of the lot, along the northeastern boundary where the holes were most recent.

  After two hours, Felicity knew she’d done enough. She sat on the stone wall, slipped off her backpack, and pulled out a sandwich. The road hadn’t been used for general traffic in years, and she’d only used it once recently. This area had the kind of peace that most people never experience.

  She began to eat her lunch. Beyond the trees to her west she could hear cars passing on the old road. Not far from here, Clarissa Jenkins had died in a crash. Felicity lowered her sandwich and looked behind her. She’d laughed when she’d first heard the story about buried treasure, thinking it the kind of story first graders heard in school that sent them running home and out into the back yard to dig up their parents’ gardens. But someone had believed it strongly enough to spend hours and hours digging into a patch of useless ground. The warm winter had meant an early thaw and someone had returned to take advantage of that, moving from spot to spot despite repeated disappointment. Felicity turned again to the sound of traffic filtering through the trees.

  Clarissa was dead. Sasha was dead. Could they have been murdered for this? Could someone have taken their lives for a myth about a piece of worthless land? All she could think about were the dozens of holes and little mounds scattered through the wood lot. All this couldn’t be worth the lives of two vibrant, decent women. She felt her heart sink at the thought.

  Felicity emerged from Old Town Road onto the paved highway. Ahead of her, parked along the shoulder, sat a black Jeep SUV and inside was Marilyn Kvorak. When Felicity approached within thirty feet, the real estate agent climbed out and walked a few feet to meet her. In her high heels, Marilyn wasn’t about to walk much farther down the road, and Felicity didn’t expect her to.

  “It looks like you’ve been out hiking,” Marilyn said.

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of isn’t an answer, but I’ll take it. Can I drive you back to your house?” Felicity climbed into the passenger seat and Marilyn drove them the short distance to the front door. “Got a minute?”

  “I figured you didn’t come out here to help random hitchhikers.” Felicity got out and headed for the house. She went around to the side, slid off her boots, and opened the unlocked kitchen door. Marilyn followed her.

  “You know everyone locks doors now.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Felicity dropped her backpack onto a chair and bent to greet Shadow. When that was done, she went to Miss Anthropy curled on her chair and let her know she was still the number one animal in the house. The cat purred. She went to the stove and filled a pot with water, which she set to boil. “So what’s up?”

  “Not a lot.” Marilyn found two mugs in the cupboard and put them on the kitchen table. “I think tea in the afternoon is just right. Not so much caffeine that I can’t sleep but enough to get me through the rest of the day.”

  “And night. I heard you’re showing houses at night now.” Felicity stretched out her feet and wiggled her toes. Her socks had holes in the big toe and she could feel one developing in the heel. Darning wasn’t her favorite activity and she wondered how long the socks would last before she’d have to get serious about mending. Or buying a new pair. Was she the only person left who still darned socks? “That’s got to be hard on the sellers.”

  “Sellers want to sell, and I want them to sell for a good price, so we accommodate.” Marilyn poured boiling water over tea bags in mugs. “Tea bags okay?”

  Felicity thought it was a little late to ask, and since Marilyn seemed to be the hostess here, she said it was fine. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

  “I need your help.” Marilyn replaced the pot on the stove and sat down. “For some reason I always think you’ll have brown sugar in the sugar bowl or a jar of honey on the tea tray. You being so earthy and all.” She dipped a spoon into the sugar bowl and scooped out a heaping teaspoon of refined white and poured it into her tea.

  “Earthy?”

  “You know, healthy food and all that.”

  “There’s honey in the cupboard and brown sugar in there too if you want. But you seem to be okay.” Felicity watched a second teaspoon pour into the mug. “But the chemical makeup is the same. Sugar is sugar.”

  “You’re so down to earth.”

  “Hence, earthy.” Felicity added a little sugar and then a dollop of milk. “So, you must have something difficult to ask me because you’re not usually so uncomfortable with the small talk.” She stirred her tea.

  “I just want your help.”

  “You said that.”

  “Do you think I’m missing something in life?”

  Felicity stirred her tea and stared at her. “You came here to ask me that?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “You live in a garden apartment. I thought you loved it there.”

  “I do. But everyone I know wants a yard with a garden and all that stuff.” Marilyn sipped her tea but Felicity could see her watching her out of the corner of her eye.

  “Okay, Marilyn. This isn’t like you.” Felicity swung around and leaned on the table, facing her.

  “I hate myself sometimes. I get so smarmy.”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m here because my client insists I make an offer even if you reject it right off the bat.” Marilyn raised her hand and shut her eyes. “Just hear me out.”

  “I’ve already said no.”

