Pumpkin Pied

by Karen MacInerney

  “I wouldn’t want to build a house there, even so.” I shivered, thinking of the ghost that had turned up in my own kitchen a few years back. I hadn’t seen her since, but it had been unsettling to say the least.

  “Well, there’s going to be one whether there’s a ghost or not..”

  “It’s such a shame,” I said. It was a beautiful meadow, and the location of the annual Cranberry Island Pumpkin Patch and Harvest Festival for years. “You think someone’s trying to convince Eileen’s family not to sell?”

  “By splashing the corn maze with blood and writing weird symbols on the ground?’” John grabbed a molasses crackle cookie from the jar. “I doubt it. Eileen’s kids aren’t even in Maine; they live down in Connecticut these days. It’s probably just Halloween hijinks,” he said.

  “We saw somebody by Henry’s greenhouse, too,” I said. “And Lucy said the pumpkin looks like it’s in trouble.”

  “Because it’s so enormous it’s imploding?”

  “No... it looks like it’s diseased—at least that’s what Lucy thinks.”

  “That’ll be a disappointment for him,” John said. “But Phoebe will be thrilled. He was talking about cheating down at the store the other day... thinks she is pumping it full of Human Growth Hormone.”

  “How is that going to help a pumpkin grow?”

  “I don’t know, but he looked like he was about to commit pumpkin murder the other day down at the store. Henry’s wife Emmeline was there, too.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “I got the feeling she was looking forward to the judging being over.”

  I laughed. “It’s never dull here on Cranberry Island, is it?”

  “Not with you around, it isn’t,” he said, and pulled me into an embrace that made me forget all about what we’d found at the corn maze.

  By the time Lucy and I got to the festival the next afternoon, the blood had been cleaned up and everything was looking autumnal and beautiful. The backdrop of dark green evergreens mixed with yellow birch and red maples was stunning, and the sky was a clear, crystalline blue. I caught a whiff of wood smoke, and the buzz of excited voices added a festive air. Many families had come over from the mainland for the day, and the pumpkin patch was doing a booming business. Charlene was doing a brisk business selling hot cider and sugared donuts, along with some molasses crackle cookies I had made. The smell of spiced cider mixed with the fall was intoxicating.

  “Want me to take over for a bit?” I asked Charlene when there was a break in the line at the wooden stall she had put up near the judging tent.

  “No,” she said. “I’m too busy grilling people.”

  “Find anything out?”

  “Well, I’m not the only one who’s seen the lights,” she said. “And apparently,” she added in a lower voice, “I’m not the only one who thinks the place is haunted.”

  Before I could ask more, there was a loud voice from across the pumpkin patch.

  “You poisoned my pumpkin!”

  I turned to look; it was Henry, confronting Phoebe. Next to him, in a wheelbarrow, was his pumpkin—or what was left of it. If it had looked a little mushy last night, today it looked more like pumpkin puree... only slimier.

  “I did no such thing, and I resent the implication, sir!” responded Phoebe, drawing herself up to her full 5’3”.

  “I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” Henry fumed. “I’m going to find out how you did it, and then I’m going to get my revenge.” His face was a deep purple. Behind him, looking slightly embarrassed, was his wife, Emmeline. I shot her a sympathetic look, and she rolled her eyes. “Henry,” she said, reaching for his arm, but he brushed her off.

  “Somebody better go separate them, or Henry is going to have a heart attack,” Charlene said.

  “If he doesn’t smother Phoebe with rotten pumpkin.”

  As if he’d heard us, Tom Lockhart, president of the lobster co-op, stepped up to the two gardeners. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  “This woman sabotaged my garden,” Henry said, stabbing a finger at Phoebe. “Look at this pumpkin. Two days ago, it was glorious. Then someone salted my maple water, and now look at it!”

  “Salt water,” Lucy breathed. “That’s what it was.”

