Page 21 of Until the Last Leaf Falls

“Kinda. I started planting a courtyard glade five years ago. Don’t have any evergreens.” Niles pulled out his phone to show photos. “It’s very sheltered and I spent a lot of time on the soil before I brought the first tree. They all do well.”

“I can see that.” The nurseryman swiped through the images. “Don’t put him next to your oak. They’ll compete. The birch would make a good companion.”

“The birch was the first tree I planted. There’s room beside it.”

The nurseryman nodded, and together they moved the pot with the Quercus ilex sapling to his car, where a heap of hessian and sturdy straps secured it on the passenger seat.

Niles brushed the thin trunk with his fingertips—and the crashing wave of loneliness sent him rearing back. Wordless, imageless, root-deep desolation and—for once—Niles didn’t need to guess the reason. Without its siblings and stuck in a pot with no way to connect to other trees, no wonder the oak was lonely.

“They didn’t mean to hurt you,” Niles soothed the tree as he started the car. “They tried to help you grow stronger, not realising you’d be unhappy all alone. You’ll have company where we’re going. I care for a glade of trees. They all talk and learn, and they’re looking forward to you joining them. I’ll get you out of this pot directly, I promise. I just need to get us home.”

Niles knew his trees understood much of what they heard, but he couldn’t tell whether the sapling had its voice. He kept touching its trunk and leaves and hoped the small oak could feel his sincerity.

A muted rustle welcomed him when he stepped into the courtyard, cradling the pot with the sapling. Niles winced at the sight of the many leaves dotting the gravel. The wind was tearing them off the trees with abandon—and he was almost out of time.

He eased the oak from its pot as he’d promised. Then he went for a spade.

Niles talked while he worked, the way he’d done when he’d planted all the other trees. Nothing of note, just a general ramble about the traffic, the weather, the tree nursery where he’d found the holm oak. And he told their newest tree about life in the glade.

While he’d been all by himself, it had felt normal to talk to the only other living things around. Now, with people bustling in and out of the library, it seemed a touch weird to do so.

“Was it commonplace once for people to talk to you? And did they stop because they were afraid what others would think?” His solitary existence had granted him the freedom to be himself. He didn’t want to give that up now the townsfolk had discovered his library. Not even to enjoy the newfound company.

When the hole was deep enough, he lifted the tree from its water bath and teased out the roots before settling it. He backfilled the soil, made sure the trunk was secure and straight, and finally covered the ground with mulch and gravel.

Then he straightened, happy with his efforts, and took a step back.

A pair of muscular arms closed around him.

Orren. Niles didn’t dare turn around in case his mind played tricks on him. He breathed in, but all he smelled was freshly turned soil and the chill autumn breeze.

“Orren?”

The man behind him tightened his hold. “Whom else were you expecting?” Orren’s voice rumbled in his ear.

“Where were you?” Niles demanded. His voice came out rougher than he intended, almost accusatory. “I sent you a message when I saw the first sign of autumn. And others after that. I waited. Every day I waited, and you didn’t—” He stopped. Orren hadn’t moved. Niles couldn’t tell if he was breathing. “I thought I’d imagined you,” Niles finished, his breath sounding like a sob. “I thought I’d finally cracked, and you were never real at all.”

“Oh, Niles. I’m sorry. I couldn’t—” Orren buried his face in Niles’s hair. “I’m back,” he whispered. “By all the gods and monsters, I’m back. I owe that woman her weight in leaves for working it out.”

“It really was a message?”

“The only one I was allowed to give. But smart as you are, you still came nowhere near to solving it.”

Niles finally turned, eyes roaming Orren’s face. His curls were the familiar riot of chestnut and russet, but the eyes that met Niles’s were weary beyond belief, ringed by many more fine lines than Niles remembered from the previous autumn.

“Are you well?”

“I’m well,” Orren said, with a sigh that came from the bottom of his boots. “But I’ve never been so scared in my life. I’m only allowed one chance to state the rules. If you hadn’t worked it out, I would have had to wait another year, by which time I’m sure you’d have found other company.”

Niles traced Orren’s cheekbones with the lightest touch while, behind him, the trees rustled in reassurance. “Not likely. You gave me the push I needed to start living, but I would have never stopped waiting for you. I told you.” A violent shiver rattled through him; excess caffeine, a lack of sleep, and bone-deep relief all rolled into one.

Orren’s gaze sharpened. “We should go inside. I don’t want you to fall ill.” He took off his scarf and wrapped it around Niles’s throat.

Niles drowned in Orren’s scent. “I’ve just planted a new tree,” he protested against Orren moving him away from the glade. “I can’t leave him alone out here.”

“The holm oak is not alone,” Orren argued. “I know you’ve sat with them all when you planted them. But you’ve driven for hours on no sleep at all. Let me.” He took two steps, dropped to his knees in front of the sapling oak and ran his finger up its slender trunk.

“Wary like a cat,” he whispered after a moment. “The humans took you from your siblings, but they meant you no harm, little one. They only meant to help you grow strong. But now you’re here with us, and you’re safe.”