Page 19 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

Two pairs of work boots, staggered. Big boot. Small boot. Big boot. Small boot. Liv’s cracked fingernail paint digging into Blake’s shoulders. His hand pressed into the straw next to her arching neck. Her porcelain cheeks rising red.

She moaned. And my world toppled.

“I found them together,” I say now, and because it seems like the best way to handle it, I smile.

Logan takes an almost involuntary step toward me. “And you’re still here.”

“Yeah.”

“You never thought about leaving?”

My fingers find my half-moon scar. “I could never abandon these trees.”

Logan considers this, something unreadable passing over his expression. “Well, thank you.”

I drop my hand. “For?”

“Using all that as a distraction for my benefit.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “Only because what happened to you is much worse. My thing is practically a stroll through a park in comparison.”

He frowns. “My scars don’t cancel out your pain.”

I force another smile. “It was for the best, honestly. Now I have all the fridge space I want and I never have to worry about my antique water tank running out of hot.”

I wait for his relief, that emotional reprieve that always happens when I’ve turned a conversation from serious and heavy to light and manageable. But, instead, his gaze holds mine, like he’s searching for something hidden in the freckles that splash across my cheeks, the bridge of my nose. My neck tingles with awareness, a feeling like I’m not just being watched, but seen.

Then Logan says, “You didn’t use to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Smile over the pain.”

My head feels light. “It helps, though.”

Logan’s jaw works like he might say something else, but he doesn’t. He just nods. “Okay, then. If it helps.”

This conversation feels jagged, the same sensation as running a hand against an old board and finding splinters embedded in my palm. My chest screams for an escape.

So, I shift away, forge back toward the tree line, searching again for those strange pears with enough intensity that it will let me forget, let me—

There. A spot of white in the leaves. My shoulders hitch to my ears as I careen toward the unusual pear, then pluck it from its stem, turning it over in my hands, brow furrowing.

“This is it,” I say as Logan shadows my shoulder.

It has the same coating as the one Val noticed, but thicker. So thick, the fruit’s skin is overly smooth, like it’s been dipped in icing. In my hands, sunlight runs across the white coating, and it shifts in color, going deeper.

I scrape my thumbnail across the surface. Again, the coating doesn’t budge.

“Hey,” Logan says. “Here’s more.”

A few paces away, he’s gazing up into a canopy dotted with white. A splotch here, a splat there. Like a careless artist tossed a bucket of paint into the branches.

“Holy crap,” I whisper.

“Powdery mildew?” he asks.

I shake my head, like, I don’t know. It’s definitely time to bring in Val. A call is unlikely to go through out here, at least not without a lot of skipped words, but a text should be fine. So, I swipe open the camera on my phone and snap a photo.