Chapter 24 Elsie
ELSIE
The rows at Mirabelle Grove are half-drowned in meltwater and rimmed with frost. I crunch along the path after Isla, every puddle and rut of mud slick with a thin glaze that cracks under my boots.
The orchard always smelled sweeter in the spring—jam bubbling in kettles, fruit sugar tugging at the air—but even now, it carries something warm. The kind of scent that lingers against your coat, settles in your hair, refuses to leave you untouched.
Isla’s gripping pruning shears in one hand, with a basket hooked in the crook of her arm. She’s humming and happy, while I’m sulking like someone dragged me out here against my will.
But I was the one who asked if I could come.
“You sure you don’t mind me tagging along?”
It’s more polite if I fix my face to look casual rather than desperate. I’ve always worn my emotions too close to the surface, and I know it. So, I school my mouth, smooth my brow, try to look like a guest rather than a stray.
“Mind? Please.” Isla tugs a twig down, snips it clean, lets it spring back. “I need the company. These branches don’t talk back, no matter how many times I ask them why they’re being stubborn.” She glances over, sly. “Besides, Wells said you needed to get out of the house.”
I make a face. “He talks too much.”
“He worries too much,” she counters. “But then again, so do you. Maybe you’re a match made in—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
She laughs. “Fine. I’ll keep it to myself.”
We walk another row. My fingers are numb inside my gloves, and I shove them deeper into my pockets. It’s quieter here than I expected—less wind, less thought. Less of that creaking weight the inn seems to hang on my shoulders.
I like it here. And, actually, Wells was right. Hiding in that house, pretending I don’t want to crawl back into his arms and forget everything else, isn’t healthy. Or sustainable.
Here, I can almost imagine I’m a girl again, running between these trees without thinking about trust agreements or deeds or whether or not a house resents me.
Brittle bark under my palms. Mud on my shoes. Air sharp enough to sting.
As we cross into the lower rows, I go still.
Nestled halfway down a row that looks as gray and dormant as all the rest, there’s one tree in full bloom. Pale blossoms freckling every branch, fragile and luminous, delicate as lace against the cold. No trace of winter’s sleep.
I stop. “This is incredible.”
“Isn’t it just?”
In summer, the fruit here turns gold as sunlight—Mirabelle plums that split in your hands, sweet enough to stain your wrists. Kids climb the lowest boughs just to eat them warm, straight from the skin.
“It’s always like this, isn’t it?”
I remember now, vaguely, visiting as a kid in the off-season with Elspeth, tugging my mittens off to point at the blossoms, thinking it was strange but never asking why. It didn’t stick then, how impossible it really was.
Now, with everything heavy and magic dulled into metaphor, it stands out. It feels unreasonable and unapologetic. Alive.
“Always.” Isla stoops to collect a fallen clipping. “That tree’s never cared what month it is. Been here a hundred and forty-odd years. My great-great-grandfather, Elias, planted it in 1879. Swore he’d grafted two trees together wrong. But wrong turned out to be right.”
I reach out and brush a petal with my fingertip. Cold as the air. Soft as fabric. “Feels like she’s showing off.”
“Or reminding us.” Isla tilts her head, as if the tree is whispering something she refuses to repeat. “Blooming when nothing else dares. Little bit of rebellion. Little bit of hope.”
I swallow. “Feels like cheating.”
“Magic isn’t cheating,” she says. “It’s what’s left when reason runs out.”
The petals shiver—so slight I can’t be sure it happened at all—and I pull my hand back, pulse jumping. Isla doesn’t move. She only watches, calm and steady. She knows better than to startle whatever is sacred here.
Faith comes before proof.
For a moment, I let myself believe the orchard might want me here, too.
That everyone might. That I could fit, and stay put, and somehow not crumble from the weight of it all. That keeping the inn wouldn’t be the kind of failure that drags me under and swallows me whole, taking the Hart name right along with it.
“I really do love Blue Willow, you know? And I loved my grandmother. A lot.”
She frowns. “No one’s saying you didn’t.”
“I know. It’s just . . . being here is hard for me.
It’s not that I think I don’t deserve the house, but I left it behind.
I tried to make a different life somewhere else.
And now I don’t know what to do with all this—magic, and history, and people who remember me from before.
