Can You Feel the Maple Tonight (Love in Maplewood #5)

Chapter 1

DRAKE

Monday, nine days before the festival

“And you would not believe the food! Dude, they put every kind of food out all day long, as long as we’re filming. I’ll never go hungry again.”

I snorted. “Be careful. Don’t you have a shirtless scene coming up soon?”

Dirk’s groan echoed through the SUV’s speakers. “Don’t remind me.”

I laughed. As much as I had mixed emotions about my twin discovering a passion for acting—something we did not share, thank you very much—I was happy he was getting to follow his dream.

His first role, a tiny part in an indie film last year, had led to the offer of this much larger role in a movie with a few more zeroes in its budget.

But it meant he and I weren’t working together anymore. Weren’t even living together anymore for the most part. Sure, all of his stuff was still in the condo we shared in Texas, but he’d be on location for filming for the next few months.

Which was why I’d jumped at the chance to come to Vermont, even though the music festival I’d be helping with didn’t start for a week and a half.

Zeke, the guy in charge of putting on the event, asked me to arrive early if I could.

Apparently our mutual friend, Jake Lord, had told him I had time on my hands.

It’s not like I was unemployed, though. I was a songwriter these days. The ultimate in a flexible schedule, work-from-anywhere job. Too bad I wasn’t allowed to visit Dirk on set. He was also in New England, only a few hours away from where I’d be staying for the next couple of weeks.

So far my impression of Vermont was... green. Spring was in full swing, and trees lined the highway as far as the eye could see. Trees, trees, trees.

But were trees supposed to... move like that?

Like they were being shoved aside so something could get through them?

I took my foot off the accelerator while I squinted to get a better look at the sloped forested area about half a mile ahead on the right.

The road curved here, and I didn’t want to veer onto the shoulder.

“Drake?”

“Huh? Sorry, it’s just.... It’s weird. It looks like there’s something big moving through the forest. It’s coming toward the highway.” I slowed the car further, my hands tightening on the steering wheel. I hoped my dashcam was recording this.

“Bro, you haven’t even been in Vermont an hour. Are you already sampling the local product?”

“Shut up. I don’t know how else to explain it.

It’s about to reach the edge of the forest right up ahead and— Shit !

” I spun the wheel toward the shoulder as an unexpectedly human-shaped form ran out of the woods and leaped, trying to hurdle over the guardrail along the highway.

Instead they caught their foot on the metal edge and fell, landing terrifyingly close to where my car might’ve been if I hadn’t slowed down.

“Fuck!” I pulled the SUV to a stop and set the parking brake. My hands were trembling.

“Drake! What’s happening?”

“Sorry, I’m okay. I’m okay.” I rubbed my chest, trying to calm my racing heart. “A guy tried to jump over the guardrail onto the road in front of me and fell down. I’m gonna go help him.”

“I’m staying on the line,” he said grimly. “It could be one of those insurance scams.”

“Yeah, of course.” I remembered to turn the car off and grab the phone from its holder before I opened the door with my still shaking hand. I’d never been in a car accident before. I hadn’t hit the guy, but he wasn’t getting up. Shit, shit, shit.

I jogged over to the guy—kid, really. Maybe a teenager.

He was curled into a fetal position clutching one arm, with his upper body on the road and his lower half on the dirt of the shoulder.

He was wearing a battered black leather jacket, jeans, and dirt-caked Nikes.

I was relieved to see I’d avoided him by a good twenty-five feet at least. Things had seemed much closer from the SUV.

“Hey, are you okay? Do I need to call an ambulance?” I looked worriedly up and down the highway.

I hadn’t seen much traffic today, but it always showed up when you didn’t want it to.

The kid groaned. “Fuck. Finn’s going to kill me.” He writhed on the ground a little bit, his black leather jacket protecting him from the grit and small rocks.

“Um, maybe we could talk about that after we get you moved away from the road? I don’t want you to get run over by a car.”

He scoffed. “Like there’s that much traffic in this town.” He turned slightly onto his back, and I could finally see his face. He was probably fifteen or so, tall with gangly limbs, pasty skin, and messy brown hair.

“Yeah, maybe, but it would make me feel better.”

He sighed dramatically, which I took to mean he wasn’t seriously injured, and rolled fairly smoothly to his feet, still cradling his right arm. The rest of him was dusty from the road but appeared uninjured. He was breathing pretty heavily, and his face was flushed.

