Page 32 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
I miss him like a wound. Not the fresh kind—more like something I broke a long time ago and never healed properly, so now it aches in the rain and in the quiet and every time I think about the way he looked at me like I was made of every answer he didn’t know how to ask for.
“You think I should go back?” I ask, quietly.
“No,” she says, standing and brushing imaginary crumbs off her coat. “Iknowyou have to. But not because of him. Because you’re not whole anywhere else.”
She leaves before I can argue, and the scent of her lingers—something wild and comforting and maddeningly right.
That night, I dream again.
This time it’s just Garruk’s hand in mine, his thumb stroking slow over the back of it while we sit in the orchard with the sun melting down around us like honey. No words. Just breath. Just warmth. Just him.
And when I wake, I whisper his name—not out of habit, not like a question, but like a promise.
CHAPTER 20
GARRUK
The orchard sounds different without her.
It doesn’t sing anymore. Doesn’t hum or whisper or sigh. The wind catches in the branches like it’s confused, unsure where to go now that the one it listened for has left. Even the birds avoid it. The stillness has weight, like someone draped a wet quilt across the whole place and forgot to take it off.
I used to find comfort in that quiet. Solitude was a balm when the world pressed in too loud and too fast. But now, it just feels hollow.
I haven’t touched the main house since Ivy left. I sleep in the barn again, like I did before she ever came back—hard floor, stiff blanket, no fire. There’s no point pretending I belong in that house without her in it. Every room echoes like a memory I didn’t earn.
The worst part is how the orchard feels her absence. It’s not just sad—it’s sick.
The leaves started curling the second day. First subtle, like they were cringing from the sun, then more desperate—drooping, crisping, falling out of season. The ground’s gone brittle in places, and too wet in others, like it’s confused about what to be without her. I’ve tried everything—mulch, chant,moonwater, even one of Lettie’s awful concoctions that smelled like pickled regret. Nothing helps. Because it’s not the soil that’s wrong.
It’s the missing heart at the center of it all.
She was that. Is that.
And now she’s gone.
There are moments when I catch myself reaching for her. Like when I finish pruning a row and glance back, expecting to see her leaning on the gate with that half-smile she wore when she was trying not to laugh at me. Or when I pass the kitchen window and imagine her inside, hair pulled up, sleeves rolled, cursing softly at the state of the stove. My hands twitch. My chest aches. And every damn time, I remember—too late—that the space she filled is now just that. A space.
I spend the mornings carving.
It started as a distraction—cutting down storm limbs, shaping new fence posts. Then I found myself back at the old ash tree by the barn, blade in hand, and her name just… came out. Not loud. Not weeping. Just carved. Steady.
“Ivy,” I whispered as I etched the curves. “You stubborn, luminous thing.”
One name turned into two. Then into a sentence. A full thought, honest and raw:You were the only place I ever wanted to grow old.
By the third day, the tree was covered in them.
I don’t know what I’m trying to do—summon her, maybe. Bind myself to the ache just so I don’t forget how sharp it is. The bark drinks my thoughts like water. And I give them freely, knowing she’ll never read them.
The town elders came by this morning.
All three of them, robes flapping, faces pinched. They stood outside the orchard’s boundary line, afraid to cross, like the land might bite. One of them—a wiry woman with more nervethan sense—shouted something about “destabilized ley lines” and “covenant fracture.” I didn’t answer. What would I say?Yes, the orchard is bleeding and it's my fault and also hers and also nobody's because love is a goddamned wild thing that doesn’t follow our rules?
Instead, I turned my back and walked into the trees.
The orchard has always shifted when it’s in pain. The last time was when Ivy’s father died. The land buckled. The stones cracked. I remember holding the perimeter with my bare hands and gritted teeth while the sky opened like it wanted to swallow the whole damn valley.
This feels worse.