I can’t picture running an entire inn all alone. ”
“You would never be expected to be on your own, Els.” She rests her wrist on the handle of her shears. “Wells is here. I’m here. Half this town would be at your side if you asked. We’d rally.”
“Because you all loved Elspeth that much.”
“Because we loved Elspeth, yes.” Her gaze softens. “But also, because we loved you. And because we’d like the chance to again. I get that you’re hurting. I get that it’s hard. But you have options, lovely girl. You have people and places that want you to stay.”
I bite my lip. “Did Wells tell you? When you talked on the phone?”
“Tell me what?”
“That we . . . that I . . .”
“That he has a soft spot for you?” She shrugs. “Anyone can see that from a mile away.”
My face burns. She smiles, but gently, teasing without prying. I don’t deny it. I don’t explain anything, either. What happened between us still feels too new, too breakable to put into someone else’s hands.
She must sense it because she changes course. “I was planning to go to the cemetery this afternoon. Bring fresh flowers. Maybe a bottle from the cellar. For my great-aunt.”
I tense. “Oh.”
“You should come,” she says, and it’s not a demand or a plea, but an open door. “If you’d like. We can pay our respects to Elspeth, too.”
“I haven’t gone to see her yet, actually.”
The confession tastes metallic on my tongue. Shame, or something like it.
I didn’t go to the funeral, either. I told myself that grief in public was for other people. Something performed with tissues and polite sobs and casseroles. Funerals are built for those left behind, for them to tidy their sorrow into something presentable.
And when Elspeth died, I felt . . . unmoored. Hollowed out.
I was afraid that if I went to see her, I wouldn’t cry at all. Afraid I’d look detached, ungrateful. Worse, I was afraid I’d cry so much that I’d never be able to stop.
So, I stayed away. I told myself she wasn’t in that coffin anyway. Not the real her. Not the version who hummed while she cooked or whispered to stairwells to behave. And now, a year later—weeks into being back—I still haven’t walked the short stretch down the lane to her grave.
It felt too strange. Too final and too lonely.
Isla studies me, the pruning shears forgotten in her hand. “Then maybe this is the time.”
Going alone has always felt impossible. But going with Isla . . . it feels like stepping into cold water with a hand waiting on the other side. I might be able to come back from it, I think, without drowning in the ache.
I nod, swallowing around it. “Okay.”
She smiles once. “We’ll go after lunch, then.”
I glance back at the blooming tree, its out-of-season petals stubborn and alive against the frost. Some things bloom when they’re ready, not when they’re supposed to. And maybe grief doesn’t follow calendars, either.
Honeywild Farm looks like something out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. The lavender fields are browned, hives tucked in their neat white rows, smoke curling from the chimney of a little yellowed cottage.
Winnie’s on the porch already, her daughter balanced on her hip in a pink wool hat with pom-poms the size of fists. Cheeks flushed, curls haloing out, she squeals when she sees Isla, wriggling to be let down, and Winnie sets her on her feet with a laugh.
“Is this a pickup or an ambush?” Winnie calls as we climb out of Isla’s Jeep.
“Both,” Isla says. “We want flowers, but also your dazzling presence.”
“You want me to come along?”
“Elspeth always did enjoy a party,” Isla says. “Four’s company.”
Winnie tilts her head, considering. “I suppose I could be persuaded to join you.”
She disappears inside for her coat, leaving Goldie toddling across the porch and straight into Isla’s arms. The little girl chatters something about bees still sleeping. Isla kisses her nose.
“Goldie, honey. This is my good friend Elsie,” she says. “She lives up the ridge at the big blue house.”
“Blue house,” Goldie echoes.
“Hi, Goldie,” I say, giving a small wave.
She grins so wide her dimples show, then promptly hides her face in Isla’s scarf. I’m good with kids when I have a lesson plan, puppets, flash cards—occupational safety nets. Without them, I feel like I’ve shown up to a tea party as Godzilla.
I take a careful step back, hovering uselessly, until Winnie reemerges with a basket. There’s plum wine wrapped in a scarf, a loaf of bread, and a jar of honey tucked inside.
