Mose Schrute of the Helsinki Schrutes is born in 1979, the first and only son of a brilliant automotive engineer and a former catalogue model. In 1984, his parents are unexpectedly killed in a Nordic skiing accident. A lawyer hired by the government struggles to find Mose a guardian: His Uncle Gunther is too busy with that bitter slander lawsuit with the neighboring goat farmer, as well as his own teeming brood of seventeen children. The next logical relative to take in Mose turns out be his Great-Aunt Schrude, who lives on a beet farm in Pennsylvania. She signs the paperwork and her secretary drops Mose and his nanny at the international terminal.

A man ten times as wide as his father collects Mose in an airport lounge, helping him climb into an old blue truck that sounds as though it has a bad cough. The drive is long and as they turn off the main road, Mose twists in his seat, watching loose dirt swirl crimson in the taillights. There’s a mailbox with his family name on it, eerily red. It disappears into the night and Mose faces forward just in time to see a white house appear, only partially visible in yellowed headlights.

*

The main parlor of the farmhouse is full to bursting with distant family members he has never once laid eyes on. They fall silent as he enters the room, watching him with stern gazes.

At last, a woman seated in the corner beckons. As he nears her grasp, he sees that she’s even older than the child-eating witch from the stories his mom used to tell him at bedtime. He hesitates on the last few steps, fixated on the life-like stuffed weasel mounted on the wall above her head. When he’s close enough, she squeezes his arm, testing for thickness and strength. He has none, and her disapproval is immediately evident. She begins speaking to him in English, which he hasn’t learned yet. The words have a strange gurgling noise and sound as though they are escaping her lips against her will.

Mose reaches into his pocket and unfolds the piece of paper his lastenhoitaja had pressed into his hand as she left him with a tiny suitcase at the airport. While they seated him in the smoking section and a lady with a cigarette and orange, billowy clothes had helped him practice the language on the plane, now that everyone is staring none of the scribbles seem familiar. He swallows the lump in his throat and returns the paper to his pocket without speaking.

The old woman sighs and pats his head. Another woman the age of his own mother emerges from the group and pulls him to her side. He hides his face in her skirts. They smell of sun and earth and boiled potatoes and he is grateful. She tows him away; away from the unfriendly eyes and into the dark corners of strange and dusty rooms. A kitchen; a pantry; the underside of the porch – a crude, dark place that brings fresh tears to his eyes when he remembers the shining lavatory in his own home. The home he’ll never see again.  He counts bedrooms on his fingers and has one thumb left over. None of them seem to be his.

He continues to follow her through the house with his eyes fixed on the golden braid hanging down her back. She steps around a corner and up a narrower flight of stairs that seem to lead into the ceiling. When she swings open the door and reveals a musty black cavern, Mose grips the rail, frozen to his spot on the bottom step, visions of Lempo dancing in his head. She lifts her oil lantern to demonstrate the outline of an attic. The gently swinging light casts menacing shadows. A small bed with a plain quilt and a wooden dresser come into focus and the woman has to drag Mose the last few feet. The lantern is thrust into one hand and his suitcase into the other. She locks the door behind him.

For the first time since his lastenhoitaja sat him down with a cup of hot cocoa and explained how his parents weren’t coming back, he cries for them, for his warm bed, for his beloved Lapphund, Ukko, who went to live with the boy next door. Mose is sure Ukko must hate it there and is probably crying too. He pulls the covers over his head to ward off evil spirits, drafts and moans that he suspects are the disembodied spirits of murdered stoats and other small mammals that adorn the common room. He lays there in the dark imagining the old woman had been testing his arms for meatiness and they plan to make him into a pie. They are keeping him in this chilly attic so he will be fresh for Christmas dinner.

He does not sleep.

*

The next morning the sun wakes him before the sound of an unknown hand lifting the latch does. His room at home had been dark until his mom opened the blinds, singing.  Eventually he summons the courage to creep down the stairs, still wearing his rumpled clothes from when his journey began. The entire house is quiet – the hordes of people from the previous night are gone, vanished like a bad dream in the light of day. A delicious smell draws him to the kitchen and he finds a table heaped with eggs and biscuits. The man who picked him up from the airport is lumbering from sink to stove, pouring coffee and stirring gravy in a practiced dance. His heavy body elicits creaks and squeals from the abused floorboards.

A boy with owlish glasses that Mose recognizes from the gathering enters the room and takes a seat at the table, immediately filling his plate. Without a word of greeting, he begins to shovel the food into his mouth, casting the occasional derisive glance in Mose’s general direction. Finally, he speaks around a half chewed piece of bacon. “Are you stupid or something? Don’t they have food where you come from?”

The man at the stove makes a tsking noise. Mose doesn’t know the word “stupid”. Or the word “food,” or any of the other words. He nods enthusiastically and offers to shake hands.

The boy grunts and continues with his meal. “Like I thought. Stupid.”

“Dwight!” The man scolds.

“Dwight!” Mose repeats, pleased. His first new word of the day.

Dwight narrows his eyes.

*

In the next few weeks, Mose learns the names Uncle and Aunt and Cousin. They are the ones who disappear at sun-up and return for the evening meal smelling of dung and fresh plants. The old people who rarely move are called Grandma and Grandfather and Grandmutter Mannheim (who speaks as little English as Mose and is always kind to him). Sometimes he will play chess with Grandmutter Mannheim until she drops off to sleep mid-strategy. Once her eyes have drifted closed he knocks over his king and puts his queen next to her gnarled hand. In exchange, she reads him German poetry and knits him wool socks with swastikas and stags on the toes.

Throughout the day, the house’s inhabitants ebb and flow like the tide in Helsinki Harbor. He’s never sure which members of the family sleep in those nine rooms. No one offers their name or bothers trying to teach him English. They leave it up to him to learn by immersion. Most of the family mime what they’re trying to tell him (clean this, carry that) or ignore his existence altogether. There are no other children on the farm apart from Cousin Dwight, who is seven and a half years older, more severe than the elderly women and spends most of his time on a shoddily constructed crossbow range with human shaped targets that tip each time an arrow strikes its mark. Mose tries his best to connect with him but Dwight is unmoved.

