Page 2 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

He chuckles. “And deprive the rest of us of those high notes?” Before I can flush or protest, he takes a few steps toward me, that sketchbook still clasped under his arm. “Tell me why you’re really up there.”

Briefly, I consider climbing down, but this floral-print dress isn’t exactly modest attire, and the only way to embarrass myself further is by showing Logan my underwear.

“I’m not telling,” I say.

He crosses his arms. “Now I have to know.”

Logan does, in general, seem like the kind of person who gathers information in the same way a magpie might amass shiny scraps of nothing.

“You’ll think it’s silly.”

My mouth makes these words against my best intentions to remain cool and indifferent. Who am I kidding, though? I’m a puppy rolling around in the summer grass, belly exposed. I’m never cool or indifferent.

“Try me.” Logan braces an elbow against the trunk. “I won’t leave until you do.”

Again, I consider staging an escape, but then I remember that this morning’s underwear selection was neon orange.

So, instead, I say, “I’m connecting with my roots.”

Logan holds his expression so neutrally it looks like he might have pulled a jaw muscle to keep everything in place.

I bury my face in my hands. “See? I knew you’d think it’s ridiculous.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he protests.

“You thought it, though!”

“You can’t hold my thoughts against me.” He nudges a shoulder against my shin. “Besides, I don’t know what you’re saying. You have to explain.”

“No,” I say, but I tuck my chin so I can look down at him. “I’ve been traumatized enough.”

“Please,” he whispers.

And, oh. He’s so close.

Our conversations this summer have often been interrupted, usually by my uncle who needs me on the mower or Logan’s mom reminding him there’s sawdust to sweep.

Or they’ve happened entirely from afar, like that time his gaze caught mine over a long wooden board. Or the time I heard him playing tag in the trees with his two much younger brothers, and I paused behind a trunk to listen to his laugh. Or when I was on a ladder thinning and Logan was diligently jotting down measurements as his mom called out numbers from the rafters. Except his face kept lifting toward my ladder, like he was trying to memorize two things at once.

But now? Now I can see the flecks of gold dancing across his irises. A suggestion of facial hair along his jaw. The rough edges of his worn cuticles against large, flat fingernails. And his expression, so full of studied interest, that the last of my resolve ebbs away.

“Fine,” I say, but I still brace myself like my tree might topple. “You know how me and my mom move around a lot?”

“Yes.”

It was a sticking point of our first conversation at the beginning of the summer. We were standing outside the gravel pad where Uncle Martin introduced me to Logan and his parents, waving his hands like a magician revealing an empty box.

“Get used to this lot,” my uncle told me, “because they’re building us a new barn this summer.”

Hands in his pockets, Logan asked where I was from and I said everywhere and he said a person can’t be from everywhere, so I followed it up with nowhere, which seemed just as accurate. Then Uncle Martin patted my shoulder while Logan squinted at me like I was an especially difficult trigonometry problem.

“Well,” I say, “the summers I spend here, on my uncle’s orchard, it’s the only time I feel connected to anything. Like, four generations of farmers in this valley grew and nurtured these trees from rootstock. And when I was little, I’d climb their branches and imagine they were part of my family. They aren’t going anywhere, and I didn’t need to go anywhere either. So sometimes, when I want to remember that, I climb a tree and I feel…I feel grounded.”

I don’t admit the rest—the most ridiculous, secret part—that sometimes the trees feel like more than trees. Sometimes they feel like they’re watching me. Listening to me. Breathing with me.

Even still, Logan is so quiet I can hear the distant growl of my uncle’s mower as he prowls the northern edge of the land. Even still, I’ve said too much.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say something like that before,” he says.