  “Looks like we should have brought John,” I commented. “If they don’t cool off, we might need a deputy in a moment.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Tom said, one hand on Henry’s shoulder. “You think Phoebe sabotaged your pumpkin?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Henry said. “Someone put salt and vinegar in the sugar solution I was using... and now, four months of work are down the toilet. Would you want to eat pie made with that?” he asked, pointing at the pile of orange flesh.

  “What makes you think Phoebe was responsible?”

  “Who else would have a reason? She knew my pumpkin was going to squash hers, so she squashed mine.”

  “How dare you accuse me of that!” Phoebe shot back. “I had nothing to do with your pumpkin’s untimely demise. Besides which, isn’t it cheating to pump sugar water into your pumpkin?”

  “It wasn’t pumped,” he said. “And it’s perfectly legal. It was extra nutrition, delivered through the stem...”

  “I still think it’s dirty pool,” Phoebe sniffed.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Tom pointed out. “Why don’t we just keep moving?”

  “We need Deputy Quinton to look into it,” Henry fumed, invoking my fiancé.

  “I promise I’ll ask him to look into it,” Tom said. “In the meantime, let’s just go our separate ways, okay?”

  “Since I don’t have a pumpkin for the contest, I might as well go home,” Henry said.

  “Don’t you want a donut?” Emmeline asked.

  “No,” he said, wheeling his wheelbarrow around and stomping off the grounds. Emmeline watched him go, then shrugged and walked over to the donut line.

  “She doesn’t look too broken up about the pumpkin contest,” Lucy observed.

  “I think she’s been a pumpkin widow for two months,” I said. “Donuts sound good; let’s go get one.”

  We followed Emmeline to the back of the line. She smiled when she saw me, and I introduced her to Lucy. “Emmeline’s responsible for that banana bread recipe I used on Monday,” I told Lucy.

  “That was your recipe?” Lucy asked. “I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks,” Emmeline said with a smile. “No pumpkin bread for me this year, though.”

  “I heard,” I said, looking toward where Henry had stalked away with the wheelbarrow. “Sorry about that!”

  She waved my condolences away. “Oh, don’t worry about it. He was obsessed with it anyway. Maybe now he can get back to normal.” She turned to Lucy. “What brings you up to Cranberry Island?”

  “Visiting Natalie, of course,” she said. “And trying to decide whether to quit my job and sign my life away, actually.”

  “Oh?” Emmeline said, her dark eyes bright. “In what way?”

  “Her grandmother’s farm just came up for sale in Texas,” I explained to Emmeline. “She’s trying to decide whether or not she should quit her job in Houston and set herself up as a homesteader.”

  Emmeline studied her. “What do you really want to do?”

  “I think I want to do it. But I also think I’m crazy.”

  I laughed. “I totally get it,” I told her. “I went through the same thing when I bought the inn.”

  “Buy it,” Emmeline said. “You only live once, you know? Don’t want to die with regrets.”

  I looked at my friend. “Told you so,” I said as Emmeline ordered herself two cider donuts.

  “What do I do if the farm fails?” she asks.

  “Come help me with reservations and breakfast,” I told her with a grin. “But it won’t fail. You’ll be fine.” I glanced over at the corn maze. “Want to try it?” I asked.

  “Donuts first,” she said. “We’ll need our strength!”

&nbs
p; We ate our donuts and walked around the pumpkin patch, which was being staffed by the few high school students on Cranberry Island.

  “How’s it going?” I asked Emily Flowers, who was in line to be valedictorian at Mount Desert Island High School and planning to be a marine biologist.

  “It’s going okay,” she said, but she didn’t look happy.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She pulled on a strand of her long, dark hair. “It’s just sad that this is the last year we’ll get to have it here. I’ve been coming to this festival my whole life.”

  “Yeah,” said her friend Kitty. “They take our field so they can build a giant house and come out to the island for two weeks out of the year, when this has been a part of our community for our whole lives. It isn’t fair.”

  “No, it’s not,” I said. “I have to agree with you.”

  “There’s no way to stop it?” Lucy asked.

