Speaker 1: The Pine River Cider Festival starts the same way it
Speaker 1: always has, with the blare of the middle school brass
Speaker 1: band and the first sharp bite of autumn in the air.
Speaker 1: My ankles tingle with the memory of old hallways as
Speaker 1: I cross the field toward the tents, the crowd already
Speaker 1: thick with faces I've taught, scolded, encouraged, or simply watched
Speaker 1: drift through the halls at Pine River Elementary. For thirty
Speaker 1: eight years, I watched the town's children rise in stubborn waves,
Speaker 1: so many toothy grins and bandaged knees, heads taller each September,
Speaker 1: always moving on, just when I'd learned to say their
Speaker 1: names without glancing at the list. I'd imagined retirement would
Speaker 1: dull those recollections. But here, amid the smoke of grilling
Speaker 1: apples and the tumbling laughter of a new year, it
Speaker 1: feels as if no time has passed at all. But there,
Speaker 1: last in line for the hot cider, Mason Scott. He
Speaker 1: fidgets bouncing on the balls of his feet. His shirt
Speaker 1: is faded red with a print of a skateboarding moose
Speaker 1: I haven't seen anywhere, but on him and his hair,
Speaker 1: an unruly sun bleached mop as that stubborn cowlic I
Speaker 1: used to despair of ever taming for class photos. His
Speaker 1: smile when he spots me is gap toothed and familiar,
Speaker 1: the playful grin of a boy about to spring a punchline.
Speaker 1: Missus hughes busted sneaking seconds on doughnuts. Ha. Mason's voice
Speaker 1: cracks in the middle, just as it always did. But
Speaker 1: the fact of it grabs me. I haven't taught Mason
Speaker 1: in fifteen years. He should be twenty five, not twelve.
Speaker 1: He should tower above me. Perhaps come back with a
Speaker 1: college story, maybe a baby. Instead. He squints up still
Speaker 1: at that liminal age when boys are all elbows and innocence.
Speaker 1: I freeze manners failing me. Well, sometimes a teacher's got
Speaker 1: to set an example. Mason, I let the words settle.
Speaker 1: Search his face for any hint he's joking that this
Speaker 1: is a prank, that someone dressed him up for a laugh.
Speaker 1: No recognition passes in his eyes. He gestures to the
Speaker 1: tray between us. You want my coupon? I won it
Speaker 1: at beanbag toss. Some things never change. Ha. The world
Speaker 1: crowds in across the lawn, various alumni and residents wave
Speaker 1: their faces. An album of decades layered over the present.
Speaker 1: A woman in her forties, notebook in hand records Missus
Speaker 1: Gardner's story yet again. By the Pye Contest, teenagers skip
Speaker 1: stones by the river, just as they did last year,
Speaker 1: last decade. The band strikes up autumn waltz, and the
Speaker 1: moment almost flutters away. But Mason lingers, sipping his cider
Speaker 1: and chattering about his same old math homework and wanting
Speaker 1: to be Goldy again this season. Fifteen years ago, he
Speaker 1: said the same. He scratches his wrist absently, an action
Speaker 1: that I realize, with quiet unease, he did in fourth grade,
Speaker 1: in sixth In every picture I have of him, I
Speaker 1: watch for the slip, some mention of all the year's
Speaker 1: gone by, some joke at my expense. But there is nothing.
Speaker 1: He is neither playing a part nor pretending he belongs here.
Speaker 1: Every One around us acts as if nothing's unusual. Hi here, Mason,
Speaker 1: A vendor calls, tossing him a caramel apple. Another parent
Speaker 1: ruffles his hair. Have you seen your mom to day?
Speaker 1: I ask, finally, Oh, she's at home, still fussing over
Speaker 1: my science project. The answer is smooth automatic. Half my
Speaker 1: brain wonders if I simply don't remember right, well, I say,
Speaker 1: voice steady, don't let her go easy on you. She
Speaker 1: knows your tricks better than any one. His laughter is bright, earnest,
Speaker 1: with no sign that he knows this day should be impossible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she caught me gluing that baking soda volcano to the
Speaker 1: kitchen table again, Same old, same old. He darts away,
Speaker 1: limitless energy, leaving me rooted beside the doughnut stand. I
Speaker 1: feel a faint chill beneath the golden afternoon. I am
Speaker 1: a woman who has prided herself on never forgetting a
Speaker 1: child's face, and the boy who never changed just called
Speaker 1: me by name. Around me, the world is as cheerful
Speaker 1: and mildly absurd as ever. I let the sider burn
Speaker 1: down to my belly, try to laugh the sensation away.
Speaker 1: Yet the image of Mason, impossibly himself, keeps catching at
Speaker 1: my mind, a thread I can't quite untangle. If I
Speaker 1: hadn't spent my life memorizing the particulars of growing up here,
Speaker 1: I might have just let it slip. But in Pine
Speaker 1: River nothing is ever lost, not really, which means every
Speaker 1: odd piece has a place if you know how to
Speaker 1: look retirement, people say is the slow slide toward irrelevance.
Speaker 1: But in Pine River it's simply a shift of venue
Speaker 1: from the class room to the porch, from raising hands
Speaker 1: to raising voices over the price of jam at the
Speaker 1: farmer's market. The town is all painted porches and weathered shingles,
Speaker 1: cinnamon's smoke drifting down from the bakery, and mornings apped
Speaker 1: in river mist. The mountain maples ring us in a
Speaker 1: blaze each autumn, so that every errand every routine stroll
Speaker 1: feels staged for someone else's nostalgia. My house sits two
Speaker 1: blocks from school and three from the river. Most afternoons,
Speaker 1: I walk the main street, pausing where children gather under
Speaker 1: the old sugar maple, carving initials in its roots. Today
Speaker 1: the festival buzz lingers, music, laughter, the slide of apple
Speaker 1: peelings on wet grass, and the sharp ping of someone
Speaker 1: winning a bottle at the ring toss. Memory is a
Speaker 1: second language here. Even the bricks under my feet know
Speaker 1: their stories. The old bank, repurposed as the sushi shop,
Speaker 1: still called the Vault. The Elm Street B and B
Speaker 1: swears its haunted by the smell of marmalade from Missus
Speaker 1: Partridge's breakfast room. I pass Principal Lewis fussing in the schoolyard.
