Page 16 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc

GARRUK

T he orchard lies muted in early morning light—dew collecting on petals scattered from last night’s violent bloom, roots pulsing faintly beneath moss like echoes of things too deep to name.

In that hush, I walk toward town, boots crunching over scattered apple leaves and early frost, the weight in my pocket of a carved talisman too heavy to ignore.

I’m heading for Brody, for a talk I’ve put off because every time the thought surfaced, guilt rolled over me like a winter storm, burying words and regrets beneath snow I couldn’t melt.

The general store sits on the corner, broad windows fogged around the edges, apples in crates out front glinting with chill.

I open the door without knocking. Brody’s leaning on the counter in a borrowed T-shirt, arms crossed, sipping black coffee that smells bitter enough to unspool the morning.

He looks up when I enter, expression wary—like he knows I’ve come for confrontation, not comfort.

“Morning,” I grunt, voice low.

“Put your fists away, moss-guts,” he says, nodding at the counter seat I take. “Unless you plan to knock me out before I confess.”

He sets down his cup. “You want to talk?”

“Depends if you do,” I say, meeting his gaze.

He exhales. “I left her crying. That’s not talk.”

We step outside into the air cold enough to sting, and I don’t bother with civility.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I’m furious, voice snapping off frost. “That she cried?”

Brody rubs his jaw. “I didn’t think you gave a damn.”

“What did you think? That I’d toss her back into the wind like some apple core?”

“Something like that,” he says, voice rough. “Because you didn’t want to be seen.”

Maybe I didn't want to be seen.

He folds forward, hands braced against the counter. “She came to me after you told her no, years ago. She was sixteen, Garruk. She told me she thought she’d never breathe right again.”

My fists tighten, woodgrain in the porch railing imprinting lines in my palms.

“You broke her.”

Brody doesn’t flinch. “She told me she understood why. But she never got over it.”

I turn away, chest rattling. The orchard isn’t here—but I still feel it pulsing beneath the boards, beneath every root I’ve fenced and every sapling I’ve coaxed to life.

I spin back toward him. “So what, I—and I am quoting here—‘deserve to know’? That I’m human?”

Brody meets my stare. “You told her truth half-starved by fear. You let her build her life around a memory of you not caring.”

Shame moves in hot in my skin.

I look away, this time toward Orchard Hill, that ridge still stitched through with late blooms, whispers of root magic humming like a live thing beneath my feet. I feel her absence there.

Brody stands and slams the coffee cup into his palm. The porcelain cracks. Coffee spills across his hand, drips to the wood. He doesn’t flinch and doesn’t stop.

“You need to say you’re sorry,” he says. “Not because she demands it, but because she deserved better.”

His voice softens. “Not even the orchard can rewrite that. You can’t undo her scars, Garruk. But you can stop cutting deeper ones with silence.”

I stare at him. Older now. Taller. Brody still carries that urgency in his chest like a war cry—still pissed off, but maybe centered enough now to speak truth.

“Why tell me this now?” I ask, voice thicker than fog. “Why drag all that back out?”

“Because she’s hurting again,” he says. “And maybe because she needs you to stop making choices about her without telling her.”

I think about her name on my lips under the oak last night. About my promise. About petals drifting like confessions overhead.

Brody steps closer. “We weren’t friends. But I loved her like family.”

I nod, careful not to break.

“So—this is your life too,” Brody says. “Whether you like it or not, she’s wrapped around your roots. Tethered. And you’re damned if you act like that doesn’t scare you.”

I swallow. The morning light cracks through trees overhead, slicing down like blades. And for once it’s not violence I feel, it's roots—deep ones—backing me upright.

“You still here?” Brody asks.

I nod again. “Still standing.”

For a beat, we just stand.

Then he smacks my back, gruff.

“You better fight for her,” he mutters. And he means: fight with your silence reversed, your guard lowered, your voice earned.

I walk back through the orchard, the cold turning gradually to bright sameness, petals thawing into shine.

I think of Ivy—her curls catching frost, tears hidden in the morning before the Harvest’s hush.

I think of the way she mirrored me under that oak—the vulnerability in her spine, the way she let me cradle her fear beneath bark when everything else inside me was stone.

I realize: I’ve been doing what I always do—hiding in quiet, telling everything except the most important truth.

I reach the heart tree again. Petals drift like ashes. The leaves whisper in soft gusts overhead. I trace the glyph spiral I once carved, now smoothed by rain and time. I kneel and press a hand into cool bark until the memory roots under my skin and spreads warmth to my chest.

She appears, moving through the branches silent as breeze. I don’t flinch.

“You talked to him?” she asks.

I nod, careful.

“You told him...?”

“He knew before I did.”

I shut up before I say the wrong thing.

She squats beside me, ripping frost-slick leaves from the sprouting roots, weaving them into little bundles like ritual. “I cried tonight,” she whispers.

I look at her, heart flinching. “Brody told me.”

She nods, eyes bright with tears but fierce. “You ever hear the part where someone breaks your heart and says you shouldn’t blame them because they were scared?”

I close my eyes. “No.”

She looks at me, and the orchard shifts. Light drips through branches, blossoms trembling.

“I forgive you,” she says.

The silence that follows is soft rain.

I lift her hand, press a crooked thumb over her palm.

“I’m sorry,” I say, voice cracked and steady.

She leans into it.

I trace the spiral again. “One truth at a time,” I murmur.

She nods.

The orchard listens, branches bowing.

And I finally feel rooted—not in fear, but in a vow I can keep.