Chapter 15 Elsie
ELSIE
The week folds in on itself.
I spend most of it upstairs, holed up in my room with Elspeth’s letters scattered around me.
I’ve only read two. The rest sit in their bundle, neat and accusing, as if waiting for me to gather the courage to unfold them.
I keep telling myself I’m saving them for when I’m ready.
The truth is, I’m not sure I ever will be.
Still, they’ve become my company. My excuse to linger behind a closed door, to avoid conversations I don’t know how to start and emotions I don’t want Wells to see.
The one sealed letter with his name on it lives at the bottom of the bundle. I pretend it isn’t there, pretend I don’t feel its weight every time I shift the stack. I tell myself I’ll hand it over when the time is right, though I have no idea what right looks like.
The house, I think, is trying to coax me out.
One morning, my favorite song—“Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac—drifts faintly up from the parlor, notes curling through the stairwell like smoke.
Another day, Anne of Green Gables, Volume II stumbles from a shelf on the landing, the spine already split at my favorite chapter.
Small nudges. Soft hints. But I ignore them. I tell myself I’m working, that the county needs documentation, that Wells has plenty to do without me underfoot. He doesn’t need or want my help anyway.
I only catch glimpses of him while I’m hiding upstairs. His boots by the back door. A muffled laugh with Jack on the porch. The smell of sawdust and smoke drifting up from the shed. We pass once in the hall, moving in opposite directions. He says “evening” without stopping.
I nod and keep walking.
That cavern between us grows wider by the day, and I let it. I feel it in a way that settles behind my ribs, low and constant, like a draft you can’t quite find the source of. I wonder if he does, too.
Hemingway betrays me by curling up on Wells’ lap in the lounge one night, tail flicking like he’s staking a claim. What a smug little tyrant. God, I want that to be me.
Not sitting on Wells’ lap, being petted and adored. Jesus Christ, no. I just mean I want to be out there with him, warm and content, instead of marinating in my own restlessness. Instead of hiding.
But I don’t go in. Not because I don’t want to—I do, more than I can explain—but because I’m scared of what might happen if I do.
What if he’s cold? What if I ruin whatever fragile truce we’ve managed to hold together with too many words? Worse, what if he isn’t cold at all, and I start to hope for something I can’t let myself want?
I keep thinking about the letters upstairs. The ones I’ve read and the one I haven’t. I don’t know what they mean or why she wrote to him, and as long as they’re hidden, I don’t have to find out.
It’s easier, in a way, to keep the distance between us. Easier than risking connection just to break it. Easier than saying the wrong thing again.
By Thursday, the walls start pressing in, and I’m going stir-mad. I need to gather more statements for Alma, but I also need to breathe somewhere that isn’t lined with ghosts. So, I bundle up, notebook in hand, and set out for Mirabelle Orchard.
I haven’t been out there in at least a dozen years. I hardly remember the layout—where the fence used to break, how many rows to the edge of the pond—but I do remember how it felt.
The shimmer of early spring blossoms like fairy dust on the breeze. The thrill of climbing trees I was explicitly told not to. The heavy sweetness of ripe fruit in the air, and Isla’s laughter somewhere nearby.
There was a time I thought the orchard had its own heartbeat. That if you were quiet enough, it might speak back.
Now, the snow is hard-crusted, silvered at the edges where the sun hit and froze again. Rows of bare trees flank me as I walk, their branches stiff, clawing at the gray sky. Ahead, Isla’s cottage smokes gently, the scent of woodfire and citrus drifting faintly even before I reach the door.
She answers in a wool sweater, cheeks pink from tending the stove, shiny black hair twisted into a topknot. For a heartbeat, she looks at me, and I wonder if she’ll turn me away. Then her smile cracks open.
“Elsie, oh my God. Hi!” she says, pulling the door wider. “Get in here before you freeze your ass off.”
The warmth hits first, then the smell—spiced plums and woodsmoke. The cottage is cluttered, cozy: books stacked on every surface, herbs hanging to dry by the rafters, a kettle hissing faintly on the stove.
I step inside, tugging off my gloves. “How are you?”
She snorts. “Busy. Cold. Perpetually two invoices behind. Same as always. You?”
I want to tell her how weird I feel. How tragically unmoored, but the words stick somewhere between my throat and my pride. So, instead, I do what I’ve always done—tuck it away and smooth the edges.
“I’m okay,” I say instead. “I was actually hoping you’d help me with a statement. For the committee. Alma’s orders.”
