Chapter 1 #2
“I was only eight last time I saw him. I have no idea what he was into. I remember he was older and had gray hair that stuck up all over—”
“Aww, just like you, boo.” Milo lifts a hand like he’s going to ruffle my hair, which was a mass of blond, dandelion-fuzz cowlicks back in college, before I learned the wonders of pomade.
I shoot him a glare and whack his hand away tiredly before he can disturb the carefully combed strands. “No touching.”
Milo is used to my personal-space forcefield and just rolls his eyes. “Go on. What else?”
“I dunno. He called me Sprout? He liked to lay in the grass on summer days in the park near our building and tell me what the clouds were whispering to each other?” I shrug. “He wore these long, flowy sarongs to, ah, ‘let things breathe.’”
Milo presses his lips together.
“Oh!” I add as a long-buried memory surfaces. “And he was always going on road trips in an orange VW bus he called the Magic Mushroom Mobile.”
Milo laughs out loud, like he can’t restrain it anymore. “So a lot of drugs, then?”
I run a finger over the gnarled railing and wince. “Maybe. Yeah. In retrospect.”
I look around, but there’s no VW bus in sight, which either means Jim sold it sometime in the last twenty-plus years—likely—or that he was out on a road trip when he died. I don’t know which it was, and that also feels shitty.
But there’s no way forward but through, so I hold up the keys. “Wanna see inside?”
“Fuck yes,” Milo says, grabbing them and opening the lock.
The rounded hobbit door opens into yet more chaos—a purple velvet couch that looks like it was stolen from a bordello, red wing-backed chairs, a lime-green coffee table in the shape of a toadstool.
Everything smells of woodsmoke and peppermint.
Stained glass windows throw rainbow sprinkles across shelves packed with books and mushroom trinkets.
Best of all, it’s warm, which is great because I’m always cold.
Directly across from the front door, a fire extinguisher box attached to the wall says “Good Luck Charm! Break in Case of Emergency!” but the glass door to the box is hanging ajar, and the only thing inside is a tennis racket… which might or might not be the good luck charm.
“It’s… cute,” I say, surprised. “And appears structurally sound.”
Milo nods once. “It’s a vibe,” he admits, which, given his current dislike of the entire state of Vermont, is a ringing endorsement.
I head right toward the kitchen where a pink Smeg fridge sits beneath polka-dotted mushroom curtains, and a purple unicorn wearing Uncle Sam’s top hat points at me from a framed poster saying “I Want YOU to SPARKLE!”
Milo heads to the back and calls my name. “Griff, there’s a trapdoor in the bedroom ceiling. Pretty sure it’s a portal to another dimension.”
I find him standing in the middle of a room just big enough to hold a tidy queen-sized bed and a small wooden dresser. He points at a large square of dark, shiny wood that stands out against the white ceiling.
“Pretty sure it leads to the barrel-shaped room we saw,” I correct.
Milo’s eye roll says I’ve missed the joke. “Same difference, boo.”
We take turns tugging on the tasseled bell pull dangling from the door, but nothing happens.
“What the hell?” I toe off my shoes, climb on the bed, and tug harder, but it won’t budge.
I really shouldn’t have missed so many arm days, back when I had a gym membership.
Milo, who’s thrown himself down on the bed to watch me, like my struggle is free entertainment, pops back up with a shrug. “Don’t suppose your uncle left you magic words to whisper?”
I shoot him a look.
“Just asking! I’m gonna go get my bags and inspect the bathroom situation. There will be no repeats of that woodland experience I was forced to endure while we were pushing the car earlier,” he says with a warning glare. “And we will not discuss it further.”
But after Milo leaves, his offhanded comment about Jim’s magic words makes me think.
I get my backpack from where I dropped it by the door and find the letter Jim’s attorney forwarded.
The paper it’s written on smells pepperminty, just like the house, and it’s already worn along the crease from how many times I’ve unfolded it in the past week, just to make sure this was really happening.
Heya, Sprout!
By the time you read this I’ll already be at the Big Drum Circle in the Sky!
Wish I coulda seen your face when you heard about the Griffin Mercer Trust—priceless!
—but my true love’s been waiting on me and it’s past time I joined her.
We’re gonna dance barefoot ’round the stars, just like in the old days, and discover all the secrets of the universe.