Speaker 1: He still wears corduroy blazers, elbow patches still sharp as
Speaker 1: attack and legendary for his yearbook hoarding. Each year. He
Speaker 1: insists the true story of Pine River's children lives in
Speaker 1: those pages. Some day history will thank me, he calls
Speaker 1: every September, shuffling stacks like playing cards. Down at the
Speaker 1: town hall, Stephen Patel stands hunched over his folding table,
Speaker 1: greeting passers by with trivia quizzes. Who through the longest
Speaker 1: apple peal at Festival zero three? Probably Stephen himself, though
Speaker 1: he'll claim it was Missus Blanchard and her lucky knife.
Speaker 1: Stephen and I have known each other since algebra class,
Speaker 1: when he produced an entire genealogical tree on notebook paper,
Speaker 1: linking half the town by improbable marriages. He's more archivist
Speaker 1: than historian, hungry for quirks over dates, rumors over facts.
Speaker 1: Every town has its memory keepers. Our oldest Missus Gardner,
Speaker 1: sits on her porch rain or shine, her lawn overtaken
Speaker 1: by chive blossoms. Children flock to her for ghost stories,
Speaker 1: though she prefers tales of ration books, when flower was
Speaker 1: worth more more than a dollar, or the time every
Speaker 1: one in her family turned twelve again just before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: She claims direct oral lineage from the town's founders, a
Speaker 1: claim she's repeated so doggedly that no one bothers to
Speaker 1: check the records. The festival threads these lives together. Even
Speaker 1: newcomers drawn by Autumn's lure find themselves drafted into history here.
Speaker 1: Year books are passed around like post cards. Story swapping
Speaker 1: is a competitive sport in Pine River. The only thing
Speaker 1: more prize than fresh cider is a good confusing anecdote,
Speaker 1: I take pride in my memory. In my catalog of
Speaker 1: childhood faces, I can list every valedictorian, every first grade tantrum,
Speaker 1: every left handed trumpet player. In a town built on memory,
Speaker 1: I've always felt at home until now, with Mason's unbroken
Speaker 1: youth gnawing at the edges of what I thought I knew?
Speaker 1: What does it mean to remember perfectly in a place
Speaker 1: where memory itself might bend? That evening, after the last
Speaker 1: banners are rolled and the sticky cider barrels are carted away,
Speaker 1: I pour myself a mug of decalf and pull down
Speaker 1: my old class photos. They sit in careful stacks, a
Speaker 1: decade to a binder, snap shots frozen in time, or
Speaker 1: so I'd always believed. I page through twelve years of
Speaker 1: Mason Scott, fifth grade, always fifth grade. In every photo,
Speaker 1: the moose shirt grins from the center row. Sometimes he
Speaker 1: stands beside Emma Bright, sometimes near John Fan, but always
Speaker 1: his mouth is open in that same gap, tooth, half laugh,
Speaker 1: eyes dancing, His hair never submits next to him. Other
Speaker 1: students stretch, slouch, or sport awkward braces. As the years pass,
Speaker 1: my heart tightens as the numbers betray me. Here is
Speaker 1: two thousand six Mason fifth grade moose shirt. Next is
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. Again, fifth grade moose shirt, two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, all the way to twenty sixteen, each
Speaker 1: bearing the seal of the school, each signed on the
Speaker 1: back by Principal Lewis Class of the year. My fingers
Speaker 1: flick faster, searching for errors. I cross check the line
Speaker 1: up with the school's online archive, the festival programs, even
Speaker 1: family pictures clipped from the newspaper. Each one confirms what
Speaker 1: the world outside never would. Mason unchanged center row fifth grade.
Speaker 1: Year after year, it feels like flipping the pages of
Speaker 1: a calendar that's lost its days. But then the next
Speaker 1: anomaly slides from the pile. Virginia Parker Ginny, famous for
Speaker 1: perfect spelling and an obsession with polka dots. In the
Speaker 1: twenty twelve photo, she sits chubby, cheeked and pona tilled,
Speaker 1: a gap just opening between her front teeth. The next year,
Speaker 1: two thousand and thirteen, she appears almost as tall as me,
Speaker 1: tamed hair, a shy smile. Then suddenly she's marked seventh grade,
Speaker 1: acne blooming, braces tight as if five years had swept
Speaker 1: through her overnight. What in the world, I'm make a chart,
Speaker 1: Mason's years, Ginny's leap, Emma's steady progress, Mason's never shifting,
Speaker 1: Ginny's sudden acceleration. None of it fits the logic of
Speaker 1: grade school, or biology, or even a lifetime of teaching.
Speaker 1: I call Stephen, tell me when did Mason Scott move
Speaker 1: out of fifth grade? He laughs a wheeze through the phone. Clara,
Speaker 1: Come on around here, everyone ages their own way. That's
Speaker 1: the joke. Remember, I search his tone for mockery, but
Speaker 1: find only mild amusement. I press, was it always like that?
Speaker 1: He lets me hang in silence before responding, you're thinking
Speaker 1: too hard. Some thing's run on memory, others on the river.
Speaker 1: He wishes me good night. My hands press the edges
Speaker 1: of the year book until the paper creases. If everyone
Speaker 1: ages their own way, and I'd never questioned it, what
Speaker 1: else slips quietly by? By midnight, my resolve sharpens into
Speaker 1: a point to morrow. I'll check every record, every album,
Speaker 1: every story I can find. I want certainty, but I
Speaker 1: don't even know what kind of certainty I'm after. The
Speaker 1: sun burns away the last of the festival due. As
Speaker 1: I stride into the library, one of those former train
Speaker 1: stations turned sanctuaries of index cards and grandmother wisdom, the
Speaker 1: librarian Bait offers me the research table really just a
Speaker 1: sturdy desk under the fan where high schoolers fake essays
Speaker 1: during storm season. I start with the cider festival programs
Speaker 1: back to nineteen seventy one, all in chronological harmony, except
Speaker 1: for the recurring name of Teddy Mendes, who, according to
Speaker 1: the records, led the sack race for seven years straight
Speaker 1: and was annually awarded most Enthusiastic until he one day
Speaker 1: aged from ten to sixteen. In the blink of a year,
Speaker 1: photos show the same boy, then abruptly a young man.
