Page 67 of Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm
It’s a weird day, everything feels bleak and miserable. There’s so much to do before the farm opens to the public on Saturday, but it’s too wet and too cold to get out and do anything. I told Iain and the two seasonal workers not to come in again today. It’s not safe. The Met Office has issued a red ‘risk to life’ warning and advised people to stay inside, and the wind is making the rain slam against the house in sheets, sounding like rounds of gunfire when it hits.
There’s been an emptiness since I walked away from Noel on Monday. I can’t stop thinking about him. I can’t believe that anything he said was untrue. He was so genuine, so raw and open with me … how can any of it have been a ploy to get my trust? And what did he think he was going to gain out of it anyway? I’ve pored over the books I bought about growing Christmas trees and nothing in them contradicts any of the advice he gave me. In fact, most of the things he said are actually more sensible than what’s written in the books, and I keep thinking that I should swallow my pride and go over there and talk it through. I definitely miss him enough to believe him, especially when I think about the look of bewilderment and rejection on his face at the bridge the other day, which is stuck in my mind like a screensaver – it pops up whenever I’m inactive for a few moments.
Thinking about the bridge makes me think of the river and what Noel said about it flooding. It was frozen solid a couple of days ago, but with all this snow and rain … I’ve pulled my boots on before I’ve finished the thought. There’s no way that river can cope with this deluge of water. I shrug my coat on again, open the door, and immediately regret it. I have to hold the door with both hands to stop the wind crashing it shut again.
Outside, the weather isworsethan it sounds from inside. The coat proves completely useless in rain this heavy because I’m soaked through before I’ve even reached the gate. The trees are obscured by a wet haze as I follow the track, which is running with so much water that it flops over the tops of my wellies within a few steps.
I know something’s severely wrong from the sound of rushing water. It’s so different from the usual gentle trickle of the stream. This is a thundering, pounding gush that reverberates through the earth itself, and I stop in horror as I round the corner and get to the bridge.
The stream is no longer a stream. It’s a crashing, swirling river, and the banks have burst.
I remember what Noel said on that day we crossed the trickling little stream on the way to the apple tree, about how it has never flooded, but it would be a disaster if it did. About how it would drown the Balsams and the Blue spruces. About how I’d lose them all.
The grass surrounding it is completely flooded. There’s so much water that it’s lying on the surface because everything is already too wet for it to drain away, and more water is pulsing out with every second, spreading further. It’s nearly reached the first row of Balsam firs and is edging towards the Blue spruces.
My first instinct is to call Noel for help. He’ll know what to do. But I can’t do that. That’s the point – I have to rely on myself, no one else.
I can’t just stand here watching the trees drown, their roots glugging as they gradually sink in floodwater. Come on, Leah, think.
A river ran through the village I grew up in, and it flooded all the time in winter. I remember seeing the council workers down there in the pouring rain, digging spillways to divert the water. That’s it! I turn around and splash back through the mud towards the barn.
There are loads of different shovels with different purposes, but I don’t know what they’re all for, so I grab as many as I can carry and try to map it out in my head as I race back. If I dig a channel across the top of the Balsam fir field, it would give the water somewhere to spill into before it reaches the trees.
It might already be too late to save them. I splosh through the puddled water and run to the other bridge and through the Blue spruce field until I reach the Balsam firs again from the opposite bank.
I start halfway along the riverside where the bank is at its lowest point and the most water is flooding out. I ram the shovel into the ground and shove my foot down, pushing it in deep and heaving up a huge clump of saturated earth and chucking it to the side. Water floods into the hole instantly, but I carry on, digging the same spot until I can’t get the shovel down any further and water from the river has pooled into it. I move on, overlapping the dig sites until they meet, moving slowly along the path of the river. The ground is so wet that the shovelfuls of earth are too heavy to pick up, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. There must be at least two thousand trees directly below the river – the only thing that matters is saving them.
I pile the earth I take out onto the edges to create a barrier and start following a roughly parallel line with the river towards the border of my land. After that, it can flood anywhere it wants, I’ve just got to get it past the trees.
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
I jump so much that I nearly fall over. I ram the shovel into the ground and use it as a pole to keep myself upright, slip-sliding in the mud as I turn around to look at Noel. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Came to make sure the river wasn’t flooding. Now I see I should’ve come earlier.’ He has to shout to be heard from the opposite side of the rushing water.
‘I don’t need your help, I can manage.’ I try to concentrate on digging and not look at him again, but the temptation is too much.
He takes his coat off and throws it aside, picks up one of the spades I’d dropped and starts towards the river.
Within minutes, there isn’t a centimetre of him that’s dry. He’s wearing jeans and only a long-sleeved undershirt with the sleeves rolled up, although I can’t tell what colour either of them started off as because they’re now dark with rainwater. His hair is loose around his shoulders, looking longer than usual with the weight of the water, and he’s covered in mud from the waist down, splashes of it covering his top too, being quickly washed away by the rain that’s still pummelling down.
‘What are you doing?’ I shout again.
‘You’re going to lose all of the Balsams and most of the Blue spruces if we don’t do somethingnow. I don’t care how much you hate me, I’m not letting you lose these trees. You don’t have to handle things like this on your own.’
The passion in his voice makes me realise we can’t avoid the soaking wet elephant standing between us any longer. ‘For you or for me?’ I say before I can chicken out.
He stops and looks up. ‘What?’
‘You want to save them for you or for me?’
His dripping eyebrows furrow. ‘What are you talking ab—’
‘I know who you are, Noel. R-five-hyphens-81. I know you were the other bidder.’
‘That’swhat all this has been about? That’s why you won’t talk to me?’ He makes a noise of realisation and smacks his forehead. ‘This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.’
‘Everything you’ve done—’