As an act of friendship, Mose organizes a construction project to improve the stability of the straw and beet sack targets. It’s a matter of geometry, something he has a gift for. At the next full moon, he sneaks out of his attic window, down the trellis and across the lawn to the barn. There’s a stack of good wood he found once while playing and a box of tools. He drags the planks one by one to the neighboring clearing with a hammer weighing down the waistband of his pants. It takes him all night to nail the new   supports into place and re-stuff the sagging appendages.

Climbing back up to his room at day break with splinters in his fingers, Mose smiles his first smile at Schrute Farm.

The sun has reached its zenith on the following day when Uncle Grit (who-is-actually-Aunt-Margarite-but-prefers-to-be-Uncle-ever-since-that-cow-accidentally-sat-on-her-head) comes to find Mose mucking out the pig pens. She speaks quickly, waves her arms towards the clearing. Mose grins. They must have found the updated crossbow range. Dwight will be his new friend now, someone to play games with and to teach him how the farm works and what the word “Dummy” means, since people keep shouting it at him. Perhaps Dwight will even let him go on those deer hunting excursions with the fat man. 

There are a few Cousins and Uncles standing in the clearing when they arrive. Mose approaches and they all turn to stare like he is arriving in their midst for the first time. “Child genius,” they say in English. “Prodigy.”

Mose lays his hands on the nearest straw man. “Gift.” He says in Finnish. “Dwight Gift.”

Dwight turns on his heel and marches into the forest, face red with shame. Mose’s hands fall to his thighs, clenched. Uncle Grit hangs her head and ushers Mose back to the pig shit, sunshine and potato-scented skirts swirling as she walks.

­*

Grandma and Grandfather Schrude, the last of the Amish Schrudes, die at the same hour of the same night, side by side in their handmade twin beds. Mose watches with morbid fascination as they are carefully bathed and dressed in wedding clothes by the aunts under the watchful gaze of Grandmutter Mannheim. A box is hauled from the loft of the barn, just like the one his parents were kept in after their accident. It’s obviously old, the crusted dirt falling in drifts on the floor of the bedroom they had shared for the last eighty years. Mose hopes that when he dies he will be so lucky as to take the one he loves with him to the next life.

The funeral is strange, but romantic. The women read love poems. The men heap garlands of wildflowers upon the coffin and lead the women in traditional celebratory dances. It’s joyous and beautiful and everyone seems glad instead of lonely and left behind. Mose wipes the tears from his cheeks and tries to be happy, too.

Following the ceremony, there is a huge party. Everyone eats too much of Cousin Helga’s famous beet cake and drinks inadvisable amounts of beet wine. Even Grandmutter Mannheim indulges, loose lipped in her drunken state: the whole gathering is regaled (against their will) with vivid descriptions of the exiled Grandfather Mannheim’s genitals and Nazi crimes that would make even the most stalwart Hitler follower blush. Fortunately, Mose doesn’t understand a word and loves her all the more for her animated hands and sparkling eyes. Some of the family doesn’t speak to her for the rest of the night but Mose never leaves her side as she dozes off next to the stone fireplace.

The wake continues long past sundown. Uncle Grit plays guitar while the other women sing Neil Diamond and Van Morrison songs. The men tell stories of particularly good harvests and hunts. The house is packed with more family than Mose’s first night at Schrute Farm; the floorboards are groaning under the weight and the room under the porch is badly in need of emptying. Cousins of cousins turn out to celebrate and honor the dead. There are toasts and laughter and it’s so unlike the funeral for his parents that Mose actually starts to have fun.

After the official burial and the not-so-official-exhumation and oil drum re-burial of the recently deceased, Mose takes over Grandfather Schrude’s only chore: tasting the soil in each field. In the spring, Father Schrute gives him a one week crash course in the different flavors of each PH level. This mostly involves mouthfuls of dirt and an enthusiastic thumbs up or a thumbs down accompanied by a wrinkled nose. It’s an easy repertoire to master for a boy the family thinks is mentally deficient.

A stray dog, a foundling like Mose, often joins him in the South Field. He chases the voles and looks like he’s trying really hard to understand when Mose speaks to him, which is more effort than most people make. Mose names him Ukko the Second and Ukko the Second is always happy to see him. He expects nothing from Mose but a well thrown stick and the occasional leftover piece of bacon, offering his unconditional devotion in return. Together they roam the morning fields, friends.

Things are quiet for a while; constant. Mose spends his mornings in the fields with Ukko. His afternoons are filled with baking and any other task that needs doing. Evenings are spent reading, either German poetry with Grandmutter Mannhein or on his own with a book about elves and some creature called a hobbit stolen from Dwight’s bookshelf. The margins are filled with notations and question marks in Dwight’s handwriting, as well as an occasional sheet of paper with a scribbled story about the characters outside the scope of the book. Unfortunately, this is the only English book in the house and the family’s opinion of Mose’s mental prowess is diminished significantly by his frequent use of appalling prose and his questions about their relative distance from Mordor. They shush him and show him some new chore like properly stacking the glass jars in the pantry. Many nights he returns to his attic space and adds to his list “Ways To Prepare a Beet.” Under wine and cake he carefully writes pickled.

The calm does not last and the strange happiness he’d found on the farm begins to slip away. There’s the incident with Ukko the second, Mose’s famous cream pie and Dwight’s shot gun. Dwight has his weapon taken away, but it’s small comfort now that his canine friend is gone. He has another list for that, too. Mother, Father, Ukko, Grandmother Scrude, Grandfather Schrude. His hand shakes as Ukko the Second appears under the tip of his pen.

The autumn is a difficult season for Mose in 1986. Dwight starts going to school full time, so Mose has very little company during the day now that Ukko the Second is dead. The October of that year also brings Mose’s first shunning. He’s not clear on how exactly it happened. Something to do with his engineering skills and a possible insult to humor? Anyway, no one will speak to him, not even for the purpose of scolding. It’s not a big deviation from the usual ignorance of his existence, but somehow there’s a painful difference between neglect and intentional silence.