Speaker 1: No one marks the jump. Next I come through census records.
Speaker 1: The grocer's son, Charlie, a boy of seven, appears as
Speaker 1: a laughing stock boy for over a decade, unchanged in
Speaker 1: face and posture. The Mayor's mother, Missus Rowell, is a
Speaker 1: trim fifty year old in every block party photo from
Speaker 1: the Eisenhower era straight into the mid nineties. Then a gap,
Speaker 1: and suddenly she's listed as a beloved great grandmother, as
Speaker 1: if fifty had been a kind of holding pattern. At
Speaker 1: the coffee shop, I order a scone and linger by
Speaker 1: the window. Near the counter. A pair of neighbors chat
Speaker 1: over crossword puzzles. When did Adams start needing glasses? One asks, Oh,
Speaker 1: that just happens some years, the other says, waving away
Speaker 1: the strangeness. At the post office, Missus Whittaker drops her
Speaker 1: letters mid sentence, laughing, you know it's my year to
Speaker 1: be the older sister again. School records in the town
Speaker 1: archive double down on the contradictions. Lists of class officers,
Speaker 1: wreck basketball teams. The Science Club photo collage one year
Speaker 1: shows Lydia Avery as a third grader, baby roundness, sticking
Speaker 1: out among the taller crew. Two years later, she's listed
Speaker 1: as class president, taller than the teacher. Family albums reveal
Speaker 1: generational cross currents that border on the surreal, cousins who
Speaker 1: look like twins, grandfathers who play Little League beside their grandchildren,
Speaker 1: birthdays that overlap in sometimes impossible pairings. So it isn't
Speaker 1: just Mason or Ginny. It's not one family's secret, nor
Speaker 1: a prank played by a spry old principle with too
Speaker 1: much free time. People here simply age unpredictably, or rather,
Speaker 1: ages seem to get distributed, ricocheted between households, sometimes leaping forward,
Speaker 1: sometimes refusing to budge. There are laugh lines where there
Speaker 1: should be baby fat, gangly limbs where there was a
Speaker 1: broad back just one festival ago. Still life seems to
Speaker 1: swirl around the strangeness as if it were back grown music.
Speaker 1: The postmaster jokes, I always want to try being twelve again.
Speaker 1: Guess this is my lucky year. A mother scolds her
Speaker 1: son and her grandfather in the same breath, both look
Speaker 1: about seven. I jot names and notes diagrams of age
Speaker 1: paths that loop and tangle, trying to pin down a
Speaker 1: logic that resists every attempt at order. Even when confronted,
Speaker 1: Principal Lewis only shrugs. The yearbooks just capture what the
Speaker 1: year is, he says, with a smile, pushing back his glasses.
Speaker 1: People try to keep up. Photos are for the moment,
Speaker 1: not the story, right. Younger parents treat it as sport.
Speaker 1: They swap stories unruffled, as though discussing weather changes. Older folks,
Speaker 1: by contrast, seem bemused, sometimes a little wistful. Everything evens
Speaker 1: out in the end if you let it. There's no shock,
Speaker 1: barely any surprise. No one acts frightened. Somewhere between the
Speaker 1: fifth Coffee of the Morning and the seventh Family Album,
Speaker 1: I realize the town is full of people whose ages
Speaker 1: have mismatched their years at least once, and yet it's
Speaker 1: so easily accepted. I'm forced to question if the fault
Speaker 1: is in my own expectations. Is this simply Pine River's rhythm?
Speaker 1: And I, the woman who thought memory was the fixed,
Speaker 1: trustworthy river bed, am only now seeing how the current runs.
Speaker 1: It can't just be a mistake, I tell myself, As
Speaker 1: twilight falls over my porch and the cricket's song rises.
Speaker 1: I invite Stephen over for a glass of wine. He
Speaker 1: brings cheese, and, as always, two pages of old Pine
Speaker 1: River trivia. He thinks will stump me, But my mind
Speaker 1: is on other puzzles. Stephen, do you remember being fifteen?
Speaker 1: I ask? He grins. I was fifteen for three wonderful years,
Speaker 1: learned guitar, broke the same ankle twice dated Betty oak Well.
Speaker 1: Dated is a strong word, he winks, I press. But
Speaker 1: didn't your younger brother pass you in age one year?
Speaker 1: I see him in the yearbooks, older than you by graduation.
Speaker 1: Stephen waves his glass. That's Pine River happens every few families.
Speaker 1: Age isn't a race, Clara. Then missus Gardner joins us,
Speaker 1: wrapped in a shawl bright enough to cause traffic accidents.
Speaker 1: Back in my twenties the second time, mind you, I
Speaker 1: remember teaching Sunday school to myself darling girl, shy, but
Speaker 1: I knew she'd turn out clever. Course I didn't tell
Speaker 1: her all my secrets. She cackles, teeth bright against the dusk.
Speaker 1: I stare at them, two pillars of the town, both
Speaker 1: so sanguine about something so plainly impossible that for a moment,
Speaker 1: I feel dizzy. But don't you ever wonder? I ask,
Speaker 1: if we all expect to move through time in one direction?
Speaker 1: How is this normal? Missus Gardner picks a dandelion from
Speaker 1: the garden border. Normal is as normal, does Clara. Some
Speaker 1: years go quicker than others. You'll see it isn't denial
Speaker 1: or dismissal, but a kind of tranquil acceptance, as if
Speaker 1: they're weighing apples at the market, not discussing temporal contradiction.
Speaker 1: Stephen leans in, You want to know how it works.
Speaker 1: Wait till mark a time, Clara. That's when Pine River
Speaker 1: sorts itself mark a time. The phrase hangs loose and
Speaker 1: heavy between us. A memory bubbles up. Children huddled in
Speaker 1: the shadows of the bandstand during fall's first chill, strange
Speaker 1: tokens pressed to their palms. Had I always attributed this
Speaker 1: to the fevered invention of small town boredom. I realize
Speaker 1: with a sting that I don't know everything about Pine River.
