I put my paw on the gas pedal as I turned back onto Interstate 91, heading north from nowhere. My little 2000 Toyota Camry purred along the long stretch of highway that cut through New Hampshire, heading into the mountains. I'd just made a pit stop at Sheetz for a refill of both gasoline and the energy drink sort(I liked GFuel, and Sheetz always had an extensive selection).My destination was a small town to the northeast of Sugar Hill, right off I93. I'd continue along my current trajectory on I91 south until the next exit, which I'd then backtrack a bit down Highway 302 into Sugar Hill, then follow some admittedly dicey-looking roads until I ultimately landed in the small mountain hamlet known as Brickhedge.
Yes, THAT Brickhedge.
Hold up now, do you mean to tell me you've never heard of such a place? Well, okay, I'll give you that: it isn't exactly the biggest or most exciting place in the northeast United States, but from what I do know about it(which admittedly isn't a lot), it's about as perfect and picturesque a mountain town as one could hope to find in this day and age.
And the real estate market was practically dead, so housing was amazingly affordable.
Once I hit Highway 302, heading north, cutting through Sugar Hill, and beginning my steady descent higher into the mountain, I started to notice the changes in scenery—fields of wildflowers spotted with herds of deer. Large birds flying overhead. Crystalline lakes with neat little cottages built along their shorelines, likely rentals or something like that. It didn't take long for this scenery to start giving way to deep, thick forests. Well-tended paved roads cut a path through the thickets, leading me onward to my destination.
"Welcome to Brickhedge; Population: Growing," Said the hand-carved sign, planted beside the main road, standing tall just over a very easy-to-miss side road. The tagline would be something I'd learn later was a half-truth, but that's what we'll have to get into some other time.
As my aging Camry drove along the less-than-ideal pavement that led upwards into town, I took a glance into the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of the beast behind the wheel. My crimson red eyes beset upon two white pedestals of my sclera.
I dropped the windows a bit to allow the cool mountain air to sweep through my car, drowning out the synthetic scent from the little brightly colored aging air freshener with the smell of fresh ozone, flowers, and pine litter filling the cab. I was more than happy to have that flowing up my nostrils than the fresh linen-scented chemicals the little paper tree gave off.
With both windows down, the wind swept through the vehicle and rustled my dark brown hair. The air grew cooler and cooler as I ascended the steep grade, going from a pleasant humidity to a brisk crispness in a matter of minutes.
A standard highway sign that read "rest stop" quickly appeared on my right-hand side. It'd been over an hour since my last stop, and I could probably use another break before my butt lost any more feeling than it already had.
Unsurprisingly, the actual rest stop wasn't much more than a set of bathrooms, a dumpster, and a few empty vending machines. Rarely did they need to be anything more, and there wasn't anyone else currently there, so I was grateful. Not that I'm antisocial or anything, but I was cool with getting to take in my new surroundings and ponder my future in solitude.
It'd been a good twelve years now since I'd left the orphanage back in Pennsylvania. I'd never attended public school for reasons I'm not quite willing to delve into, but I'm sure you'll come to realize why as I talk more about myself. I received an education, don't get me wrong, but it just wasn't a formal one.
I was standing near the guard rail that had been erected just a few feet away from some old, weathered benches. I took in the new sights and sounds that I was crossing my claws would be the new norm for me going forward.
Stretched out before me was quite the view: A vast forest of hemlocks, birches, and who knew what else spread across the land below me, All a fresh, crisp green to go with the arrival of the spring season. It smelled absolutely wonderful; my keen sense of smell was able to pick out every individual scent in the thick forest below.
I lifted my arms high above my head and stretched one heck of a stretch, listening to the vertebrae in my neck pop one after another. It felt incredible. So good, in fact, that I felt my tail involuntarily begin to wag.
The GPS on my phone said I was only around fifteen minutes outside of town by this point, with a meeting scheduled with the mayor at the Brickhedge Town Hall at eleven o'clock to sign the papers and finally close on the property I bought, sight unseen beyond some photos online.
