"We do succession harvesting," Luna explains, moving down the row with practiced efficiency. "Take the outer leaves, let the centre keep producing. These plants will give us kale for months."
Bellamy sits nearby, poking at the soil with a real metal spade Luna gave her, her frog keeping watch from a clean patch of ground. Every few minutes she announces a new bug discovery, and Luna always stops to look, to explain what kind it is and what it does.
I harden my heart against the soft observations that want to take up residence there. We’re only here for a few days. We can’t get attached to kindness.
We work for about an hour before Luna calls for a break. She produces lemonade from a small fridge in the corner and we sit on overturned buckets while Bellamy chases a butterfly between the raised beds.
"So," Luna says casually, too casually, "Mercy mentioned you're heading to Saskatchewan?"
My shoulders tense. "Yes. Just... just trying to make a fresh start."
"Mmm." She sips her lemonade. "Bellamy's father isn't in the picture?"
“No,” I manage to say with a straight face. “It’s just the two of us.”
She’s silent for a moment, then adds, “My boys were seven to fifteen when we were suddenly on our own.”
“Four is a lot,” I say before I remember that I don’t want to talk about my private life.
“I leaned on helpers a lot. Especially when we came here.” She finishes her drink. “You know, we stumbled across Dragonfly Creek by accident, too.”
“Oh?”
“There’s a waterfall walk in the mountains. It’s not far from here, if you want to go see it. You can borrow my truck. We were—well, truthfully, we were homeless, although I didn’t want to admit it. I was pretending that we were just waiting for an apartment to become available to us. Can you imagine me and four teenage boys in an apartment? But it was all I could afford in the city. And I couldn’tquiteafford it yet, so we were camping for a month. Moving around so it felt more like actual camping and less like…” She shudders. “Well, I found the waterfall walk on a map, and decided that was our next destination. But I couldn’t find the entrance to it, because the sign is regularly taken down. Twenty years later, that’s still true, by the way. The locals don’t want tourists to find it. And once you do find it, you understand why. It’s the most magical little hike you’ll ever go on. My fighting children settled down, and they helped each other look for all the dragonflies on the canyon walls.”
“Dragonflies?” Bellamy perks up. “I want to see them!”
Luna presses her lips together, her eyes sparkling. “That’s so lovely and innocent. My boyswere more interested in how the dragonflies were, um… mating.”
I laugh out loud, surprised. “Mating?”
“Mating,” Luna confirms. “It’s called Lover’s Canyon, in fact. Thousands of dragonflies getting busy on marble slabs, surrounded by a lush river setting, leading up to falls. That’s the water source for the creek that runs through town, in fact.”
“Hence the name?”
“Exactly. And it was a magical afternoon that made me want to stick around. Eventually, I found people I could trust. People like Mercy, who offer help without wanting anything in return."
It’s a stark contrast to Derek, who would remind me how he helped me when he didn’t need to. How he expected me to be grateful, because I didn’t have any other way of returning the favour than with my body.
And that makes me think about favours he could call in to find me, because he has online connections—people who owe him favours, people who believe in his twisted version of community and protection.
People who would help him track down his family.
"I should probably get back to work," I say, standing abruptly. "I don't want to waste your time?—"
"Hope." Luna stands too, catching my elbow gently. "You're not wasting anything. But I understand. Sometimes it's easier to keep moving."
I know she means it to be kind, to invite me to share more. But as tempting as it is to lean into Luna’s warmth, I have to remember that she sees too much.
Just like her son.
After another hour, we have a complete mini wagon full of kale leaves.
“Time to put these all in the fridge,” Luna says to Bellamy.
I scoop Bella up and carry her as we follow Luna to what looks like a small outbuilding that’s like a mini barn, but when we go inside is actually a very clean space with a wall of industrial fridges.
Luna shows me how to weigh the leaves and which bags they go in, and it doesn’t take long at all to bundle up the afternoon’s harvest.