Speaker 1: That there is a tradition or logic as carefully tended
Speaker 1: and fiercely protected as the apple orchards that I have
Speaker 1: never truly seen. In my bones, I feel the organizing principle,
Speaker 1: creasing itself into my awareness. It's more than records, more
Speaker 1: than tricks of memory or local myth. There is an
Speaker 1: engine under this community that rearranges time itself, and every
Speaker 1: one but me has learned to ride it without complaint.
Speaker 1: Night settles and with it a restless itch. If the
Speaker 1: festival mark the public face of Pine River, then the
Speaker 1: autumns must hold another quieter procession. I find myself piecing
Speaker 1: together threads from missus Gardner's stories, the river bandstand, tokens
Speaker 1: by moonlight, cryptic talk of drawing markers. My next destination
Speaker 1: is the town Hall's archives, another relic filing cabinets lined
Speaker 1: up like dominoes. Pamphlets advertising annual autumn gathering at the
Speaker 1: River stretch back decades. But unlike the festival, the events
Speaker 1: are always hazily described, private celebratory event for Pine River residents.
Speaker 1: Attendance required, reverence encouraged. There are no photos in the
Speaker 1: local paper, no lists of winners or honorees, only a
Speaker 1: mention of gathering at the riverside as dusk falls, each
Speaker 1: person bringing something of their own. I uncover a leather
Speaker 1: bound ledger, a remnant of town council meetings from the
Speaker 1: late sixties. In rushed handwriting, someone has noted discussed reforms
Speaker 1: to mark a draw participation, unchanged concerns about non resident attendants.
Speaker 1: Below all agree no outsiders for autumn draw. Tucked in
Speaker 1: a folder labeled Bandstand nineteen seventy eight are a few
Speaker 1: faded photos. One shows townsfolk, elderly, middle aged infants balancing
Speaker 1: on knees, all gathered on the grass by the bandstand's
Speaker 1: paint flaked columns. Each holds what looks like a wooden
Speaker 1: trinket about palm sized, ornately carved, but no two alike.
Speaker 1: Some have ribbons, others are naked cedar, but all are
Speaker 1: held with a gravity I recognize from church on Christmas
Speaker 1: Eve and funerals alike. Intrigued, I start slipping into conversations
Speaker 1: at the hardware store, the bakery, even the dog park.
Speaker 1: I ask lightly about the autumn draw. Reactions come in
Speaker 1: shades of bemused discomfort. It's just marker drawing, always has been.
Speaker 1: Keeps us fresh, says a barrista, sweeping crumbs from a
Speaker 1: maple sugar bun. They're tokens that tell you what your
Speaker 1: year's for. Offers a butcher giving me a wink as
Speaker 1: he wraps my roast at the Riverside market. I prod
Speaker 1: Stephen for more. He sighs, patient but guarded. Every One
Speaker 1: draws every year. Nobody skips out, Clara, not if they
Speaker 1: want to stay in balance. And then the morning after
Speaker 1: you wake up and see what you've got to work with. Simple.
Speaker 1: But what happens if you miss it? I ask? He shrugs.
Speaker 1: If you leave town before mark a Knight, nothing changes,
Speaker 1: but you pay it back or catch up when you
Speaker 1: come home. No cheatahs in Pine River old rule, I
Speaker 1: scribble in my note book. The ceremony is real, annual,
Speaker 1: attended by all mechanics. Unclear changes occur after the draw. Outsiders,
Speaker 1: unaffected participation creates outcome. I feel my curiosity sharpen, no
Speaker 1: longer just a collector of contradictions, but a full blooded investigator.
Speaker 1: There is a system, a tradition, a lever behind the
Speaker 1: fluidity of age, something played out every autumn beneath the
Speaker 1: casual surface of festivals and porch chats. Yet there is
Speaker 1: secrecy too. The details, the contents of the draw, the
Speaker 1: meaning of the tokens, the why of it all are
Speaker 1: protected even Stephen's tone is firm, as if the truth
Speaker 1: can only be received by the initiated. I leave town
Speaker 1: Hall under a waxing moon, the river running glassy and silent,
Speaker 1: a hidden vein beneath all this unremarkable life. As the festivals,
Speaker 1: echoes fade and leaves begin to thicken underfoot, an envelope
Speaker 1: appears in my mailbox, heavy paper, my name handscripted in
Speaker 1: walnut ink, inside a simple card, Join us for your marker,
Speaker 1: draw as you always do to morrow. Just after dusk,
Speaker 1: riverside bandstand. I fold the cards, slowly, the words as
Speaker 1: you always do, pricking like Burrs. I have no memory
Speaker 1: of ever attending. Surely I would recall a ceremony so powerful,
Speaker 1: so central, and yet at the hardware store, the barista,
Speaker 1: the crossing guard, even Principal Lewis seemed to expect me
Speaker 1: looking forward to drawing day, Clara. They call it is invitation, expectation,
Speaker 1: and dare all wrapped. As one anxious I double check
Speaker 1: my records, no sign I've attended before. But when I
Speaker 1: ask Stephen, he grins. Don't worry, you never forget your
Speaker 1: first draw. Missus Gardner offers only just be honest with yourself.
Speaker 1: The marker always knows more than you think. On the
Speaker 1: porch that night, I stare at my tea until it's cold.
Speaker 1: Am I about to stumble into some mass delusion a
Speaker 1: theater piece everyone else is performing with a straight face.
Speaker 1: Or is there a truth in this hidden in plain sight,
Speaker 1: carried on their laughter, their unshakable acceptance. I lay out
Speaker 1: my notes, scan every contradiction and testimony at each step.
Speaker 1: What began as a loose thread tugged from festival fun
Speaker 1: has become a tapestry of persistent generational agreement. Ages aren't
Speaker 1: just recorded, They happen, asterisk, reassigned, distributed, experienced, anew the draw.
Speaker 1: The ceremony is not secret for secrecy's sake, but because
Speaker 1: it is so foundational that challenging it would be like
Speaker 1: denying the river itself. For a last test, I call
Speaker 1: up Ginny Parker, now apparently home from her semester at
Speaker 1: college three years ago. She was my smallest second grader.
Speaker 1: Her laugh chimes down the line, It's all just Pine
Speaker 1: river weirdness, missus Hughes. You'll see sometimes you get a
Speaker 1: lucky year, sometimes not, but you get what you need.