Dwight, having been shunned himself at a young age, can appreciate the hardship, the desire to talk to anyone, no matter how unlikely. On Mose’s fourth day of shunning for the unappreciated act of table-making genius, Dwight comes home from school red-faced and wet eyed. He grabs Mose by the sleeve and leads him outside.

Instead of stopping at the barn to play ninja farmer or the pond to throw rocks at frogs for target practice, Dwight continues towards the mountains, further than Mose has ever dared to wander for fear of being eaten by a bear or a wolf or something called a Tasmanian Devil. Dwight had assured him on more than one occasion that it is by far the most dangerous animal in the Pennsylvania woods and related the horrifying tale of a man named Rabbit who was eternally bedeviled by such a creature. The only way to stop a Tasmanian Devil, Mose learns, is to bury him in cold earth or help him find his true love. Of course, this had all been communicated by wild hand gestures and some cartoon drawings of the parties involved, so it’s possible something is lost in the translation.

Cousin Dwight leads the way north, unafraid of any devil or demon. They meet up with a narrow creek. Dwight points to it and says “Schrude” so that Mose will understand they are still on the family land. The water winds its way into a grove of trees with autumn leaves of gold and crimson. Every so often one of the massive trunks is adorned with a rusted tap, the spout crusted with amber crystals. Mose will ask Grandmutter Mannheim about it during their evening chess game, if he isn’t being led to his death. He daren’t ask Dwight for fear of being ridiculed.

They meander through the woods, kicking stumps and startling late migrating Yellow Legs with accurately thrown sticks. Dwight teaches Mose a few new games; King of the Castle is fun, since Mose has more upper body strength than his cousin and elicits “Uncle!” almost every time; Hide and Seek is not, since Dwight makes him count to one thousand (necessarily in Finnish) and leaves him stranded in the grove with no idea how to get home. As the sun descends, Mose makes his way south and finds the creek that led them there, following it the whole way. When he reaches the armoire shed at the outskirts of the farmstead, Dwight it waiting for him with a slow clap and an expression of grudging approval.

Mose beams with delight and tries to hug Dwight. Dwight stiffly receives the gesture for a few moments, then swats Mose to the ground before spinning on his heel and heading back to the house. Mose trails behind, brimming with the warmth of acceptance.

*

Winter is a quiet time on the farm. Mose has very few chores and Grandmutter Mannheim’s arthritis often prevents her from leaving her bed, so he rarely has an evening companion. Most of his time is spent locked in the attic learning German from the dusty bookshelf nailed to the foot of his bed (as if they suspect he will somehow steal whatever is not bolted down). The pages crackle when turned; the German illustrations are helpful in their explicit description of the text, if a little disturbing. November brings a healthy respect for not being a picky eater, sucking his thumb in front of a tailor, and playing with matches while wearing scarlet shoes – all unlikely occurrences that he will nevertheless be on guard for in the future. Grandmutter Mannheim lets him practice while they play chess up in her room under the conditions that Mose always brings her a stein of beet cider and promises not to hug her. They play and talk until the cider goes to her head and she starts confusing King with Pawn. Mose declares her the winner, always, then makes sure her lantern has stopped burning before returning to his room.

In the hall that leads back to his tiny set of stairs the words ay oh whey oh walk like an Egyptian are blaring from Dwight’s room. When the floorboards squeak under Mose’s feet the song instantly switches to whooah, we’re halfway there! Livin’ on a prayer! which Dwight punctuates loudly with Yeah! Awesome! Hopefully Dwight won’t listen to his pop music too late. There’ll be an early sap tapping in morning and Mose wants to be the first Schrute to reach the grove with his maple bucket.

*

The next two years tumble by quickly. Mose’s beet farming experience grows and his expertise in soil tasting surpasses all expectations. He’s not completely unhappy, for a time. His best friend is a feisty old Nazi and no one will let him go to school, but he can’t really say that he’s abused, either. He has a safe place to sleep, all the food he can cook and sometimes Dwight lets him keep their blue ribbons from the county fair for a day or two before they are burned in a demonstration of the Schrute disdain for public appreciation and conformity.

It’s only when Grandmutter Mannheim dies suddenly in January of 1989, or at least as suddenly as death can be for someone who is one hundred and one years old, that Mose sort of loses his hope for life on the farm. There’s a stillness to the common areas that he can’t remember ever noticing before.

Mose adds her name to the list and only cries when no one will see.

leaves: now everything, everything must change.

The house is quieter these days. The larger bedrooms are mostly vacant, but Mose has grown fond of his attic. It’s…cozy. There are still family gatherings for big events and more importantly, the harvests. Sometimes there are funerals to celebrate (Brigitta Mannheim follows Grandmutter to the Great Beyond only a few months later). Sometimes there are weddings to mourn (Uncle Grit marries a nice old man three times her age that runs the roadside asparagus stall next to the Schrute beet stand, a surprise to everyone). And sometimes kin just leave and never come back (Heindl’s twin sister Shirley took all the good copper pots to Atlantic City and no one has seen her since. Mose is convinced Shirley and Dwight’s mother are one in the same, although no one seems able to confirm this).

With only Dwight and Father Schrute around the house for company now, Mose starts spending so much time out in the grove that the wildlife stops being scared of him. He makes friends with a chipmunk and a mother raccoon that brings her cubs by for handouts from Mose’s rucksack. He ventures further each day, until the horizon is more sky than branches.

            Eventually he reaches the northernmost border of the family land. His eyes adjust from the cool shadows of the forest to the vibrant green of a field. There’s a pale blue farm house is nestled in the distant foothills, more than an hour’s stroll from where he stands. He imagines that Pennsylvania is the underside of Finland, the green on the bottom and the blue on top. The trees and plants wave like the ocean currents and the sky is often hard and stony like the shoreline. If he gets back on the plane that brought him here and flies up, straight up he will surely find himself back home with Ukko and his mom and dad, looking down at the blue sea.

