Page 84 of Fall is Brewing

Brooks

By the time Thursday arrives, Orchard Falls is in full swing getting ready for the start of the festival. It stops pretending to be a town and fully commits to becoming a postcard with traffic problems.

There are pumpkins stacked outside every storefront. Cornstalks tied to lampposts. Banners strung over Main Street that snap in the cold wind with all the subtlety of a marching band. Tourists pour in wearing brand-new boots that haven’t earned a single scuff, scarves so large they could double as emergency blankets, and expressions of reverent wonder at things the rest of us have been tripping over for weeks.

Hay bales, pumpkin spice lattes, cider donuts, and changing leaves.

Apparently, fall becomes more magical when you can purchase it in a gift shop. And Calder Cider is packed from the minute we open.

Jace is in the tasting room charming a group of retirees from Connecticut by claiming Scrumpy is our “head of quality control.” Evan is outside arguing with a vendor about our booth placement for the festival and fire codes. I’m in the pressing room with my sleeves rolled up, checking the last batch of cider for our competition entry and trying not to think about Willa Hartley.

Which is impossible. I gave her the afternoon off since the festival begins tomorrow. But she’s still everywhere. She's in the way I straighten a crooked label because I know she’d notice. She’s in the way I taste the spiced reserve and wonder what she’d say about the clove being too assertive. She’s in the way I’ve started catching myself describing cider as “a mood” less to customers and more to an imaginary Willa in my head, just to hear her call me pretentious.

She’s in the damn air. Yep, apples, cinnamon, cold wind… and Willa.

I’m fucked.

“Brooks,” Evan says from the doorway.

I glance up. “What?”

He’s holding his iPad, which means whatever he’s about to say will be organized and unpleasant. “We need two more cases of Hearthline moved to Main Street for the festival preview tonight.”

“I’ll take them.”

“You already said that about the dry reserve.”

“I’ll take both.”

His eyes narrow. “You’re volunteering to do in-town deliveries two days in a row?”

“I’m capable of carrying boxes.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

From behind him, Jace appears with a tray of empty tasting glasses and an expression that says he’s been waiting all morning to be annoying. “He’s going because Hartley’s booth is across from ours.”

I keep my face neutral. Mostly.

Evan looks at me.

I reach for another crate. “That placement was Marcy’s doing.”

“Sure,” Jace says. “And the raccoons aren’t unionizing.”

“They’re not,” I snap.

“Not yet.”

I load the crates before either of them can keep going, because movement is safer than standing still under the weight of my brothers’ knowing stares.

Main Street is worse than the tasting room.

The whole town is buzzing, every shop and sidewalk spilling over with color and noise. The bakery has a line out the door. The bookstore window is filled with little paper leaves taped around stacks of autumn romances. Kids chase each other between painted pumpkin displays while parents pretend not to be exhausted. Somewhere near the gazebo, someone is testing a microphone that keeps squealing with feedback.

And there, across from the Calder booth, is Hartley & Sons. Their display looks like something out of a memory. Wooden crates overflowing with apples. Plaid blankets. Hand-lettered signs. Jars of caramel sauce catching the light. A tower of cider donuts dusted in cinnamon sugar.

And Willa, standing in the middle of it.