Page 3 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
My shoulders stiffen. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? You worried the trees’ll cry?” She waves an arm at the tangled rows beyond the house. “They’re half-dead already.”
“They’re listening.”
She barks a laugh, hard and bright. “Of course they are. Maybe next they’ll start gossiping about my haircut.”
I step forward, boots crunching soft earth, and she stops short. Her sarcasm dies on her lips when she sees my face.
“The orchard bloomed last night,” I say.
She blinks. “It’s October.”
“I know. But the south row had blossoms. The old tree too—the one your father said stopped blooming after your mother passed.”
Her mouth parts, just slightly. I see the flicker of unease, even if she masks it quick with bravado. “Probably some fungal freakshow. This place is ancient.”
“It’s reacting to you.”
“Garruk.” Her tone is low now, a warning. “I’m not here for this. I don’t want weird magic. I don’t want cryptic conversations with the guy who once looked me dead in the eyes and said ‘we’re too different.’ I want a signature, a check, and a one-way ticket back to normal.”
“You won’t find normal here.”
“I don’t want here!” She snaps the words like a whip, and the wind rises, sharp and sudden. Branches creak. A dozen dry leaves spin loose and scatter around us in a swirl. The orchard reacts, and I feel it like a pulse beneath my skin. I feel her.
She sees it too, the way the grass bows toward her feet, the way the sun shifts through the clouds and strikes the exact spot where she stands. Her fingers tremble before she folds them into fists.
“You don’t get to judge me,” she says, voice raw now. “You didn’t come after me. You didn’t say a damn word when I left. And now you wanna talk about fate like it’s some kind of inheritance?”
“I stayed because your father asked me to. Because someone had to keep this place from rotting under the wrong hands.”
“You mean like mine?”
I don’t answer that. The orchard shifts again. Somewhere deeper in the grove, a low creak echoes like something ancient just turned in its sleep. Ivy hears it too, because her posturestiffens, her mouth drawing into a thin line. She glances over her shoulder at the path that winds into the trees, then back at me.
“I’m staying until the festival,” she says finally. “That’s it. If the town wants to make a real offer, they can pitch in. Otherwise, it’s getting sold. Condos. Parking lots. I don’t care.”
“You’ll care,” I say.
She steps close, eyes flashing. “You don’t know what I care about.”
“I know you used to love this place.”
“That girl’s gone.”
“No.” I lower my voice. “She’s buried here, under every damn tree that still calls your name.”
Her breath catches. For a second, the fight drains out of her.
And then she’s walking away.
She doesn’t look back.
But I stand there long after she’s gone, with the wind rising in the branches and the orchard groaning low in my bones.
Because if she really means to sell this land—if she really walks away again—then everything we’ve kept sealed under root and soil is going to wake up.
And this time, I might not be enough to stop it.
