Silas sat in the quiet kitchen as the shadows grew long on the floor. He knew he was holding a bomb, but for now, the fuse was silent. He was exactly where he was supposed to be. He watched June finish her tea. She looked at her reflection in the dark liquid. The house was silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway. Silas felt the secret of Bea's letter burning in his mind. He wanted to tell June the truth, but he saw the peace on her face. He chose to keep the burden for himself.
The next morning came with a sudden drop in temperature. Silas woke before the alarm. He dressed in layers. He met June at the tractor shed. The air was damp. A heavy mist clung to the trees. It felt like the orchard was breathing.
"We are starting in the south grove," June said. She looked worried. She was checking the leaves of a nearby sapling. "The air feels wrong. It is too humid for this time of year."
They walked toward the older section of the orchard. This was the area Silas had cleared during his first few days. As they reached the center of the grove, June stopped. She dropped her picking bag. She ran toward a large Granny Smith tree.
"No," she whispered.
Silas caught up to her. He looked at the fruit. Each apple was covered in small, velvety black spots. He looked at the leaves. They were curling and yellow at the edges. It looked like a fire had passed through the grove without burning the wood.
"What is it?" Silas asked. He reached out to touch a leaf.
"Don't," June snapped. "It is apple scab. But it is moving too fast. This shouldn't happen overnight."
She moved to the next tree. The black spots were there too. They were spreading like a rash across the skin of the fruit. Silas saw the desperation return to her eyes. This was the premium crop. This was the fruit that was supposed to pay the back taxes and fix the barn.
A truck pulled up the dirt path. Miller Reed stepped out. He didn't have his usual smile. He was carrying a magnifying glass and a sample kit. He walked straight to June. He didn't look at Silas.
"I saw the trees from the road," Miller said. He knelt by a fallen apple. He sliced it open with a pocketknife. The rot went straight to the core. "It is a fungal blight, June. The storm must have carried the spores from the abandoned orchard over the ridge."
"Can we save them?" June asked. Her voice was trembling.
Miller stood up. He looked at the rows of trees. "If we spray immediately, we might save forty percent. But the commercial buyers won't touch fruit with spots this size. They will only buy it for pulp. You will get pennies on the dollar."
Silas watched them. He felt the familiar urge to solve the problem with a check. He could buy the entire crop himself. He could pay the premium price and dump the fruit in the river. But he knew June would see through it. He had to find a way to make the fruit valuable again.
"What if we don't sell to the commercial buyers?" Silas asked.
Miller turned to him. He looked annoyed. "And do what? Sell them at a roadside stand? We have ten thousand pounds of fruit, Silas. That is a lot of pies."
"We don't sell the fruit," Silas said. He stepped closer. He was thinking like a businessman again. "We sell the story. There is a market in the city for organic, heritage fruit. People pay more for 'ugly' produce if they know it is pesticide-free and locally grown. We brand it. We don't call it a blight. We call it the Oakhaven Harvest Reserve."
"You want to sell rotten apples as a luxury item?" Miller asked. He laughed, but it was a dry sound.
"They aren't rotten," Silas said. He took the knife from Miller. He cut a thin slice of the apple. He ate it. "The flesh is perfect. The spot is only on the skin. It is purely cosmetic. I know three distributors in New York who specialize in sustainable food. They love a narrative about a small farm fighting a natural disaster."
June looked at the apple in Silas's hand. She looked at Miller. The veterinarian was a man of science and tradition. Silas was a man of marketing and manipulation. She was caught between the two.
"Miller, how much will the spray cost?" June asked.
"Six thousand dollars for the high-grade fungicide," Miller said. "And you have to apply it by hand to make sure it sticks in this humidity."
June looked at Silas. "And how much can you get for the spotted fruit?"
"If I can get the right buyers," Silas said, "I can get thirty percent more than the standard market price. But I need to make some calls. I need to use the Vane-Corp network without letting Julian know I am active."
