.Interrobang.
Synopsis
Excerpt
Long before I can see the farm house, the smell of a roaring fire, rich and sharp and smoky, begins to curl into my car through the heating vents. It is the smell that has always made me think of winter, and a warm, cozy huddle around a hearth, and family. Above the trees, I can see the pale-grey smoke spiraling upward against the deepening blue sky, like a signal fire set to call me back home.
Here in the western lakes and mountains of Maine, winter has already fallen. Unlike the murky slush that lined the curbs in Portland, the snow here is clean and white. Already, a few inches has accumulated on the ground, and a fine crust of ice has crystallized the needles of the pine trees that line the roads, their number and density increasing the further I get from the center of town, till the whole world looks like a forest, broken here and there by a narrow country road or long private driveway. In the light of the rising moon, the frozen trees glitter and glint as if they have been strung with Christmas lights.
It is December 23rd, the end of another year, the beginning of another long Maine winter and this year, it marks the beginning of my vacation. I’m taking the week between Christmas and New Year’s off from work and returning to the only place that has ever felt like home to me: a big white farm house in Mapleton, Maine. I am going to visit the Randalls.
