Chapter 31
Rowe
The moment we get home, I know something’s wrong. The house is dark. The workers are gone. The crickets are chirping.
But something’s off.
It’s in the air. It’s thick and weird, like the magic is frazzled, short-circuiting.
When Pane kills the engine, he turns to me. “Stay here.”
“I’m not staying here.”
His bottom lip dips in a frown. “But something’s off.”
“I know. That’s why I’m getting out.”
He mumbles something about me being stubborn, but doesn’t argue when I exit the truck.
Soon as I’m outside, a blanket of foreboding hits me right in the chest. The piggycorns are standing inside their fence, but they’re not leaping over one another and sliding across the grass on their rear ends to greet us. They’re standing in a neat line, looking straight ahead.
Something is definitely wrong, and whatever it is, it’s outside.
Pane must sense it, too, because his next words are, “You should go into the house.”
“I’m not doing that. This is my property.”
He sighs with resignation. “Do you have to be so resistant all the time?”
I shoot him a weary grin. “It’s why you like me so much.”
An emotion I can’t place flickers in his eyes. “Come on. Stay close.”
The first thing we notice is that the fence behind the house has been trampled. Pane curses. “We just put this up.”
Dread pools in my stomach as my gaze trails the fence. It’s not just been trampled. It’s broken into bits as if a herd of buffalo stormed through here on their way to—
“Oh my God! The starfizz berries!”
No no no no no! Please don’t let them be damaged.
I run off into the dark. Pane calls after me, but my heart is in my throat, and all I can think about is my plan B—the berries I’ve tended and worried over, giving them all my focus and energy, raising them from seeds—please,please let them be okay.
My legs are heavy as I race across the farm. They don’t want to work. They don’t want to go where I’m forcing them, but they must.
The world blurs as my vision narrows to a pinprick-sized tunnel. Blood whooshes in my ears. It’s all I can hear. I’m barely aware that behind me, Pane is calling my name. I don’t have time for him now. This is about my home. Not his. This was never his. He doesn’t care about it like I do. He can’t, because he’s leaving.
My shaky legs take me right past the ruined fence, past the gazebo, past the meadow, and right to—
“No!”
I collapse onto a patch of broken earth and take in the sight. The fence around the berries has been torn away. Chicken wire has been slashed and ripped from the wooden braces, curling into the air like the ends of Christmas ribbons.
And in the center of it all, the berries that only needed a few more days lay destroyed, trampled to juice that now soaks into the earth.
It’s so stupid. There’s no reason for me to cry. Pane’s saving the farm. He’s turning it into a spa. Realistically, I don’t even need these berries. I don’t need any of it.
We have his vision.
