The larkspur was blooming, and that was the first real sign of summer in the mountains.
I worked my way down the narrow row, wedging myself against the wall of dahlias at my back that wouldn’t wake for another couple of weeks. Not until midsummer, Gran had always said, and every year she was right.
I tugged at the collar of my coveralls, pulling it up against the heat of the rising sun. The mornings were cool, the best time to cut, and they were also quiet. Birdsong and the sound of the river behind the tree line were the only companions in the fields at that time of day. Most of the hands were down at the barn getting ready to work, but I’d been at it for hours, happy to have a reason to leave the silence of the house on Bishop Street.
Bright golden pollen covered the knuckles of my worn leather gloves as I found the end of the flower stalks by memory. One by one, I worked down the groupings of leaves until I reached the place to cut. I’d been using the same snips since I was thirteen, a pair of wood-handled clippers I’d notched my initials into and refused to replace.
The Farrow women had a touch. When farms had sprung up from valley to valley and everyone else in North Carolina was planting tobacco, the Farrows were growing flowers. It had kept the farm working for the last 118 years, and long before there was internet or travel guides, it had been one of the things that Jasper was known for—a peculiar little farm that was growing flower varieties even the richest growers in New England hadn’t been able to get their hands on. The mystery had made the farm something of a legend, even if the women who ran it weren’t exactly considered polite company.
My great-great-grandmother Esther had never come clean about where she’d gotten those seeds, though people in Jasper had their guesses, including some local lore that she’d made a deal with demons. It was more likely that at some point, someone who’d come to work on the railroads had sold them to her. But that wasn’t the kind of story that people liked to tell.
The rattle of a bucket landing on the ground sounded on the other side of the dahlias, and I looked up to see the top of Mason’s hat. The wide-brimmed canvas was stained across the brow with a few growing seasons’ worth of sweat.
“Wasn’t sure you’d come in today,” he said, not finding my eyes over the row.
I cut another bunch of the larkspur, and when my grip was full, I tucked them under one arm, pinning them there so I could reach for the next. “Are you checking up on me, Mason Caldwell?”
He pulled the snips from his belt and got to work, cutting into the rainbow of bloomed ranunculus on the other side. “Do you need checking up on?”
Mason still had a bit of that wry, boyish demeanor he’d had when we were kids fishing on the bank of the river and sneaking out to watch the sunrise up at Longview Falls.
I half laughed. “No. I don’t.”
“Did you look at the schedule?” he asked.
I sighed. “You know I didn’t.”
“The larkspur is tomorrow.”
“Well, it’s getting cut today,” I said, a monotone note creeping into my voice.
I wouldn’t tell him that the tinge of pink at the tip of the petals had told me they were ready, and that tomorrow just a little of their color would be gone. I wouldn’t tell him that the amount of dew on the stalks this morning had me worried about the leaves, either. Mason didn’t believe in the wives’ tales Gran had taught me. He put his faith in plans and data and forecasts, and I’d resolved myself not to argue with him, because he was running things now, and that was best. There was no telling how long I had before I ended up like Gran or my mother.
“We have schedules for a reason, Farrow.”
I rolled my eyes before I found the joint of the next stem, not bothering to look back at him. Again, I wouldn’t argue, because there was no point. That was one of the benefits of working with your oldest, and in my case—only—friend. You got good at not wasting energy where it would be badly spent.
“Well?”
“Well, what?” I echoed.
“You okay?” His voice softened a little, but I could still hear him cutting.
I took the bundle underneath my arm and followed the row to its end, where a bucket was waiting. The memory of last night, when those eyes on the porch and the man standing in the church window found me again, making me clench my teeth. Even now there was a part of me that thought I could still smell that cigarette smoke in the air.
“I’m good.” I dropped the larkspur into the bucket, returning to the place I’d left off.
Every woman in the Farrow family was different, but the end was always the same. Gran hadn’t started showing signs until she was in her sixties, and it had progressed very slowly. Her mind had crumbled in those last years, the light in her eyes all but flickering out. In the end, I lost her to wherever that other place was. She faded. Disappeared.
But the town had already begun to see it in my mother before she went missing, and by all accounts it had been a fast-growing, hungry thing. That was probably the reason they’d stopped looking for her.
The statements collected during the investigation were filled with accounts of inexplicable behavior. Speaking to someone who wasn’t there. Confusion about things that had or hadn’t happened. There was a particularly concerning story about her walking barefoot in the middle of the night during a snowstorm. And it wasn’t the first time she’d disappeared with no explanation. But the day she left me in Jasper was the last of her. After that, there was nothing left.
This time, the ease of Mason’s voice gave way to hesitation. “What are you doing later? I’m going into Asheville if you want to come.”
I glanced over my shoulder. He was still hidden behind the towering thicket of dahlias. “You’re never going to find someone if you spend your weekends babysitting me.”
He was quiet for a moment, and I wished I could see his face. We were both thirty-four, and for most of those years, the town had speculated that we were more than friends. We were, I supposed. We were family. In the few times I thought there might be something beyond that, it was smothered by the reality of what we both knew was coming. I’d made promises to myself a long time ago that kept me from ever crossing that line. Mason hadn’t crossed it, either.
“I’m all right, Mason,” I said again, hoping I sounded more convincing this time.
“I’m just saying . . .”
I made the next cut, irritated now. “I said I’m all right.”