Page 6 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
I sink the post deeper, muscles flexing through the motion, and try not to think about the look she gave me yesterday in the barn. That startled inhale she tried to cover with sarcasm. The sharp, narrowed way her gaze raked across me before she managed to look away. It shouldn’t matter. It does. Every little twitch in her voice matters.
She confessed once. Seven years ago, barefoot and angry and luminous in the orchard after a thunderstorm cracked half the ridge. I remember the way her eyes looked—like she’d already made peace with the rejection, even before I gave it. I told her it was too complicated. I told her she didn’t know what she wanted. I told myself it was for her sake.
Truth is, I was scared. Of what it meant. Of what I felt. Of what she’d see in me once she realized I wasn’t just the quiet orc who fixed fences and smelled like smoke and ironwood. There’s a rage in me that I’ve spent years stuffing down into silence. And back then, I didn’t think love could hold it.
Now I’m not so sure.
The orchard rustles, branches clinking together like brittle bones. I glance up, squinting against the sun. The air has that pressure again, like before a storm. Like something's coming and the land can taste it.
I sling the hammer onto my belt and start walking back toward the barn. Every step kicks up dry leaves and that faint tang of ripe fruit beginning to sour in the heat. Autumn’s deepening faster than it should. Everything’s ripening too early. Rotting too soon. The balance is off.
Inside the barn, the scent shifts. Cedar shavings, candle wax, the metallic edge of the old tools rusting on the worktable near the back. I take comfort in the repetition—stacking planks, setting joints, shaving rough edges down to something smoother. Building with my hands keeps the rest of me from unraveling.
I start working on the new gate latch Ivy’s door needs, carving it from heartwood I salvaged from the east grove. Every mark is slow, deliberate. A rhythm. One I need to keep from spiraling back into the sound of her voice.
I hear it anyway.
“You always work like you’re trying to outrun something.”
Her voice slides through the doorway with the light, low and rough around the edges, like she hasn’t slept well. I don’t turn. Not right away. I just let the carving knife still in my hand.
“If I stop, things get loud,” I say.
She steps into the barn, soft tread swallowed by hay and shadow. “What’s louder than this place already is?”
I finally glance up. She’s wearing one of her dad’s flannels again, sleeves rolled high, a smear of dust on her jaw like she’s been crawling through boxes in the attic. Her hair’s a riot of curls escaping a braid that’s halfway undone. She looks like the orchard pulled her in and spit her out again.
I clear my throat. “The land’s always been loud.”
“Now it’s louder,” she says. “Like it’s breathing.”
“It is.”
She leans against the beam across from me, arms folded. “I found another letter.”
My chest tightens. “What’d it say?”
“That you were more than a caretaker. That you were a... tether.” Her voice falters on the word, like it tastes foreign. “He said you were part of the orchard. That it trusted you.”
“I’ve lived here long enough.”
“That’s not what he meant.”
I shrug, uncomfortable under her stare. “Maybe not.”
“You ever feel like it owns you?”
“All the time.”
She nods, eyes dropping to the carving in my hands. “It’s beautiful. What is it?”
“Door latch. Your dad kept kicking his open when it stuck. Thought you might like one that doesn’t jam when it rains.”
“I dreamed of this place last night. Of the orchard... alive. Not just trees. It felt like I was inside something older than anything I knew how to name.”
“That’s because you were.”
The wind picks up outside, brushing the barn’s open windows, carrying with it the scent of apples gone too sweet and the sharp crackle of dying leaves. The glyphs along my forearm flare faintly, and I roll down my sleeve.
