Silas Reed remembered the first leaf that fell from that tree.
It was October 17th last year, a rare fine day in Boston. He stood at the herbarium window counting specimens, while Jasper Locke sorted his coat behind him—the sound of her fingers brushing the fabric like wind sweeping through a wheat field. Then she paused and said, "Silas, autumn has come."
He turned to look. A ginkgo leaf was pressed against the glass, like a hand knocking, or a farewell. Jasper Locke walked over, slipped the leaf into his copy of Plant Taxonomy on the desk, and said, "When it dries, I'll make a bookmark for you."
That bookmark was still in his drawer. The leaf was brittle now, its color faded from golden to tawny, yet the veins stood out even more clearly—like a map, like some script he could not decipher.
Today he stood at the window again. The tree had seven leaves left.
"Silas."
He turned. Jasper Locke stood in the doorway, holding an insulated bag. She walked slowly, right foot landing first, left foot following gently, as if testing the solidity of the ground. Silas knew that gait; she had started walking like this three months ago. At first she said she'd twisted her ankle by accident, then that her shoes didn't fit, and later she said nothing at all.
"Follow-up today," Jasper Locke said, setting the insulated bag on the desk. "The doctor said I'm recovering well."
Silas looked at her. Her face was pale—not the healthy kind, but the pallor of long seclusion from sunlight, like the plant roots preserved in formalin in the herbarium. She wore makeup, a faint red on her lips that made her look less like a patient.
"I brewed oolong tea," Jasper Locke said, taking a thermos from the bag. "And chestnut cakes. You didn't sleep well last night, did you? Your eyes are red."
Silas took the cup. The tea was warm, not scalding, perfect to drink. Jasper Locke always knew the right temperature, the right time, every detail. They'd first met ten years ago, in the coffee lounge of an academic conference. She'd handed him a cup of coffee and said, "One sugar cube—you don't like it too bitter." He'd been surprised then, for he truly only took one sugar, yet he didn't remember telling her.
Later, when they grew close, he asked how she'd known. Jasper Locke smiled and said, "When you poured your coffee just now, you picked up the sugar bowl and put it down, then picked it up again, and finally only took one cube."
That was Jasper Locke. She observed everything, remembered everything, yet never spoke of it unprompted.
"The Yunnan specimens arrived," Silas said. "They're contaminated—probably fungal spores mixed in during collection. I need to reprocess them."
What was he saying? He didn't know himself. The words drifted in from far away, as if spoken by someone else. His mind was fixed on that report—the one he'd picked up in the hospital corridor three days ago, the one Jasper Locke had left on a bench, thinking he hadn't seen it.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.Genetic testing recommended.
Silas didn't recognize the term, so he looked it up. The dictionary said it was a neurodegenerative disease, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Patients gradually lost motor function, until they could no longer breathe. No cure. Average survival: three to five years.
He researched further. He read a description: the patient is slowly frozen, starting from the limbs, spreading toward the core, until even the eyeballs can no longer move—yet consciousness remains clear, fully aware of their body dying inch by inch.
Silas closed his laptop and sat in the dark for a long time. Then he stood up, went to the kitchen, and brewed coffee with one sugar cube.
"Silas?" Jasper Locke's hand waved in front of his face. "What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing," he said. "I'm counting the leaves."
They'd counted the leaves on that tree together last autumn. Jasper Locke had guessed the last leaf would fall on November 3rd; Silas, calculating wind speed and temperature, had guessed November 1st. It had fallen on November 2nd, at three in the afternoon—windy, no sun. Neither had won, but Jasper Locke had said, "This is best—neither of us has to treat the other."
She'd joked then. Now she rarely laughed.
"Seven left," Silas said. "I bet Thursday afternoon."
"I bet Friday morning," Jasper Locke said, "foggy."
"Stakes?"
"If I win," Jasper Locke looked out the window, sunlight gilding her cheek, and Silas saw her eyelashes trembling, "you'll come with me to Yunnan. Not for a conference—just to walk around. I hear the ginkgo trees there are older, some a thousand years old."
Yunnan. Silas remembered the flight back from Yunnan three months ago. Jasper Locke had slept on his shoulder, her hand clutching his sleeve the entire time. He'd thought she was tired; now he knew it was fear. She'd fallen for the first time in Yunnan, on the stone slabs of the ancient town, scraping her knee raw. She'd smiled and said it was nothing, that she'd tripped by accident. But Silas had walked that road later—the slabs were flat, no obstacles.
"Alright," Silas said. "If I win..."
"If you win," Jasper Locke turned to look at him, her eyes unnaturally bright, "you promise to continue your research. Those orchids—you've talked about going to Guizhou for ten years..."
"Jasper Locke."
"Promise me."