(If I find out what happened to the house keys I lost in 2012, I’ll come back and tell you. Pinky swear.)
In the meantime, the forest and the treehouse are yours, kiddo. Use them wisely or whatever.
Love,
Jim
PS - trapdoor’s a little sticky but I oiled the pulleys and the rope bridge is strong
PPS - when the mushrooms talk, listen
PPPS - wifi password’s FUNGUY (Get it? Fungi?) Later!
I laugh, but it comes out like a sob, and I realize my eyes are wet, which is crazy. There’s nothing in this note to cry over, and I’m not a crier by nature.
I didn’t cry when I handed over my apartment keys or when Alan Nelson fired me. I didn’t cry when I nearly hit a moose or when I had to listen to Milo singing sea shanties while I pushed my car half a mile down the road.
So what the fuck’s my problem now?
Maybe I’m just tired. Or maybe knowing a guy I haven’t seen since I was a kid remembered me as he prepared to go to the “drum circle in the sky” is so freaking sweet it slips past my defenses.
Or maybe it’s that this place—this impossible, whimsical treehouse—feels like every childhood dream I gave up when I learned that dreams don’t pay bills.
Everything I worked hard for evaporated, and then I got this gift I didn’t earn. It feels… unbalanced. But now that I have it, I’m going to use it wisely, just like Jim said.
“Aw, honey.” Milo drops his luggage in the hall and rushes in to hug me. “It’s finally hitting you that you’ve left New York, huh?”
“What? No,” I protest, but it’s a sign of how overwhelmed I am that I submit to Milo’s hug, even though I’m stiff and awkward. “I haven’t left-left. This is… this is temporary.”
But we both know that’s not entirely true.
I built my whole life around New York—the energy, the diversity, the momentum, the people who keep changing and becoming.
Even as a kid, I used to climb out on my fire escape at night so I could listen to the sirens and the neighbors playing music through the open window and revel in the knowledge that I was part of something bigger.
I know other cities have their charms, and since I need to find a job, I’ll end up in one of them soon. I might even love it. But a big-shot career in New York has always been the dream, and now that dream’s gone, and I’m finally letting myself feel that loss.
Still, crying is annoying and useless, so when my phone chirps, I take the opportunity to pull away and wipe my eyes.
The screen shows a message from my moms.
MamaLaine
Let us know when you’ve arrived, Griffy!
MamaTish
Your mom genuinely won’t be able to sleep unless she gets her weekly Proof of Griffin’s Life and Safety pic.
My mothers are the best, even if they did choose to spend their retirement running a bed-and-breakfast in the Berkshires with their friends.
The B&B work suits them—they love the hospitality and flexibility, even if it’ll never make them rich, and it gives them plenty of time to organize protests to save the bumble bees, or underprivileged children, or whatever else is being endangered in Williamstown.
They’ve more than earned the right to choose passion over profit after all those years of financial stress when I was younger.
I show Milo the screen, and he grins.
“Your mothers could not be more lesbian if we stuck them in a Subaru ad,” he sighs happily. He snatches my phone, snaps a quick picture of me, and sends it, along with the caption “I’m alive. Vermont hasn’t caught me yet.” But when I reach for the phone, he refuses to give it back.
“Nuh-uh. You can make your five billion to-do lists tomorrow,” he says, shooing me back to the living room and the lurid purple brothel sofa. “For tonight, we’re watching Extreme Wilderness Adventure.”
“Oh, god, Milo, why? Haven’t I suffered enough?” I demand.
He rolls his eyes. “You love to pretend you hate this show, but you just admitted you wanted a treehouse as a kid, and I’ve seen you lusting over the flannel-clad eye candy. No one can resist the allure of the mountain-man wannabes.”
There’s a lot I could say about the silliness of watching C-list celebrities trying to filter pond water using a pair of Crocs and a paper towel, while survival experts look on, shaking their heads and making sure the celebrities don’t kill themselves.
But Milo’s right. There’s something satisfying about watching people attempt the kind of wilderness survival I used to fantasize about, even if they’re doing it badly. And yeah, the eye candy is particularly sweet.
I’m so worn-out, sleep should come the second I close my eyes.
But even after Milo conks out on the opposite end of the couch, I can’t get there.
