Several days later, Vika was in the shop shelving the week’s new releases when Ben burst through the door.
“Have you seen this?” He thrust out his phone.
Vika came around the aisle and peered at the flickering images on the screen. Unnatural, reaching shadows, the billow of a white veil, and unsteady camera work as feet pounded the ground running away played beneath eerie music.
“What is this?” she asked, though with each frame, it became more familiar.
“It has half a million views already,” Ben said. “The comments are full of people saying it’s the best footage since the Blair Witch Project. In the comments, people are debating whether it’s fake.”
“I knew I should have taken their phones,” Vika grumbled. She looked closer at the video caption. “They tagged the location.”
Ben put his phone away. “The Falks are thrilled. They announced moonlight orchard tours.”
That wasn’t good. Not only would more tourists be trampling through the orchard, but the extra commotion would make it more difficult for Vika to sit with Dahlia at night. All she needed was for someone to stick a camera in her face while she was trying to coax Dahlia out of hiding.
“I wonder if Eileen found anything on Dahlia and why she might still be here,” Vika said.
“Let’s go check.”
The library was quiet when they arrived. Eileen’s face brightened as they approached the desk.
“Vika, I was hoping you’d come by. I found some information.” Eileen’s voice dropped as she added, “and some of it is quite troubling.”
Eileen didn’t waste any time herding them to a small conference room. An old map was spread out on the table.
Vika stepped closer.
Two parcels sat side by side, labeled in careful script. Vale Farm and Cunningham Timber Holdings.
“Those property lines are different,” Ben said, taking a closer look.
"Right. The Vales owned that orchard for three generations before the Carsons," Eileen explained. She opened a manila folder and laid it over the map. Inside was a plastic sleeve containing a brittle advertisement clipped from a local circular.
Vale Orchard — Heirloom Apples & Tinctures Available. Remedies Prepared Upon Request.
Ben glanced up. “Tinctures.”
Eileen nodded. “There are a few mentions like that. Nothing explicit. What’s odd was that it seems the farm was fun by Prudence Vale and her two daughters, no husband. I found a fleeting mention of a Mr. Vale who died, but Prudence seemed to run the farm. Never remarried from what I can find. That alone is enough to make folks uneasy, but the mention of tinctures…"
"Witches," Vika said quietly.
Eileen nodded. "But the Cunninghams..." She pulled out a newspaper clipping from 1915. "They wanted that land. Badly."
Ben skimmed it. “Cunningham claim… boundary misdrawn… petition to reassign acreage…They wanted half the orchard,” he said.
“Seems so,” Eileen said.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she pulled out another clipping, this one from October 1918. The headline read, "Tragic Fire Claims Three Lives at Orchard."
Vika and Ben bent over the article, their shoulders touching.
Ben read over her shoulder. “Lantern accident. Barn fire spread to house—”
“It wasn’t a fire,” Vika said. “Someone was shot.”
Ben and Eileen both gaped at her.
“I… um… heard that,” Vika added lamely.
In her vision, she saw men coming with torches, their flames bouncing through the trees. Maybe the flames weren’t just from torches.
“Dahlia and her sister Misha were both killed in the fire…" Eileen paused, consulting her notes.
Anger rose hot into her throat. No wonder Dahlia was skittish. It was easy to call someone a witch when you wanted to take something they owned. In one night, she lost her sister. Twice.
“Wait,” Ben said. “You said three people died in the fire. Who was the third?”
Eileen tapped the newspaper. "John Cunningham. He was the older son.”
“So, Prudence was left alone,” Ben mused.
“I couldn’t find anything on Prudence Vale, but…” Eileen slid over another document, an auction notice from six months later.
Ben read it aloud. “Vale property abandoned…sold to Cunningham Timber Holdings…”
He looked up. “For that price?”
“Even back then, that was a fraction of its value,” Eileen said.
Vika frowned. “If they fought that hard for it, why not use it?”
No one answered right away.
Eileen shook her head. “No records of development. No logging permits filed for that parcel, not that apple trees generate much timber.”
Ben tapped the ledger lightly. “Maybe they tried.”
Vika’s gaze drifted back to the map, to where the orchard sat between the two properties. Her eyes met Ben’s and the same thought passed between them. Maybe Dahlia didn’t let them.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it. I have some things to check on it. If you need anything, come find me.” Eileen moved to the door and shut it softly behind her.
When she was gone, Vika pulled out her phone and showed Ben the photo she’d taken of the boundary marker. “This makes more sense now. Maybe Dahlia was trying to tell me about the Cunningham’s stealing their land.”