A flash of movement catches his attention. He shades his eyes and at last picks out a figure down in the field, one foot in the neighboring oat field and the other in the ivy of the Schrute forest. A young girl with skin the color of milky coffee stares up at him in surprise. After a few minutes, she begins to move towards him. Instinctively he wants to bolt, but her eyes hold him steady. He stands fixed to the earth as she climbs the slope hand-over-hand until she’s less than two feet away, her ivory dress smeared with dirt.

She reaches out to touch his hand. “My name is Cecilia,” she says in Creole.

His fingers curl against hers, finding them damp from her climb to meet him. “My name is Mose,” he responds in Finnish. They don’t understand each other at all.

It’s pretty much love at first sight.

*

Another five days pass before Mose can sneak away from his mid-morning chores. He follows the creek into the grove, pausing to lay his hands on some of the larger tree trunks. He has been working on a theory since the last time he was here. The older trees have a presence and he suspects that it’s where people go when they die. Adults bury the dead in hollow columns of wood; it must mean something - preparing the body for where the spirit will go. In their turn, the trees die to make the coffin. If he searches this grove carefully enough he will find Grandfather and Grandma Schrude’s trees, side by side. He is almost certain of it. There’s a particular maple that leans over the oat field that bends nearly to the ground so that Mose can easily climb into its limbs. He names the tree Mother and waits in her arms, blue eyes scanning the green field.

His stomach has started to rumble by the time he sees the oat stems rippling in the distance. Cecilia walks right up to the roots of his tree, shielding her eyes against the sun as she calls out a greeting he doesn’t understand. Her smile is wide and he grins right back. Two biscuits are produced from the pocket of her apron. He is offered the larger one and they sit together on the small cliff overlooking her farm.

She speaks constantly, her voice blending well with that of the sparrow chirping overhead. He doesn’t know what either of their songs mean, but he loves the sound all the same. He listens as she describes the kitchen she made the biscuits in and her bedroom and the little garden she tends behind the barn that her father doesn’t approve of since her mother used to care for it before she died from the new baby. Of course Mose can’t follow a word. She swells with her language, it bubbles out of her like a fountain and he wants to stay there forever. It’s been so long since anyone took the time to talk to him. She explains about raising chickens and farming oats and the Kentucky uncle who taught her all about whittling. The sun is getting low before he has spoken a single sentence in return and suddenly she’s running back down the slope waving over her shoulder.

Darkness has settled by the time he reaches the farmhouse, but he’s still safely in bed when the bolt is thrown to trap him in with the fairytale goblins and German parables.

*

They’re both perched high in one of the grove’s trees, away from home far too long, but neither can find the heart to go. They don’t get to see each other every week because it’s so difficult for her to escape her father’s watchful eye and he has more responsibilities on the farm now that he’s getting older and cleverer at learning tasks via mime. Once the harvest season begins, it’ll be nearly impossible to meet.

Cecilia is demonstrating the best way to carve realistic bear fur, when a man’s bellow echoes across the field. Cecilia snaps her head up, eyes wide. Her blade slips across Mose’s knuckles and the shock unseats him from the branch. The world tilts and spins as he’s delivered to the earth with a series of loud cracks.

For the first few moments, everything is black. His eyes must be open – he can feel himself blinking – but there is only sound to tell him he survived the fall. Birds call to each other, unsettled by the disturbance of their territory. Cecilia’s voice trills, alien music until his brain can collect itself enough to translate. Gradually, his field of vision is filled with swaying new green leaves, dancing in that way they have, choreographed by the winds and whims of nature. He lies on his back, dreaming of branches and people swirled through life by fate.

Cecilia appears in the dream, at his side. Her eyes match the leaves overhead – vibrant with green and motion. There’s pressure on his lips and suddenly he’s awake, reaching with his fingers, lifting his head to meet the touch.

Her cheeks are red when she pulls back. The pain in his head is non-existent as he takes her hand and promises that he’s unhurt, even though his ears are ringing. It takes some convincing to get her to leave before her father comes looking for her. “Cecilia,” he begs in her language. “You won’t be allowed to come again. Hurry.”

“I’ll check on you tomorrow after my morning chores. You’ll be here?”

He’s young, but he replies “always” with the passion of Aragorn. “When we marry, it won’t be in a grave. I promise you, Cecilia.”

She laughs and touches his chin. “Okay, silly. We’ll get married over there, under that big maple. We can plan everything tomorrow.” She’s humoring him; it’s her way. She picks up the hems of her skirts to keep them clean when she runs across the field and he loves her even more as he walks back to the farm, rubbing the lump forming on the base of his skull.

*

The year he turns thirteen, the family discovers that Mose, despite his apparent stupidity, has a gift for numbers and organization. They begin training him to oversee the beet farm. This takes far more time than a teenage boy even of Mose’s prodigious talents would care to devote. His thoughts are of Cecilia: instead of assigning brain cells to cutworm eradication and ideal harvest temperatures, he practices Creole as though his life depends on it while chisel plowing in the Autumn, since his achievements elicit her praise and often some kind of delicious baked good from her morning in the kitchen. This earns stranger than usual looks from the family. Dwight calls him a half-wit. Mose isn’t sure what that is, but it feels nice to be a half-wit so he graciously accepts the compliment. In response, Dwight nails him in the head with a chunk of manure, laughing. It’s wonderful to play.

As the years pass, his Creole becomes fluent. His farm management skills are not much improved. Unfortunately, the family does not catch on to this fact and suffers a blow at the hands of the fickle international beet market down the line.

Cecilia, it turns out, is a far more talented tree-climber than he is a businessman. They spend most summer afternoons fulfilling dares of who can climb the highest, jump the farthest and find the most woollybear caterpillars in one tree. When she calls down “Seven!” triumphantly from a smallish maple, he climbs up after her to see with his own eyes. There’s only one really thick branch, so he has to crowd up next to her to keep from falling. “Cheni,” she instructs, pointing to three visible caterpillars and revealing four more safely tucked in her palm. Mose offers to shake her hand (he is a good sport if nothing else), but she demands a kiss as reward instead, tugging his outstretched hand until her lips meet his. Then she pulls away, laughing, her fingertips trailing through the leaves overhead. “Feuilles.”