"Do it," June said.
Miller shook his head. He walked back to his truck. "I'll go get the spray. But Silas, if your city friends don't show up, she loses everything. This isn't a game."
"I know exactly what is at stake," Silas said.
Miller drove off in a cloud of dust. Silas pulled his phone from his pocket. He looked at the screen. He had dozens of missed calls from the board. He ignored them. He searched his contacts for a man named Elias Vance. Elias ran a high-end grocery chain that catered to the elite of Manhattan.
"Elias," Silas said when the man answered. "It's Silas Vane. I have something unique for you."
June watched him. She listened to him talk about "flavor profiles" and "authentic rustic aesthetic." She saw the way his posture changed. He was no longer the man in the mud. He was the king again. It frightened her. She wondered if the man who worked in the grove was just another performance.
Silas finished the call. He looked at June. "He wants a sample. I'm going to ship a crate to the city by courier this afternoon."
"You sounded like him," June said. Her voice was cold. "You sounded like the man Julian described."
"I am using the tools I have, June," Silas said. "I am trying to save your home."
"Is that what you're doing?" she asked. "Or are you just bored? Is this orchard just a start-up to you? Something to flip for a profit?"
"You know that's not true," Silas said.
He reached for her, but she pulled away. She picked up a fallen apple and threw it into the tall grass. She walked toward the house without looking back.
Silas stood in the grove. The fog was starting to lift, but the black spots on the trees seemed darker than before. He realized that saving the orchard was the easy part. Saving the way June looked at him was going to be the real fight.
He spent the rest of the day in the shed. He didn't pick apples. He built a website. He designed a label. He used his laptop to track the movement of the organic markets. He worked with the same intensity he had used to build his software.
Miller returned in the evening with the fungicide. He and Silas worked through the night. They wore heavy masks and carried tanks on their backs. They moved through the trees like ghosts in the dark. The chemicals smelled sharp and bitter.
"You're not bad at this," Miller said during a break. They were sitting on the tailgate of Miller's truck. The moon was high and silver.
"I've had a lot of practice doing things I don't want to do," Silas said.
"June really cares about you," Miller said. He looked at the horizon. "She won't admit it. She's been hurt too much. But I see the way she watches the cottage at night."
Silas felt a pang of guilt. He thought about the letter in the barn. He thought about the lies Bea had told. "I don't deserve her, Miller."
"No," Miller said. "You don't. But you're the one she wants. Just don't break her again. I won't let you walk away twice."
They finished the spraying at dawn. Silas was covered in a fine yellow dust. His lungs felt tight. He walked back to the house to find June waiting on the porch. She held a telegram in her hand.
"Elias called the house," she said. She looked at Silas with a confused expression. "He received the sample. He said he wants the entire crop. He's paying double."
Silas leaned against the porch railing. He was too tired to celebrate. "I told you."
"He also asked about you," June said. she stepped closer. "He asked when you were coming back to the city. He said the board is offering you a seat as Chairman if you sign the Globex papers."
Silas froze. He hadn't expected Elias to talk about the company. "I'm not going back, June."
"Then why are you still getting offers?" she asked. "Why is your old life still chasing you?"
"Because it doesn't know how to let go," Silas said. "But I do."
He walked past her into the house. He needed a shower. He needed to wash the chemical taste out of his mouth. He didn't see the car pulling into the driveway. It wasn't Julian's convertible. It was a black sedan with government plates.
Two men in dark suits stepped out. They didn't look like tech executives. They looked like investigators. They walked up the porch steps and showed June their badges.
"We are looking for Silas Vane," the lead man said. "He is being summoned for a federal inquiry regarding the Thorne Holdings fraud case. We need him to come with us to the city immediately."
June looked at the door Silas had just walked through. She looked at the men. The world of Oakhaven was about to be invaded again, and this time, the iron stakes wouldn't be enough to keep the shadows away.