I led him over to the passenger side of the SUV, opened the door and got him seated. “My name’s Drake. What’s yours?”

“Charlie—sorry, I go by Charles now. Nice hat.” He squinted at my fedora before frowning down at his arm.

“Okay, Charles. You want some water before I check out your arm?”

He shook his head. “It’s fine. I just bruised it.” He carefully straightened his arm and turned his hand over. He didn’t have any abrasions on his palms. Based on the dirt ground into his sleeve, he must’ve landed on his elbow.

I grimaced. “That must hurt like a bitch.” I winced. Don’t curse in front of the kid, Drake.

Charles laughed. “Yeah.” He let me help him out of his jacket. Underneath he wore a short-sleeve t-shirt. His elbow was swollen and red.

I sucked in a breath. “Ouch. Um, I’m not an expert, Charles, but I feel like you need an x-ray.”

“Noooo! Can’t I put my jacket back on and we pretend you never saw it? Please?”

I looked into his pleading eyes and frowned. Dirk and I had always been the youngest of anyone in our acquaintance, so I had zero experience determining whether Charles was trying to avoid ordinary parental punishments or if he was truly worried for his safety.

“What will happen if, uh, Finn, did you say? What will happen if Finn sees it?”

He huffed and stared down the road in the direction I’d been coming from.

“He’ll make Brad and Janet feel bad. I was supposed to spend the afternoon at their place, but they both fell asleep, so I went outside.

” He shrugged without looking at me. “They’re nice.

I don’t want them to feel like they did anything wrong. ”

My phone vibrated in my pocket. Dirk had probably needed to get back on set.

“Okay, well, unfortunately if Finn is responsible for you, he’ll be the one to decide whether you need to go to the doctor. I can’t take you myself without raising a lot of eyebrows.”

He nodded miserably. “Okay.”

“Would you rather call Finn now, so he’ll know you’re safe?”

He shook his head. “I left my phone at Brad and Janet’s, and I don’t have Finn’s number memorized.”

“I see.” Bro obviously hadn’t grown up a Derry like me and Dirk. He needed to work on his lying skills. His phone was in his back pocket. “Okay. Let’s head to wherever Finn is. Can you get your seat belt on?”

He swung around in the seat and pulled the seat belt across, clicking it securely. I shut his door, then stopped on my way around the car to get a bottle of water out of the cooler in the back.

Dirk had messaged that he had to get to work. I’d have to call him later with an update.

I handed Charles a water bottle and put my phone back in its holder on the dash. “Right. What’s the address?”

Charles blinked. Then he looked between the phone and my face. Twice.

Dude. Just no.

I sighed and held up a hand. “How do you want to do this?”

“Can you drive, and I’ll tell you where to turn?” He turned puppy dog eyes on me.

Fuck me. “We’re going to Maplewood?”

“Yeah. Downtown.” He was definite on that, thankfully. Maplewood was a small town. He wouldn’t get away with hiding his destination for long.

I took a deep breath and put the SUV in gear. This would be interesting.

According to the sign we passed, we were only twelve miles from town. I wondered how long Charles had been running through the woods when he’d emerged.

“Hey, what were you running from anyway?” Because he was too small to have been what had made the trees move so strangely. But I wasn’t about to be the first person to mention it.

“Huh?” He jerked his head around from where he’d been teenagering intently out the window.

“You ran out of the woods, and it seemed to me you meant to keep running across the road. Did something scare you?”

“Oh! Uh... I... it was creepy in there, and I thought I heard an animal or something.” He kept his face fixed toward the windshield.

Uh huh. “Oh, yeah. That makes sense, because the reason I was going so slow was I thought I saw something big moving in the trees, but I couldn’t make out what it was.”

I made sure to glance at him right as I finished speaking, and he flashed wide eyes at me. “You did?”

I nodded, turning back to the road. “It was almost like the trees were being moved out of the way of something, but it was just more green.” I shrugged. “Not sure.” I signaled, even though no one was behind me, as I took the exit for Maplewood.

He cleared his throat. “There’s, uh, a town legend. Not that I believe it or anything.”

“Okay?”

“It’s called the Maplewood Monster, but the locals say her name is Mabel.”

“Mabel the Maplewood Monster?”

“Yeah. She looks like she’s made out of leaves. She’s really tall and her arms are, like, long.” He held his arms out in front of him. “She gets mad if you litter or damage the forest.”

“That sounds creepy. Do you think Mabel was what was following you?”

Instead of answering, he pointed. “Turn there.”