  “I know you have and I told him you weren’t interested, but he said to make the offer. Spell out all the terms. If you don’t like it, he won’t bother you anymore. Okay?” Marilyn pushed her tea away and Felicity guessed the second heaping teaspoon of sugar had been the result of nerves. “He seems to think you’ll be interested.”

  “I wonder why,” Felicity said, more to herself than Marilyn. “What does he look like?”

  “What difference does that make?” The real estate agent looked genuinely confused. “He’s not from around here.”

  “Okay. Make your pitch.”

  And Marilyn did.

  “Do you know anything about him?” Felicity asked at the end of the speech. “I mean, how did he find out about us?”

  “How does anyone find out anything?”

  “Word of mouth, newspapers, television.”

  Marilyn picked up her mug to take another sip, noticed it was empty now, and put it down with
a frown. “What’s you point?”

  “Does this Mr. Gentile know anyone else here, other than you, I mean?”

  “Don’t know. Never asked.” Marilyn shrugged.

  “I asked you what he looks like. Is he tall, thin, clean-shaven?”

  Marilyn studied her mug, looked around the kitchen, and then at Felicity. “You have a point to all these questions?”

  “Maybe. So, what about him?”

  “I vetted him, Felicity. That’s what you need to know. Don’t you trust me?”

  Even though it was late afternoon by the time Marilyn drove away, Felicity headed out to her vegetable garden to begin removing the pine boughs that had been protecting the plants throughout the winter. The weather had been so mild during the cold months that she could almost promise everyone an early crop from overwintered vegetables, but she’d restrained herself to avoid costly and embarrassing setbacks. She desperately wanted the CSA garden to be a success, and she went to work with Marilyn’s words ringing in her ears.

  The reasoning the enthusiastic buyer had given for wanting a chance at her property had seemed, well, reasonable. Tall Tree Farm offered solitude, or isolation depending on your point of view. There was no one nearby to complain about the smell from the sheep. The farm wasn’t surrounded by newcomers eager for the pleasures of country life and the conveniences of the more sophisticated urban world. Farmers in this area were less likely to find strangers enjoying their land, taking photographs, walking the dog, or finding a nice spot for a picnic. Nor would they find suburbanites dragging away what they thought of as free firewood or free stones for their garden wall.

  Felicity gathered up another load of pine boughs and carried them to a large pile. She flung them onto it and looked around. Her farm, she had to admit, was not manicured. No one would ever get the sense that this was a place for visitors, with nicely situated animal pens, polished saddles waiting for riders (even if there were no horses), an unexpected sprout of daffodils or other flowers in season. There were no paths leading into protected and picturesque groves, with a bench hewn from a log or a rusty seat pried loose from an old harvester.

  The price being offered was so high that it had taken her breath away. Yes, the man’s reason for the offer made sense, and yes, she appreciated not being cheated, and yes, Jeremy had turned down the offer Gentile made on his place, as she knew he would. But Marilyn had urged her to at least think about it, and Felicity promised she would. And she meant it. She would think hard on why this man who insisted on remaining a stranger wanted to pay at least three times what her property was worth. And how was it that Gentile seemed to know so much about the timbering practices in this area? Whoever he was, he seemed to know something she didn’t, and she was going to figure it out.

  Felicity was never more aware of the limitations of a working farm than when someone like Marilyn Kvorak pressed her to consider the alternative. And the alternative always seemed to highlight her weaknesses—an old farmhouse in constant need of repair (like any other old house), an old barn that looked ready to collapse (like every other old barn), a yard that looked like an auto shop had just moved out (tools nearby made work easier), and a series of paddocks that were picturesque only in photographs of rural poverty (painting a fence was a waste of money and time). But looks were deceiving. She knew that. And so did Marilyn.

  She pulled off more pine boughs, added them to the pile, and walked through the now-visible rows of overwintered vegetables. Beneath the straw, lumpy and gray, was the promise of a good start and an easier year. It was still too early to uncover everything, but Felicity was impatient. She knelt down. She lifted a clump of straw and peered underneath. Yes, there was the promise. For the first time in her life, she loved kale.

  Felicity replaced the straw and went down the beds, checking every few feet. Yes, she loved kale and she loved radishes and she loved parsnips. She didn’t really, but that hardly mattered, not this year. She was practically giddy with relief. She could feel her prospects improving. She could feel it down to her sweaty socks and callused heels. And not because of the offer for her land.

  Fifteen

  The next day, Felicity all but whistled her way through her morning chores, moving the sheep, mucking out the barn, filling grain bins, moving some of the straw covering, and mending another hole in the back wall of the barn. It wouldn’t do for a scrawny coyote to slither inside and eat her profits.

