Page 86 of Under Story

Laurel and Eli have spent almost six months in this universe, but she still hasn’t gone to see the orchard. She is pulled toward it viscerally—the familiar, the beloved, in this place with its upside-down rules—but she is also afraid of what she’ll find. According to property records, the orchard is owned by the same high-density buyer who bought it from the Salters in her world.

The possibility of full bloom convinces her. Laurel asks Eli to come so that she doesn’t lose her nerve. Her breath hitches as they drive down the road that divides the orchard in two. There it is: the barn, though no sheep amble outside; the farmhouse, its paint colors all wrong, the porch too modern for her liking; and the trees, twice as many as there should be, but waving.

Laurel doesn’t see the owner. Still, Eli parks out of sight of the farmhouse. Upper Orchard fringes the road. Silently they walk into a line of Jonagolds.

It is not quite full bloom, but close. Laurel touches the leaves, smelling the buds, feeling the breeze in her hair. Most of the trees are flowering, though some—like the Winesaps one row over—are still bare.

“Eli,” she says. “Look.”

In her world, a pollinated flower matures into fruit. Here, the ground below the Winesaps is already studded with apples. Laurel picks one up. It is soft, and splits apart easily. Like the Winesaps she knows, the flesh is yellow, but something crucial is missing.

“It doesn’t have seeds,” she says.

Laurel looks at the branches. Where the fruit has been picked, or fallen away, a pale green cup is now exposed.

“What is that?” Eli asks.

“The ovary,” says Laurel. She moves farther into the trees. The perfume of the orchard is heady; it is sweet with the scent of the blossoms, sweet but turning beery from the fresh and softened fruit. Everything is red, pink, white, green, cream. She feels Eli’s presence, hushed as they are, trying not to be seen.

He waves her over to the Braeburns. In this variety, flowers have already grown from the ovaries. Laurel prods a stand of petals open with her finger. The ovary is sticky with nectar. Bees loop from flower to flower, their hind legs furred with yellow dust. Absorbed like spores by a mushroom, the pollen will act as a fountain of youth. Some of the flowers, sufficiently full, have already closed in tight pink fists.

“Where does the pollen come from?” Eli asks.

The ground is strewn with the same yellow dust. Laurel suspects that this was purchased in bulk: the powder is dull in color, and there’s much more of it than she assumes could occur naturally. She walks to the neighboring property. The landscape is wilder here, with tall grasses and native prairie plants: bear’s-grape, poppy mallow, trillium.

Interspersed among the older plants are sprouts. Vibrant yellow puffballs wobble on their tiny stems. When Laurel kneels, she accidentally jostles one. It sways before collapsing in a shower of pollen.

She tries to hold it in her mind: the seed that composes in soil; the plant that grows into adulthood; the seedless fruit that emerges, and, when picked, exposes the ovary. The animals that bring pollen; the petals that turn into buds; the plant, immaturing to a sprout; the particulate crown. The fresh pollen falling, to be retrieved by butterflies, hummingbirds, bees. And the cycle beginning again.

—

There are things she chooses not to know. If human life begins in the ground, then how—and where—does it end?

For once, she refuses to find out. They’ll spirit Silas back before that happens.

Still, there are glimpses. Maisie’s daughter Hazel turns seven on Halloween. On the morning of the party, Maisie calls to ask if Laurel can come early.

Maisie lives outside of town, in a cabin-style house with acres of land. Ghost-shaped balloons bob on the porch. Maisie weaves through picnic tables, setting out bags of candy corn.

“Oh, thank God, you’re here,” she says. “Hazel won’t get ready. Maybe you can encourage her.”

Laurel says hello to Noah and Frankie, four, who is stirring cat food and crayons in a water bowl (“Cooking,” Noah says). She finds Hazel in her room.

“Hi, sweetheart,” says Laurel. “Is it okay if I come in?”

Hazel nods. She’s cross-legged on the bed, her face paint smeared.

Laurel takes a seat beside her. “I hear you aren’t in a birthday mood.”

“Don’t like them,” says Hazel.

“Why not?”

Amid a fiefdom of stuffed animals, Hazel shrugs.

“Can I see your party dress?” asks Laurel.

Hazel juts her chin at a deflated nest of black and purple netting. “It’s ugly.”