I wriggle out of my jeans and shirt, pull on a blanket, and spend hours tossing and turning on the surprisingly comfy sofa, just listening to Milo’s soft breathing.
The house is quiet.
Deep quiet.
Too fucking quiet.
And sure, there’s something to be said for hearing yourself think. For having the space to plan. But for a person who thinks of sirens and subways and honking horns as white noise, that absence is weirdly disorienting.
When I finally fall asleep, I have weird dreams, not about Times Square for a change, but about throwing mushrooms at a faceless foe and hitting them dead-on.
Sometime later, the beep-beep-beep of a truck and loud male voices shouting pierce my consciousness, and I smile a little to myself.
Trash truck, I think groggily. And Mr. Graziano in 1B, brandishing his baseball bat because someone’s letting their dog shit on our stoop.
But then I pay attention to what the voice is saying.
“—just another tourist who decided to take a hike and leave their car wherever the fuck they felt like. Fucking tow it out of there, Freddy!”
I suck in a breath heavy with woodsmoke and peppermint and remember where I am.
My eyes pop open.
“If the fucking tourist wanted to have it towed proper, Ed, he shouldn’t have fucking left it in the middle of my fucking road!”
Hold up. What car? My car?
Oh, fuck no.
“Milo!” I call as I bolt to my feet, shove them in my beloved Common Projects Chelsea boots, and grab Uncle Jim’s lucky tennis racket in lieu of Mr. Graziano’s baseball bat. “Come on.”
I don’t wait for him. I stomp down the stairs and across the mossy path to the driveway, where I find half a dozen very large men in work gear hovering near my car. One guy is squatting down to attach a rope to my bumper.
I am so over people fucking with me. So done with things not going my way.
“Unhand that,” I demand, brandishing the racket like I’m a knight in a fairy tale and this is my trusty sword. “Immediately.”
Six pairs of eyes turn toward me, and I realize two things at once.
First, tennis rackets are not swords.
Second, I’ve misplaced my shining armor. In fact, I’m buck-ass naked aside from my boots and booty short underwear.
I lift my chin higher. “You heard me! Back off right this minute.”
“Who the hell are you?” the guy with the rope demands, rising to his full, impressive height.
The man is large. Extraordinarily so. Like a Greek statue come to life and decked out in distressed jeans, a flannel shirt, and a beard so beardy the guys on Extreme Wilderness Adventure would weep with envy.
Past Griffin might have found him attractive. Fire-hot, even. But I have had it up to here with entitled jackwads stomping around my life.
“I’m the guy who owns the car you’re vandalizing and the land you’re standing on,” I say, making a swipe with my racket. “So, once again… back the fuck away from the car.”
The other five giants take hasty steps out of swinging range, but the biggest guy doesn’t move.
His eyes blaze with annoyance. “Bullshit. This land belongs to Jim Grange, and he never has visitors. So stop playing games and move this piece of crap so I can get down my road to do my job…” He folds his arms. “And if you shake a leg, maybe I won’t call the sheriff and tell them someone’s been camping out at Jim’s place. ”
Camping?
His road?
Shake a fucking leg?
There’s a lot I don’t know about my inheritance—like why Jim built a hobbit habitat in this forest, or why the hell he left it to me—but I have pored over the map the lawyer’s office sent me the same way I’ve read Jim’s letter ten times.
Which means I know for a fact this gravel drive is on my land. Which means this person is a) dead wrong, b) probably lying, and c) definitely trying to bully me into backing down.
A few months ago, I might have been able to muster a smile, turn on some let’s be friends charm. Too bad for this guy, though, because I left that Griffin on the roof of the Knickerbocker.
“Stop calling my driveway your road,” I say through gritted teeth. “And if you shake a leg and move your big-ass trucks off my property, maybe I won’t call the authorities and tell them you’re trespassing.”
Look, I know what you’re thinking. That I’m overreacting.
That I’m making this guy a stand-in for Alan and Erick Nelson, for every random TikTok troll who dragged me online.
That I’m taking out my frustrations at all the power imbalances and injustices in the world on this one incredibly large, incredibly smug, incredibly rude man.
And you might be right.
But I have already retreated once, and I’m not doing it again. No matter what indignities and injustices Vermont throws at me.
And if this thick-headed hunk of lumberjack thinks otherwise, he can kiss my ass.