ELSIE
The rowsat Mirabelle Grove are half-drowned in meltwater and rimmed with frost. I crunch along the path after Isla, every puddle and rut of mud slick with a thin glaze that cracks under my boots.
The orchard always smelled sweeter in the spring—jam bubbling in kettles, fruit sugar tugging at the air—but even now, it carries something warm. The kind of scent that lingers against your coat, settles in your hair, refuses to leave you untouched.
Isla’s gripping pruning shears in one hand, with a basket hooked in the crook of her arm. She’s humming and happy, while I’m sulking like someone dragged me out here against my will.
But I was the one who asked if I could come.
“You sure you don’t mind me tagging along?”
It’s more polite if I fix my face to look casual rather than desperate. I’ve always worn my emotions too close to the surface, and I know it. So, I school my mouth, smooth my brow, try to look like a guest rather than a stray.
“Mind? Please.” Isla tugs a twig down, snips it clean, lets it spring back. “I need the company. These branches don’t talk back, no matter how many times I ask them why they’re beingstubborn.” She glances over, sly. “Besides, Wells said you needed to get out of the house.”
I make a face. “He talks too much.”
“He worries too much,” she counters. “But then again, so do you. Maybe you’re a match made in—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
She laughs. “Fine. I’ll keep it to myself.”
We walk another row. My fingers are numb inside my gloves, and I shove them deeper into my pockets. It’s quieter here than I expected—less wind, less thought. Less of that creaking weight the inn seems to hang on my shoulders.
I like it here. And, actually, Wells was right. Hiding in that house, pretending I don’t want to crawl back into his arms and forget everything else, isn’t healthy. Or sustainable.
Here, I can almost imagine I’m a girl again, running between these trees without thinking about trust agreements or deeds or whether or not a house resents me.
Brittle bark under my palms. Mud on my shoes. Air sharp enough to sting.
As we cross into the lower rows, I go still.
Nestled halfway down a row that looks as gray and dormant as all the rest, there’s one tree in full bloom. Pale blossoms freckling every branch, fragile and luminous, delicate as lace against the cold. No trace of winter’s sleep.
I stop. “This is incredible.”
“Isn’t it just?”
In summer, the fruit here turns gold as sunlight—Mirabelle plums that split in your hands, sweet enough to stain your wrists. Kids climb the lowest boughs just to eat them warm, straight from the skin.
“It’s always like this, isn’t it?”
I remember now, vaguely, visiting as a kid in the off-season with Elspeth, tugging my mittens off to point at the blossoms,thinking it was strange but never asking why. It didn’t stick then, how impossible it really was.
Now, with everything heavy and magic dulled into metaphor, it stands out. It feels unreasonable and unapologetic. Alive.
“Always.” Isla stoops to collect a fallen clipping. “That tree’s never cared what month it is. Been here a hundred and forty-odd years. My great-great-grandfather, Elias, planted it in 1879. Swore he’d grafted two trees together wrong. But wrong turned out to be right.”
I reach out and brush a petal with my fingertip. Cold as the air. Soft as fabric. “Feels like she’s showing off.”
“Or reminding us.” Isla tilts her head, as if the tree is whispering something she refuses to repeat. “Blooming when nothing else dares. Little bit of rebellion. Little bit of hope.”
I swallow. “Feels like cheating.”
“Magic isn’t cheating,” she says. “It’s what’s left when reason runs out.”
The petals shiver—so slight I can’t be sure it happened at all—and I pull my hand back, pulse jumping. Isla doesn’t move. She only watches, calm and steady. She knows better than to startle whatever is sacred here.