“Feuilles,” he repeats dutifully. This is one of the words Dwight has taught him in English, while explaining that it has another meaning – when someone goes away, they leaves. Mose touches Cecilia’s shoulder and implores her: “Please don’t leaves.”

She laughs again at his misunderstanding and kisses him lightly. “No leaves. Only feuilles.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon having woollybear races before an appreciative audience of hungry robins until she can’t stay away from home any longer without raising suspicion.

*  

Mose keeps track of his own birthdays in the back of a passport he’ll never use again. He makes little notations to celebrate. Most of them read: Cleaned out chicken coop and prepared dinner for six. Or: Early Winter weather this year. Halloween bonfire was my belated party. Some kids from the next farm over threw eggs at my head to wish me good tidings and a fertile eighteenth year. At the start of his nineteenth year, Cecilia offers him pumpkin cupcakes and some other things that he dare not put in writing.

“I told Gertie.” Cecilia reveals afterwards, as they finish the last of the baking. She carefully corrals and removes the cream cheese icing with the tip of her tongue. It both makes his face flush and reminds him of their childhood. The feeling between them is like that sometimes. Best friends; childhood companions; a place of solace in hard times; lovers.

“What did she say?” He can’t stop watching her mouth.

Cecilia ducks her head shyly at his attentions. “I think she already knew. She’s worked in our household since my mother died and probably knows me better than the shadows of my bedroom. She even helped me with the cupcakes and covered for my afternoon chores.”

“So she won’t tell your father?” A speck of icing is lingering in the crook of her smile.

“No, she’s a romantic at heart. I want you to meet her someday, you’ll love her.”

He agrees easily. Today is their last together for the next few weeks. The temperature is nearly perfect for the beet harvest and after that there will be plenty of pickling and canning and mulling to keep Mose busy. He loves harvest time; working around the clock to get all the beets out of the ground before the weather changes; the new people and all their stories that come with the giant hauling trucks; Cousin Elsie takes the week off from fashion school in New York and always brings him goodies from the tiny Scandinavian shop near her apartment.

            Cecilia stirs at his side, bringing him back to the present. “It’s getting late. My father will be wanting dinner soon.”

            “I know. Just another half hour? The trees will be bare next time we meet.”

            There’s a tremor in her voice as she agrees. Scarlet and ochre leaves drift lazily to the forest floor from the canopy overhead. The fickle breeze determines their trajectory while Mose’s mind tries to find a pattern in the whirls and twists. Just as he’s about to crack the odds of red following yellow, Cecilia presses her nose into his shoulder and sighs. “What are you thinking?”

He pulls her closer and rearranges the fleece blanket around her shoulders to make sure she’s warm enough. He speaks in Creole so she will fully understand his meaning. “I was trying to predict in what order the trees might shed their coats, and where they will land based on the current direction of the breeze. But just when I think a rusty one will land on that stump, it falls in the stream.”

“Leaves fall where they will.” Her voice is slow and thoughtful, like the dropping leaves themselves. Her hair has their scent.  

“It’s true.” He thinks of all the people he lost, only to find Cecilia. She consumes all the bad memories like a warm log fire, the kind you build with red cedar so the whole house will still have that glorious smell days later, even on the coldest of winter mornings. He has plans to steal her away from her father and he tries explaining these ideas to her one day as they cool their toes in the pond next to the grove. Her eyes are wet as she answers that it would kill her father if she left, that she could never imagining him learning how to use the oven, because it was really tricky and…and…He doesn’t press her on the subject, even when her upper arm has a bruises like a constellation of fingertips from arguments at home she won’t speak of, even to him.

*

In September or October of some later year (Mose can never get the details straight anymore; grief and anger confuse his mind about months and days), The Storm sneaks across Cecilia’s dale without warning. One moment her fields are emerald green with afternoon sunlight and the next the shadows are so deep and fierce the oat grass churns like the deepest part of the sea, mirroring the angry swirls overhead.

It’s the worst storm Mose can remember in all his twenty years at Schrute Farm, even counting the tornado Dwight swears he saw in 1989 which left no eyewitnesses or damage. The cellar floods and Mose and Dwight work through the afternoon lugging baskets of beets to safety. The farm’s superior irrigation system protects the fields, leaving only the house and the cemetery vulnerable. Grandfather Schrude is probably going to be very soggy in his oil drum tonight.

Once they’ve battened down the hatches as best they can, Mose leaves his waterproof gear on and grabs the storm lantern. Cecilia will be waiting. They’d promised to meet rain or shine since they haven’t seen each other in almost a month. Even with the lantern, it’s difficult to see and the chill of the air drives straight through his bones. She’s there at the edge of their lands, sheltering at the base of his favorite maple - the one he first spotted her from all those years before.

She greets him with a kiss, holding her black umbrella over both their heads. “I thought you might stay on the farm. I’ve never seen such rain.” The shoulder of her damp wool coat scratches his cheek when he wraps his arms around her. They stay for hours, risking the view of her father before she has to sneak back home. The air is nearly electric; clouds boil and shift with potential for destruction. A distant rumbling warns of danger, but they are lost in their own moment until lightning makes its first strike. The smell of charred wood finally breaks their mood and Cecilia reluctantly agrees to head home.

“Next Saturday my father will be away. Will you come for dinner?” Her hair is a mess from the wind and he smoothes it carefully.

“I will. Saturday, then.” He turns back to the south and slowly begins the trek home, walking along the edge of the grove a ways to make sure she makes it down the slope safely.

The lightning comes again just as he’s turning to wave goodbye for a third time. It misses her, barely, forking through a large maple instead. Mose is already running back as the tree begins to topple towards Cecilia, its branches connecting solidly between her shoulder blades. He overturns his ankle in the wet dirt trying to avoid a collision himself. When he climbs to his feet again he can’t see her among the debris at first. Then he spots her, much further down the slopes than he would have thought, as still as the stones surrounding her.

