October painted the hills of northwestern Connecticut in shades of fire that waxed and waned with the sun. Every morning, Talisha Carter threw a sweater over her shoulders and took the dog out back to pee behind the shed. As Jake's golden snout investigated the passing of rabbits and raccoons from dusky hours past, Talisha would find peace in the sun-touched sway above. And every morning, after Jake had lifted his leg to tell the nocturnal denizens to piss off, Tali would turn back towards the road and sigh. Every morning, especially in those first two weeks when the dying leaves bleed brightest—every morning, as far as the eye could see, stretched an endless line of honking vehicles. 

The leaf-peepers.

Every October, give or take a week depending on the latest foliage forecast, the leaf-peepers would load up in their waspy cars, abandon the hive life of a buzzing city, and descend upon the rural towns in a self-entitled swarm.

Rules did not apply to leaf-peepers, especially rules involving vehicles. No parking? Please. You don't need access to your driveway. 45 mph speed limit? How are we supposed to take pictures of stunning fall foliage if we can't soak it all in going 5mph? Tali couldn't even take her own son for pancakes because the Maple Barn was booked solid with obnoxious, unfriendly tourists.

All because people wanted to witness a biochemical reaction in leaves. Most of 'em hailed from Connecticut's sister state of New York, where they had plenty of their own leaves.

Still, when those first frost warnings went out, Mother Earth in these hills belonged to the leaf-peepers, and it was their money that kept this town fat and happy through the winter. Or so they'd have you believe, if you had them wandering into your pottery shop every day for about two months out of the year.

Worse, they reminded Tali about how unlucky she was to still be living in a 96-soul town after a failed marriage with a man who couldn't stand to have one woman, let alone live in a town where they all knew each other.

Tali hated the leaf peepers and she hated what they reminded her of, but business was booming. Business from peepers took her name out of town and brought it to cities like New York and Boston. Recently her custom, lace-pressed serving bowls had earned her a front cover in the September issue of Taste of Home magazine. Last year, she'd been able to afford a workshop expansion. She'd just finished renovations this August. The bottom floor of the former post office was her studio and retail store, while the upstairs belonged to her and her son, Dante*.

*And Jake.

The nosy yellow lab yawned loudly and sat beside his food bowl, rudder-like tail swishing across the tile. When Tali didn't immediately scoop his breakfast, he padded up to her and set his snout on her lap.

*

When Tali woke this morning and looked out her rain-drizzled window, the only thing different about today was the number of cars parked at the Bed and Breakfast next door. It being a Monday morning, there was actually an empty spot in the gravel lot next to her car. Hollering at Dante for feeding his crust to the dog for the umpteenth time, she'd slipped a sweater over her shoulders, hooked Jake onto his leash, and tromped down the back deck to the shed.

Voices echoed from the shared parking lot. A stream of tourists slammed through Molly's old porch door. Armed with cameras and cups of coffee, they looked prepared for yet another day of owning the small town.

"Grey skies really make the colors pop! How lucky you are to wake up to this every day!"

Yes, how terribly lucky, Talisha thought. Rain shivered off orange leaves above her.

The scuff of leaves behind her signaled that Jake had finally finished his business. This morning the lab was particularly persistent, taking great waffling sniffs along the shed, never once lifting his head to track the nutcrazy squirrels screaming overhead.

When she went toward the yard, Jake dug in his heels. The collar slipped up his neck, scrunching his ears and face together. He grunted at Tali.

"Seriously?" she sighed, tapping her foot.

Jake located something worthy of his attention at the closest tree trunk and squeezed out a little more pee. Tail swaying jauntily now that his work was done, the yellow lab splished forward into the wet lawn.

And then, because it was one of those days where Tali had a million things to squeeze into the next forty minutes, Jake stopped at the base of the deck stairs, snuffling hard. His collar rolled back up his neck and wrinkled his face right down to his flared nostrils. He dropped his head and stared beneath the deck.

"Hell no," Tali said in a reflexive groan. It'd rained overnight. The lab loved playing in water like she loved playing with new glazing colors. She stored his plastic kiddie pool under the deck for the dog days of summer, which admittedly were well and truly gone. Really needed to empty it out and move it into the shed one of these days, lest the sitting water freeze and crack the cheap plastic.

Jake strained against the leather leash.

"C'mon, Jake. It's forty degrees. You can't—" Tali yanked the dog to the stairs.

Snorting louder, he rushed for underneath the deck. The hem of her sweater caught the wooden railing and Tali fell back into the grass. The leash flew from her fingertips.

"Great," she said when she had the breath for gentler words. She was meeting with an important client this morning and she'd broken out her good khakis. Now, with a wet ass and soaked knees, she crawled toward the dog. "If you get us both skunked this time, I swear to God I'll—"

Jake pawed the edge of his pool. Cheerful blue plastic caught at his nails. Water sloshed from side to side.

