Chapter 12
KENT
When Sylvie’s lunch break rolled around, she appeared at my side with a pair of shovels and an expression that suggested we were about to embark on some kind of Arctic expedition.
I was just a little concerned. “What’s this about?”
“Ready to dig your fancy car out of the snow?” she asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question.
“I thought you called a tow truck?”
She snorted. “Why would I call a tow truck for your car?”
“Because I didn’t have cell service.”
“Then we should probably go dig it out,” she said. “I’ve got a chain.”
“You? You’re going to pull it out?”
She shrugged. “If I need to.”
My expression of shock made her laugh.
“Trust me, city boy, you are not the first person to get stuck. We grew up pulling each other out of ditches. It’s not a big deal.”
I was going to marry her.
What?
What the fuck was that?
I shook my head and dislodged the thought.
The drive back to where I had abandoned my rental car was oddly comfortable. Sylvie hummed along to whatever Christmas song was playing on her truck’s ancient radio.
“You think it will still be there?” I asked. “Tires and all.”
She laughed. “You really do know nothing about the country, do you?”
I wasn’t sure what that meant. “No, I suppose I don’t.”
“No one is going to take the wheels off your fancy little car. Most people don’t even lock their doors. A lot of us leave our keys in our cars.”
“And that’s just stupid,” I muttered.
She parked the truck in front of the car and hopped out.
Digging the car out turned out to be more work than I’d anticipated.
The snow had continued falling overnight, and what had been a minor inconvenience yesterday was now a legitimate excavation project.
But working alongside Sylvie, both of us huffing and puffing in the cold air, our breath creating clouds of steam between us, it was strangely satisfying.
“There,” she said finally, standing back to survey our handiwork. “That should do it. Let me put some sand under the front tires.”
I was going to have to trust her because I had zero clue what to do. When she was finished, she nodded.
“Alright, give it a try. Easy. Steady gas. Don’t gun it. Once it starts moving, don’t stop. Don’t jerk the wheel. Go on up there and turn around at the four-way stop.”
Again, I felt like a total novice.
I tested the car, and sure enough, it drove out of its snowy prison without any trouble. Following her back to the lodge, I made a decision that surprised even me.
I was going to extend my stay.
Not because I was getting soft or losing sight of my mission, I told myself. But because rushing this whole thing would be counterproductive. If I was going to convince the Northwoods to sell, I needed to understand what I was dealing with. Know your enemy and all that.
The fact that spending more time around Sylvie sounded appealing had nothing to do with it. Obviously.
“I need to pay for another week,” I said when I got out of my car. “Unless I already have,” I quipped.
I saw her grimace. She knew I knew she had nearly tripled the rate. “You caught that, huh?”
“I did.”
She sighed. “I’ll tell Stacy to charge the remainder to the card on file.”
“Thanks.”
“Feel free to enjoy your stay,” she said. “I need to get back to work.”
After she headed back to work on the tree farm, I decided to explore more of the lodge. I’d seen the main areas including the lobby, dining hall, and library but there had to be more to this place than rustic charm and excessive Christmas decorations.
I discovered a small business room tucked away on the first floor, where a few guests were working quietly on their laptops.
The setup was simple but functional, decent Wi-Fi, comfortable chairs, plenty of outlets.
Nothing fancy but it got the job done. One of the guests looked up when I peeked in and nodded politely before returning to what appeared to be spreadsheet work.
Down the hall, I found a game room that made me pause in the doorway. Two kids, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, were hunched over a chess board in intense concentration. Actual chess. With actual pieces. Not some digital version on a tablet or phone.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen teenagers playing chess. Every time I encountered kids that age, they were glued to their phones or absorbed in some handheld gaming device, completely disconnected from the world around them.
Maybe that was the whole point of this place. The disconnected experience gave people a chance to reconnect with each other. A refuge from the constant digital noise that seemed to dominate everything these days.
The idea intrigued me more than I wanted to admit.
I made my way outside to explore the back area of the property, curious about what other surprises the Northwood Lodge might be hiding.
The snow was deeper back here, unmarked by foot traffic, and I had to work to push through it as I wandered among what appeared to be abandoned recreational facilities.
The first thing I discovered was an in-ground pool, still there but clearly long out of service.
It was covered with a tarp that had seen better days, and the surrounding deck was weathered and in need of repair.
I could imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday.
Families splashing around during summer visits, kids cannon-balling off the diving board while their parents relaxed in lounge chairs.
Now it was just another casualty of the lodge’s declining fortunes.
