Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
It wasn’t an extreme incline, but my car didn’t seem to care. It was starting to struggle, and I felt the urge to start my bumper car rocking back and forth technique again. The next few minutes of driving were tense. I was thankful it wasn’t further up the mountain and muttered encouragement to the car the entire way.
Finally, I saw the opening to the driveway to the property. There was an old wooden sign posted there, but the paint had worn off, and there weren’t any legible words. It almost looked like someone had tried to scrape away what it once said. That had a somewhat ominous feeling to it, but I figured it had probably once been a sign advertising the farm, but since it was no longer in operation, it didn’t need to be there anymore.
I started into the driveway but noticed Jason’s truck stop right at the entrance. I stopped and rolled the window down again so I could wave him in after me. The trailer should be just shortly up the driveway, and I wanted the chance to get out and thank him for following me. It couldn’t be much further of a drive. The GPS said I’d already arrived at my destination.
As it turned out, the GPS was a liar.
Finally, ahead of me I saw the trees thinning out. There was more light coming through them, and it seemed I was approaching a clearing. I expected to come on the trailer but instead found myself in the middle of desolate, abandoned fields. Densely tangled and overgrown, they barely showed signs of what they once were. I could only make out the neglected Christmas trees among the rest of the growth because I knew they were supposed to be there.
Off to the sides, I saw old outbuildings covered with ivy and gradually being reclaimed by the earth around them. There was machinery rusted and deteriorating, and on what looked like it had once been a small booth or concession stand, a faded, weathered painted candy cane brought an unexpected sting of tears to my eyes.
Seeing the farm like this took my breath away, and that reaction shocked me. It wasn’t like I had any memories of being here. I had no real emotional connection to it. I’d never been here and didn’t know the woman who’d lived out her life here. The only real attachment I had to it was knowing my mother spent many years of her life visiting this place and loved it.
I knew it would hurt her to see it in this condition. There were a few details that came to mind more clearly as I drove through the farm, like being in this place was drawing them out of me.
She loved the trees and worked hard to keep them beautiful. She looked forward to every Christmas season when she would be able to watch families roam through the fields looking for that perfect tree to bring home. It always made her happy to imagine those trees in places of honor in the corners of living rooms, strung with lights and decorated with ornaments and tinsel, or even set outside on porches with popcorn garlands and pinecones covered with suet and seeds for the animals to come enjoy.
In a lot of ways, it felt like being away from this place was even harder for her than being away from her sisters themselves. They gave her reason to want to pull away. The farm and the time she loved spending on it were just unfortunate casualties of having to leave her old life behind in favor of the one she decided for herself.
There was another dense tree line ahead, but just before I got to it, I noticed an old house hunkering in the distance. It looked like it had once been gorgeous, but years of neglect had left it falling apart. I glanced in the rearview mirror again when I passed into the next part of the woods. Jason was still there. That surprised me a little. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d given up partway through this journey into the unknown and reversed himself right back to the road that led off the mountain.
Finally, after far more than ten minutes, I drove my sputtering, exhausted car into a clearing and saw the trailer. What it actually was seemed to be a miniature dystopian settlement complete with piles of discarded everything and a trailer smack in the middle.
The trailer itself didn’t look so bad. Comparatively. The rest of it was an utter mess. I couldn’t say I was totally shocked, though. It wasn’t like I was going into this with the thought I was going to emerge into a lush lawn with a prim, perfect modular home poised in the center.
Mr. Warren warned me there was a lot of work to be done around the home my aunt Maisie lived in for her last few years. She was more or less a recluse and didn’t want anyone to interfere with her life, which apparently consisted of collecting anything she could get her hands on and building a veritable fortress of debris around her home.