“Cecilia! Can you hear me?” He has to shout over the thunder and wind. She doesn’t stir or respond. When her reaches her side he can feel the flutter of a pulse under his nervous fingers, so he hooks his arms under her knees and shoulders. Her head lolls against his neck.

The route to Cecilia’s farm will be the quickest to navigate with a sprained ankle. The decision is reluctantly made – he’ll go to her farmstead and risk being shot for bringing home a man’s only daughter unconscious and bleeding rather than chance a trip all the way back the his own house.

His progress on the flat ground is slowed by thick mud and his injury, allowing Mose far too much time to think about the worst possible outcome. He is halfway across the field before he realizes that this is the first time he’s been off the farm in fifteen years. His adrenaline surges and he covers the rest of the distance in record time.

Cecilia’s skin is like ice by the time he reaches her front door. His voice is hoarse from shouting for the last hundred yards. Gertie is waiting with a furrowed brow and wool blankets ready to receive the unconscious girl. She doesn’t chastise or chase, she simply accepts her charge with an air of authority.

Mose begins to explain, then realizes he’s speaking Finnish and switches to Creole. Cecilia is a good teacher and his accent is decent. The old woman understands easily enough and seems to know who he is; she calls him by name even though he hasn’t introduced himself yet. Gertie lifts Cecilia easily onto the dining table and instructs Mose to help her remove the bloody coat so they can have a better look. His stomach heaves at the metallic smell when they peel the fabric away.

“What can I do?” He can’t stop squeezing Cecilia’s hand, pulses it like it might restore her heart to full strength.

“You’ve already done your part – she’s home now in the care of her family. Go, before her father sees you. He’ll kill you for sure, with a temper like his.”

The front door opens with a bang. “The last of the animals are safe, no thanks to Cecilia. Have you seen that errant daughter of mine, Gertie? ”

Gertie waves Mose towards the back door and he slips into the shadows. He almost makes it, too - gets caught with his fingers twisting the doorknob.

The man’s eyes flash in his direction. “What’s going on here? Who is this boy?” Any words that Mose could have summoned get trapped in his chest; the lump in his throat threatens to strangle the life from him as surely as the angry man’s own hands. There’s a ringing in his ears, maybe from the lightning strike, maybe not.

Everyone’s eyes settle on the injured girl prone on the kitchen table, clothing dark with blood. Her father cries out: “Cecilia!” and it’s like Mose’s own voice. Before going to her side, before checking for a heartbeat, the man reaches for his shotgun and takes aim. The pellets fly wide to splinter the doorframe at his elbow. Once he’s outside, however, the pursuit ends. Through the window, he sees Cecilia’s father fall upon her and can hear Gertie’s wails as he backs slowly out into the field. There is no longer pain in his ankle – the capacity for physical pain vanishes at the sight of Cecilia’s body, slack in her father’s arms like some broken doll.

The rain gusts ferociously all the way back to the farm and he’s grateful it disguises his wet face when Dwight asks where he’s been. Mose doesn’t leave his room for four days.  On the fifth, he burns his list.

new growth: the world becomes more beautiful with each day.

Mose’s early twenties pass with few exceptional events to break up the monotony. He tries to get off the farm more often, mostly to sell beets at the local fairs and markets. He doesn’t often speak to anyone, but still it’s something. He likes to watch the people go by without admitting to himself that he’s looking for Cecilia. She’s dead, he knows that. The nightmares remind him each night. Something in him searches anyway.

Dwight’s new job at the paper company in Scranton keeps him away from the farm most of the time and Mose finds himself working harder to pick up the slack. The result is a record beet harvest year at the turn of the century just as Mose was hoping to pursue his new ambition of becoming a motocross champion. He loves the roar of the engine as the bike shakes his body and how the whole world seems to disappear.

His friendship with his cousin becomes strained when Dwight eventually lays down the law with a speech about responsibility to the family land and resistance to frivolous obsessions, even though Dwight devotes all of his time to an apparently all-powerful man named Michael and later, a severe blonde woman named Angela. Mose sees this woman at the farm only occasionally – glimpses taupe and grey on the staircase or behind the wheel of a retreating beige car.

Eventually she deigns to join them for evening meals and then morning ones as well. She speaks to Mose in clipped tones at first, although his infinite patience for rudeness wears her down over time. Sometimes while Dwight is patrolling the cemetery for lustful teenagers, Mose keeps Angela company in the kitchen. She’s pretty good at chess and carefully explains God’s love for the virtuous. Mose isn’t quite sure where Angela fits in since she sleeps over at the farm three times a week and if they were locked in that bedroom praying, she probably wouldn’t be calling “Oh, D” over and over.

*

One spring afternoon while they’re tilling the soil in the East Field, Mose tries again to explain to Dwight what’s been troubling him for the last few years, why he has trouble sleeping. Cecilia had been his secret – he hadn’t breathed a word of her existence to anyone in the family. Now that she’s gone, he can’t convey what she meant, how the sound of her voice felt. He can’t tell Father Schrute that he loved her because they grew up together. He can’t tell his cousin Dwight that she was perfect because she taught him Creole and whittling and all about chickens and never once spoke a cross word when he got it wrong. 

In any case, Dwight has just broken up with Angela – something about French Fries and a cat named…Cupcake? Icing? He can’t quite remember. Dwight looks like he could use someone to talk to. He’s been moping around the farm since October, probably doesn’t realize Mose can hear his desperate wailing from all the way up in the attic. Even though Mose’s nightmares have been a lot better the last few years, lately he has been woken in the night by his cousin’s grief and feigns bad dreams to justify a trip downstairs.

