Currant, Maine, is the place Ava understands as home even though her childhood there was repeatedly interrupted by flight. Its meaning is made through the people and routines gathered around Cade: maple sugaring, shared food, a shop full of books, and Duncan’s unannounced visits. The town is both a refuge Ava’s mother could not stay away from and a community where Ava’s difference is visible, leaving belonging and vulnerability intertwined.

Home, Guardianship, and Return

Ava’s connection to Currant is inseparable from Cade, her guardian and her mother’s childhood sweetheart. Though they are not related by blood, he is her family in practice, taking his parental role seriously and turning ordinary work into opportunities to teach her. He trains her magical abilities despite her being human, and during maple syrup season even a social visit becomes part of that education. The town’s sense of home therefore rests less on kinship recognized by the state than on the durable care Cade provides.

That home was not always safe to inhabit. Ava and her mother were on the run throughout much of Ava’s childhood, and returning to Currant could put Cade in danger. Her mother nevertheless sometimes came back, as if staying away exhausted her and home was where she could recover. When Ava was five, a holiday visit became an unplanned week snowed in with Cade. For Ava, the confinement was not a hardship: she was spoiled with candy, books, and homemade cider, received new pajamas, and learned to string popcorn and cranberries for a Christmas tree. Because Cade had no ornaments, the tree was decorated with those chains and paper snowflakes. The improvised decorations give this remembered week its particular shape: home is not abundance but the care that makes what is available feel beautiful.

Work, Exchange, and Everyday Community

Maple sugaring shows how domestic work connects the household around Cade to a wider circle in Currant. Cade supplements the income from his used bookshop by planting gardens and preserving food through canning, pickling, and jam-making, as well as trading what he produces. Syrup from the sugaring session is intended for Duncan; in return, Cade’s household receives smelt and other food Duncan catches. The exchange is practical, but it also reflects the repeated forms of mutual provision that sustain the community.

The sugaring shack is built for work rather than comfort: a roof rests on structural timbers above a concrete floor, with a brick-lined fire pit at the center and no full walls, allowing steam to escape. The gathering there extends beyond the task. Lock and Ezra are expected guests, Duncan arrives in his battered Jeep, and the men settle in for cribbage with snacks on a card table. Duncan brings Allen’s Coffee Brandy as tradition dictates, while Cade looks at it with visible reluctance. These details locate community in recurring habits: a game, food, a customary drink, and work whose products will be shared.

Duncan’s generosity is not limited to the sugaring exchange. He regularly brings fish after fishing, jars of jam, and sometimes eggs from his many chickens. He is one of the few people Ava sees in Cade’s kitchen. Cade has little family contact, and Ava’s presence has also limited the household’s friendships, making Duncan’s visits particularly significant. Currant’s social world is therefore not depicted as a large network; its warmth is concentrated in the repeated presence of a few trusted people.

Public Encounters and the Refuge of Broken Spines

The town is not uniformly welcoming. While Ava is with Ryan, Brittany interrupts their moment and insults Ava as an orphan. Ava answers that the insult is stale and notes that, although her mother is dead, her father may still be alive; she simply does not know where he is or who he might be. When her phone reminds her of maple sugaring day, Ava leaves because Cade would be angry if she missed it. The scene contrasts a public encounter marked by mockery with the obligation and belonging waiting at home. Ryan tries to keep her there, but Ava’s decision is shaped by the stronger pull of Cade and their shared routine.

Broken Spines, Cade’s used bookshop and the place where Ava and Sylvie work, is her home away from home and the work she considers her real job. It is modest in size but crowded with paperbacks and comfortable chairs, with a shop cat named Horatio. The store cannot yet afford wards, so Ava must be careful not to lose her temper at work. In the meantime, the chairs, curtains, floors, and walls have been treated with the same protective substance used on the furniture at home; everything except the books and Horatio is covered. The precautions reveal that even this refuge requires vigilance, while the attempt to make the space safe extends the logic of care found in Cade’s household.

Horatio’s history echoes the shop’s role as a place that takes in strays. Cade and Ava found him sick and half-starved outside the store, took him to a veterinarian, and paid five hundred dollars to bring him into their lives. He controls the mice that threaten a used-book shop, while Ava’s work includes removing fur from the couches. Cade named him for the survivor in Hamlet, not for Horatio Hornblower; the name turns the cat’s recovery into a quiet parallel with Ava’s own survival. At first Horatio treated Ava as a rival for Cade’s attention, and she spent weeks bribing him with treats and catnip before he accepted her. Even the shop’s small domestic comedy is about earning a place in a family.

Narrative Significance

Currant, Maine, functions as a home made from return, labor, and chosen ties rather than a guarantee of safety. The Christmas memory, the seasonal exchange with Duncan, and the daily life of Broken Spines give Ava concrete reasons to belong there; her mother’s repeated flights and Brittany’s insult show the pressures that complicate that belonging. The town’s significance lies in this double condition: it is where Ava can be cared for and where she is reminded that her life does not fit an ordinary, secure childhood. Its routines—food brought to the kitchen, a tree decorated by hand, a cat restored to health—make home tangible without erasing the danger surrounding it.