Back in my car, I cranked up the radio when 'Walking on Sunshine' began to play, which felt perfectly apt. I'd slipped my sleeveless hoodie back on, never bothering to zip it as I often wore graphic tees and liked to display them. Not today, though; I tried keeping things clean and professional to make a good impression in front of the mayor. I wore a dark grey tee under the hoodie and a pair of black cargo shorts that stopped just below my knees.
Several minutes later, I finally began to see houses to my right and left, along with yet another hand-carved "Welcome to Brickhedge" sign, along with the standard highway signs one would expect. I'd love to have said that I did my research before moving here, but there honestly wasn't a lot of info on the town anywhere to be found. Sure, it had things like accessible medical facilities and stuff. Admittedly, and kind of worrisome on top of that, there weren't a whole lot of resources online about the town.
Even the town's Facebook page hadn't been updated since 2013, and no one had their "Currently Lives in" or "Hometown" fields set to Brickhedge, either.
The biggest surprise came when I discovered that they not only had one of the last Super K-Marts still operating in the country but that it was the ONLY supermarket of its kind here: no Target, no Wal-Mart, or even their little cancerous market centers. I hadn't been to K-Mart since I was a pup and couldn't wait to take my first shopping trip there.
I pulled my car to the side of the road just outside the town hall, where they had parking meters running all along the sidewalk. I grabbed my folder with all my documents and then locked the door. I made sure to slip a coin into the parking meter, giving me thirty minutes to get things squared away.
It was still pretty early in the morning, but even now, beasts were hustling and bustling about. Shop shudders were going up, and canopies over fruit and vegetable stands were being raised. A florist was watering her flowers just across the street from the local government building, and she looked at me, almost staring as she allowed the water to overflow in the pot. Getting the odd glance was normal for me, but her stare was piercing, like my presence had somehow disrupted her morning routine.
I waved and smiled but received nothing in return. I just shrugged my shoulders and entered the large building.
I had only ever been in one other town hall in my life, and that was shortly after I left the orphanage back in 2004. I can't even remember what that was about it's been so long ago.
I stepped up to the receptionist's desk and laid my folder down and said, "Uh, hi. I'm here to meet with Mayor Filbert." The receptionist stared at me for a brief second. She was an older woman and looked to be a Cockatoo or some sort of parrot. She wore a well-fitting two-piece and cut quite the professional image sitting behind that desk. She honestly reminded me a lot of the caretakers from the orphanage; Quite the motherly aura about her.
"You must be Mr. Drahcir. Yes, sir, we have been expecting you. The mayor will be right out, but in the meantime, I will need your documentation, if you don't mind." I handed her the folder, and she fingered through them, taking out sheets and then either making copies or typing in info she looked carefully at through her spectacles. The speed with which her fingers flew across the keys was impressive and made me wonder if she didn't work in courtrooms as well.
"If you'll take a seat, dear, this will be a minute." She gestured to the line of chairs behind me. There were eight sets of them, four in a roar, broken apart either by a Coke or Pepsi vending machine and some lively-looking house plants.
It wasn't long after I sat down that the large set of double doors opened outward as a figure I could have only presumed was the mayor of Brickhedge trotted out. He was dressed far more casually than the receptionist. He bent over the desk as he and the cockatoo talked amongst each other in hushed tones, ending with her pointing towards my direction.
He stood upright again and said to the receptionist, "Hold all calls for the next hour if you don't mind, Ms. Kinkaid; I've important matters to tend to." He trotted over to me and I stood to meet him. "Mr. Drahcir," He said, looking over the paper he'd been given. "I just wanted to be the first to welcome you to our lovely little town. My name is Filbert Filligasser, but you can just call me Filb."
He didn't possess the kind of uppity, better-than-thou air that people in these ranks typically had about them. Maybe it was the way he was dressed or the casual way he spoke, and I couldn't be sure.
"I'm Advrik Drahcir, and you can just call me Advrik."
He struck out his hand, and I met it with my own in a hardy shake. "It's a pleasure to meet you in person, Advrik. It's not often we get new residents moving into town, yet just this month alone, we are getting a whopping four new faces from the outside; one's even a doctor!"
Four, huh? Hearing that number and the tone he used, I couldn't help but ask, "How often do you actually see new residents move into town if you don't mind my asking."
