Chapter 48
Rainbow Valley is eerily quiet when I arrive. The usual hum of music and laughter from campers checking in should be filling the air, but instead, there’s only silence.
Sheryl said she’d be here for the close-out inspection, but I count zero people as I look onward from the drive.
Birds chirp overhead, perched safely out of reach, while below, the trees spread across the ground like an unchecked virus. My gaze drifts to the pool, now a crumbling relic of what it once was. Jagged pipes protrude from its decaying cement walls, leading into blackness.
Except for one.
From its opening, roots spill outward in five directions, like gnarled fingers reaching for a ledge. My breath stammers. How many curses have they cast? How many innocent children have fallen into their grips?
It’s a small relief knowing we were right about the tree. We weren’t just desperate or grasping at straws. We trusted our instincts and now the truth is clear. But the realization doesn’t change anything. It won’t break the curse.
I search for Xander, eager to tell him what I’ve learned. Clarity, after ten years, has to be worth something.
“Hey, Stetson,” someone says.
My heart jumps. I spin around to find Sheryl walking toward me across the pool deck.
“Hey, Sheryl,” I say, exhaling.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie, distracted by the roots. “I was surprised to find the place so empty.”
Sheryl thrusts her hands in her pockets. “Oh, yeah. Kim took all the new campers down to the Ardor Tree.”
My clipboard slips from my fingers. It clatters against the concrete between my feet. “What?” My voice comes out too loud. “Why?”
“We thought it would be a cute way to start camp. The kids are going to write a word to describe their next school year on the bark. I’m guessing you’ve heard of it. Most people in Penango have. Queer kids were always left out of the tradition, so we’re going to reclaim it as—”
“No!” I shout.
Sheryl steps back.
“It doesn’t work like that,” I say, my hands flying behind my head. “Oh my god. When did they leave?”
“Not too long ago.” Her expression becomes uneasy. “Stetson, what’s going on?”
“The tree has rules that can’t be broken or else . . . things happen. Bad things!” I motion toward the pool. “Those roots. They’re from the Ardor Tree.”
She laughs. “Come on. Those rules were made up by old folks in this town.”
I suck in a breath through my teeth. “What if I told you the rules weren’t made, but cast? Like a curse.”
She chuckles again, shaking her head. “When I was in high school at Stillwell Trail, I used to write all these boys’ names on the tree, hoping it’d make them like me. It never did. They only ignored me more than before.”
“Exactly! So why would you make these kids do that?” I start backing away. “I have to stop them.”
“Now, hold on.” She raises her hands, signaling me to slow down.
“When I met Kim, that all changed. We fell in love, and I carved our names in a heart.” She pauses, her face softening with the memory.
“Suddenly the boys noticed me. It was like for the first time, they could actually see me. But at that point, I didn’t care.
It’s like the Ardor Tree knew when my carved heart was full of true love. ”
My whole body stiffens.
True love.
The words slam into me like a punch to the gut. My summer rewinds at warp speed—Xander and me, twirling under twinkle lights, laughing in my truck on the open road, fingers intertwined as we walked through the woods, his body curled against mine in the tree house.
Xander and me, over and over again.
“True love?” I echo, my voice nearly breaking.
“You’ll know when you find it.” Sheryl nods. “It fixes most things.”
A sharp pain shoots across my chest. “I . . .” It’s nearly impossible to talk through the knot in my throat. “I really need to go.”
Just like all other curses before ours, this one can’t withstand true love. The tree allows people to fall out of love, but it rejects lies!
Back in my truck, I grip the wheel, my knuckles white as I speed down the road, swerving between lanes while I call Dara and Xander.
“Meet me at the Ardor Tree now,” I instruct.
I don’t have time for explanations.
We carved the wrong names into the tree to break the curse.
I wrote Murray’s when it should’ve been Xander’s.
All along, I’ve been too afraid to admit my feelings for Xander, terrified that letting myself love again would trap me here, just like before.
But now it’s clear that loving him isn’t what’s keeping me stuck, it’s the only way to escape.
My truck crashes into the road’s shoulder for an uneven park job. I exit with my crowbar in hand, my palms slick with sweat.
I take the shortest path through the woods and reach the tree first, but the sound of laughter and high-pitched shrieks echoes behind me.
Twigs snap. Leaves crunch.
The campers are close.
We don’t have much time.
I scramble down the rounded hill, following the thick, clawing roots into the sewer pipe. It yawns open before me, a six-foot-high tunnel covered in graffiti. My pulse pounds so hard it feels like it’s lifting me off the ground with every step.
I switch on my phone’s flashlight to cut through the darkness. A root, twisted like a Twizzler, stretches infinitely along the top of the pipe. I reach for it. A shock zaps through my fingers.
I gasp, then break into a sprint, heading deeper into the shadows. My feet slam into shallow water and send waves crashing against the curved iron walls like a hurtling log flume.
The roots never stop. They aren’t searching for moisture, like the pool guy at Rainbow Valley assumed. They’re searching for people. People who live and lie for love.
The Ardor Tree’s magic isn’t just an old Penango legend. It’s alive. And it’s spreading.
“Stetson! We’re here!”
Xander’s voice reverberates through the tunnel, stopping my heart as fast as it stops my feet. I turn back. A sliver of sunlight remains in my vision.
“Xander!” I yell, sprinting toward the opening. “I know how to fix it! We can break the curse!”
I leap through the tunnel’s mouth and collide into Xander. He groans. Dara stands beside him, dressed in all black, looking unimpressed as usual.
I grip Xander’s forearms. “Stetson, what’s going on?” he asks, breathless. “Why are all these people here?”
“Please tell me this was worth sticking around Penango,” Dara says, folding her arms.
