She parked the truck in front of the car and hopped out.
Digging the car out turned out to be more work than I’d anticipated. The snow had continued falling overnight, and what had been a minor inconvenience yesterday was now a legitimate excavation project. But working alongside Sylvie, both of us huffing and puffing in the cold air, our breath creating clouds of steam between us, it was strangely satisfying.
“There,” she said finally, standing back to survey our handiwork. “That should do it. Let me put some sand under the front tires.”
I was going to have to trust her because I had zero clue what to do. When she was finished, she nodded.
“Alright, give it a try. Easy. Steady gas. Don’t gun it. Once it starts moving, don’t stop. Don’t jerk the wheel. Go on up there and turn around at the four-way stop.”
Again, I felt like a total novice.
I tested the car, and sure enough, it drove out of its snowy prison without any trouble. Following her back to the lodge, I made a decision that surprised even me.
I was going to extend my stay.
Not because I was getting soft or losing sight of my mission, I told myself. But because rushing this whole thing would becounterproductive. If I was going to convince the Northwoods to sell, I needed to understand what I was dealing with. Know your enemy and all that.
The fact that spending more time around Sylvie sounded appealing had nothing to do with it. Obviously.
“I need to pay for another week,” I said when I got out of my car. “Unless I already have,” I quipped.
I saw her grimace. She knew I knew she had nearly tripled the rate. “You caught that, huh?”
“I did.”
She sighed. “I’ll tell Stacy to charge the remainder to the card on file.”
“Thanks.”
“Feel free to enjoy your stay,” she said. “I need to get back to work.”
After she headed back to work on the tree farm, I decided to explore more of the lodge. I’d seen the main areas including the lobby, dining hall, and library but there had to be more to this place than rustic charm and excessive Christmas decorations.
I discovered a small business room tucked away on the first floor, where a few guests were working quietly on their laptops. The setup was simple but functional, decent Wi-Fi, comfortable chairs, plenty of outlets. Nothing fancy but it got the job done. One of the guests looked up when I peeked in and nodded politely before returning to what appeared to be spreadsheet work.
Down the hall, I found a game room that made me pause in the doorway. Two kids, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, were hunched over a chess board in intense concentration. Actual chess. With actual pieces. Not some digital version on a tablet or phone.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen teenagers playing chess. Every time I encountered kids that age, they were gluedto their phones or absorbed in some handheld gaming device, completely disconnected from the world around them.
Maybe that was the whole point of this place. The disconnected experience gave people a chance to reconnect with each other. A refuge from the constant digital noise that seemed to dominate everything these days.
The idea intrigued me more than I wanted to admit.
I made my way outside to explore the back area of the property, curious about what other surprises the Northwood Lodge might be hiding. The snow was deeper back here, unmarked by foot traffic, and I had to work to push through it as I wandered among what appeared to be abandoned recreational facilities.
The first thing I discovered was an in-ground pool, still there but clearly long out of service. It was covered with a tarp that had seen better days, and the surrounding deck was weathered and in need of repair. I could imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday. Families splashing around during summer visits, kids cannon-balling off the diving board while their parents relaxed in lounge chairs.
Now it was just another casualty of the lodge’s declining fortunes.
Beyond the pool, I found what had once been an elaborate garden area. High hedges created walls and pathways that seemed to follow some kind of pattern, though it was hard to make sense of the layout with everything overgrown and snow-covered.
I pushed through one of the hedge openings and found myself in what appeared to be a corridor of sorts, with more openings leading off in different directions. It took me a few minutes to realize what I was looking at.
A maze. They’d had an actual hedge maze back here.
I tried to imagine kids running through this maze while their parents relaxed in the garden and then everyone gathering in the evening for communal dinners and storytelling by the fire.
It must have been magical. No wonder Sylvie was so desperate to save this place.