  By noon she was happy to step into a hot shower and think about her first harvest, which was really only days away. By the end of April she could be making her first deliveries, gaining not only grateful customers but a reputation for an early start. The O’Briens had traditionally had an early harvest because her dad always overwintered a few vegetables, but most people had stopped bothering with this practice. So here she was, outstanding, when in fact she was really rather ordinary. Felicity heard herself singing badly off key.

  She was still cheerful and almost ebullient as she pulled into the Berkshire Nursing Home over an hour away from West Woodbury. The building was two stories set on the edge of a small town, with tall windows on both floors facing the mountains. It was easy to see why families chose the place. Unlike the Pasquanata home, which was built in a meadow on a quiet road, the Berkshire home offered gorgeous views. Felicity wondered if the services could ever equal the view of the mountains through the seasons.

  Zenia Bodrun Callahan had a room on the first floor, at the end of a long corridor. Because Zenia could still walk, Helena had insisted her mother be given a room with access to the outdoors. “She likes getting out and smelling the fresh air and the dirt. She loves the smell of dirt,” Helena had told Felicity at the funeral.

  Felicity found the elderly woman in a chair by the window, a book lying open on her lap, one hand curled on the pages. But she hadn’t fallen asleep. She was staring out the window, caught in whatever reverie the late-winter sun had evoked. Felicity rapped lightly on the door. Zenia turned a curious face toward the sound.

  “I remember you.” The woman let both hands rest on the book now, her fingers splayed over the pages. Felicity positioned a chair for herself. “It was good of you to come to the service. And now I get a visit too.” Zenia smiled as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world for Felicity to drive over an hour to see her.

  Felicity offered her condolences again.

  “You don’t have to explain yourself. I know Sasha died in your woods.” The old woman grew sad for a moment. Her eyes were still a clean bright blue, and her white hair fell softly to a short ponytail caught with a black ribbon. Felicity could easily see what Helena would look like when she reached this age. “I’m not so vain as to think strangers want to visit me. What did you come for?”

  “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I’m always glad to talk about my family.”

  Felicity nodded. “Sasha was given a piece of land by your niece, Clarissa Jenkins. Do you know about this?”

  “As I recall, that plot was accessible from a road, not like some of the pieces my father purchased.” She turned to look out the window, where the sun pricked light from old leaves.

  “Yes, I’ve heard about some of those from your daughter.” Felicity paused, waiting for Zenia to turn back. “I’ve also been told that your dad and my dad, Walter O’Brien, were good friends years ago.”

  Zenia laughed, a sound like spring rain. “Thick as thieves, and sometimes I thought that metaphor was truer than not.” She closed her eyes and inhaled. “Oh, they could go on.” She opened her eyes and studied Felicity. “What is it you want to know? About something they did together?”

  “I know they had some land transaction that was important to my dad, but I don’t know the details. Were they going into timbering together, something like that?” Felicity sensed Zenia was still sharp and curious, and anything withheld would be by choice rather than disability.

  Zeni
a turned to the window again and grew pensive. “There was a piece of land your dad wanted, and my dad was glad to give it to him. They helped each other out, little things mostly, but that land seemed to be important to your dad. I don’t know why. It wasn’t worth anything. When my dad sold it, he told my mother they weren’t losing anything.” She paused. “We were poor, to be truthful. All we had was our land and most of it wasn’t worth much.”

  “Your dad never said why he wanted to give it to my dad?”

  Zenia shook her head. “I was young then and parents didn’t tell their children everything in those days.” She returned to smiling. “By the time I might have appreciated why it mattered to my dad he was off on something else. He took to traveling.” Zenia smiled as though imparting a great secret. “If someone had told me he was going to leave his beloved woodlands and travel around the country, I wouldn’t have believed them. Or him.”

  “But he did just that?”

  “He had a list of places he wanted to see and off he went. We never knew when he was coming back or if he was coming back.”

  “Where did he want to go?”

  “Oh, around and about, you know. A few places up in New Hampshire, and then up in Maine. My mother went with him a few times. She’d never been out of state, except maybe across the border into Vermont or New Hampshire. Maine seemed far away, and she had a good time, but she said trees are trees wherever you find them.”

  Felicity softly repeated this to herself. “Did she say anything else?”

  Zenia shook her head. “Every time she came home she said the same thing. Trees are trees wherever you find them.”

  “How long did this go on?”

  “A few years. But he was always back for hunting season. I remember when I was a girl he used to get a deer early in the season and bring it home, dress it, and we’d invite everyone over and sit around the table and eat almost the whole thing. Some winters we lived on deer meat. Plenty others did the same thing. One year we went to four houses for their first kill. Dad would never miss that.”