Speaker 1: The next day, I dress in all hiking boots and
Speaker 1: a wool coat against the creeping chill. The invitation feels
Speaker 1: like an initiation, a crossing point. Gone is any hope
Speaker 1: of observing from a distance. I am not outside this story,
Speaker 1: I am at its heart. As dusk draws down, I
Speaker 1: walk toward the bandstand, over the slick boards of the
Speaker 1: riverside bridge, shadows gather at the edges of the grass.
Speaker 1: Families stroll quietly, voices pitched low, children hiding grins or
Speaker 1: feigning solemnity. Don't think too hard about what you wish for, Clara.
Speaker 1: Stephen calls as he passes. You'll know in the morning.
Speaker 1: Each footstep feels like a return and a reckoning, a
Speaker 1: movement from disbelief to participation for the first time. I
Speaker 1: am not a keeper of others memories, but a note
Speaker 1: in the melody pine river hums. Each October, the bandstand
Speaker 1: glimmers under lanterns strung with red maple leaves. The cedar
Speaker 1: chest sits at its center, lid, half open, f filled
Speaker 1: with small carved markers, some dark as river mud, others
Speaker 1: pale and smooth as apple flesh. My pulse is steady,
Speaker 1: almost jubilant. I cross the bandstand threshold, a dozen questions
Speaker 1: burning beneath my ribs. No longer just the keeper of
Speaker 1: children's faces, I am a player in Pine River's oldest,
Speaker 1: strangest tradition, about to draw my own piece of time.
Speaker 1: A hush falls over the bandstand as the lanterns tremble
Speaker 1: in the slight wind, their reflections jittering across the river.
Speaker 1: For a moment, I hover at the edge of the crowd,
Speaker 1: hands jammed into my coat pockets, the wood planks cool
Speaker 1: against the solis of my boots. All around me, the
Speaker 1: townsfolk stream forward, families, couples, college freshmen returned for the
Speaker 1: week end. The mare, with her hair tied back and
Speaker 1: boots unlaced. They form a loose crescent around the cedar
Speaker 1: chest at the center. The anticipation in the air nothing
Speaker 1: like fear, more like a gentle current, tugging us all together.
Speaker 1: I try to catch Stephen's eye, but he is already
Speaker 1: half way through the line, standing behind Missus Gardner, who
Speaker 1: appears almost stately in a moss green scarf, humming a
Speaker 1: tune too old for radio. Principal Lewis stands just behind
Speaker 1: a trio of children, one of whom balances on tiptoes,
Speaker 1: peering at the chest. I scan the faces, searching for anxiety, rebellion,
Speaker 1: even boredom, but find only the relaxed posture of ritual,
Speaker 1: of knowing precisely what comes next. The chest sits on
Speaker 1: a faded quilt. It is somehow less ornate than I imagined.
Speaker 1: Up close, it is nobby with age, lid propped open
Speaker 1: to reveal layers of soft blue velvet, its interior lined
Speaker 1: with dozens of wooden tokens. Each marker is the size
Speaker 1: of a walnut. Ovals, discs, rough hewn cubes, each inscribed
Speaker 1: with an odd swooping symbol, runic maybe or invented. Not
Speaker 1: one holds a number or letter. Nane are colored the same,
Speaker 1: Some look new, others scarred with age. Without any call
Speaker 1: to order, Missus Gardner steps forward and slips her hand
Speaker 1: inside the chest. She lingers a moment, then draws out
Speaker 1: a pale heart shaped token. She squeezes it in her fist,
Speaker 1: eyes closing, smiles as if in silent agreement with herself,
Speaker 1: then slides back into the crowd. One by one, residents
Speaker 1: do the same, some with ceremony, pausing to press the
Speaker 1: marker to their forehead. Others with barely a glance before
Speaker 1: tucking it in a coat pocket or stringing it on
Speaker 1: a necklace. When it comes to me, time bends in
Speaker 1: a small pocket. My hand hovers above the velvet. The
Speaker 1: wood is cool, deeply fragrant, a whiff of cedar, and
Speaker 1: something faintly metallic. I am startled by how personal the
Speaker 1: moment feels. The marker I choose is oval, charred on
Speaker 1: one edge, with a spiral carved delicately on its face,
Speaker 1: neither inviting nor forbidding, simply present. As I draw it,
Speaker 1: I feel a ridiculous urge to laugh, as though the
Speaker 1: chest has revealed a magic trick just for me. I
Speaker 1: move aside, clutching the marker. It fits perfectly in my palm.
Speaker 1: No booming voice reads my fate. No song changes in
Speaker 1: the background. Instead, a low humming arises as the next
Speaker 1: person steps forward, and then another. The whole process takes
Speaker 1: only a few minutes, a rotation of hands and wood,
Speaker 1: until the chest is empty and every one stands with
Speaker 1: something held close in the golden lantern glow. Principal Lewis
Speaker 1: leads the first verse of Old October, and people join
Speaker 1: in off key content. The lyrics are nonsense, a swooping
Speaker 1: folk melody that circles back on itself, but the effect
Speaker 1: is strong. Old and young clasp hands, Neighbors and rivals
Speaker 1: sway together. Some one starts a round of laughter. Missus
Speaker 1: Gardner lets slip a cackle, and the moment is both
Speaker 1: light and serious, like the closing of a beloved children's book.
Speaker 1: A boy no more than six looks up at me.
Speaker 1: What you get, missus hughes. He whispers, eyes darting like
Speaker 1: he's asking for a test answer. A good one, I say,
Speaker 1: even though I have no idea. He grins, wild with possibility.
Speaker 1: The chest is closed and lifted away. There are no instructions,
Speaker 1: no speeches. As the lanterns are snuffed, people me ander home,
Speaker 1: voices tangled with old jokes and gentle teasing. I watch
Speaker 1: families rearrange themselves as if unconsciously, shoulders draped protectively, arms
Speaker 1: adjusting in new embraces. I expect some sign dizziness, warmth,
Speaker 1: some internal shifting, but nothing comes. My marker could be
Speaker 1: a broken button, for all I feel. When I tuck
Speaker 1: it into my pocket. It thumps quietly against my thigh,
Speaker 1: only slightly heavier than its size would suggest you know.