It seems to comfort Dwight, so Mose makes the trek down his narrow staircase every night to sit at the end of Dwight’s bed. He asks for stories – all of Dwight’s favourites, since he knows the value of a man’s preferred food or pair of the thickest socks during a difficult time. They make their way through a vast mess called the Silmarillion and the Harry Potter series (a baffling adventure about children who learn magic instead of practical skills and find themselves in danger because of it). Mose has little sympathy for a society so dependant on the invisible. Trees, the earth, a hammer – that’s what’s real and true. In this case, he misses Miss Angela’s anti-Rowling stance. It’s a corrupt world and gives children misleading ideas. True talent is something you must demonstrate with your hands, not some nonsense word that can conjure a campfire or a silver stag.

*

Sometime in late May, Dwight returns home from work long after dark, everything about him rumpled. It’s the first time Mose has seen him smile in eight months and he doubts it has anything to do with raccoon prank they pulled earlier in the day. Even his laser tag team’s recent tournament win had only succeeded in producing a slightly less homicidal frown. Mose settles into his attic room after greeting his cousin, content in the knowledge that he would not need to ask for a bedtime story that night.

Only a few weeks go by before Dwight informs him that they will need to build an indoor bathroom, since Angela has agreed to be his wife. It turns out she refused the first four times on account of her aversion to using an outhouse, regardless of whether or not Mose had fixed the lock on the door. Apparently a flushable toilet is a deal breaker for some women. In this matter, Mose is only too happy to oblige.

All of his supplies arrive one afternoon in a big white and orange van. Dwight had gone all out with the internet ordering, buying all the fanciest fixtures; they had some extra cash lying around from the recent eBay sale of Dwight’s new X-terra. The delivery man glances at the outhouse as he hands Mose a box of tiles. His name tag says Hubert. “You upgrading?”

“Ladies don’t like to pee in the yard, Hubert,” Mose replies in his very precise English.

Hubert laughs good-naturedly. “Ain’t that the truth. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Mose signs for the delivery by carefully printing his first name, then pulls a measuring tape from his pocket. He has a lot of work to do. “Safe travels, Hubert. Thank you for coming.”

*

Angela’s maid of honour, Pam From Work (not Pam from the County Fair Cotton Candy Booth, obviously) spends the two days before the wedding at the farm organizing a reception, stringing white lights and garlands in the yard and all over the house by day and sleeping amongst the American memorabilia by night. It’s Mose’s favourite guest room and he insists she stay there this time around. He wants her to appreciate what a beautiful job he’s done with the decorations: there’s a hand-stitched Stars and Stripes and Cheeseburgers quilt, Mose’s own paintings of the Kentucky Derby Winners for the last six years and of course the bedside table with a mosaic surface of Budweiser beer caps (a tribute of sorts to Dwight’s laser tag team – they had really pulled out all the stops to supply him with enough tiles to complete the project. Sure, there had been the incident with the pig, but ultimately Mose was very pleased with the finished product.) Pam, on the night before the wedding, expresses enthusiastic approval for his work, but declines his offer for a themed Davy Crockett bedtime story, even though he already has on his raccoon hat (to be fair, the raccoon had been asking for it).

It’s nice to have a woman around the house again, someone to remind him of deft fingers and tender words. Their wisdom is different, seems rooted in something he and Dwight will never understand. Despite Angela’s harshness, he could never argue with the sagacity of “God helps those who help themselves” and of course the phrase she most often used in his presence: “If you have poor table manners, no one will ever love you.” Sting though it may, her prudence is unparalleled.

Pam’s wisdom is worded more kindly, but is no less true. While they press the antique lace table clothes and finish hemming curtains for the new bathroom, she asks about his life and reminds him to do what makes him happy. They work, sewing machines humming into the night and he considers what his future should hold. The farm – he has always loved the farm, from the first time he swilled the soil across the back of his tongue. And Dwight, well Dwight would probably starve if it weren’t for him. Plus they’re best friends, which won’t ever change unless Dwight finds someone cooler to spend his time with.

Of course there are his dreams of Cecilia and all the people who have passed and left him here. It’s Heaven, he supposes, or Valhalla, or the Grey Haven, or whatever they call it in all the countries he’s never been to. He tells Pam of his heaven’s autumn leaves and how there are no skiing accidents and no lightning and no guns. She hugs him a little before retiring to the America room and he can hear her whispering on the phone to Jim Who Doesn’t Like Trampoline Shows long after lights out.

If Mose belonged to any other family he would probably class Dwight and Angela’s wedding as bizarre. However, he is a Schrute and such things no longer faze him – they are common place to a boy once horrified by strange customs. For better or worse, this is his world now and he loves it: the incomprehensible names everyone has given him; international beet sales, even though he’s terrible at it; the monthly goat Christenings as per Schrute slaughtering guidelines.

The pre-ceremony takes place in a pair of freshly dug graves at sunrise. Mose stands next to Grandmutter Mannheim’s headstone and watches the grim swapping of canvas funeral shrouds. Mose, Angela and Dwight then relocate to Angela’s parish chapel where the couple exchange vows under the strict gaze of Angela’s childhood minister and the congregation she judges and is judged by. Mose has heard her speak imperiously of sisters, but they do not attend. Instead Pam stands faithfully at her side and holds Angela’s tea rose bouquet when the tradition requires. Dwight has often spoken of Pam’s capability and trustworthiness as a deputy and Mose knows Angela’s flowers and train are in deft hands.

As the wedding party passes back down the aisle, a camera crew tries to conceal itself in the back pew and seems to have a keen interest in the thinnest of smiles a woman named Phyllis offers the brides as she ushers a group of her co-workers into a van with “Vance Refrigeration” printed on the side.

The guests caravan up to the homestead, welcomed by twinkling lights that guide them up the dirt driveway. All the cousins who won’t go into a Christian church have champagne and beet wine chilled and ready to serve. It’s moments like these that Mose loves his family, despite all his original misgivings. Before the celebration kicks off, everyone gathers in the front hall, cheering as Mose produces a silver key to unlock the door of what had once been the grubby old canning room. Inside is a shining oasis of white porcelain, brass taps and hand-planed wood.

