Page 20 of Until the Last Leaf Falls

“Right. Now tell me… how open are you to a different interpretation?”

“If you have one, I’ll listen.” Niles lifted his hands, palms up. “I don’t think it will change anything, but I’ll listen.”

Celia set her glass on the low table and stayed this way, leaning forward, gaze intent. “Two things strike me about your story. One. Have you kept the books and messages Orren sent you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Can you show them to me?”

Niles’s eyebrows rose. “You want me to prove they’re real, physical objects rather than figments of my imagination? Fine.” He levered himself out of the sofa, crossed to the bookcase that was filling with myths, folklore, and local history, and pulled two books from the topmost shelf. On the way back, he collected a leather folder from his desk.

“These two are not the only books Orren gave me, but the rest are on my bedside table,” he admitted. “They’re old, expensive, and often first editions. I like to have them close by, just in case.”

She didn’t ask him to elaborate, just bent her head over the books. Then her eyes flew to the folder as Niles opened it to display the leaves. Orren’s beautiful cursive blinked in silver pen from oak and chestnut, beech and gingko.

“Here’s your proof he’s not a hallucination,” Celia said. “He may be a prankster, or a conman, or a million other things… but you didn’t invent him. He’s real.”

“Right.” Niles found no comfort in her pronouncement. If Orren was real, then where was he? Why didn’t he return to the glade as he’d promised? And if something was delaying him, why didn’t he at least say so? “What’s the other thing?” he asked to distract himself. “You said there were two things that jumped out at you.”

“The other thing is what he said to you.” She picked up her wineglass again and took a thoughtful sip. “He told you he’d have to leave when the last leaf fell. He also said him staying would take more than you asking.”

“Yes?” Niles couldn’t see where she was going with that.

“What if—for him to stay, I mean—your glade needs to be a place where the last leaf never falls?”

Niles wanted to laugh, but the mirth was bitter on his tongue. “And how am I supposed to accomplish that? You want me to glue them on?”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Her voice was suddenly sharp. “If you just want to feel sorry for yourself, I’ll go back home. I can spend my evening vegged-out in front of the telly. Think, man! What if this was Orren’s way of telling you what he needs from you?”

“Have a glade where time stands still?”

She rolled her eyes and dumped the last of the wine into his glass. “Here. You don’t seem to have any brain cells to kill. Have you never heard of evergreens? And I’m not talking Christmas trees. There are leafy evergreens. There’s even an oak species that doesn’t lose its leaves. Plant one of those in your glade and see what happens.”

Bring Him Home

“I don’t know what else to do,” Niles told his trees two hours later. He’d seen Celia to a taxi before tidying and closing the library for the night. Then he’d brewed a thermos of coffee and donned his thickest waterproofs. Huddled amongst his trees, laptop on his thighs, and with his largest umbrella keeping the rain off the screen, he talked. “If Orren was going to come back, he’d be here already, right? Though what Celia said… it makes sense in a way. What if Orren was giving me a message and I wasn’t hearing it?”

The trees rustled their leaves as if trying to comfort him. Despite everything, it made him smile.

“Why can’t I understand you better? At least well enough to ask the right questions? I’m sure I had a list of broadleaved evergreens here somewhere.” He skimmed the folders where he kept his research notes. Then something occurred to him. “Would you mind if I planted another tree?”

He hadn’t asked before, of course. Hadn’t known he could ask. But now it felt rude not to. And while he knew the trees heard him, he also harboured a tiny, unacknowledged hope that Orren might hear him, too.

He talked about the Quercus ilex Celia had mentioned, and the joy washing over him was hard to mistake for anything but approval. Not wanting to give the glade just a single choice, Niles ran through his list of broadleaved evergreens as if he was auditioning for a playmate for his trees. No intrigued rustle of leaves and branches this time, only the soft patter of the rain.

“Quercus ilex it is, then,” he said, and smiled with genuine delight when the trees shook droplets all over him. “I’d love to stay out here, but I’m freezing and my laptop isn’t built for all this rain. So I’m heading inside. If you hear from Orren…” Niles bit his lip, reluctant to allow himself even that tiny hope. He was adding a new tree to the glade. If he kept his focus on that, it might not hurt so much if Orren didn’t appear along with their new addition.

He hurried inside to dry off and warm up before settling to research the fastest way to acquire a holm oak, which turned out to be harder than he’d thought.

By six the next morning, with coffee sloshing in his gut, Niles was on the road. None of his local garden centres stocked the tree, and the nearest tree nursery that listed one was three hours of traffic away.

And out of stock.

Niles had come prepared. He’d added six tree nurseries to his GPS and went from one to the other.

At the fourth, he hit the jackpot.

“We have one, aye,” the nurseryman said. “Can’t say it’s our prettiest tree, which is why we didn’t plant him out with the others. No need to guarantee failure, right? I thought to keep him here through the winter, see if he made it. Do you want him for a garden?”