Speaker 1: In the morning, Stephen calls softly as he passes. Sleep
Speaker 1: well Clara. In my kitchen, I place the marker on
Speaker 1: my window sill, next to the dried apple peel loop
Speaker 1: my mother made for luck long ago. The marker's carved
Speaker 1: spiral seems to soak up the lamplight. I try to
Speaker 1: to read meaning into its grooves, half expecting to dream
Speaker 1: of lost years. But my sleep is untroubled, just the
Speaker 1: usual drifting recollections of empty class rooms and aromatic leaves
Speaker 1: tumbling down Main Street. Morning arrives on a bright note.
Speaker 1: I open my door to sky, the color of parchment,
Speaker 1: wet lawns glistening, and the quick chatter of birds who
Speaker 1: never noticed human doubts. I pause on my front steps
Speaker 1: and take inventory my knees, my hands, my reflection in
Speaker 1: the side like glass. Nothing alarming, no sudden youth, no
Speaker 1: gray vanished from my hair, no creaking joints relieved or worsened.
Speaker 1: I laugh at my own nerves, then catch myself gazing
Speaker 1: at my palm, almost hoping to find the spiral pressed
Speaker 1: into my skin. As I make my way down to
Speaker 1: Main Street, the feel of the town is subtly altered.
Speaker 1: At first glance, everything is its reliable self. Bikes chain
Speaker 1: to the same lamp posts, the breakfast specials unchanged. But
Speaker 1: here is Norah Bell waving from her porch. Here suddenly
Speaker 1: long and waving a garden trowel in the air, her
Speaker 1: voice higher than I recall. There s Adam Clay, who
Speaker 1: had the beginnings of a beard last week, now clean
Speaker 1: shaven and babe faced again, excepting a high five from
Speaker 1: a passing eighth grader. Two young women sisters maybe rush
Speaker 1: by me, laughing a water balloon battle in their arms,
Speaker 1: but their proportions have flipped. The older is a foot shorter,
Speaker 1: round faced, and wobbly. The oddities are subtle, almost playful.
Speaker 1: The mare who wore streaks of gray last night now
Speaker 1: has hair dark as river silt, and she strides past
Speaker 1: her assistant, who has acquired overnight the stooping dignity of
Speaker 1: an old pianist. I expect glitches, collisions, but instead find adaptability.
Speaker 1: Residents greet each other with gentle, good humor. Well look
Speaker 1: at you, Jane, someone calls from the market. Back to
Speaker 1: your spry self, don't jinx it, Jane calls, spinning a
Speaker 1: shopping basket. I bear merely recognize my own handwriting. At
Speaker 1: the bakery, a deep voiced child helps ned cinnamon rolls
Speaker 1: while his mother, ten inches shorter and far younger, watches amused.
Speaker 1: A deliveryman with gray hair in his braids leans against
Speaker 1: the display case, chatting up a woman barely out of
Speaker 1: high school, both of them giggling at some private reminiscence. Inside,
Speaker 1: Missus Gardner is ordering her usual tea. No change there,
Speaker 1: though the lines in her face are softer, the rheumatism
Speaker 1: in her fingers apparently gone. She lifts her hand in greeting,
Speaker 1: then beckons me over well, She asks, conspiratorial, still yourself,
Speaker 1: I show her my marker, keeping my voice low. I
Speaker 1: don't feel any different, should I? She grins. We don't
Speaker 1: always get the big leap deer. Sometimes you pull a
Speaker 1: rest year, or you get clarity around the edges. If
Speaker 1: you feel sharp, if food tastes brighter, that's as real
Speaker 1: as growing an inch over night. The shop is a buzz,
Speaker 1: But as I listen, I realize there is no chaos,
Speaker 1: no panic, just measured surprise. People regard their new age,
Speaker 1: themselves and each other with relief, amusement, or at times wistfulness,
Speaker 1: but never disbelief. There is ribbing, yes, welcome to the
Speaker 1: seniors club, Stevie, did I finally pass my driver's test
Speaker 1: this year? But also an easy, forgiving rhythm. The logic
Speaker 1: of the day is not about rigidity but continuity. Walking
Speaker 1: past the school, I see Principal Lewis on the black top,
Speaker 1: notebook in hand, recording a list of names under sunlit chalkboards.
Speaker 1: Scores of children tumble and shout across the yard, calling
Speaker 1: to each other with names and nicknames that flicker with newness.
Speaker 1: Youngest and oldest have become attributes, not of birth order,
Speaker 1: but of the year's draw Curious, I surge through my
Speaker 1: own class list, the teachers book I kept through the nineties,
Speaker 1: ticking off names, seeking a pattern. By noon, it is
Speaker 1: clear some people change, some do not, and there are
Speaker 1: no clear rules. Age crosses family lines, leaps between generations,
Speaker 1: sometimes reverses course. Altogether, what emerges is not chaos but
Speaker 1: a negotiated choreography, a town which each autumn remakes itself
Speaker 1: in the image of what, for reasons unknown is needed.
Speaker 1: But the deeper question nags who or what decides that
Speaker 1: evening I arrange a meeting with Stephen, missus Gardner and
Speaker 1: for fresh eyes. The town's new doctor, Declan Fisher. Doctor
Speaker 1: Fisher arrived last spring, replacing doctor Morrale's after her late
Speaker 1: in life gap year took her abroad. Declan is wiry,
Speaker 1: mid thirties, perpetually squinting, as though the sunlight is always suspicious.
Speaker 1: They gather on my porch, joined by Principal Lewis, a
Speaker 1: plate of apple slivers and maple fudge between us. I
Speaker 1: pour tea and press the question that won't settle Stephen.
Speaker 1: What if some one doesn't want to change? What if
Speaker 1: you drew a marker and just said no? Stephen smiles,
Speaker 1: tapping his mug against the banister. If it were up
Speaker 1: to any of us, we'd have sorted it out decades ago.
Speaker 1: The marker drawer isn't about wanting or not. It's just
Speaker 1: the balance Pine River's balance. Doctor Fisher leans in, polite
Speaker 1: but skeptical. I'll be frank. I'm still not sure what
Speaker 1: I walked into last night. I've checked birth records, medical notes,
Speaker 1: even passports. The paperwork always matches the new reality. Dates
Speaker 1: of birth, expiration dates, signatures all seem to update themselves.