Silas looked at her. There was light in her eyes, but it was not from within—it was reflected, sunlight falling into her pupils like on two pools of water that were about to dry up. He suddenly thought of their wedding day: Jasper Locke in a white dress, standing beneath the stained-glass windows of the church, sunlight the same color, her eyes just as bright. She'd said "I do" then, her voice soft but clear, like a pebble dropping into water, ripples spreading until now.
"I promise," Silas said. "But you promise me something too."
"What?"
"Stop keeping things from me."
The herbarium was quiet. The central air conditioner hummed low, like some giant creature breathing. Someone walked in the distance, footsteps light, as if afraid to disturb something.
Jasper Locke's expression didn't change. She looked at Silas for a long time. Then she lowered her head, took a photograph from her pocket, and placed it on the desk.
The photo was old, its edges yellowed, but well-preserved. A woman stood under a ginkgo tree, holding an infant in her arms. The woman wore a jade bracelet on her wrist, identical to the one Jasper Locke wore. On the back of the photo were words: one line was a symbol Silas couldn't read, the other was English: F. Thorne, 1987.
"This is Finn Thorne," Jasper Locke said, her voice flat, as if speaking of something unrelated to herself. "You know him—from international conferences. This is his mother, or rather, the woman who raised him. This bracelet was given to me by her."
Silas picked up the photo. The woman's face resembled Jasper Locke's, but it was not the same person—younger, yet older, with something in her eyes that Jasper Locke lacked, as if she had seen too much time.
"1987," Silas said. "How old were you then?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does matter. Jasper Locke, how old are you really? You told me you're thirty-eight, but there's a ten-year gap on your resume—from twenty to thirty, no records at all. Where did you go? What did you do? This Finn Thorne—why did he give you this photo?"
Jasper Locke didn't answer. She looked out the window, the seven leaves shaking in the wind like seven small flags, seven question marks.
"I can't say," she finally spoke, her voice soft, as if coming from far away. "Not because I don't want to, but because I can't. Silas, some things mean danger if you know them. Danger for you."
"What kind of danger?"
Jasper Locke turned to look at him. There was something in her eyes Silas had never seen before—not fear, not sorrow, but something deeper: resignation, relief, like a traveler who has walked a long road finally seeing the end.
"Death," she said. "Or something worse than death."
Silas was about to press further, but the herbarium door opened, and a gust of wind blew in, carrying the chill of autumn. A leaf drifted past the window, pressed against the glass—just like last year's, like a hand knocking, or a farewell.
Silas counted. Six leaves left.
"I'm hungry," Jasper Locke said, suddenly returning to her gentle tone, as if nothing had happened. "Let's go get Vietnamese pho. You promised to come with me this week."
She linked her arm through his, her grip light, as if afraid to hurt him, or to be hurt by him.
They ate pho at a restaurant by the Charles River. Jasper Locke ate slowly, with a spoon, not chopsticks. Her left hand rested under the table; Silas knew it was because it no longer obeyed her fully. He pretended not to see, pretended not to notice the tremor in her fingers when she pushed a spring roll toward him.
"Is it good?" Jasper Locke asked.
"Yeah."
"You haven't even tasted it."
Silas looked down and realized he hadn't touched his chopsticks. He was staring at her hand—the left one under the table. The lamplight fell on the tabletop, and he could see her shadow, the shadow of that hand trembling slightly, as if blown by wind, like a leaf about to fall.
"Jasper Locke," he said, "let's go to the hospital. Not for a follow-up—for admission. I know a neurologist who's researching new treatments..."
"There are no new treatments," Jasper Locke interrupted, her voice still soft but with an unshakable certainty. "Silas, there are no treatments. I know what this is—better than you. I knew in Yunnan."
Silas looked at her. Her face was pale and calm in the lamplight, like paper washed clean, all writing blurred, leaving only the tenacity of blankness.
"Then why didn't you say anything?"
"Because it wouldn't have helped," Jasper Locke said. "Because I wanted a few more normal days with you. Because..." She paused, lowering her head. "Because I was afraid. Afraid you'd look at me like a patient. Afraid you'd take care of me out of duty, not love."
Silas tried to speak, but found no sound would come out. Something was stuck in his throat, like the unfinished oolong tea, cold and bitter, impossible to swallow.
"I love you," he finally said, his voice hoarse, as if unused for a long time. "Not out of duty. Because... because you remember I only take one sugar cube. Because you turn my leaves into bookmarks. Because..." He couldn't go on—these things were too light, too ordinary, too fragile to carry the weight of his feelings now.
Jasper Locke reached out and took his hand. Her hand was cold, but her right hand was strong, gripping tightly, as if passing something to him, as if leaving a mark on him.
"That's enough," she said. "Silas, that's enough."
They walked along the riverbank. The setting sun dyed the river red, like blood, like some ancient pigment. Jasper Locke walked slowly, and Silas matched her pace—they were like two old people, though one was forty-five, and the other... he didn't know how old she really was.
