Page 56 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

16:35—Stopped by the gate to see the blooms one last time.

Visitors—None.

I read it twice before looking up. “But what does that mean? If the flowers are linked to your mom, why would they have been here if she wasn’t?”

“Maybe she came to see Martin.”

“But she didn’t see you, right?”

He shakes his head, expression tight. “That was the day we went to get a Christmas tree—I know because it was tradition to pick one up on the first of December and that was our first holiday season without her. I tried to make the most of it, but Andrew wouldn’t say a word the entire car ride there, and Mason was still asking about her, wondering when she was going to show up. ‘Maybe she’ll meet us at the tree farm,’ he kept saying.”

Before I can even think twice about it, I reach for Logan’s forearm and squeeze the tight muscles that run toward his wrist. “She couldn’t have come here, then. My uncle wasn’t meticulous about everything, but he was about the orchard. If he thought the visitors were important, he would have been honest about them in the entries.”

Logan stares down at my hand for so long, I pull back. Clench my fingers in my lap.

He takes a steadying inhale. “Maybe I’m wrong. The scorpion grass could be a coincidence.”

I don’t think it is—there are just too many entries like this. But if it is tied to Lydia somehow, how could it have shown back up without her?

“My uncle said the flowers were thinner and less vibrant that last time,” I say, thinking aloud. “Maybe she was here without really being here. Or only some part of her was here?”

“Like…she came and left quickly?” Logan asks.

“No, because then she’d be listed as a visitor.”

“Or he didn’t know.”

I shake my head as my eyes roam the dining room, as if I’m looking for answers in the wood-paneled walls, on the face of the grandfather clock.

“Maybe the land was reacting to something that belonged to her. She left something here.” My eyes land on that shoebox filled with my unopened bills. I straighten. “Or what about a letter?”

“A letter?”

“There are letters in the attic.”

Logan’s eyebrows jog up. “It’s worth a shot.”

I push back my chair. Usually I wouldn’t go digging through my uncle’s personal correspondence, but these seem like extenuating, and fair, circumstances. “I know where they are. I’ll be right back.”

I’ve sifted through the attic so many times this week, collecting various odds and ends for the gala, that it takes me only a moment to find the letters from the dusty wooden trunk. Back in the dining room, I hold out the stack to Logan. “You should be the one to look.”

He doesn’t move. I watch him swallow. Then, I pull back my hand, prickling with a sudden awareness of what’s unfolding right now. For Logan, this isn’t just about the mystery of my quirky uncle, some blue-flowering weeds, and a curse that’s turning my pears crystal.

This, for him, is about potentially hearing from his mom one last time.

I hug the mail to my chest. “We don’t have to do this. I can put these back in the attic. Until you decide otherwise.”

“We need to know why your pears are crystalizing.”

I drag out a chair across from him. “We’re not reading a potential letter from your estranged parent unless it’s what you want to do. My pears are just pears. This is bigger.”

Logan raises his gaze slowly, like he’s giving himself permission to do it. When our eyes meet, his jaw tightens, and I feel that point of connection settle low in my belly.

I bite the inside of my cheek.

Logan clears his throat.

“I want to read them,” he says, definitive.