Page 82 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

Our first, most promising lead is in an excerpt from a mid-twentieth-century travel journal, long out of print, which Logan finds tucked among the Pacific Northwest regional writings. The author, a botanist from Montreal, recounts a visit to a remote coastal retreat outside Tofino—once a logging camp, now maintained by a small, reclusive community of spiritual naturalists.

The botanist describes a forest grove just beyond their main lodge where the trees, primarily old-growth Douglas fir, seem to shimmer faintly at dawn.

“The morning after a heated argument,” Logan reads aloud, “the grove stood stiff and silent. But when someone sang—a woman’s voice, cracked and shy—the moss clinging to the trunks suddenly brightened, not blooming exactly, but waking. Even the ravens returned.”

“Sounds pretty,” Mason says. “A sudden blooming.”

“Yeah,” I say and catch Logan’s eye over the textbook, fire charging through my veins as I remember our own blossoms. “That would be pretty.”

His lips lift, a crooked half smile.

A bit later, Mason finds a niche feature called “The Red Grove of Caldesia” in an ecological magazine. It describes a hidden grove where trees turn blood-red when certain family members are present. A local artist, descended from the grove’s founders, says, “I painted there the day I left my husband. The trees turned overnight.”

Given the connection to both trees and departures, this feels like the most promising avenue, and we spend another couple of hours searching through back issues of the same magazine, although it went out of print in the early 2000s. Once we reach its end, I try looking for other work by the author and find one last lead: a documentary that references his work.

It’s called The Land That Remembers, and we’re able to stream the film on one of the library’s computers. After I listen to the introductory voice-over, I smash the pause button and grab Mason and Logan. We huddle around the screen, closed-captioning on, and I navigate back to the beginning.

“There are places where people claim the land listens,” the narrator tells us. “Where storms roll in with your sorrows, and the wind sings back what you’re afraid to say. The salt lands of the southern coast are among them.”

The scene resolves to an older man wearing a faded windbreaker and jeans stiff with salt and age. Behind him, a long dock groans softly, and a five-gallon bucket sloshes at his feet. The caption identifies him as Everett Miles, 82, Scald Bay.

“I used to think the tide was just the pull of the moon.” Everett’s voice is rough and raspy, like he’s been trying to shout over the wind for decades. “Science and all that. But then Mable disappeared. My wife. Forty-two years, and she just…left in the middle of canning peaches. After that, the tide stayed out for three days. Three whole days. No storm, no wind. The marsh looked like it forgot how to breathe.”

The narrator’s voice again. “Some said it was coincidence. Others said absence has a gravity all its own.”

The video shifts again and the scene that unfolds has me tipping closer to the screen. It’s an orchard. Rows of gnarled apple trees stretch down an uneven, sloping hill.

“Thousands of miles away,” the narrator says, “in an orchard tucked into the Appalachian foothills, a woman named Lorena Fletcher tells a similar story.”

Lorena Fletcher, 78, Hearthfield, has silver hair and a quilt across her knees. A rocking chair creaks as she glides forward and back, her eyes on the horizon.

“I was sixteen when my cousin died. It was sudden—he got thrown from a horse. We were close. He used to say the apples tasted better when we were laughing. Silly thing, but…I believed it.

“The day after the funeral, we got hit with hail. End of summer. No clouds before it, no warning. Just sudden, angry ice. The whole north grove was shredded. My uncle said it was a freak weather event. But the trees didn’t bloom the next spring. Not a single flower. I remember thinking it felt like the land was angry with us for losing him.”

I can barely process how eerily similar that sounds to my own experiences before the narrator claims our attention again.

“The orchard recovered, eventually. But Lorena never forgot that storm. Or the strange quiet that settled over the trees. It’s not unlike another story, this one from a different orchard on the other side of the country. One where not a single apple will grow, in a valley where pears refuse to thrive anywhere else.”

My back stiffens as the scene unfolds. Silver-gray pear trees underneath a hooked-nose mountain. A red barn with paint that’s brighter than it is today.

I grab Logan’s knee. “That’s my orchard.”

Then, a woman in the voice-over. “I don’t know how to explain what I saw that summer, what I felt on the land. I worry it defies words.”

When her face appears, I notice the laugh lines that have settled around her mouth, the wisps of gray in her hair. Logan tenses. His hand closes over mine.

“That’s our mom,” he says.

Her name, Lydia Holloway, 47, appears underneath her image. And, after it, a location.

Maplehurst.

Chapter Twenty

Mason pounds a button. We all stare at the frozen face, words still lingering on the screen: Lydia Holloway, 47, Maplehurst.

Distantly, I realize my mouth is agape. Logan is still staring forward, one hand covering mine. I squeeze his leg, just to remind him I’m here. Even his thigh feels tense beneath my hand.