Maggie Shayne - An Enchanted Season

It was the perfect dinner game to play in the dim glow of candlelight. Wishing he could join them, since he knew Rachel loved Swiss chocolate, Steve continued on to the mudroom. It was chilly enough, so he kept on the jacket…because if the mudroom was chilly, the lean-to was positively freezing. Crossing to the generator, he played the flashlight over it, checked the gas gauge, and followed the instructions to start it.

Nothing happened.

Frowning, Steve tried again. Nothing happened. He unscrewed the tank cover, checked to make sure it had diesel inside, closed the cap tightly, pressed all the right buttons, pulled on the lever, and…Nothing happened.

Frustrated, he turned away before he could smack the machine. A house full of paying guests, and he couldn’t get the generator to work. This was not good. One problem at a time, one solution at a time, he reminded himself. Of course, the problem is I don’t know much about fixing engines. Milking machines, yes. Generator machines—wait…

Walking back into the house, he poked his head into the dining room. Everyone was still eating and playing the game; the box was now in Joey’s hands, and he was making a show of carefully tipping it just so, to see at what angle the object inside would either roll or slide.

“Dave? You work on engines, right?”

“Yeah,” Dave admitted, lowering his cup of cider. “What’s up?”

“I, ah, can’t get the generator to start,” Steve forced himself to admit. “Maybe, if you took a look at it…”

Shrugging, the youth abandoned the dining table. Borrowing a jacket in the mudroom, he followed Steve into the lean-to. He, too, tried the buttons and the lever, checked the tank, tapped the gauge, then checked over the cables. Digging around on the tool bench in one corner, he came back with a screwdriver and removed the engine cover, checking it over. It didn’t take long for him to figure out the problem.

“Here it is. It’s the spark plugs. They’re all corroded,” the dark-haired youth stated, removing each one for a closer inspection.

“Ah. Well, can they be cleaned up?” Steve asked him. “With some soda pop or something?”

Dave examined each plug, then shook his head. “I doubt it. When was the last time you had this thing serviced?”

“Um…” Steve hated to say, “Never,” but the younger man got the message.

“We’re screwed,” he stated bluntly, handing Steve the ruined plug.

“Now, wait a minute,” a familiar, accented voice stated from the doorway. They both turned and blinked at Bella, who was holding a lit votive candle in a blue glass holder. “Do you mean to tell me, young man, that you work on car engines all the time, as you told us earlier this afternoon, and you don’t have any spare parts in your truck?”

“If I did have any, and if they were the right type, you forget my truck is all th’ way out there, on the far side of the road, lyin’ in a ditch, lady,” Dave reminded her pointedly.

“Well, then, what is the problem? We know it takes two and a half lengths of rope to get from the porch to the bed of your truck, and we have a flashlight to see our way there. Put on your snow boots, gentlemen!” Bella ordered them. “If there is a packet of spark plugs that will work in that truck, now is the time to go find them. Not five hours from now, when we are freezing in our beds. If you want the comfort of a warm home, you must exert yourselves to attain it—he who cuts his own wood is twice warmed, and all of that. Come along!”

Dave shot Steve a sardonic look. “Ever get the feeling she was a drill instructor in a former life?”

“I heard that!”

AT LEAST THE SNOW HADN’T PILED ANY DEEPER THAN THEbottoms of the ground-floor windows, though the wind still swirled it around like it was a full-blown blizzard. No one could tell if it actually was snowing from the clouds somewhere overhead, or if it was all ground drift. It also took a lot longer to get from the front porch to the truck and back, but at least breaking a trail through such deep drifts meant they had an easier time finding their way back. The sight of the mound that was Joey’s truck greeted them first, lit by the plying of two flashlights through the night. Once past the view-blocking mound, they could see the glow of candlelight in the front window, and the figures of Rachel and the others waiting to open the door for them.

Dave was still muttering to himself as he started stripping off his down jacket inside the foyer, letting Steve hang it on the coat rack by the front door. “I don’t believe it…I just don’t believe it…”

“Don’t believe what?” Joey asked his friend, watching the other two removing their gear as well.

“We got there, I climbed down inside, and I immediately found a pack of four spark plugs that can fit the generator, a ten-dollar bill, a rolled-up pair of sweat socks, that old road map I’ve been looking for, and a weenie whistle, ” he told his redheaded friend, wrinkling his nose. “A weenie whistle? You know, one of them hotdog-shaped plastic things?” From the blank look on Joey and Pete’s faces, reflected in the light of the votives they were holding, they didn’t know what he was talking about. “Ah…never mind. The point is, we got what we need.”

“What’s wrong with finding a weenie whistle?” Bella asked him, her accent muffled by the way she had bent over to tug off her snow boots.

“I have never in my life owned a weenie whistle, that’s what!” Dave retorted. “I tell you, there’s somethin’ weird goin’ on.”

“What’s weird about finding what you need when you need it?” Mike asked, his dark skin blending him into the doorway of the front parlor.

“Yeah,” Cassie agreed, her blond curls very visible next to his shoulder as she leaned past her friend. “’Tis the season for miracles, and all that!”

“Well, maybe it dropped outta someone’s pocket when they were ridin’ with you,” Pete offered. “Dad found a one-dollar coin from Canada in his car about three years after he bought it from his cousin, who had gone up North a couple years before that.”

Grunting, unable to deny the logic of that possibility, Dave followed Steve back to the lean-to and the waiting generator. Both men groaned, then grumbled, realizing they had to shrug back into their jackets, given the breath-frosting chill in the mudroom; the lean-to was achingly cold in comparison, making their coats a necessity even for such a short task. Once the plugs were installed and the cover resecured, it was simply a matter of pushing a few buttons, pulling on the lever, and starting up the generator. Pleased with their efforts, the two males slapped hands in a high five, shed their things in the mudroom, and returned to the front room, where the others had gathered.

“Just to let you know,” Rachel was cautioning the others, “we cannot run a lot of electricity off that generator, and it only has so much fuel, anyway. It’s only good for a few lights at a time, for the heater out in the barn, and for the furnace and hot water tanks. And when it’s milking time, the dairy gets priority on the electricity, so there’ll be a ban on using it from five to six in the morning, and from three to four in the afternoon. So if you leave a room, turn off the lights behind you if you’re the last one out of there…and enjoy a nice long snuggle under the covers in the mornings.”

“Reading by candlelight can be cozy,” Cassie offered, cheerful as ever. She had brought out her tangle of bright orange yarn again, and was busy crocheting away on something smallish. “And Mike’s little box game is fun, and doesn’t require a lot of bright light. We can keep doing some of that to conserve power in the afternoons.”