Page 115 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

My breath stills. Distantly, I hear a faint popping sound, but I don’t turn to investigate because Mom’s fingers still cling to my arm.

“I—” I start. “Thank you.”

She nods and releases me. “You’re welcome.”

I shove a curl off my forehead. “The thing is, though, that’s not the problem. The problem isn’t about who is here or who isn’t.”

“No?”

The conversation has hit another crossroads, but this time I take a breath and plow forward. “It’s mirroring the emotions of the person who owns it.”

Mom’s back remains ramrod straight, but her eyes tighten around the edges. Her gaze runs between me and the trees without ever quite touching my eyes.

“Like, you said there were field mice all over the place when my grandmother was married to Martin’s father,” I explain. “And the soil turned up gemstones when she was married to yours. I don’t think that was about those men. I think it was about how she felt about them. And then”—I remember what Val told me about my grandmother’s personality and what I vaguely remember myself. Her high highs and low lows—“there was what you said about how the land was mercurial when you were a kid. The sudden changes in weather and the erratic birds. That was about her, too. Her feelings changing quickly.”

Mom draws in a breath but still doesn’t respond.

“Does that make sense?” I ask, because even though my theory fits, it’s still new, and I haven’t found a way to confirm it.

Above our heads, a crow lands noisily on a branch and shrieks out its disdain. Mom flinches.

“Mom?”

She composes herself, straightening her jacket, smoothing back her hair. Finally, she says, “My mother’s feelings ruled our lives.”

“Because she would get upset a lot?”

“When we were younger, we accepted them. Perhaps we didn’t know any better. Later, Martin started trying to talk her through her…rages, as we called them. But it all became more and more difficult for me. I suppose I…”

She shakes her head and instead of continuing, tips her chin to study the branchful of pears—marked by hail, but not yet ripe. In a practiced motion, her hand shoots out and snaps one free. It’s so scarred I doubt I could sell it, even at a discount.

Her thumb runs over a blackened puncture mark. “Hail?”

“Yeah. A few weeks ago. I was…” It’s complicated, so I opt for simple. “Angry.”

She squeezes the fruit. “And yet far too firm.”

“They stopped ripening a couple of days after.” I pause, but if I’m strong enough to admit my emotions to myself, I can admit them to my mother, as well. “Maybe hopelessness. Or fear of the unknown.”

“And the crystals?”

“That happened after Blake and Liv left but—” I rub at one of my temples. This is complicated, too. “They might have been the catalyst, but I think that happened because I’ve been holding it all in. Refusing to face how I feel. Like I said when I called…I’ve been doing that for a long while now.”

Mom’s hand slackens. The fruit slips from her fingertips. Rolls across the ground. Falls still between us.

She draws in a long breath. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” I say, even though I think I know. I want to hear her say it.

“For whatever I did that made you—that hurt you like this.”

A sharp breeze ruffles my curls, sending a prickle up the base of my neck. Even though I know my eyes are red, I hold her eye contact. Pears draw together and apart, a rolling tinkling through the branches. It’s punctuated by another far-off snapping sound, like a distant firework or the crunch of glass underneath a booted foot.

“You once tried to tell me,” I say, throat tight, “that those moves were for me.”

“Yes.”

“But you never really told me why.”