Page 31 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

Logan stops flipping, turns back a few pages. His expression darkens as he reads.

“What?” I ask.

Mutely, he slides the open page toward me.

September 3, 2011

06:40—A day that never really began. Just that cold, suffocating gray mist. Thick enough to blur the barn from view.

11:15—Storm hit without warning. Wind screamed. The orchard screamed back.

14:45—Tree outside the window split right down the middle, like it let a giant take an axe to its core.

16:00—Barn hasn’t made a sound since.

“A new pest shows up the next day,” Logan says, voice unusually low.

I read and reread the entry, trying to make sense of it.

“There’s no visitor logged here,” I say, turning toward Val. There’s nothing logical about this statement or my accelerating thoughts—the weather described in this passage can’t be affected by soil, and it’s certainly not affected by some visitor—but the woman must know something I don’t. “Do you remember who was there? Did something happen that day?”

She opens her mouth like she’s working out the answer, her fingers twiddling with the thin strap on my last journal. But Logan speaks first.

“I know.”

We both turn to him.

“This is the day after my mom left us.”

Chapter Seven

“What?” I say, without expectation that Logan will repeat himself. My mind is still stumbling as his declaration hangs in the almost silence of the ticking grandfather clock.

Logan smooths a finger over the spine of a journal. “That day we finished the barn, she was supposed to come home a few hours after us. Dad and I were ferrying all our tools back to the shop, and Mom was sweeping out. She’d be home for dinner, she said. But hours later, she still wasn’t. That wasn’t like her.”

“Did anything happen that morning?” I ask, reading over the entry again, my eyes hiccupping on the description of the empty barn. There’s something hauntingly familiar in Martin’s words. “Or the night before?”

Logan answers the question like he’s already recited it a thousand times. “Mom was quiet. Dad came home late. But none of that was strange.”

I wince slightly. Of course he’s already asked himself these questions, replayed those final days a thousand times in his mind, hunting for scraps.

“Maybe the journals say more?” I ask, trying to find a new avenue. “About your mom?”

He thumbs through a few pages. “Not from what I’ve seen. She’s mentioned as a visitor a lot, but so is my dad. You. Me. And Martin’s entries don’t have much in the way of detail or editorials. I’m not sure how this is connected.”

My chair squeals as I sit back, trying to think. At this point, the most likely explanation is that it’s all a coincidence. The second most likely explanation is that something about the orchard—or something that happened here—made Lydia leave. Although that wouldn’t explain why the bad luck started up after she left. Right?

I rub a temple and look to Val, who is idly picking at her cuticles. She’s been silent. Too silent.

“Val?”

“What?”

“Do you have something to say?”

She plucks up a half-dried carrot from a nearly empty plate and bites off the end, chewing hard. “Nah. I hardly knew Lydia.”

My eyebrows draw together. “But you know something else.”