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“When is?”
“February or March. Once the weather goes from cold at night to a bit warmer during the day.”
“And you just drain the syrup from the trees?”
I make a disgruntled noise. “Ellister, please tell me you at least know the basics to owning a maple farm. If you’re thinking about buying it, you better.”
Broody, he crosses his arms. “I can learn.”
“You mentioned a boss last night.”
“I did.”
“Is he familiar with this business?”
“Not exactly.”
“I take it he’s an investor of sorts?”
“Of sorts.”
“Well, if he thinks he can just take over a place like this on a whim, he’s in for a rude awakening. The sap isn’t even close to the finished product. It has to be boiled down, and it can take up to fifty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.”
Stunned silence. “Oh.”
Oh is right. Maybe the new owner will let my parents stay on for a while to train them.
That is, unless they plan to demolish the farm and put up a mini mall and some parking lots. It’s too painful to even consider, so I set my sights on our next stop.
Within the next minute, we’re outside the old two-bedroom house where my great grandpa grew up.
“This is the oldest building still standing on the property.” I motion to the white house that’s more like a shack. “I’d take you inside, but it’s not open for the public anymore. Termites got to it a few years ago, and we’re only preserving it because it’s basically a historical landmark.”
Ellister stares at it with an odd expression—distant and sad. “I don’t need to see the interior.”
I nod, realizing he’s probably done his research on the farm. “You saw the pictures on our website already, huh?”
He turns my way. “What?”
“Our website.”
“Right.” Seeming distracted, he looks past me to the place where the old lane is patched over with new grass.
It leads to the edge of the property where we met on the road yesterday. The vertical bars of the tall fence are covered with ivy and other greenery, creating a wall of privacy.
Smirking a little, Ellister shakes his head. “Iron fencing. Does that go around the entire perimeter?”
“Yeah. Great Grandpa Waylon was… unusual. He was paranoid, believed in mythical creatures, and he was so scared, he went into massive debt in the 1940s investing in a fence he thought would protect the farm. That much wrought iron isn’t cheap. He died when I was four, but I remember him going on and on about the devil. Always talking about the ‘dark devil and his temptations.’ Although he wasn’t diagnosed, it’s suspected he suffered from some serious mental illness.”
“Well, he was wrong about the fence,” Ellister states. “That wouldn’t keep real monsters out.”
Real monsters. His word choice and the way he says it like he actually believes it… well, it’s strange.
Then again, Ellister’s a strange kind of guy.
Shrugging off the weird conversation, I get to driving again.
Our next stop is outside a red-painted building that looks like a simple ranch-style home. “I present to you, the sugar house. There’s not much to see in there except for the evaporator machines, but it’s where all the magic happens.”
