glare when he looked at Dad. The bad feeling sloshed through her head.
Open your eyes . Remembering the command, she tried very hard, but couldnât quite manage. She thought about speaking up, but didnât know what to say. Sheâd never been able to stop the arguments.
When she was little and a bad dream woke her, Gran would advise her to change the channel by turning her pillow over. It worked every time.
Yet she couldnât move. Couldnât feel the pillow beneath her head. Was forced to lie still as the argument went on.
She tried to think of something that would make the whispers go away. Something that would calm the churning in her gut. Her mind went to a place she knew with crystal clarity. She didnât know if that place was now or forever ago. Maybe it was just away.
5
Then
A nnie wasnât expecting to fall in love that midwinter day in the middle of the sugar season. The dead cold of northern Vermont was just losing its grip on the mountain. The frozen nights gave way to daytime thaw, perfect for sugaring. It was late afternoon, and a rare glimmer of sunlight slanted across the mountain, touching the landscape with gold. Plenty of snow still lay on the ground, though it was melting as rapidly as the sap was running. The quality of the light through the clear, cold air created a stark beauty in the sugarbush. The bare maple branches resembled an intricate etching against the deep blue of the sky. The snow was silvery blue, sparkling in the sunshine and darkening in the deeply shadowed gullies that threaded through the landscape.
Annie was a senior in high school, dizzy with the possibilities her future held, her heart opening like a bud in springtime. She wasnât looking to fall in love with a boy, but with life itself. Poised to leave home and make her own way in the world, she wanted her life to be amazing, spectacular, singular, exciting . . . everything it was not on Rush Mountain in Switchback, Vermont.
But life had a way of interfering with oneâs plans. Things popped up unexpectedly, and suddenly a carefully plotted route had to be recalculated.
Sugarmakers who werenât ready with their operations risked missingout on the sap run. At the Rush sugarbushâtwo hundred acres of thriving sugar maplesâit was the peak of the year. It was the same at all the other operations in the areaâa swift frenzy of productivity, a race against the coming warmth, to capture the sap run before the maples budded out. The high school allowed early release time during the sugar season so students could help their families, or earn money on a tapping crew.
It occurred to Annie that this would be her last sugar season at home, maybe ever. In the fall, she would be going away to college. Sheâd won a scholarship to New York University, and she meant to make the most of it. She planned to study film and media, and had been accepted to a special interdisciplinary program focused on broadcasting in the field of culinary arts. Next year at this time, she would be away at college. She might be in France studying mirepoix techniques, or in a lecture hall discussing the First Amendment. The important thing was, she would be somewhere new, at last.
But at the moment, college seemed light-years away. The sap run was epic. Kyle had to hire extra help, a group of high school guys, to haul sap, move firewood, man the pumps, and keep a steady stream of fresh sap flowing toward the evaporator.
Kyle had used the tractor and stone boat to break road through the maple woods to the sugarhouse. Annie, her mother and grandmother, had all pitched in to wash and sterilize the sugaring equipment. The tapping crew drove spiles into the trees and ran miles of tubing through the groves, downhill to the collection tanks. The trees immediately surrounding the sugarhouse were equipped with old-fashioned covered galvanized buckets, a nod to the old way of collecting sap, but that was mostly for visitors
Open your eyes . Remembering the command, she tried very hard, but couldnât quite manage. She thought about speaking up, but didnât know what to say. Sheâd never been able to stop the arguments.
When she was little and a bad dream woke her, Gran would advise her to change the channel by turning her pillow over. It worked every time.
Yet she couldnât move. Couldnât feel the pillow beneath her head. Was forced to lie still as the argument went on.
She tried to think of something that would make the whispers go away. Something that would calm the churning in her gut. Her mind went to a place she knew with crystal clarity. She didnât know if that place was now or forever ago. Maybe it was just away.
5
Then
A nnie wasnât expecting to fall in love that midwinter day in the middle of the sugar season. The dead cold of northern Vermont was just losing its grip on the mountain. The frozen nights gave way to daytime thaw, perfect for sugaring. It was late afternoon, and a rare glimmer of sunlight slanted across the mountain, touching the landscape with gold. Plenty of snow still lay on the ground, though it was melting as rapidly as the sap was running. The quality of the light through the clear, cold air created a stark beauty in the sugarbush. The bare maple branches resembled an intricate etching against the deep blue of the sky. The snow was silvery blue, sparkling in the sunshine and darkening in the deeply shadowed gullies that threaded through the landscape.
Annie was a senior in high school, dizzy with the possibilities her future held, her heart opening like a bud in springtime. She wasnât looking to fall in love with a boy, but with life itself. Poised to leave home and make her own way in the world, she wanted her life to be amazing, spectacular, singular, exciting . . . everything it was not on Rush Mountain in Switchback, Vermont.
But life had a way of interfering with oneâs plans. Things popped up unexpectedly, and suddenly a carefully plotted route had to be recalculated.
Sugarmakers who werenât ready with their operations risked missingout on the sap run. At the Rush sugarbushâtwo hundred acres of thriving sugar maplesâit was the peak of the year. It was the same at all the other operations in the areaâa swift frenzy of productivity, a race against the coming warmth, to capture the sap run before the maples budded out. The high school allowed early release time during the sugar season so students could help their families, or earn money on a tapping crew.
It occurred to Annie that this would be her last sugar season at home, maybe ever. In the fall, she would be going away to college. Sheâd won a scholarship to New York University, and she meant to make the most of it. She planned to study film and media, and had been accepted to a special interdisciplinary program focused on broadcasting in the field of culinary arts. Next year at this time, she would be away at college. She might be in France studying mirepoix techniques, or in a lecture hall discussing the First Amendment. The important thing was, she would be somewhere new, at last.
But at the moment, college seemed light-years away. The sap run was epic. Kyle had to hire extra help, a group of high school guys, to haul sap, move firewood, man the pumps, and keep a steady stream of fresh sap flowing toward the evaporator.
Kyle had used the tractor and stone boat to break road through the maple woods to the sugarhouse. Annie, her mother and grandmother, had all pitched in to wash and sterilize the sugaring equipment. The tapping crew drove spiles into the trees and ran miles of tubing through the groves, downhill to the collection tanks. The trees immediately surrounding the sugarhouse were equipped with old-fashioned covered galvanized buckets, a nod to the old way of collecting sap, but that was mostly for visitors
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