  “I’m hoping we can maybe do something during the permitting phase,” I said. “We couldn’t raise the funds to buy the property, but we’re still trying.”

  “Well, we’re not going down without a fight,” Emily said, thrusting out her chin.

  “I admire your passion,” I said. Maybe there was hope. After all, I’d managed to keep the inn from becoming a parking lot a few years ago. “If there’s anything I can do to help out, let me know.”

  “I think we have it under control,” Kitty said. Emily stepped on her foot, and she yelped.

  “Come on,” her friend said. “We have to go, remember?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Oh, yeah. Nice talking to you,” she said, giving me a quick smile and following her friend toward the back of the pumpkin patch.

  “I hope they pull it off,” Lucy said.

  “Me too,” I said. “In the meantime, ready to tackle the maze?”

  “After you,” she told me, popping the last bit of donut into her mouth and licking her fingers. There was only a smudge of rusty red at the base of the hay bales marking the entrance to the maze, which we decided to attempt now that we were fortified with a few of Charlene’s amazing donuts. The goal was to find five different targets—and then find our way out.

  “I guess this is the last year for this,” Lucy said, still licking her fingers as we started down one of the pathways.

  “It will be if the property sells,” I said.

  “I hope it doesn’t,” she told me. “This is what I always imagined Halloween should be like. The pumpkins, the fall air, the corn maze...” Her cheeks were pink. “Maybe I can do something like this at Dewberry Farm!”

  “You’ve named it?” I asked.

  She blushed a deeper shade of pink. “It’s what I used to call it as a child,” she said.

  “Your heart is there, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “My heart is,” she admitted. “But my head is telling me I’m crazy.”

  I laughed. “I totally understand. When I told my financial advisor what I was planning on doing, he told me I’d be in the soup line within a year.”

  “Encouraging,” Lucy said.

  “Yes. I didn’t sleep for a week.”

  “But it all worked out, didn’t it?”

  “So far, so good,” I agreed. We turned right, and then left, going deeper into the maze. As we moved further into the field, the sounds of the festival faded, replaced by the rustling of the dried corn stalks. It was almost eerie, somehow.

  “It’s a lot bigger than I thought,” Lucy said. “What are we looking for again?”

  “A pumpkin, a witch, a ghost, and a zombie,” I reminded her.

  “How could I forget?”

  We traipsed on a while longer, taking random turns. “This is a huge piece of property,” Lucy said. “They want all this for a house?”

  “It’s got a great view of the water,” I said. “But it will be sad to lose the location of the harvest festival.”

  “Can’t the island council do something to prevent it?”

  “We’re trying,” I said, “but unless we can pool enough money to buy the property, I’m afraid we’re out of luck.”

  “I can’t believe an islander’s children are selling the property,” she said.

  I sighed. “They lost touch with the island a long time ago. And I suppose it would be hard to turn down three quarters of a million dollars.”

  “That much? Ouch.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Which is why this is the last year.”

  There was a popping sound from somewhere nearby.

  “What was that?”

  “Sounded like firecrackers,” Lucy said. “Or maybe a cap gun.”

  As we walked farther, there was a crackling sound from the corn stalk to our left.

  We rounded a bend, and the crackling of the dried corn stalks got louder.

  “It smells like someone’s lit a fire already,” Lucy said. “It’s not that cold, is it?”

  “It doesn’t smell like wood burning,” I pointed out. “And it’s awfully close.

  I stopped suddenly as we turned a corner. Lucy stifled a scream.

  There was a wall of fire in front of us, and it was headed our way.

  “Fire!” I yelled as we plunged through the dried cornstalks, no longer paying any attention to the pathways. Had anyone been caught in the flames? “Fire!” Lucy yelled beside me. I hazarded a glance behind me; I couldn’t see the flames anymore, but I could smell smoke. I just hoped the wind wouldn’t push the fire in our direction.

  “How big is this thing?” Lucy asked as we plunged through yet another line of cornstalks. Lorraine Lockhart and her daughter, Meredith, were looking wide-eyed in the next corridor.

