Page 37 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
That night, I head into town.
It’s still the same crooked streets and overly suspicious cats, the same leaning sign outside the pub that hasn’t been fixed since Brody and I were kids and dared each other to ride it like a swing. But it feels different now—less like a place I escaped, more like a place that waited.
The council chambers are predictably stuffy. Mabel’s waiting with her glasses halfway down her nose and a clipboard already full. Joss smells like cinnamon and parchment, and Edric’s wearing his permanent scowl like it’s part of his bones.
“I’m not here to apologize,” I say before they can get a word in.
“Good,” Mabel replies, flipping a page. “We wouldn’t believe you anyway.”
“I’m here to pitch something.”
They raise eyebrows, but no one interrupts.
So I lay it all out—the co-op, the plan to share stewardship between the town and the orchard, to stop pretending like the magic’s something we can wall off or ignore. I talk about rotating care, magical sustainability, blending old ways with new ones. I talk about the bond—not just mine with Garruk, but between theorchard and the people who depend on it. And when I finish, the silence is so thick you could spread it on toast.
“It’s ambitious,” Edric finally says.
“It’s necessary,” I counter.
Joss nods. “Your mother would’ve approved.”
That lands like a stone in my chest. But I don’t flinch. “Then let’s do it.”
The vote passes. Barely.
But it’s enough.
When I return to the orchard, Garruk is sitting on the half-built porch, a mug in one hand, the sky overhead streaked with the last blush of twilight. He doesn’t ask how it went. He just reaches out, pulls me into his side, and lets me rest my head on his shoulder.
“This is going to work,” I murmur.
His hand slides into mine, warm and rough and steady. “It already is.”
CHAPTER 24
GARRUK
Some mornings, the orchard is too quiet.
Not the bad kind of quiet—where the roots tremble and the trees moan like they’re bracing for something—but the deep, breath-held silence of a place watching you a little too closely. It’s not judging. Not exactly. But it knows me. And knowing means it remembers.
And that’s the part that gets to me.
I drag the axe across my shoulder, not because I plan to use it but because the weight helps settle me. It’s grounding. Familiar. Something to hold when the rest of me starts getting ideas I’m not quite ready for. Ivy’s still sleeping when I slip out. Her hand was curled around my arm when I left, her fingers twitching in dreams I hope are quieter than mine.
I don’t like to admit I’ve been waking up like this lately—restless, breath tight in my chest, heart pounding like something’s chasing me even when there’s no threat in sight. Not anymore. Not really.
The house is half-finished, frame solid, roof waiting for shingles. Ivy picked the paint color, something soft and dumb like "moss-washed clay" which, if you ask me, just looks likemud. But I didn’t argue. I liked the way she said it. Like she was naming a future.
I’ve built barns and bunkhouses, fence lines and fire pits, but I’ve never built anything that asked me to stay.
And now... I don’t know how to.
That thought’s still circling when I hear her footsteps. Light, deliberate. Ivy doesn’t shuffle like most people. She walks like she owns the land beneath her feet and dares it to argue.
“You’re brooding again,” she says, holding out a mug with steam curling up into the chilly air. “And I was enjoying the rare moment of silence.”
“Could say the same about you,” I grumble, but I take the coffee. Her coffee is always terrible—burnt and bitter—but it’s hers, and I’ve grown to expect the taste the way I expect sunrise.