"Silas," Jasper Locke said suddenly, "what will you do if one day I can't walk, can't speak?"
Silas looked at the river. Leaves floated on the water, yellow and red, like a school of migrating fish, like a flock of dying butterflies.
"I'll push you in a wheelchair," he said. "I'll speak for you. I'll..."
"You'll get tired," Jasper Locke said. "You'll grow weary. Three years, five years—you'll go from a botanist to a caregiver. You'll hate me, hate this disease that traps you, hate..."
"I'll never hate you," Silas said, turning to look into her eyes. "I might hate the heavens, hate this disease, hate everything that makes you suffer. But I'll never hate you, Jasper Locke. It took me ten years to find you—I won't give up on you in five."
Jasper Locke smiled. It was the saddest smile Silas had ever seen—her lips curved upward, but her eyes drooped downward, like a face torn apart, pulled in two directions by opposing forces.
"You know," she said, "this is why I fell in love with you. You believe in time, in perseverance, in changing things if you try hard enough." She paused, looking into the distance. "But some things can't be changed, Silas. Some things are fated."
"Like what?"
"Like leaves falling," Jasper Locke said. "Like people dying. Like..." Her phone rang, a sharp sound cutting her off. She glanced at the screen, and her expression shifted—subtle, but Silas saw it: her pupils constricted, like a plant reacting to harsh light.
"I need to take this," she said, walking a few steps away, her back to him, to the setting sun.
Silas stood still. He watched her back, her shoulders, her hair fluttering in the wind. She spoke in a low voice, and he couldn't make out the words—but he heard a name, one she'd muttered in her dreams: Qing Nang.
She'd never explained that name. He'd asked once, and she'd said it was an ancient herbalist, a subject of her research. He'd believed her, or pretended to.
Jasper Locke returned, her face paler still, but her voice steady. "The hospital," she said. "Appointment confirmation. Let's go back—I'm tired."
That night, after Jasper Locke fell asleep, Silas stood alone at the window. Moonlight fell on the plants in the backyard—those rare species he'd collected, those leaves and flowers he'd spent half his life searching for—now all silver-gray shadows, like something he'd never truly understood.
He thought of the photograph, of Finn Thorne, of the "Yunnan" Jasper Locke had mentioned. He opened his laptop and began to search, but stopped after a while. He didn't know what to search for, what questions to ask. He only knew that his wife, the woman he'd shared a bed with for ten years, had a past he didn't know, a world he couldn't reach.
He closed the laptop and returned to the bedroom. Jasper Locke turned over in her sleep, letting out a soft moan. Her left hand slipped out from under the quilt, and in the moonlight, Silas saw a pattern on her wrist—like blood vessels, or leaf veins, forming a fan shape beneath her skin.
He blinked. The pattern was gone. Maybe it was the light and shadow, maybe his exhaustion, maybe his imagination.
But he remembered the shape. A ginkgo leaf. Just like the one on the tree outside.
Silas lay in bed, listening to his wife's breathing. It was soft, shallow, like a leaf falling, like a drop of water evaporating, like something fading away.
He thought of their wedding, of her voice when she said "I do." It had been solid, full, like a cup brimming with water. Now her voice was empty, like a cup drained dry, only the echo of the walls remaining.
Outside, the ginkgo tree shook in the wind. Silas counted the six remaining leaves, his eyes open in the dark until dawn.
What he didn't know was that at that very moment, three thousand miles away in Switzerland, Finn Thorne stood before a plant that hadn't bloomed in thirty years, watching it unfurl blood-red flowers at midnight. He picked up the phone and dialed a number.
On the other end, Jasper Locke stood in the kitchen, left hand holding the phone, right hand pressed to her abdomen. In the dark, her eyes glowed faintly green.
"It's bloomed," Finn said. "How much time does your daughter have left?"
"Enough," Jasper Locke said. "Enough for him to hate me, then forget me."
"He won't forget."
"Then enough for him to find the truth," Jasper Locke said, "and make his choice."
She hung up and returned to the bedroom, lying down beside Silas. Under the quilt, her left hand clenched, nails digging into her palm, using pain to fight the cold erosion spreading through her spinal cord.
It was not ALS. It never had been.
It was the Dao Seed—a poison from another world, sealed inside her by her mother thirty years ago. It was maturing, waking, turning her into something she could not let herself become.
And in her dream, she saw a golden ginkgo forest, a young man in a Taoist crown drinking under a tree, who turned to her and said: "Junior Sister, your tribulation has come."
She did not know if it was a prophecy, a memory, or the last hope she was about to lose.
Outside, Boston's dawn was breaking. On the ginkgo tree, six leaves trembled in the wind, waiting for their moment to fall.