Page 54 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

“She said it’s not her place to say more.”

Mom’s back somehow goes even straighter. “I couldn’t tell you why she said that. Martin called the orchard ‘charmed.’ ‘Afflicted’ is what I said. But it’s been years since…Well, I suppose the last time we discussed it, we were teenagers.”

She’s stock-still, shears frozen. I wonder if she’s thinking about her brother. They barely had full conversations when I was growing up, at least not beyond cursory words exchanged while Mom idled in the driveway and I stuffed my duffel bags into the trunk. I got the sense that their distance only grew in the years after she stopped dropping me off for visits. I’m not even sure if she reconnected with Martin at the end, although I told her he was sick.

“Val said I should talk to you about it,” I insist. “She must have said that for a reason.”

Mom tenses again. “Val told you to talk to me?”

“Yes. So, maybe you can think of something?” I’m gripping the bunched-up blanket in a fist, teetering on the edge of pushing too hard. But I can’t help it. I’m so close to learning useful information. “Was there something that happened or did you—”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Mom snaps. “And I need to go. I’ll try you again at our normal time.”

She ends the call.

Frustration boils in my chest as I blink at the blank screen. I should have known it would end like this. Even in a world where she admitted I’m right, she couldn’t connect with me about it. Of course, she shut down when I needed her.

I sigh, detangle my legs from the blanket, and wrestle myself off the couch, pushing open the double doors that separate the dining room and den. I find Logan where I expected him: bowed over the dining room table, an antique lamp scattering tessellated shadows over the pages of an open journal. From this angle, I’m met with a full view of his details. The horizontal lines on his shirt, pulled tight between the slopes of his shoulder blades. His focused gaze. His facial hair forming precise lines around the sweep of his cheekbones.

For a sudden, irrational moment, I have the urge to push his chair away from the table and wedge myself in the resulting space. What would he do? Study me with the intense concentration he’s bestowing on those pages? Push me away? Kiss me before pulling back, like he did in the creek?

Maybe Logan feels the angles of my ping-ponging thoughts, because he glances up at me. His brow furrows. “That bad?”

I balloon my cheeks on a sigh. “That obvious?”

“I’ll say no, if that’s the answer you want.”

I slip inside the room and sink into the chair by his side, let my temple fall to my crossed forearms. A curl cascades along my cheek. Before I can blow it away, Logan reaches to tuck it behind my ear.

My breath goes still just as he seems to realize what he’s done, because he freezes, then retracts his hand and clenches his fist on the table.

I straighten, leaning back into the chair instead. Then I rock back another time. It’s quiet?

I eye Logan. “Did you fix this chair?”

“You said they were important to you.”

Goose bumps rise across my arms.

Leaving, I remind myself. He’s leaving.

I clear my throat. “Well, to answer your question, it turns out my mother—usually more granite sculpture than actual human—believes in the occult, so I nearly flatlined from surprise.”

Logan chuckles, but his gaze hovers around my nose instead of meeting my eyes.

“She said she doesn’t know anything about crystal pears,” I continue. “But I do think I found out why my uncle was keeping track of visitors in his journals. Apparently there’s a connection between the orchard’s phenomena and the people who are on it.”

Logan’s forehead wrinkles as an eyebrow rises. “How so?”

“Like, my grandmother had four different husbands, and the soil or the animals were different depending on which man was here.”

His frown deepens, and even though I tell myself he’s just thinking, there’s something overwhelming about that expression. Like it’s not my mysterious farm that’s the subject of his intense focus, but me. It draws a flash of yearning through my chest, a sensation so fast and intense I almost flinch away.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

Logan’s attention moves to the journals, and he starts leafing through pages slowly, then more quickly. He stops, reads, and raps his knuckles against an open page.

“Does this mean anything to you?” he says, splaying out his fingers to swivel the entry toward me.