She found she didn’t dare to disturb the isolation of the farmstead further. She put her car in park beside the dilapidated roadside stand and crossed her arms over her chest, shivering in spite of the heat that blasted out of the vents. She studied the Murphys’ buildings, the sloping property that had once been a jewel in the county. Sadly, the rest of the buildings hadn’t fared much better than the coop. The front porch of the farmhouse was slanting, and a few spindles had decayed and fallen loose. Sticks and bits of hay peeked out of birds’ nests that had been built under the eaves, and she would have put money on the fact that other wildlife had taken up residence beneath the steps.
It took some effort for Juniper to drag her gaze to the barn, but when she managed it, she found that it wasn’t nearly as horrifying as she feared it would be. It was just a barn, faded red and tilted slightly as if it couldn’t help but hunch beneath the terrible weight of all it had seen. How sad it seemed. How quickly the world fell apart when there was no one around to shore it up.
She wasn’t sure what she expected, but nothing happened as she sat in the driveway. She didn’t cry or fall to pieces or remember everything in a flash of conviction. Instead, she thought of moments here. The day she rode her bike over to buy a jar of her mom’s favorite jam. Cal had tucked the little mason jar in a brown paper bag and threw in a bar of soap, too.
“It’s a new scent we’re trying,” he told her. “Blueberry-rhubarb, just like the jam.”
Her mother had smelled tart and sweet for weeks. Juniper couldn’t get enough of her and tucked herself beneath her mother’s arm every chance she got.
Or the time she and Jonathan spent the night when their parents took a trip to Des Moines. If Juniper remembered correctly, there was a symphony orchestra traveling through and the tickets had been a Christmas present. But that was of little consequence, because Juniper and Jonathan were ten and nine, respectively, and sleepovers were few and far between. June had been pulled taut between excitement and dread in the week leading up to the big overnight, but when Reb dropped them off the morning they left, it became clear that there was absolutely nothing for her to be scared of.
“Cal’s setting up the tent in the backyard!” Beth told them with a grin. “We’ll make Dutch oven pizza over the fire for supper, and I bought everything for s’mores…” Her eyes twinkled as the possibilities unfurled like the whisper of pixie dust.
Their stay had been the stuff of children’s books and folktales. They played hide-and-seek with Cal in the hayloft, found a nest of kittens, took turns riding the pony. When the cicadas began to sing, Beth lifted the lid off her black Dutch oven to reveal a brown, bubbling pizza wrapped in parchment paper like a present. It had seemed like bright magic to June, the sort of whimsy a good fairy might conjure. Later, fingers gooey with melted marshmallow, she fell asleep leaning back-to-back with Jonathan, and when she woke, she was tucked in a sleeping bag with the stars alight above her.
Had that happened? Juniper was sure that it had.
But it was hard to imagine that there had ever been happiness here. Laughter that echoed down to the shallow creek, and glossy bouquets held together with twine in the sparkling windows of the roadside stand.
Before she knew what she was doing, she wrenched open the car door and stepped out into the snow. It was falling hard and fast and was already accumulating in the grooves left by her tires, smoothing out the tracks. This was a totally unexpected storm that would likely end in the morning with water dripping like rain from tree branches and snowdrops blossoming through the white crust of ice. The kind of storm that could leave her stranded in this cursed place, calling for help because her wheels could no longer gain purchase on the slippery drive.
The inside of the stand was filled with paraphernalia. A long, narrow table missing a leg, a rail-back chair, some dusty crates with “Coca-Cola” painted on the side that would make an antiques dealer drool. It was dusty, but still, and Juniper stepped tentatively inside, avoiding the largest hunks of glass that littered the ground. Nothing changed. No flutter of wings or scuffle of clawed feet against the hard-packed dirt floor.
A few more steps and she was standing by the counter where Cal and Beth had proudly displayed their goods. The windows were French casement that could be swung wide so passersby were free to admire the buckets of flowers and soaps Beth had carefully arranged in glass jars, vintage crates, and on a chipped ceramic cake plate. The produce had beckoned from the window closest to the road, the siren call of gleaming bell peppers and bunches of slender green beans too tempting to ignore. It seemed like a dream to picture the coop the way it had been, though Juniper could close her eyes and smell the fresh tang of sun-ripened tomatoes.