Warning: The author accepts no responsibility for the actions of anyone searching for the places or plants described in this piece, nor for any global disasters which may result from genetic engineering experiments inspired by descriptions of the Mulholland needleless tree. The accuracy of the directions to Blue Lake Junction are not guaranteed. Consult your travel agent, geneticist, or attorney for more information.

Almost everyone in Blue Lake Junction knows that Mulholland’s Enchanted Grove is the best Christmas tree farm in the county. But no one knows quite where it is, except that you have to take an unmarked dirt road that usually washes out three or four times during December. Only a few with four-wheel drive vehicles brave the journey, and almost all of them come back. But hardly any have a Mulholland tree when they return.

You might ask how the Mulhollands sell anything. The Mulhollands don’t sell their trees. More than one person in Blue Lake Junction has suggested that the Mulhollands don’t actually exist, but there’s a Timothy Mulholland enrolled in Mrs. McCarthy’s third grade class at Blue Lake Junction Elementary School. Mrs. McCarthy herself says that Timothy is a fine, though very quiet young man, who never disrupts the class. Beyond that, she can tell you very little about Timothy, however, and none of her students can ever recall playing with him. Most have trouble describing his appearance, though it’s generally agreed that he’s quite thin and doesn’t wear glasses. Of course, there’s also his watercolor painting hanging on the bulletin board at the back of the class, right next to Rebecca Mercer’s.

(It may come as a surprise to outsiders that the Mulhollands are not the most prominent of the possibly fictional families in Blue Lake Junction. There’s another in town whose reclusiveness is so successful, no one actually knows their names. And they don’t even have to hide out in the forest like the Mulhollands. Everyone is so impressed with the ___s that they keep electing Mrs. ___ to the city council, even though she never shows up for meetings. Down at the diner, there’s even been talk on one or two occasions that the oldest ___ daughter might be the high school valedictorian next June, but others worry about her social life. No Mulholland has ever accomplished anything comparable.)

The evidence regarding the existence of the Mulhollands, other than Timothy’s watercolor, is rather mixed. The seven nuggets of evidence described here contain most of what is known about them. If you’re disappointed that it’s of little use in actually finding Mulholland’s Enchanted Grove, I apologize.

Fact 1 - The Annual Christmas Tree Distribution

No one in Blue Lake Junction actually has to buy their Christmas tree. The trees just appear in the driveways some random morning between the first and tenth of December, like the morning paper. They’re not normal trees, either. Not a Douglas fir, or noble fir, or even a Monterey pine in the bunch. The Mulhollands have developed a needleless tree, so the lucky residents don’t have to spend the holiday season vacuuming underneath. And the trees are as perfectly shaped as any found in holiday cartoons. The trees disappear after they’re taken down, too, which annoys a few people who want to burn them in their woodstoves.

The last of many Blue Lake Junction residents to attempt to catch the Mulhollands in the act of distribution was Charlie Becker when he was thirteen.

“I stayed up all night every night the first week and a half of December. That was four years ago. We had the driveway flood lights on, so I could see. It was cold out, we even had snow on the ground that year. But I can see the whole yard from my bedroom window, so I didn’t have to be outside. On that tenth night, I was really tired, as you can guess. And well, I just dozed off for maybe five minutes. At least that’s my best estimate from looking at watch when I woke up. And there it was in the driveway, that quickly. I never saw or heard a thing.”

Every other attempt to witness the tree distribution has produced a similar account.

Fact 2 - The Year of the Bad Trees

In 1949, there was a big feud in Blue Lake Junction between two families, the Tuckers and the Bainbridges, after Mark Tucker backed out of a business partnership at the last minute. The rest of the residents immediately took sides, of course, and the feud between the factions lasted quite a bit longer than the feud between the families, which in the end, was settled quite amicably at a quiet dinner.

As Christmas approached, everyone wondered whether the Mulhollands cared about the feud, and if they did, where they stood. On December 6, they found out. The formerly feuding families got the usual Mulholland needleless trees, and the rest of the town had to settle for the scorched branches cut off Ponderosa pines killed by a forest fire the previous summer.

Fact 3 - The Rhodes Photographs

John Rhodes never lived in Blue Lake Junction, or he would have been better prepared. Of course, had he lived in the town, he would have had a tree delivered to his doorstep. But he was a frequent guest of the Banks family. He made a short visit in 1972 (December 14-17). The Mulholland needleless tree so fascinated him that he decided, against the advice of Stan Banks, to attempt to find the Enchanted Grove.

What actually happened to Rhodes on the mountain isn’t exactly clear. His account has evolved over the years, and sifting through the various versions for consistencies has become nearly futile. But a few basic elements appear in nearly all the Rhodes accounts:

1) He got lost on the dirt road. This is completely believable, since it happens to almost all who attempt to find the Grove.

2) He saw the Grove by chance, down a little canyon, and had to hike about a quarter mile off the road to get to it.

3) He was so mesmerized that 24 hours went by without his notice.

4) He was not so mesmerized that he forgot to photograph the Grove.

5) He used up all the film he had brought with him, an amazing collection of over 100 photographs showing rows of Mulholland needleless trees.