  “We have to get out of here,” I told Lorraine. “The maze is on fire.”

  She instinctively clutched her daughter to her chest, then released her and said, “Let’s go.” She joined us calling “Fire” as we pushed through the maze, trampling on the paper witch that was supposed to be a prize. Lucy led the way, followed by Lorraine and Meredith; I brought up the rear. The rows went on and on, and the crackling sound grew nearer and nearer. I prayed we would make it out in time – and that everyone else, would, too.

  Finally, we burst through into the meadow.

  “Did everyone get out?” I asked. “Are they getting the fire truck?”

  “It’s already here,” Lorraine said, pointing to Eleazer Spurrell, who was spraying the fire. It looked like he was trying to put out a grill with a mister.

  “If you’re in the maze, come this way!” I yelled, hoping anyone who was still in there could hear me. “Just go through the stalks, and come toward our voices.”

  “Where are you?” a voice called.

  I felt as if I’d been dashed with ice water. The fire was racing our direction. Could we find the person in the maze in time?

  “I’m right here,” I said. “Keep talking; I’ll come toward you.”

  Lucy grabbed my arm. “Nat...”

  “I can’t leave someone in there.”

  “Then I’m coming with you,” she said.

  Together we plunged back into the maze, still calling. The flames were getting closer... and we were moving toward them.

  “Where are you?” called the voice, which was sounding more panicky. It was to our left; I took a sharp turn, pushing the dried stalks out of my way as I battered through another wall.

  It was Claudette White and her grandson, Jacob, looking terrified.

  “This way,” I said, reaching for Claudette’s hand. I knew she had sprained an ankle recently; she was wearing a clunky boot that made walking laborious.

  “Can I pick you up?” Lucy asked the little boy. “We’ll go faster that way.”

  The flames raced toward us as he reached his chubby arms up.

  “Go first,” I told Lucy.

  “How far is it?” Claudette asked as I helped her through the battered corn stalks.

  “Not far,” I said. It wasn’t, but the fire was advancing fast. Would we make
it in time?

  Lucy and Jacob raced ahead as Claudette stopped to lift her clunky boot over a broken stalk. I started to sweat; I could feel the heat from the fire behind us.

  “Go without me,” Claudette said.

  “No,” I said. “No way. Lean on me,” I said. “We’ll do it like a three-legged race.” I didn’t wait for her to agree; I just put my arm around her and plunged ahead, pulling her along with me.

  Adrenaline pulsed through me. The flames roared behind us as I pulled Claudette through the dried cornstalks, praying we’d make it in time. Finally, we burst through the last wall of cornstalks, smoke burning our lungs.

  “Grandma!” Jacob hurled himself into Claudette’s arms.

  “Is everyone else out?” I asked.

  “I hope so,” Lucy said, and we both turned and watched as the fire devoured the rest of the corn maze. Emily and Kitty, the two high school girls we had talked with stood nearby, looking pale and stricken. Another piece of their childhood gone up in smoke, I reflected grimly.

  “I wish there was something else we could do,” Lucy said.

  “I know. I’m just glad it rained last night. It’s not spreading beyond the maze.”

  “Thank goodness,” Lucy said, looking around at the houses. “Everything on this island is built of wood.”

  “I just hope there was no one else in there,” I said, shuddering.

  As I said it, Emily let out a sob, looking horrified, and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

  It took about an hour for the fire to die down; the volunteer firefighters concentrated on keeping the edges under control, making sure it didn’t leap across to the nearby woods. Miraculously, no one was unaccounted for; except for a minor burn on Claudette’s ankle, everyone had escaped unscathed.

  “What do you think caused it?” I asked Eleazer.

  “We found what look like some firecrackers toward the side of the maze,” he told me. “They probably caught the dry stalks on fire.”

  “At least it doesn’t sound like it was intentional. Lucy and I heard some popping noises before it started,” I told him.

  “Probably just pranksters. Dangerous prank, though; I’m glad nobody was seriously hurt.” Or died, I knew he was thinking.