"Don't you do it. Don't you do it you adorable mother—"

Paw aloft, one determined brown eye angled back at her, Jake considered his options.

At her sharp, "No!" and lunge for the leash, the lab stepped into the pool and laid down in the dirty, stagnant deck runoff. His tail thumped hard against the plastic lining.

In the dark shadows underneath the deck, where the concrete foundation lay buried up to one little grimy window, where the sunlight never reached and the earth never sprouted life, something hissed.

Water swirling all around his belly, Jake cocked his head.

Tali froze. In the early dawn gloom it was difficult to see far under the deck, back behind spare beams and old tools she'd saved after the studio renovation. Quick as she could, spewing curses all the while, she snatched Jake's collar and hauled the soaking hound into the light of day.

She knew what was hiding back there around the boards.

The past few evenings the yard bore the wet, musky tang of skunk. She was gonna have to give Wilson a call and get him out here to remove it before it decided to carve out a burrow beside the foundation. The last time Jake had gotten skunked she couldn't get the odor out of the studio for weeks. And if the shop reeked of skunk in the busiest time of the year . . . 

Jake glanced back panting, and Tali had to endure a shake of rusty brown water. When they hit the studio floor he retreated to the cushioned bed near the shop entrance and settled down in a wet huff.

By now Dante stood at the front door, backpack on and teeth (after a quick sniff) quite unbrushed. It was too late to march him upstairs or he'd miss the bus. Tali hated leaf peepers, but they were a business boon. She'd been opening at 8AM and would continue doing so until the leaves fell to brown husks along the sides of the roads. Of course, this meant she had zero time for prepping a sleepy, definitely-not-a-morning-person second grader and driving him to school. 

She gave him a fast once-over. He was presentable enough, in a barely-stained white polo and little khaki pants and dirty keds. She was glad he'd wanted his black hair cut short; glad and sad, because he really resembled his father then. The same button nose, the same dark skin with a big birthmark on his upper arm (Julian's had been on his shoulder, but to Tali a bone away was close enough), the same little mischievous grin, and of course, Julian's expressive brown eyes.

Dante knew he was a walking memory, little, lovable asshole that he sometimes was. He smiled at her like he'd gotten away with it, lifting his lunchbox into the air. "See ya, mom!"

She rubbed his hair, kissed his forehead, and they walked down the street a way to wait for the bus. There wasn't a school in town, not enough kids for one, but Tali liked it that way. Dante got to go to a good school and the damn leaf-peepers paid for it.

With Dante gone on the yellow bus, Tali took out the trash and opened the dumpster between the inn and her studio. The entire top layer, apart from coffee grinds, was filled by dozens of empty egg crates. 

"Damn it, Moll," she muttered, closing the lid. "This is why we have skunks."

With her store front keys jingling in her pocket, Tali marched across to the decrepit B&B, waiting at the bottom of the porch steps and flashing smiles at the late-rising peepers. She leaned against the rail, waiting patiently for Molly to usher the last one out with kisses and well-wishes.

When the last tourist was seen off with the reminder that tea was promptly served at two, Molly readjusted the apricot shawl around her thin shoulders. At 8AM her hair was a perfect, if not salty grey, beehive. Tali's stern frown reflected in the frame of Molly's reading glasses. The older woman let out a soft gasp, nearly losing the pair to the bushes. 

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" she exclaimed, pushing the glasses back onto her nose. "What are you doing down there, Talisha?"

Molly was a sweetheart, most generous person in town, but she was also too much of an animal lover.

"Hey, Moll," Tali said, joining the elder woman on the porch deck. "Beautiful day."

"Beautiful for business," Moll agreed.

There wasn't a delicate way to put things, but Tali didn't want bad blood between neighbors over something as stupid as a skunk. "Noticed your porch light on last night," she lied, though if the egg crates were anything to go by, Moll had indeed been putting on a show for the guests by luring the local nightlife into the backyard.

Molly stiffened. The wrinkles around her lips creased into a frown.

"You ain't been feeding the birds again, have you?" Tali continued, careful not to mention the obvious evidence in the dumpster. "You know bears haven't gone into hibernation yet. They stop by your feeder these past nights, maybe get the tourists excited to see more?"

Molly Finnegan crossed her arms. "Why you asking?"

"Jake peed twice this morning. Never known him to do that 'cept when a bear's afoot."

With a soft huff, Molly bared her coffee-stained fingertips, twisting her hands at the wrist. "Look at these wrists, Talisha. These can hardly flip pancakes let alone fifty pounds of seed. I ain't feeding the birds."

"You getting a young kid here to help? Maybe letting 'em throw food out the back window?"

"See for yourself," the woman said tartly. "I ain't been feeding birds or nothing else, for that matter."

But Tali didn't have time to search the yard for cracked eggshells and evidence she already knew was there, and Molly knew it, too.

Tali had a ceramic and tile shop to open, and a very important client to meet in . . . She glanced at her watch. Five minutes. Crap.