Ben frowned. “There should be more boundary markers. At least three more. We know Dahlia is tied to the orchard. What if the binding spell is tied to the boundary markers? The Falks have been doing some work there. If some of the markers are missing, that could weaken the spell. It could be why we are seeing…. activity now.”
After taking pictures of the map, Vika picked up Millie and met Ben to walk the old property line of the orchard and find the rest of the boundary markers. As they approached, Vika could see at least a dozen cars parked haphazardly along the shoulder. People wandered between the apple trees with their phones out, some filming, others taking selfies near the blooming tree.
“Let’s go this way,” Ben said, pointing in the opposite direction of the crowd.
“This is a circus,” Vika muttered.
“Let’s just find what we came for and get out of here,” Ben said, pulling out his phone.
“Agreed.”
They headed out to the back of the property where the trees grew wilder, Ben checking the map on his phone and Vika checking her compass.
Millie plunged ahead, nose to the ground, tail in the air.
Ben looked up from his phone. “I think the edge of the property should be near that cluster of birch trees. That seems like a good place to check for a marker.”
Vika liked this part of the orchard better, with the ungroomed undergrowth and haphazard trees. Millie huffed and pounced into the tall grass. Only the white tip of her tail peeked out over the brush. She seemed happier, too.
Outside the birch trees, the broken, half-rotted wood of a former fence marked the edge of the orchard.
“Look,” Vika said, pointing to the same carved symbol she had seen the night before. The post was cracked clean through; the two halves had fallen in opposite directions.
Ben bent down and ran his fingers along the split. “That can’t be good. This looks pretty recent. Should be easy to fix though.”
They marked the location and continued on. The next marker took longer to locate, hidden beneath years of leaf litter and encroaching brambles. This one was intact, the symbol carved on a rock, though it was barely visible beneath moss and lichen.
"Three down," Vika said. "One to go."
They continued following along the best they could with the map on Ben’s phone. The last marker should have been near the creek that formed the eastern boundary, but when they reached it, there was nothing but mud and tilled earth.
Ben examined the hole. “I bet it was here, but it was removed.”
“The Falks have been doing landscaping,” Vika said. “I saw equipment here last week. The timing works if that was what weakened the binding spell.”
“Hmm. Who knows what they did with it. We can recreate the spell, but I’m going to need to gather supplies.” He gave Vika a pointed look. “Also, we need to know the exact words that were spoken originally. This means you’re going to have to get Dahlia to talk to you. We’ll need her help.”
The hope that bubbled when he said he could fix it plummeted. “All right,” she said, forcing a smile and sounding more confident than she felt. “I can do that.”
They walked back to the heart of the orchard in companionable silence, Ben most likely thinking about how he was going to rebuild the spell and Vika worrying about how she was going to get Dahlia to talk to her.
When they passed the main barn, she was surprised to see Sheriff Rivera near the entrance, his normally jovial face looking stern, almost irritated. Mrs. Falk was pacing out front.
"Everything all right?" Ben asked.
Rivera looked up from his notebook. "A couple from Milwaukee got locked in the root cellar. Took the fire department twenty minutes to get them out.”
“Everything’s fine now,” Mrs. Falk said, though her face was pale.
“There’s too many people and too little structure,” the officer said. “It’s getting out of hand.”
“It’s under control,” Mrs. Falk assured him, though her hands were restless.
Rivera's expression darkened. "Mrs. Falk, you called 911 to report intruders. Besides the one locked in the cellar, you thought someone was in the house. When I got here, there was no one, but there could have been. There are people all over, you said yourself you didn’t know how the doors to the cellar got unlocked."
Vika exchanged a glance with Ben.
“It’s probably just a silly prank,” Mrs. Falk said. “I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry for bothering you.”
“It doesn’t sound like a prank,” Vika said. “I think Officer Rivera is right. I know you want tourists, but all this ghost hunting is probably harming the apple trees. Without them, you won’t have apples to sell to all the tourists.”
Mrs. Falk pressed her lips together in a tight line. “Robert is roping off the section that bloomed early and some other areas to contain it.”
“Maybe the officers can help clear the area,” Ben suggested. “Give Robert time to finish.”
Mrs. Falk bit her lip, thinking about it, her eyes darting to the line of cars on the side of the road and then back at the barn. Finally, she nodded her agreement.
Officer Rivera closed his notebook. “We will disperse the crowd. Mrs. Falk, make sure you have all the necessary permits for whatever you plan to do here.”
With that, he got on his comm and gave orders to the other officer, and the one remaining firefighter.
A scream erupted from deeper in the orchard.
Ben pulled Vika toward the sound.