Page 83 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

“Maplehurst,” he says through a tight jaw.

I recognize that look. This time, I can guess what he’s thinking.

“Do you know what year she was born?” I ask as I lean forward to click back to the main menu, looking for a date this documentary was released.

“Nineteen seventy-four,” he says.

“So…” I tap some fingers, doing quick mental math. Lydia must be significantly younger than I would have guessed. “This had to have been made four years ago.”

He nods, then says what I’m already thinking. “She could still be here.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought she might,” Mason remarks.

We turn to him. He’s got a temple tipped back on his chair’s headrest, an ankle slung over a knee.

Logan’s eyebrows pull together as he studies his brother’s nonchalance. “You’ve thought what, exactly?”

Mason flaps a hand. “That Lydia could be around. There’s a store downtown called Holloway Woodworking or something. I noticed it last year when this new pizza place opened up next door. It always seemed like kind of a coincidence that a carpenter with the last name Holloway would have a woodworking shop fifty miles from the place that woman grew up.”

“And you never bothered to investigate.”

Mason lifts a shoulder. “I have better things to do with my time.”

“A month ago,” Logan says carefully, “you spent an entire afternoon building an exact replica of the PNU campus in Minecraft.”

“Exactly what I’m saying.” Mason grins. He tips his chair back onto two legs and jams his hands into his pockets. “So, obviously, that’s higher on the list. Plus, stuff that sounds way less painful, like deep cleaning the microwave and tweezing out my leg hairs.”

He glances up, waiting for the joke to land. When it doesn’t, he sighs and lets his chair slap back down. “Look. I barely remember her. She’s always been hypothetical to me. I’m not sure why I would bother spending a bunch of energy and time hunting her down when she knew exactly where I was for more than a decade and never bothered to do anything about it.”

“You weren’t at all curious?” I interject, unable to help myself. Not after spending the last couple weeks witnessing the ways that glimpses of Lydia’s past have affected Logan.

“Nah. I only had one parent I cared about.”

“Dad was at least there,” Logan concedes. “Physically.”

Mason unwinds his legs so he can kick his brother on the shin. “I meant you, man.”

Logan blinks.

Mason expels a sigh and pushes his hair back. “C’mon. There was only one adult around to clean up my bloody knees when I tried to skateboard down the front steps. Only one person who told off those monsters under my bed and made me dinosaur pancakes on Sundays and put drawings of my favorite cartoons in my lunch box. But it wasn’t Dad and it definitely wasn’t some lady named Lydia.”

Logan stares at his brother for a beat longer and then grabs his forearm and squeezes so hard I wonder if Mason will yelp.

He just grins back, though, and pats his brother’s hand. “Well,” he says, “as much as I’m enjoying this moment of brotherly love, I think we have a pear farm to save, yeah?”

We watch the rest of the clip, taking in Lydia’s familiar account of the orchard’s magic: strange weather patterns, a glowing beetle, and of course, the forget-me-nots blooming in strange patterns. She doesn’t mention the curse or her own decision to leave Apple Valley, but when her interviewer asks if these odd occurrences affected her, she freezes and says, “You promised not to ask about that.”

The off-screen voice tries to press, but after that, Lydia clams up, barely giving more than one- or two-word answers. The interview ends with another shot of my land and a line from the narrator about unanswered questions. It seems that the documentarians were unable to get a firsthand account from the owners of the orchard, and although Lydia’s story was too compelling to leave out, they had no way to independently corroborate it.

When we’ve finished watching the unsatisfying clip a third time, Mason sighs and switches off the computer.

“I guess we could have predicted she’d give us nothing,” he scoffs. “As usual.”

Logan is still bent forward in his chair, hands clasped between his knees. “We could ask.”

I whirl toward him, eyebrows raised.

Mason clicks his tongue. “She doesn’t deserve that conversation.”