“Offerings,” she says, passing it to me. “Don’t tell me Elspeth won’t appreciate a little sugar in the afterlife. I’m Winnie, by the way. I think we met once or twice as kids, but I was homeschooled and weird, and my mother didn’t let me run feral with Isla’s crew.”
Isla grins. “You didn’t miss much. Just a lot of scraped knees and me bossing everyone around.”
“Please,” Winnie scoffs, fastening her coat. “You still boss everyone around.”
We pile into Isla’s Jeep. Goldie’s strapped into her car seat, singing nonsense, Isla’s humming along, and Winnie’s watching the sky in the passenger seat. I tuck myself in the back with the basket and the blankets.
The cemetery isn’t far. It’s right past the bend where the road narrows and the ridge dips low. I could have walked here quicker from the inn.
It’s old—stones leaning, moss creeping up the bases, names worn soft by weather. But it doesn’t feel eerie. Not today. The sky is streaked peach, the sun like a pale coin pressed against the horizon.
We spread quilts across the frozen grass, pile up blankets, and Isla strikes a match to the small bundle of kindling she brought in a tin. The fire pops and hisses to life, smoke spiraling into the fading light.
Goldie dances around the flame like it’s a bonfire at midsummer, clapping her mittened hands and singing a half-made-up song about bees and birds. Her giggles echo off the stones.
“What else is in bloom right now?” I ask, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders.
“Witch hazel,” Winnie offers. “Some hellebores, if you know where to look. My aunt swore she once saw snowdrops here in January, but few and far between. That’s why I raided my pantry instead. Bread, wine, honey. The staples of any decent Blue Willow ritual.”
She uncorks the plum wine with practiced ease, pours it into tin cups she must have snagged from her kitchen, and hands one to each of us.
“To Elspeth,” Isla says, lifting her cup. “And to Aunt Daphne.”
“To Elspeth and Daphne,” we echo.
The wine is sweet and syrupy, and it slides easily down my throat. For a second, I can almost taste jam on toast—my grandmother humming in the kitchen, the smell of her cedar chest.
Then, layered over it, another memory rises: Wells and me in the alcove, weeks ago. The same wine between us, dusk pressing at the windows, our knees pressed too close. That quiet pull I tried to ignore, before everything between us unraveled and rearranged.
Winnie tears off hunks of bread, passes them around. Goldie toddles back and forth, climbing into my lap at one point, sticky fingers pressing into my coat as she hands me a crumb she insists I eat.
I do, and she beams, curls bouncing.
“She’d like this,” I say, surprising myself with how certain I am. “Elspeth.”
“Of course she would,” Isla answers. “Your grandmother always liked when things were a little unruly. A little joyful.”
“She used to sneak me chocolates from Mrs. Fallon’s counter when I had a bad day,” Winnie adds. “Said it was good for the soul.”
I laugh. “She had the biggest sweet tooth.”
We talk more about Elspeth, about orchards and bees and the next town festival. Goldie grows sleepy against my chest, her breath soft and even. I press my chin into her hat and let the fire’s warmth sink into my bones.
Maybe I’m not so bad with kids, after all. Not when they curl up against you like they’ve known you longer than an afternoon. Not when the pressure of performance is gone.
And it doesn’t feel lonely here—not like I thought it would. With the girls around, it feels shared and steady. I wish I’d come sooner. I wish I hadn’t made my grief harder than it had to be.
When the fire’s down to embers, Isla leans closer. “Thanks for coming. You did well.”
I sigh. “I put it off too long.”
“There’s no right time,” she says gently. “Only the moment you’re ready.”
I nod, throat thick. I know my grandmother isn’t in the ground beneath us. She’s in the blossoms at Mirabelle, the jam jars at Juneberry, all the stubborn corners of the inn. But still—it feels right to say hello. Maybe even to say I’m sorry.
When the others drift back toward the Jeep, I linger a moment longer. I kneel in the frost and lay a few stems of witch hazel at the base of her headstone.
“Hi, Grandma,” I whisper. “I’m trying, I really am. I hope you know that. And I hope—I hope that’s enough for you.”
I press a kiss to my fingers, set them to her name, and let my hand rest there for a moment. There’s no tears or grand collapse, but something does loosen in my chest. An ache set free. And with it comes a sense of peace I haven’t felt in a long time.