Beyond the pool, I found what had once been an elaborate garden area. High hedges created walls and pathways that seemed to follow some kind of pattern, though it was hard to make sense of the layout with everything overgrown and snow-covered.
I pushed through one of the hedge openings and found myself in what appeared to be a corridor of sorts, with more openings leading off in different directions. It took me a few minutes to realize what I was looking at.
A maze. They’d had an actual hedge maze back here.
I tried to imagine kids running through this maze while their parents relaxed in the garden and then everyone gathering in the evening for communal dinners and storytelling by the fire.
It must have been magical. No wonder Sylvie was so desperate to save this place.
I made my way back to the front of the property, where the contrast between past and present was even more stark. Cars were coming and going as locals arrived to select their Christmas trees, but the numbers were clearly far below what this operation could support.
Christmas music played from speakers hidden among the trees.
Santa was stationed on the small porch of his cabin, offering hearty “Ho ho ho’s” to every child who came within earshot.
Kids rushed toward him with gleeful excitement, while the elf giggled and clapped and invited families into the cabin for hot cocoa.
Parents stopped to snap pictures, capturing moments they hoped their children would remember years from now.
It was charming, I had to admit. But charm didn’t pay the bills.
I wandered through the tree lot, observing the operation from a business perspective.
The trees were high quality, the customer service was excellent, and the overall experience was exactly what you’d want from a family Christmas tree farm.
But the volume just wasn’t there. For every family selecting a tree, there were dozens of empty spaces where customers should have been.
I ended up bumping into Emmy near Santa’s cabin, literally. I was so absorbed in my observations that I nearly walked right into her as she emerged with a tray of empty hot chocolate mugs. Given the bells on her costume, that was pretty hard to miss.
“Oh! Sorry about that,” she said, steadying the tray.
“Can I ask you something about the Northwood family?” I said, sensing an opportunity to gather some intelligence.
“Sure, I guess. What do you want to know?”
I started with general questions, the kind of information that would be readily available to any curious guest. How long had the family been running the tree farm? What was the acreage? How long had Sylvie and her brother been in charge?
Emmy was happy to share the basics. Two hundred acres total. The tree farm had been in operation for over a century. Sylvie and Brom had been running things on their own for about three years now, since their parents had started stepping back from day-to-day operations.
But when I tried to dig deeper—asking about customer numbers, financial challenges, where all the guests had gone—Emmy’s demeanor shifted noticeably.
“Look, if you want to know about the business side of things, you should ask Sylvie,” she said, her tone becoming guarded. “It’s not really my place to discuss that stuff with strangers.”
“I’m not exactly a stranger anymore,” I pointed out. “I’m staying at the lodge.”
“Staying at the lodge doesn’t make you family,” Emmy replied coolly. “And the Northwoods’ business is their business. Guests don’t care about profit margins. I know you think you’re slick, but I’m not an idiot. Good try, though.”
She turned to head back into Santa’s cabin, effectively ending our conversation. But as she reached the door, I caught sight of Santa himself watching me through the window. When our eyes met, he shook his head slowly, his expression disapproving.
I looked around, confused, then pointed at myself. “Me?”
Santa nodded gravely and disappeared from view.
I stood there for a moment, processing what had just happened. Apparently, I was on Santa’s naughty list. The thought was absurd enough to make me laugh, but there was something unsettling about the whole interaction.
Emmy had been friendly enough until I started asking pointed questions about the family’s struggles. Santa had been cordial when we’d chatted earlier, but now he was giving me the cold shoulder.
It was like they sensed something about me, some agenda I was trying to hide. Which was ridiculous, because I’d been nothing but polite and helpful since I had arrived. Didn’t they realize Sylvie and I were friends? Kind of. She was the one that told me the operation was in trouble.
I supposed small-town people were just naturally suspicious of outsiders who asked too many questions.
Either way, I was going to have to be more careful. If I wanted to get close enough to the Northwoods to understand their real situation—and eventually convince them to sell—I couldn’t afford to have the entire community turning against me.
Even if it meant staying on Santa’s good side.
I walked back to the lodge and went up to my room.
If I was going to be staying, I was going to need more clothes.
I was sure FedEx came out to the lodge. I grabbed my laptop and headed down to the business center.
I quickly ordered what I would need for my stay, including a coat that actually fit along with warm socks and new gloves.
I sent a quick email to my dad and let him know I wouldn’t be back for a bit. I left it at that. No need to tell him I was doing a little investigating on my own.