Page 79 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

Somewhere downstairs, a door bangs closed. I glance out the window and find a flash of saturated, industrial green—a Gator parked where the grass gives way to dirt.

I sit up. “Val’s here?”

“She’s been out there for a couple of hours.”

I should have known. No matter how late she stayed up last night, of course she came screaming back at dawn to survey the damage. She’s probably careened over every hill in that Gator, repeatedly heaving off the seat to glare at the branches, no matter how much she’s supposed to be keeping off her ankle.

“Did she say anything about how the pears look?”

Before Logan can respond, the creak of a loose floorboard draws our attention toward my door. I find Val there, arms crossed and leaning heavily against the doorjamb. There’s dirt smudged against her worried frown.

“Want me to come back later?” she asks.

“No.” I shuck the quilts off my lap. “I need to know. Let me get dressed.”

After I brush my teeth, shove my feet into a pair of fluffy slippers, and spritz my curls with water, I pad down to the kitchen where Val is already grinding coffee beans while Logan fries a panful of eggs. When the low beeps of the toaster oven sound, Mason’s snores from the living room cut off and he stumbles into the kitchen, hair wild as he rubs at his eyes.

“Morning,” he says and plops into a chair. His smile drops as he glances between our faces. “Something wrong?”

I sigh and say without hesitation, “Yes.”

Mason frowns, and his gaze lingers on my sweatshirt—Logan’s sweatshirt that I’m still wearing—for a beat too long. “Okay, then. But if we’re about to spelunk in some dark, emotional cave, I’m going to need caffeine reinforcements.”

I pass him a mug of coffee. “Val was about to tell us just how severe the damage was from that hail. And the whole truth,” I add to her. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”

“I’ve never coated anything with sugar in my life,” Val says stubbornly as she pours pumpkin creamer into her mug. Instead of continuing, however, her eyes flick uncertainly between the brothers.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “They already know.”

She lowers her chin. “Four generations of Reids managed to keep these secrets to themselves.”

“You’re not a Reid, and you know,” I say.

“I’m as good as one,” she retorts.

“It would have been a bit difficult not to notice the rainbow-colored rabbits,” Logan adds.

Mason spills a bit of coffee down his front and smacks a hand against the table. “Oh, now we’re talking.”

Val scowls, muttering something about trusting strangers with secrets.

Mason crosses his heart. “You can share anything with us, Val. The Wright brothers have many times been called both dependable and trustworthy.”

“That’s just me and Andrew,” Logan mutters as he scrapes an egg onto his brother’s plate.

Val snorts and frowns for another beat before relenting. “Fine. Here’s the deal. The storm last night was bad, but it was also weird. It turned to hail right over Ali’s property, and nothing but. Right across the boundary, there isn’t a single marked apple, but the pears are fucked.”

My heart thumps, a slow, steady drumbeat that feels more like despair than disappointment.

“The curse,” I say softly.

Things are such a mess, I can’t tell which goodbye caused the storm. Maybe it happened because Blake and Liv showed up and disappeared again last night. Or maybe it was about Logan, like a precursor to something that’s ready to happen or a signal about the decision he’s already made.

There’s still so much about how this works that I don’t know.

“I’ve watched a load of storms in my day,” Val says. “And, yeah, they sure can do weird shit, especially in this valley. But the one last night was something else.”

“So how many pears are salvageable?” I ask.