Page 3 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

I wince.

“No. Wait,” he rushes to add. “That’s not…that’s not how I meant it.”

But this fumbled reassurance isn’t enough to stem the sting of angry tears against my eyelids. Not only because I’ve blathered and made a fool of myself. Also because I’ve just remembered why I’m up here in the first place. I don’t want to spend my sophomore year in Fairbanks. I don’t want to, yet again, be the new girl parting waves of attention down a hallway. I don’t want to, yet again, stare at an unfamiliar ceiling in an unfamiliar bedroom as my classmates pile into cars for homecoming. And in three years, I don’t want to graduate surrounded by strangers.

All I want is to stay.

Or, at the very least, to push away this crushing avalanche of emotion.

I’m about to beg Logan to leave me alone when I feel a creak against the trunk. I open my eyes to find his boots and sketchbook discarded on the grass. He push-presses himself upward. The tree groans a low protest, but he adjusts himself onto the branch until his eyes are level with mine.

“There,” he says.

Even though my nose is still stinging with repressed tears, I’m stunned to silence. Because I’m me, that silence doesn’t last.

“Where?” I ask.

“I’m in the tree with you.”

My lips crack in the slightest smile. “So I don’t have to feel ridiculous?”

He lifts a shoulder. “Or so we can be ridiculous together.”

A soft wind ruffles his hair, carrying the trace smell of cut grass and earth. Everything prickles with awareness: the bark under my thighs, the cool breeze over my knees, and Logan’s eyes across the tree.

“I’m still the only one,” I say quietly. “Because you’re only humoring me.”

“Fine,” he says, “you want to hear something ridiculous about me?”

“Please.”

“I’ve never left Apple Valley.”

I gape at him. “You’re exaggerating.”

His eyes shift. “A little. I’ve been to Maplehurst.”

“And?”

“And that’s it.”

I rest my head against the bark. “I won’t tell you I’m jealous.”

He mirrors me. “And I’ll avoid saying the same to you.”

Temples on the trunk, we let that sit between us: a difference so intense it feels an awful lot like it’s the same. The breeze moves over us again, as if the orchard is exhaling its own delicate sigh. I think about the funny look Uncle Martin gets when I point things like this out to him, the way his bobbing sun hat will go still before he changes the subject.

“Do you ever think—” I start. Cut myself off.

Logan tilts his head. “What?” he encourages.

I look into his eyes, feeling like I’m edging up to the side of a cliff. And then I let myself fall. “Do you ever think there’s something different about this land?”

“Different?”

I nod, trying to find the right word. Strange feels too negative and so does unnatural. Special doesn’t seem strong enough. “Remarkable, I mean.”

He rubs at his jaw. “Other than the fact that it’s the only pear orchard in Apple Valley?”