Above us, the campers crowd the tree’s base, chatting and giggling as they press their hands to the bark. Their bright outfits form a rainbow before the storm.
I lick my lips. “It all clicked today. We were right. The tree cursed us. It punishes rule breakers, and its roots run through the sewer system so no one can escape. The curse spreads across the whole county!” I point into the tunnel’s darkness. “This pipe leads straight to Rainbow Valley.”
Xander and Dara trace the roots with their eyes as their expressions darken.
“Well, now that we got the backstory,” Dara quips, “what do we do? Tear up these roots? We already tried rewriting our names.” She reaches for a root, but it zaps her before she can touch it. “Ouch!” She sucks on her finger. “Damn, I hate this thing.”
“That’s where we were wrong,” I say.
I pull Xander up the hill, pushing aside campers who block our path to the trunk. Dara follows.
“Excuse you!” a camper squeals.
“Hello, hot camp counselor,” one boy says under his breath.
“What are we going to write now?” Xander asks as we reach the tree.
At my feet lies the same jagged rock I used to destroy my heart with Murray’s name. I pick it up and place it in Dara’s hands.
“Take this and carve someone’s name in a heart. Someone you truly love.”
Her lips part. “Even if it’s not a boy?”
I nod. “As long as it’s honest.”
With a deep breath, she vanishes behind the trunk.
I turn to Xander, searching his face. “Back in your tree house,” I say, my voice shaking, “you told me I could be the name for your blank space. Did you mean it?”
He raises his eyebrows. “What?”
“You said you had an extra chair for someone to sit.” I swallow. “The same person who could fill the blank space in your heart. Can it be me?”
His face flushes. “Well, yeah. I was hoping it would be all summer.”
“Then trust me on this.”
I nod before starting to carve my newest heart.
One that’s true.
“Stetson!” Kim yells. She steps in front of the onlooking campers. “What are you doing here?”
“These. Kids. Can’t. Touch. This. Tree.” I etch each letter of my name with my crowbar. “It. Is. Cursed.” I gasp for breath. “Only. People. In. Love. Belong. Here.”
The heart comes together faster than any before. I drop the crowbar to admire my work, my chest heaving, fixing the curse for both of us.
“Xander and Stetson,” Xander reads.
“Xander and Stetson,” I repeat.
He stares. “You’re in love with me?”
Suddenly, the tree moans to life.
A sonic boom erupts from its core and sends shock waves through the ground, rattling our knees. Everyone shudders. Campers shriek and grab on to each other. Xander jumps into my arms.
I find Louise and Abigail’s pentacle on the bark, and it glows bright like the sun.
“Stetson!” Dara yells. She crawls toward me on the shifting earth.
I reach for her, but hundreds of leaves break free from their stems and plunge like nose-diving planes. My hand recoils. They spiral into a tornado. The suction lifts Xander’s curls and wraps his shark-tooth chain tight around his neck. Dara’s shirt flaps like a flag.
I hold on to Xander with everything I have.
“Is it working?” he shouts over the storm.
“I think so!” I respond.
Then—silence.
As quickly as they started, the tree’s movements stop. The whirlwind dies.
I’m the first to face the consequences of our actions. The leaves rain to the ground and pile up to our knees. My clothes are nearly inside out, my hair sticks in all directions.
We gasp for breath.
“Xander, it’s done,” I whisper, shaking him. “You can open your eyes.”
His body trembles. Slowly, he opens one eye, then the other.
“I’m ready now,” I say, cupping his cheeks.
He exhales. “You still haven’t said—”
Before he can finish, I kiss him.
A rush of sweetness floods my mouth like biting into a Starburst. At first, he’s stiff, then he melts into me. He grabs my neck and kisses me back, forcefully, with pressure, like he’s thought about this for ten years.
The campers applaud and whistle.
“Is this a theatre camp?” one girl asks. “Because I love this show.”
“Right?” a boy echoes. “The special effects are slaying. Where did the other guy and girl appear from?”
“God, I’m jealous,” another boy groans. “I thought this camp was supposed to make me feel better about myself.”
We separate, laughing.
“You are late,” Xander says.
“And you are right on time,” I say.
“Maybe that’s by design.” He looks to the tree.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” I say.
Xander presses his forehead to mine. “Stetson, I’ve waited my whole life,” he says. “I’d give up another decade just for one more day with you.”
He turns. His face flushes as the dozens of campers stare directly at him. “I can’t believe it.” He pats his chest, testing his new reality. “I get to start over.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You get a second chance to keep going.”
Dara clears her throat. “I didn’t know I was third wheeling this whole time,” she says, brushing leaves from her arms.
I smile. “We kind of just figured it out ourselves,” I say.
“Speak for yourself,” Xander says. “I knew the day I saw you.”
I gasp.
“Who did you write?” I ask Dara.
She exhales. “Ra-Ra.” Her heels bounce. “I gave that girl too hard of a time when I was younger. Learned to love her over the years.”
My gaze drifts upward and gets lost in the Ardor Tree’s vast crown. Its leaves glow in the sunlight, translucent and trembling like thousands of tiny, beating hearts. Thick branches stretch wide, their shadows cast like protective arms over every couple.
Maybe it is a good matchmaker after all.
For the first time, I notice just how high the trunk reaches. It towers above every tree in the forest, rising above the rest of Penango.
I’ve spent too long looking down, trying to cover dust from broken hearts and tear out my roots. That’s how I thought I’d escape.
But now I realize all I had to do was stand on them and lift my head.
The names covering the bark blur together. There’s too many to count. I no longer see them as ghosts of the past or couples to envy. They morph into an ascending map—every couple, or individual, a guide along the journey—not to what has been, but to everything that still could be.