It should be noted that though Rhodes, once he found his way back to Blue Lake Junction, gave very specific directions to the Grove. The area has been searched many times by air. No one has yet been able to confirm its location.

Fact 4 - The Year the Mulhollands Spent the Winter in Bermuda

According to rumors in 1962, the Mulhollands decided to take the winter off and get out of the cold weather. They decided to go to Bermuda. Supposedly, a friend from out of town had agreed to deliver the trees for them. But he didn’t fully understand how to care for the Grove, and by the time December arrived, the trees were very ill. He did the best he could, but everyone in town was disappointed to find Douglas firs in their driveways.

Fact 5 - Mrs. ___’s Centennial Speech

Though few can truthfully say they actually know them, the Mulhollands are listed among Blue Lake Junction’s founding families. When the town celebrated its centennial in 1987, it held a special ceremony to recognize the Mulhollands’ hundred years of gifts to the town. Even Mrs. ____ showed up at City Hall and gave a speech, though she arrived two hours early and delivered it before there was an audience. She gave a rambling apology in an anonymous letter to the paper a few days later, at one point suggesting she had been confused about the time, and later saying she had to rush off to another engagement. A janitor found the discarded text of the speech in a trash can, and it now hangs in gold frame in the City Hall lobby. The speech revealed little new about the Mulhollands, but did suggest the Mulhollands and ____s were close friends. She also announced the birth of Timothy.

Fact 6 - Mrs. McCarthy’s Autumn Field Trip

Many have cut trimmings from the Mulholland needleless, and tried to grow a tree. All have failed. A few have donated branches to genetics laboratories for DNA testing. Invariably, the labs identify the sample as one from a more common species, though rarely do different labs agree.

Mrs. McCarthy takes her class on a nature hike every autumn, and in 1994, Maria Diaz found the only known Mulholland needleless seedling ever discovered in the wild. After much discussion, they decided to dig it up to replant back at the school. (They reasoned that it wasn’t native to California, so they were actually protecting the habitat from a potentially invasive species. But they really just thought it would be fun to plant it in front of the school.)

Unfortunately, the plant lasted only three weeks before dying. And it’s ruined Mrs. McCarthy’s field trips since as well. Her students just want to look for more seedlings instead learning about nature.

(By the way, records at the office indicate Timothy Mulholland was sick the day of this year’s field trip.)

Fact 7 - The Midnight Club

The students at Blue Lake High School have always thought they lived in a dull town. But a few students in the Class of 1956 thought otherwise. The students in question were not considered good kids. Everyone knew they sneaked out of their houses and roamed the dark streets when they were supposed to be asleep. Everyone knew who they were when they made enough noise to wake up whole blocks, racing their cars at three in the morning.

But on one fateful night, the Midnight Club (as they called themselves) decided to drive up the dirt road. No one saw them for days, and search parties combed the mountain, searching for clues. Some people said they probably just took a road trip to San Francisco, or Los Angeles, or maybe even Reno. Then their cars were found abandoned, well off the dirt road and hidden by thick brush. Three more days passed. Finally, a search party found them dozing comfortably next to one of the small creeks on the mountain.

When pressed for an explanation, the kids finally told their story. They had found not only Mulholland’s Enchanted Grove, but the Mulholland mansion itself, and described the three-story, twenty bedroom house in detail. The Mulhollands had thrown a party for them, which they found quite unexpected, and they had a picnic in the Grove. They wondered what all the fuss was about, and didn’t believe they had been gone more than overnight until they saw a newspaper back in Blue Lake Junction.

It should come as little surprise that no one has found the Grove from the Midnight Club’s directions, and that the location does not agree with the one given by John Rhodes. The mansion remains undiscovered as well. But some believe intentional deception on the part of the Midnight Club members. Rumors abound that they became regular guests of the Mulhollands, the only people ever granted the honor (other than possibly the ____s, of whom even less is known).

For those wishing to investigate the mystery further, Blue Lake Junction recently opened a museum with many artifacts and stories about Mulholland’s Enchanted Grove. From Sacramento, head east on Interstate 80 to Auburn, then take Interstate 7 north toward Oroville. A few miles before the Chico exit, take Highway 742 east, turn left at every third intersection three times, then turn right at every fourth intersection four times. (Most of the roads in this part of the county don’t have names, so you just have to count.) If you make all the correct turns, going straight for 22 miles leads you into downtown Blue Lake Junction.

The End

Biography

Clinton is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers' Workshop. Some of his recent fiction sales include stories published in Continuum Science Fiction, Walking Bones, Reflection's Edge, and T-Zero: The Writer's E-zine. His story "The Milagroso Trail" will appear in an upcoming issue of Realms of Fantasy. He also spent several years as a staff writer for Science Fiction Weekly, and had an interview with Karen Joy Fowler published in Strange Horizons last year. He has B.S., M.S., and M.B.A. degrees from the University of California, Davis. He is an electrical engineer, and has also done some teaching recently.

Comments

There is a blue lake junction in CA

http://officialcitysites.org/city/CA/Blue_Lake_Junction/57082

Posted by: Zio at December 20, 2005 03:06 AM