“Pam picked the curtain fabric.” Mose offers humbly when Angela throws her arms around his waist. All this happiness looks good on her, even as she straightens up again to tug fussily at the hem of her cream jacket. Dwight seems a whole foot taller as he offers his new wife first flush.

The Schrute clan has always thrown the best parties. This one is no exception – Uncle Grit is still strumming her guitar for an enthusiastic crowd at sunrise. Mose makes his excuse and finds himself walking north towards the maple grove. He hasn’t been back in over eight years, not since Cecilia died. It’s been a long week for him, seeing all the love his cousin carries in his heart - it’s hard not to think of what his own heart is missing. He longs to touch those trees again, to remember how things had been before The Storm.

Mose follows the creek, the dark mountains beyond his left shoulder. To his right, there is a warm peach sky building to a clear morning. Behind him is the melody of a green plastic recorder that ends with a wave of joyous cheering that startles all the early morning birds. Mose is smiling as he steps within the borders of the grove. He could feel so many things – sadness, regret, loss, guilt. Instead he feels lightness, a near contentment. People he loves are happy. And Cecilia is here; her shape in the limb of every tree; her strength in the vein of every rock; her spirit in the flutter of every leaf.

He has avoided this place for so long, only to discover that it brings him peace. He can remember her fondly. He can remember her well. His heart aches from fullness and emptiness, both at the same time.

Halfway across the grove he can see light between the branches, the openness from her family’s fields. A shadow moves and flickers among the thickets. He waits patiently, expecting a young doe (he has long since overcome his fear of Tasmanian Devils). The creature has a strange gait, almost as if it’s walking on three legs.

And it’s…well, he hasn’t slept in over twenty four hours and all these memories must be playing tricks on his mind. Because it can’t possibly be Cecilia stepping out from behind that tree. It can’t be her struggling towards him, leaning heavily on a cane and smiling. A delicate hand touches his as the sky lightens and he must be dreaming at home in his attic bed. Nine years her voice whispers as lithe arms slip around his shoulders. I’ve been counting the days and he kept me there and now he’s gone and I missed you and and and... Despite her weakness, the old grace is still there. Before he will kiss her, he makes her pinch his arm to prove he isn’t asleep.

She obliges impatiently and begins to explain. “All this time, my father told me you died in the storm, that you were killed by the same lightning strike that crippled me. I heard the party and I wanted to meet them, all the cousins you spoke of.” Her fingers curl tightly in his. “I was lying in my bed in my empty house, thinking of your family celebrating without you. I had to see them, maybe share what I knew of you. I wanted to see all the things you described and it would be like you were still a part of the world. Cecilia has to stop for a minute, searching for breath, for composure. “I never imagined I would find you here. How are you here?”

Mose laughs then, not because it’s funny, but for joy and bad luck and all the wasted time that suddenly meant nothing the moment he laid eyes on her. He shares his story, his grief, his years, as he helps her back towards the homestead. Hungry Schrutes are an unruly bunch and he has biscuits to get in the oven.

Cecilia rests at the kitchen table, politely receiving Dwight’s invasive questions and fielding Angela’s concerns about voodooism with serenity. In fact, she barely takes notice of their well-meaning insults; she’s too busy grinning at him from across the room. The new day’s sun and the stove warm the room as Cecilia wins everyone over, even the bride. And though the cost is visible in the strain of her muscles, she stands at his side, rinsing each freshly washed dish the family leaves behind.

After everyone has gone to bed with stomachs filled to capacity by the traditional wedding-hangover-breakfast, Mose leads Cecilia out onto the porch. They mean to talk about all the things that have happened between then and now, only it’s been a long night for them both. The last thing he remembers is her hand cradling the back of his.

Mose’s next moment of awareness is being woken abruptly by his Aunt Shirley. She is a day late for her son’s wedding – typical for a mother who would steal the copper pots and pretend her own child is a foundling. Shirley passes into the house and Mose turns to look over at Cecilia. The rocking chair is empty.

A dream, he thinks; it was only a dream. The reality of her loss comes again like the first day. It sinks him back down onto the wicker bench. He wraps his arms around his knees and tries not to rock since Dwight tells him it makes him look weird in front of guests.

The mesh porch door slams. “I thought you would sleep until the sun went down. I couldn’t sit any longer, so I went inside to help Angela clean up.”

“Oh.” Mose replies quietly, then more loudly: “Oh!”

Cecilia is there, staring at him strangely. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” The melody of her Creole is warm and familiar and he has missed it almost as much as the curve of her lips. “Dwight sent me out to find you. He wouldn’t tell me why.”

“It is the best man’s duty to give the bridegroom his first haircut as a newlywed. Dwight must be properly shorn before the festivities can recommence.”

            She grins and grins and grins. His own cheeks ache. “Well, you’d better get to it then.”

            “Yeah. Right away. I can’t think of anything more important.” He pauses, enthralled by her smile. “Please sit next to me.”

            “Your cousin…he’s waiting.” She lingers by the door, suddenly shy.

            One of the little nephews races past into the yard, punching Mose in the thigh on the way by. Mose bears it easily and reaches for her hand. “It doesn’t matter. I want to talk with you. I want to hear about everything.”

            Cecilia tugs at his beard and coaxes him up off the wicker bench. “We have time for that. Let’s go inside. Your family is waiting.”

*

On the northern border of the Schrute beet farm, there is a grove of ancient sugar maple trees. A hundred years earlier their numbers had been so great that a person could hide undetected in them for days, even when pursued by the most competent hunter. It so happened that this had been tested on more than one occasion. And while the trees had dwindled, the family spoke of this grove with unfailing reverence. Beets were the lifeblood of the farm, but the maples had provided the very floorboards under their feet, the roof over their heads, the table they prayed at and the posts of their lovingly hand-made beds. The year of the great 1955 cutworm infestation the family survived solely by selling the sturdiest dining sets in the county. Possibly in all of America, if it such a thing could be accurately judged.

It is in this grove of maples that Mose falls in love for the first and only time. And it is beneath the boughs of these maples that he marries his Cecilia.