Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“Maybe I can use that shot in my cookbook one day,” Aaron joked. “I’ll just pretend you’re all my nonexistent kitchen staff.”
“I demand royalties for the use of my image,” Phoenix joked. “At least one batch of homemade pancakes per week.”
He was in fine form again.
“Darcie went to collect more oranges,” Ash said just as I was about to ask about the missing member of the group. “There’s a big old tree around the side of the house. Heaps of fruit on the branches. We figured why not use them.”
Even though my stomach was in full hunger mode, I couldn’t give up the chance to photograph what might be an heirloom orange tree groaning with fruit against the gold of the grass and the stone of the estate, possibly the mountains in the distance. I hadn’t even known oranges would grow in this kind of climate. I would’ve thought it much too cold.
Filching a piece of toast that Aaron had just buttered, I ran out the door while he was pretending to protest. My boots were right there; I shoved the toast in between my teeth so I could use both hands to pull them on. Only when I was halfway down the steps did I realize I had no idea which “side of the house” Ash had meant. I was turning on my heel to go ask when he called out, “Burned wing!”
This, I thought after a yelled-out “Thank you,” was what I’d missed terribly while living so far from home. Friends who knew me inside out. And who didn’t care about my quirks. No, that wasn’t the way to put it. They cared but in the right way. Rather than being annoyed by my desire to capture the world in images, they enabled it.
It took a lot of effort not to be distracted by the silent dark flames on the walls of the burned wing, but I wanted to get photographs of Darcie gathering the oranges, so I forced myself to carry on. The rest of the week awaited for me to return to the ruins, lose myself to the silent story told by the shattered windows and gaping holes.
I’d finished off the toast and was puffing by the time I ran around the corner—I’d stopped my daily runs after my diagnosis and was definitely paying the price for it now. Dr. Mehta was right—I had to learn to deal or my life would go down the toilet. Because if I couldn’t move fast, I couldn’t shoot the world as I wanted to shoot it.
As I cleared the corner, my foot caught on something and I went flying.
“Fuck!” I scrambled to save my camera from smashing onto the cold ground, barely managing to hold my feet. Meanwhile, I could imagine my mother’s face as she shook her head. Mum could be raucous, but she hated swearing and always had.
Once I was stable again, I turned to check what I’d tripped on. It proved to be a stack of bricks held together by mortar. The top ones were badly cracked and broken.
“Luna!”
Jerking up my head, I saw Darcie waving at me from around the side of the curving wall that I’d spotted when we’d arrived, the pink of her jacket a bolt of color against the gold and black.
I jogged over to join her. “Almost tripped on a pile of bricks.”
“Oh, I forgot about that. There was a small gatehouse there. Old Blake Shepherd apparently had plans to fence off his land at one point.”
“From what?”
Darcie shrugged. “Who knows. Anyway, he ended up having the gatehouse pulled down after Clara died.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “She died first? But she was so much younger than him.”
Darcie’s eyes went to the ruined wing in a silent answer.
“The fire?” I whispered.
She nodded, a tight smile on her face. “I’ll tell you about it another time. Just don’t have the bandwidth today.”
Though the hunger to know more about Clara gnawed at me, I knew Darcie well enough to understand pushing would achieve nothing. The eldest Shepherd sister was good at appearing flexible, but she only ever did what she wanted.
Watch out, Nae-nae. My sister will talk you into her plan to undertake a bank heist and have you believing that you were the one that came up with the idea in the first place.
Bea’s long-ago advice whispered in my head as I followed Darcie around the wall. And stopped. Stared. “I don’t believe it.”
It was an orchard.
A central orange tree groaning with fruit, other trees just bursting into leaf, while tiny blooms of pink and white covered myriad branches. “How can all this stuff be growing down here?” I asked. “It’s too cold for at least some of the trees, right?”
“No idea really.” Darcie snagged an orange and put it in her basket. “Our guess is that they were protected by the walls as they grew and became acclimatized to the conditions. They’re basically wild now, as the most Jim does in terms of care is dispose of the fallen fruit, but we have found a couple of records that suggest there was glass over the top at some point. Timing says it was put in place after Blake’s marriage.”