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Walking up to one of the trees nearest the woods, I opened and closed my hand as if that would warm up the powers I wanted to draw on. Then I rested my hand on the rough bark. The mark was still prickling under my cuff with a destructive burn.
Smash, tear, destroy. But I’d turned that energy toward other purposes a few days ago. I had to be able to do it again. Show the demons I could take whatIwanted rather than giving in to their demands.
I wet my lips and pressed my hand harder against the trunk. Closing my eyes, I trained my mind on an image of the immature fruit expanding, deepening into a reddish shade. The flesh beneath had to be white and crisp and sharply sweet. Like the best apples we ever dug our teeth into all those years ago, when everything felt so much simpler.
The heat around my scar intensified. I had to catch my breath at the sear of it.Into the tree, I willed it.We’re going to make things grow, not break them.
Pain splintered through my muscles—and then the sensations shifted like a dam cracking open. A thrum of power flowed through my wrist into my hand, so giddying I lost my breath again, for the opposite reason. It surged from my palm into the bark, and an impression of color and flavor burst inside my skull.
Yes, exactly. All the way through. I squeezed my fingers around the curve of the trunk, urging even more energy into the tree.
As it coursed out of me, another impression formed in the depths of my mind. Leaves shriveling, stems sagging. Roots liquifying with rot. A rancid taste trickled through the apple tartness on my tongue. Not in front of me but somewhere. Somewhere as I poured this rush of life into the tree, it was leaching away from wildflowers and shrubs—
My shoulders stiffened. I almost yanked my hand away to cut off the effect I’d conjured. As my muscles tensed, a refusal rang through me.
No. It had to be the demonic influence in the mark messing with my head, trying to stop me for doing something good with the power, something I’d decided. I wasn’t going to let that scare me off.
Even if it wasn’t a trick, even if a few plants died someplace else, what did it matter? That seemed like a fair trade off. Most of them would die in the winter anyway.
I trained my will on my mark with even more intensity than before. Let it all out—into this tree, and the ones around it. Everything I had to give. Rose deserved it all.
The energy blazed through me in a torrent and then gradually ebbed away. My eyelids slid open. I gazed at the tree I was braced against for several seconds before I totally believed what I was seeing.
It’d worked. Plump red apples hung all across the branches. The trees closest to this one had caught a little of the effect too, their fruit close to but not quite ripe, but I only needed one. And I’d done it.
A smirk stretched my lips. Let the demonic fuckers suck on that.
* * *
When Rose drove past the gate, I was waiting by the garage. Before any of the other guys could swoop in, I grasped her hand.
“Leave your suitcase for now. I want to show you something.”
Rose laughed, but she came. “It must be pretty good for you to be looking that enthusiastic.”
It was a short walk straight from the front drive to the orchard. Rose peered around us with an obvious curiosity that made me both thrilled for and nervous about the reveal ahead. I couldn’t tell her that I was responsible for the phenomenon I was about to show her. Still, it had to mean something that I’d brought her to it—that we’d share the sweetness of the moment just the two of us.
“I went for a walk this morning and noticed this,” I said as we came up on the orchard. “A little bit of the best part of autumn came early.”
I motioned to the tree I’d encouraged. The ripe apples stood out starkly between the leaves, especially when none of the other trees held any that red. Rose’s eyes widened.
“The apples on that one came in so quickly! How…”
She hurried forward more briskly and circled the tree, studying it and then its neighbors from top to bottom. My stomach dropped.
I should have realized she’d be wary before she could appreciate the surprise. Any odd occurrence could mean magical influence, and plenty of the magic that’d been worked on this estate in recent times had been malevolent.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. A faint stinging traveled up my forearm.
She murmured a few words with a sway of her arms and a flick of her hands that I knew was drawing up her own magic. After a few of those tests, she stepped back, her face brightening. “I just had to be careful. I’m not picking up any sign of outside influence acting on it. It looks like the trees nearby are coming along faster too—must be something in the soil in this spot that gave them a boost this year.”
I didn’t know if my newfound power didn’t register to hers or if it’d left no trace after I’d worked it, but I’d take her answer either way. I stepped closer again, tucking my arm around her waist. “An extra couple weeks of apples. Can’t argue with that. This time last year, there was so much going on I don’t think we even came out here. Seems like a sign that we’re getting back to the good times, doesn’t it?”
I’d produced this sign of better things to come. I’dmadesomething good out of the shit the mark was trying to pull me into. What more proof could I need that I’d won? No more doubts, no more resentment over the past from here on—I’d conquered this final demon.
“It does,” Rose said, so softly her voice made my heart ache. “I missed the orchard.”
“Me too. Those were the best times, really, back then. Running around doing whatever we felt like, your dad never having a clue.”