Speaker 1: But scientifically. None of this holds up hormon's bone age, metabolism.
Speaker 1: None of it makes sense. No one outside of Pine
Speaker 1: River believes me when I mention it. Missus Gardner cackles
Speaker 1: into her tea. Doctor Science has never changed a marker
Speaker 1: in all my years. I stopped expecting it to buy
Speaker 1: the time my first hair turned white. Principal Lewis shrugs.
Speaker 1: I just record what's in front of me each year
Speaker 1: is what It is. Harder to keep track, but more interesting,
Speaker 1: he adds, winking at me. I pose a new question.
Speaker 1: Has there ever been anyone new, someone who moved here
Speaker 1: after childhood who became part of the draw? Missus Gardner
Speaker 1: nods sagely, after three years, you're invited before that. No,
Speaker 1: only then will your marker appear in the chest. Try
Speaker 1: to draw early, and it'll slide right out of your hand,
Speaker 1: ask Stephen. He tried it at sixteen. Stephen laughs, It's true.
Speaker 1: I could have sworn I saw my name on a token,
Speaker 1: but it disappeared before I closed my fist. Doctor Fisher
Speaker 1: refills his tea and sighs. I contacted old colleagues outside
Speaker 1: town last week. They say I haven't aged a day
Speaker 1: since I got here, not a wrinkle. My mum says,
Speaker 1: I look like I did in med school. But I
Speaker 1: remember putting on at least a few years this winter.
Speaker 1: It's no small trick, missus. Gardner pats him on the hand.
Speaker 1: You'll adjust, or you'll and time will run normal for
Speaker 1: you again. Stephen adds. Any one who leaves before the
Speaker 1: draw just skips that year. But when they come back,
Speaker 1: look out. You might jump forward or backward, depending on
Speaker 1: how much you need to catch up. Ask the grocer's wife.
Speaker 1: A pattern forms. Pine River's age is not only flexible,
Speaker 1: but communal, its logic as much rooted in social contract
Speaker 1: as any natural law. Where most towns define themselves by
Speaker 1: milestones and anniversaries, birthdays, years of service, golden wedding years,
Speaker 1: Pine River quietly divides its passage into cycles, the marker
Speaker 1: draw acting as a communal reset. Why, I finally ask,
Speaker 1: more to myself than the group. Why does the town
Speaker 1: do this? Why accept it so calmly? I mean not
Speaker 1: just the tradition, but the fluidity, the readiness to become
Speaker 1: young or old again, to accept relationships rebalanced each year.
Speaker 1: Stephen ponders, then shrugs, Maybe it helps us stay together.
Speaker 1: Maybe it teaches us to be less proud. If you
Speaker 1: can't count on always being older, or wiser or the same,
Speaker 1: you have to learn to listen. Doctor Fisher is less convinced.
Speaker 1: I still think there's an answer in here. Maybe something
Speaker 1: in the water, in the way stories are told, or
Speaker 1: some inherited behavior passed down until it just became the truth. Frankly,
Speaker 1: it's startling how willing people are to forget what doesn't fit.
Speaker 1: We fall into a comfortable silence, broken only by the
Speaker 1: calls of starlings flocking above the river. I propose a
Speaker 1: small experiment at the clinic. Doctor Fisher and I review
Speaker 1: medical records for three patients whose ages have changed dramatically
Speaker 1: since last night. Blood work, vaccination schedules, even historical injuries.
Speaker 1: To his shock, all evidence alignes with the current years,
Speaker 1: new ages, scars have faded or reappeared. Prescriptions update themselves overnight.
Speaker 1: Childhood inoculations reached set for the young. Aches are signed
Speaker 1: and new to the old. Where the records were paper
Speaker 1: handwriting has changed, where digital files have shifted, as though
Speaker 1: were written by a hidden hand. Doctor Fisher runs a
Speaker 1: finger print scanner. No mismatch. It is more than disguise
Speaker 1: more than mass delusion. The town's very record keeping molds
Speaker 1: itself to fit the annual draw. Still unsatisfied, I interviewed
Speaker 1: Ginny Parker, now back from college, perched in the sunlit
Speaker 1: booth at the diner where she once spilled her first milkshake.
Speaker 1: Was it hard to jump ahead five years that spring?
Speaker 1: I ask? She laughs, It was like trying on your
Speaker 1: sister's dress and realizing it fits. I remember being little
Speaker 1: and being big, both at once. Some years you're ready
Speaker 1: to move on, Some years you need more time. The
Speaker 1: draw knows, Missus hughes. It always knows another voice, this
Speaker 1: time Adam Clay, who aged backward overnight, leans in being
Speaker 1: older but being a kid again not so bad. Teachers
Speaker 1: treat me like a new student, but my friends remember
Speaker 1: all the same stories. The philosopher in me circles. The
Speaker 1: edge is age in Pine River, a property of the
Speaker 1: town rather than of the individual. Is the drawer a
Speaker 1: subconscious match making of experience, the town's way of keeping
Speaker 1: itself balanced, young and old, shared responsibly, each person tasting
Speaker 1: different parts of life, not just once, but in rotation.
Speaker 1: I test the boundaries too. Call my college roommate, now
Speaker 1: living in Chicago, she cackles when I bring up the drawer.
Speaker 1: Haven't drawn a marker since I left? Not once. I'm
Speaker 1: forty three and feel it every step. Guess I was
Speaker 1: too impatient for all that Pine River shuffling she visits,
Speaker 1: and while in town she claims to feel strange, restless,
Speaker 1: slightly untethered. Yet when I invite her to the marker
Speaker 1: draw that evening, she is gently but firmly declined by
Speaker 1: missus Gardner. Not this year, sweety, not until your home.
Speaker 1: The drawer's reach is precise, the boundaries as real as
Speaker 1: the river and the woods. I watch newcomers, teachers, shop keepers,
Speaker 1: wait their three years before being inducted. Even then, their
Speaker 1: markers seem to know only so much. The changes are gentle,
Speaker 1: a way of easing in once part of the system,
Speaker 1: though there's no returning to chronological rigidity. For as long
Speaker 1: as they live in Pine River, their years are lived
Speaker 1: alongside their neighbors. An idea dawns. The marker drawer is
Speaker 1: not about individual gain or loss. It is as if
Speaker 1: the years themselves are currency pooled and distributed where needed.
