Chapter 1

The truck’s headlights cut across the rutted drive and died against the side of the house. Ethan killed the engine and sat a moment with his hands on the wheel, listening to the tick of cooling metal and the low, constant drone of insects. The farm looked smaller than he remembered. Or maybe the dark just made everything shrink.

He stepped out. The air was thick and warm, heavy with the smell of turned earth and something sweeter underneath—rotting fruit, maybe, or the sour edge of standing water. The porch light was on. Through the screen door he could hear the low murmur of the television and the occasional clink of a glass.

Clara opened the door before he reached it. She was barefoot, wearing an old tank top and a pair of cutoffs that had been his father’s once. Her hair was longer than when he’d left, darker at the roots, and she had a smear of dirt on one forearm that she hadn’t bothered to wash off.

“You’re early,” she said.

“Traffic was light.” He set his bag down. “Where are they?”

“Lena’s in the barn. Mia’s upstairs.” Clara stepped back to let him in. The kitchen smelled like coffee that had been sitting too long and the faint chemical tang of the cheap cleaner she used on the counters. A stack of envelopes sat beside the toaster, most of them red-bordered. She followed his glance and didn’t move to hide them.

“They’re not going to wait much longer,” she said.

“I know.”

He poured himself a glass of water from the tap. It tasted like iron. Outside, the porch light caught the edge of the nearest field—rows that should have been knee-high by now were still low, patchy, some of them already yellowing at the tips. The irrigation lines ran through the dirt like exposed veins.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

Clara leaned against the counter, arms crossed under her chest. The tank top pulled tight across her. “Bad enough that Lena’s been sleeping out there most nights. Says she can hear the roots talking. Mia thinks she’s losing it.”

“And you?”

“I think the soil’s tired.” She said it flatly, the way she used to say the weather was turning. “Your father always said it would come due. I just didn’t think it would be this soon.”

Ethan set the glass down. The water had left a rusty ring on the counter. “I’m here now. We’ll figure it out.”

Clara’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “That’s what he used to say.”

Footsteps on the stairs. Mia appeared in the doorway in an oversized T-shirt and nothing else that he could see. Her legs were bare, long and pale, and she stopped when she saw him, one hand still on the banister.

“You came back,” she said.

“Told you I would.”

She crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge, standing in the cold light longer than necessary. The T-shirt rode up. Ethan looked away. When she turned, she had a bottle of beer in one hand and was watching him over the top of it.

“Lena’s not going to be happy you’re here,” she said. “She thinks we can still do it without you.”

“Do what?”

Mia took a long pull from the bottle. Foam clung to her upper lip. She wiped it with the back of her wrist and didn’t answer.

Clara pushed off the counter. “Go get cleaned up. Dinner’s in the oven. We’ll talk after.”

Ethan carried his bag upstairs. The hallway was narrow; the runner had worn thin in the middle. His old room still smelled like cedar and the faint ghost ...