Page 90 of Within These County Lines

“But we don’t know exactly how it works,” I continue. “Or why we’ve been cursed.”

My response is somehow funny to Dara. She laughs, then coughs as a breeze blows dust down her throat. “The Ardor Tree? I hate that thing,” she says, tapping her neck. “It should be cut down.”

“Right?” Xander asks with a smile. “I carved a heart on it filled with my name and a blank line for a future boyfriend.”

Dara straightens her back. “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“And I destroyed my heart with my ex-boyfriend,” I say.

“Ouch.” Dara grimaces. “Sweet and sour.” She crosses her legs and bounces her foot in casual confidence. “Do people still go there after school dances and carve their names? I never had anyone to go with. It made me feel like crap about myself.” She takes a long, deep breath. “I wrote boys suck after graduation to stick it to them all. And I still stand by those words all these years later.”

Xander laughs. “I agree,” he says. “Even when you make it clear that you like them, they just don’t—”

“Wait,” I cut in, waving my hands through the air. “You wrote boys suck on the Ardor Tree?”

“Damn right,” Dara says.

My insides quiver as everything comes crashing into place.

Xander put no one in his heart—and no one can see him.

I destroyed Murray’s name—and now he can’t see me.

Dara defamed all boys—and they vanished from her life.

This is an equation that makes perfect sense. It all adds up.

The curse isn’t at Pinehurst. It’s on the Ardor Tree. And we invoked its powers by breaking the rules.

38

Dara doesn’t hesitate to return to Penango with us tonight.

The idea of being seen again by half the population, and sticking it to Robbie and her stepdad, is too thrilling for her to sleep on what we’ve told her and delay breaking the curse. We’re going to fix the tree—like vandals cleaning graffiti under the threat of being caught, we’re going to erase our mistakes. Because that’s the only thing we have in common—our mistakes.

Our connection to the tree isn’t a coincidence.

We’re not missing or crazy or dead.

We’re linked by love gone wrong.

We were just bitter.

No. Not bitter. Different.

We didn’t play Penango’s game of love. Our chances of success were calculated, and they weren’t good or fair. There was nothing we could do to make it work. High school dreams sometimes emerge at life’s lowest point. They shouldn’t be binding.

And while high school didn’t prepare me for love, it did teach me about inverse functions, which undo another function. When the function f turns the apple into a banana, the inverse function f -1 turns the banana back into an apple.

I’m banking on applying this theory to the Ardor Tree’s curse.

We return to Pennsylvania under a dying sun. The sky is still lit, but not for long.

We park at the Gregor Preserve’s entrance and step out of my truck in formation, a small army ready to face its oldest enemy. A hot wind rolls in and carries the sour tang of asphalt. The trees bend with it, taunting and watching us like a pack of wolves circling their prey.

“Never thought I’d be back here,” Dara says, gulping.

“You probably never thought you’d get cursed by a tree either,” Xander says.