Page 25 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
Before I can answer, the music surges—fiddle and drum, a fiddle screeching sweet and long. The mayor steps into a clearing beside a sea of pumpkins, taps the mic, calls for a dance-off. The crowd surges. People form a ring. I back toward the edge of the square, wine-stained hands twisting the paper fortune in miniature.
Brody leans closer. “I can’t stop thinking you and him?—”
But he stops. Something in his posture shifts like he realized he’s said too much in front of the orchard, like the land itself might snap back if we speak what we feel.
“Brody,” I say quietly. Voice steadier than I feel. “Shut up.”
He nods, slow, face soft as regret. Then spares me a small, sad smile before stumbling with someone else into the dance circle, joining the rhythm reluctantly.
I slip away amid the crowd, weaving past cider stands and jam vendors, pie judges and honey-tasters, toward the orchard.Leaves drift off the ridge, swirling down through the festival glow and pulling me like gravity untethered.
The orchard is quiet when I enter, the canopy above closing around me, petals drifting like light snowfall across the ground. I press my hand to the bark of the old oak and the world stills. The festival hum fades to ground hum, the wind sighs low through leaves, and the scent of bloom is dizzying. So wrong for the season. So beautiful it hurts.
I drop to my knees in the soft grass, clutching my cider-smeared slip of paper. I let myself cry, silent tears that trail down my cheeks, salty and slow. The orchard answers with a gust of wind that rustles branches overhead as though it’s offering symbols for a heretic prayer.
I whisper the words Brody said—words I’ve said back to them more times in my head than I care to admit—but this time they’re strangled with sorrow:I deserve to be loved.
And maybe that scares me, because vale and ridge and root and bloom feel like they’re depending on that truth. The orchard tilts toward me, branches brushing my hair, petals drifting around my shoulders. It’s like being enclosed in a delicate fortress made of leaf and bloom and ancient pull. I close my eyes and feel the forest inhale me.
Hours pass or minutes—I can't measure time here.
Then a breath at the boundary of perception. Soft. Steady. Familiar.
“You okay?” He kneels beside me, shirt damp with dust, boots resting on petals, face drawn.
I don’t answer. I just bury my face in the ankles of his work jeans, cling to them like they’re ground I know I can trust.
He wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulls me close, presses his cheek to my hair like he can breathe me back together. I feel the tremor in his chest through denim, feel the orchard hum settle around us.
“I’m sorry,” he says. Voice gentle. Regret-laced. “I said things I didn’t mean. But you deserve love, Ivy. Real. Wild. Not just rooted.”
I lift my head, look at him. His eyes dark as bark and deep as night, full of something I can’t name yet but don’t want to let go of.
I whisper, “I don’t trust it yet.”
He nods. “I know.”
We stay there a while in the hush of wind and falling petals, bodies pressed close, letting the orchard cradle us in silence that finally feels safe.
Because maybe it’s not about roots anymore. Maybe it’s about choosing growth amid bloom and fear and all the wild things bound in between.
And in that moment, beneath petals raining slow, I believe that might just be enough.
CHAPTER 16
GARRUK
The orchard lies muted in early morning light—dew collecting on petals scattered from last night’s violent bloom, roots pulsing faintly beneath moss like echoes of things too deep to name. In that hush, I walk toward town, boots crunching over scattered apple leaves and early frost, the weight in my pocket of a carved talisman too heavy to ignore. I’m heading for Brody, for a talk I’ve put off because every time the thought surfaced, guilt rolled over me like a winter storm, burying words and regrets beneath snow I couldn’t melt.
The general store sits on the corner, broad windows fogged around the edges, apples in crates out front glinting with chill. I open the door without knocking. Brody’s leaning on the counter in a borrowed T-shirt, arms crossed, sipping black coffee that smells bitter enough to unspool the morning. He looks up when I enter, expression wary—like he knows I’ve come for confrontation, not comfort.
“Morning,” I grunt, voice low.
“Put your fists away, moss-guts,” he says, nodding at the counter seat I take. “Unless you plan to knock me out before I confess.”
He sets down his cup. “You want to talk?”
“Depends if you do,” I say, meeting his gaze.