"Not at all, lad," Mayor Filbert was a tall man, clearly a purebred Clydesdale. He had several inches on me, easily. The last time I'd been measured, I was five-foot-ten. "Brickhedge isn't exactly a hot tourist attraction, nor is there a whole lot of places to see or go nearby. Hell, most of the time, you won't even find Brickhedge on any maps. Come on, let's walk and talk; I can't wait for you to see your new property." That last part almost sounded apprehensive.
His mentioning of the lack of highlights on maps for Brickhedge was true; I only just happened across it one night on Google Earth while looking through the Sugar Hill area. I'd been wanting to move away from Pennsylvania for some time and had my sights on New Hampshire, but I wanted a more rural area. That was when I stumbled across Brickhedge.
We walked down the sidewalk beside each other. The woman, the hedgehog that had frozen at the sight of me, was now smiling and waving—no doubt to the mayor. We stopped by my car. "This yours?" Filbert said, and I nodded. He then slipped another coin into the slot and gestured his head for me to follow.
I thanked him for the parking extension. "We take care of each other here in Brickhedge, son. We're a pretty small town, and we mainly sustain ourselves. We have a K-Mart, sure, but unlike other places in this country, they act more as a supplement for our economy and well-being here than something like, say, a Wal-Mart might do."
He was right about that; I've seen Wal-Marts move into towns and completely upend them, triggering a domino effect of local businesses closing down because they were simply unable to compete. It was happening all over the country. Heck, even ninety-nine percent of the K-Marts had died out because of Wal-Mart. How on earth they not only still have one fully functioning here but have also found a way to integrate it into the local economy is an amazing feat.
The property I had bought was an abandoned two-story townhouse. Sight unseen, I might add. It was right on the intersection of Main and Turnip Street. The previous owner had disappeared nearly a decade ago, and the property was left to rot. Having recently been up for sale at the demand of a considerable majority of Brickhedge residents, evidently, during the last Town Hall Meeting.
"If I hadn't so much paperwork to go through with all the new faces we're seeing this month, I'd personally give you a tour of the town myself. Introduce you to some of the townsfolk." He said as we made our way past a crosswalk. I smiled and thanked him for the thought.
"It's all right, sir. I'm actually looking forward to kind of just wandering around town for a bit and discovering things on my own. Once I get settled in, that is."
That's when we came upon the whole reason I'm here. After a fifteen-minute walk, we made it to the third intersection, just two away from the very end of Main Street, where the building and property I had purchased stood.
And it was the most beautiful thing I've seen yet: mildew-stained brick, broken, boarded-up doors and windows and everything.
"And here it is, Advrik," Filbert said, gesturing with his arm in a wide sweeping arc as if he was pulling back a veil from the building itself. If this were New York or any other major city in the country, the sight of this dilapidated old building would immediately make one think, "crack den".
The building itself had your typical Main Street townhouse fair; It had a single green door framed with white molding set atop a short flight of steps and a small stoop. There were large windows on either side with a second set around eight feet up, give or take a foot. The structure was built out of red brick, as most things were in town. A small front yard of maybe fifteen feet from the foundation to the sidewalk was all I'd have to work with, and that was outlined with some rusted old iron fencing that I was sure must have looked great in its prime but now looked like a Lock Jaw risk.
It was a grotesque, rundown middle finger in a line of similar townhouses, and it was mine. All mine.
"So," the mayor stated, "Still feeling good about your purchase?" His tone was tinged with worry. New faces in Brickhedge were a rarity, and the sooner this place was bought up and repurposed, the sooner he could get the townspeople off his case about it (And then raise property taxes!)
But he couldn't see the glistening in my eyes, at least not without looking hard enough. Sure, it was going to take a lot of work getting this place into a liveable state again, but the fact that I finally owned a place of my own, in an environment and sort of location I've always kind of dreamt of, was marvelous.
"You know what, Filb?" I said, turning on my plantar ball towards him and beaming a smile, "I could not be happier!"
He smiled back. "Glad to hear it, son. Sure you don't want to take a quick look inside before we head back to sign the papers?"
I shook my head and said, "Nah, I'm good. I bought this sight unseen. I'm not going to let a little mold and mildew dampen my excitement now."
"Then," the mayor said, "Allow me to be the first to welcome you to Brickhedge, Advrik Drahcir."
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