Isla waves me toward the little table by the window. “Of course. Tea?”
She pours while I open my notebook, flipping to a fresh page. For a while, we talk about business. She gives me her memory of harvest gatherings—Elspeth pouring Mirabelle cider by the pitcher, her mother playing fiddle in the parlor while half the town crowded shoulder to shoulder.
I scribble it all down, grateful for the details. Grateful, too, for the way her voice settles something jangly in me. And yet, sitting here still feels strange and distant, like picking up a conversation years after it’s gone quiet.
Isla and I used to spend entire afternoons on these orchard rows—mud on our boots, braids unraveling, daring each other to climb higher into the trees. She was the kind of friend who knew the shape of my laugh, the secrets I whispered into pillows at sleepovers.
And then, like most things, it frayed. By the time we were preteens, Isla had her school friends here in Blue Willow, the ones she saw every weekday, every game, every dance. I was the summer girl. The long-weekend girl. A novelty, not permanence.
By the time I left at eighteen, we were already half strangers, waving politely in passing instead of running barefoot down the orchard rows together.
There were college acquaintances after that. Work friends. People to grab drinks with or swap complaints about managers. But not one person I could go to in the hollow moments, the quiet hours when the weight pressed too heavily. Not one who knew me at the root.
Now, here’s Isla again, pouring tea for me like no years have passed at all.
“Your grandmother had a knack for making everyone feel at home,” she says, echoing the same sentiment I’ve heard thrice over. “I know it’s not the line the county might be looking for, but I needed you to know how much that place really means to me, to all of us.”
The words sting. Because still, I feel like an outsider every time I step across its threshold. Still, I stiffen when I should settle. I’ve always loved the inn, but I know we’ve lost our rhythm, too.
I force a smile anyway. “Believe me, I know.”
She studies me over her teacup. “How are things going over there?”
“Fine.” The lie comes out practiced. “Wells is bossy. Keeps me on a short leash. But I’ve . . . put some much-needed distance between us this week. No point in getting any closer when I’m not staying.”
Something flickers in her expression—amusement, sympathy, maybe both. She doesn’t press. Instead, she gets up, rummages in a basket, and hands me two jars of spiced plums. “For when the work feels too heavy. Sweet things help.”
I tuck them into my satchel. “Thanks, Isla.”
“It’s good having you back. If you ever want to walk the rows, to talk about anything that isn’t the inn, you know where to find me.”
The words settle somewhere deep in my gut. It feels like an invitation for me to remember what it was like to have a real friend. Not just a classmate or a coworker, but someone who wants me for the unremarkable hours, too.
I miss that, I think. More than that, I sort of crave it.
By the time the committee gathers that evening, the parlor’s already tight and stuffy with heat. The inn’s old boiler has finally shaken off its sulk, and the house breathes warm again. Waking up, I suppose.
It should be comforting, but it isn’t. The heat clings like accusation, prickling my skin, crawling up my collar. Maybe it’s luck, or maybe it’s her—stirring from whatever sleep I interrupted.
I’ve started to wonder if my being back has something to do with it. If the warmth is for me. And if I walk away again, if I hand over the deed and cut ties for good, what happens to her then?
Either the house knows what’s coming, or my guilt has taken on its own temperature.
As I shrug out of my coat, Wells corners me in the hall.
“Where’ve you been?” His eyes narrow like he’s been keeping a tally. Not only today, but all week.
“Out,” I say, clutching the bag tighter against my hip.
“Out,” he echoes, bone-dry. He lifts his hand into the lamplight and flexes his fingers. The cut from the ladder accident has reopened—skin red and angry, one jagged line that bisects his palm.
“Split again. Might be because my wannabe nurse disappeared on me.”
“That’s a terrible nickname,” I mutter, stepping around him. “And it’s not fully healed because you’re not exactly a model patient. You need more salve.”
He follows me into the parlor, close enough that his boots scuff the back of my heel.
“You could’ve at least told me where you were going.”
“I didn’t realize I needed your permission.”
His brow twitches. “Well, you do. I mean—fuck, of course you don’t.” He rubs at his temple, like the sentence got away from him midstream. Then, grappling for whatever excuse he can scrounge up, he mutters, “You keep leaving the front door unlocked.”
I snort. “You worried someone’s going to come steal the crockery?”
He gives me that flat, unreadable look that makes me want to throw something at his chest just to get a reaction.