Speaker 1: Some leap ahead, some fall back, some repeat childhood. Others
Speaker 1: experience sudden maturity. But more importantly, the town continues. It
Speaker 1: is never destabilized by clustered loss or by a generation
Speaker 1: vanishing all at once. Family rolls realign annually, but so
Speaker 1: too do the rhythms of work and memory. Joy and
Speaker 1: wisdom are never hoarded, nor suffering born alone. I write
Speaker 1: this all down in my journal, sitting at my kitchen
Speaker 1: table as the sun lowers behind the river. Pine River
Speaker 1: ages as a whole. I pen not as a collection
Speaker 1: of isolated people. Its years are not allotted and locked,
Speaker 1: but flow through ceremony, not as a game, nor as
Speaker 1: a test, but as a recalibration. Each cycle allows experience
Speaker 1: to be shared, Losses distributed, growing pains cushioned, joy multiplied.
Speaker 1: I approach Missus Gardner, seeking her blessing for these thoughts.
Speaker 1: She SIPs her tea, cradling her marker. You're closer than
Speaker 1: any one in a long time, Clara, but don't expect
Speaker 1: a straight answer. Some things are agreed on because we
Speaker 1: need to keep going. Maybe it's not about knowing everything,
Speaker 1: but being willing to step in and let the river
Speaker 1: carry you. Doctor Fisher, in his polite, methodical way, decides
Speaker 1: to leave Pine River after barely a year. I feel
Speaker 1: like I've gone soft, like my bones are waiting for
Speaker 1: permission to age, he jokes. At his farewell, he gives
Speaker 1: me a letter. Two weeks later, back on the outside,
Speaker 1: I feel almost my old self, But I can't help
Speaker 1: missing the sense that each day was more than a
Speaker 1: single step forward. There's something about living in rhythm with others,
Speaker 1: even when it breaks all the rules. And yet through
Speaker 1: it all there is no secret code, no master rule.
Speaker 1: The mechanics remain tantalizing, just beyond reach. Residents cling to
Speaker 1: memory and adaptation, fashioning identity not by numbers or milestones,
Speaker 1: but by stories of the years they spent second time around,
Speaker 1: the surprise of becoming the younger sibling, the delight of
Speaker 1: a new first, even within a well worn routine. These
Speaker 1: stories are often contradictory, full of overlaps and layered recollections,
Speaker 1: but that only seems to strengthen the web. When memory
Speaker 1: does not match record, both are held lightly, never dismissed,
Speaker 1: always recounted with affection. One evening at the River's Edge,
Speaker 1: Stephen confides what I suspect many in town have felt.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I mis knowing where I stand, being able to
Speaker 1: plan knowing which years will be easy or hard. But
Speaker 1: I like not being finished, not being done learning. We
Speaker 1: all do what the draw gives us, and usually I
Speaker 1: find we get what we need, not always what we want,
Speaker 1: but always what makes room for some one else's story.
Speaker 1: I look at my marker, oval, dark edged, spiral, deep
Speaker 1: in its grain. It has no meaning outside its moment
Speaker 1: in my hand, but in a way it is as
Speaker 1: much a memory as a tool holding it. I feel
Speaker 1: my place, not as a number in a ledger, but
Speaker 1: as a note in a changing anthem. In time, I
Speaker 1: discover my sense of age softening. I teach after school
Speaker 1: reading regardless of whether I am the right age or not.
Speaker 1: Children who used to call me missus hughes the oldest
Speaker 1: now giggle at how fun it is to switch rolls
Speaker 1: with their parents or siblings. I see pride in a
Speaker 1: new grandfather who relishes being little again among the cousins.
Speaker 1: Hear wisdom in a teenager who lands the elder mark
Speaker 1: her this year and bears it with a wry patience.
Speaker 1: In this communal negotiation, the sharpness of before and after blurs,
Speaker 1: Grudges never take root, hopes never stagnate, and every one
Speaker 1: experiences both care and responsibility, sometimes in the most unexpected order.
Speaker 1: One golden afternoon, armed with a thermos of cider, I
Speaker 1: find myself sitting on Missus Gardner's porch with Principal Lewis
Speaker 1: and Meia Browning, the youngest elder of the Drawer that year,
Speaker 1: barely out of middle school, expression wise beyond her small frame,
Speaker 1: we sip and trade stories, nodding at the absurdity and
Speaker 1: gift of Pine River's rhythms. Principal Lewis is scribbling ideas
Speaker 1: for next year's yearbook theme. Missus Gardner is recounting her
Speaker 1: latest encounter with herself as a trouble making eight year old,
Speaker 1: a tale so charming we nearly drop our mugs maya list,
Speaker 1: sipping thoughtfully, taking it all in as naturally as breathing.
Speaker 1: The river slides past, implacable, carving through the years, as
Speaker 1: it always has each autumn. I begin to look forward
Speaker 1: to the mark a draw not as a gambol or
Speaker 1: a threat, but as a reminder that time, like love
Speaker 1: or sorrow or community, does not always flow in a
Speaker 1: straight line, nor is it ours alone to command. The
Speaker 1: prettiest truth I have come to see is not in
Speaker 1: the peculiarity of the system, nor in the restless search
Speaker 1: for a mechanism, but in the ease with which Pine
Speaker 1: River welcomes its own contradiction. Here, to live is not
Speaker 1: simply to move forward, but to move around and sometimes back,
Speaker 1: and to do so together. When people ask my age,
Speaker 1: I sometimes say in Pine River, time isn't just a
Speaker 1: straight line. It's a conversation, a dance, a shared agreement.
Speaker 1: I don't expect them to understand, but I watch their
Speaker 1: expressions shift, seeing the impossibleity coiled in my answer, And
Speaker 1: I wonder, if a community can so completely remake so
Speaker 1: fundamental a thing as aging, what else in life, what
Speaker 1: other tough, unmoving law might be open to the same
Speaker 1: honest negotiation. Out beyond the town limits, The world measures
Speaker 1: time as a ruler does, certain and relentless. Here, each
Speaker 1: autumn we gather as river and leaf demand, reach into
Speaker 1: the chest and draw the marker that will carry us
Speaker 1: together another year.