By evening, she was back at her grandmother's house on Hawthorne Street.
Technically, it was Morgan's house now.
She hated thinking of it that way.
The place had been empty for nearly a year, but walking inside still felt like stepping into a room her grandmother had only just left.
Her coat remained on the hook beside the door.
A ceramic pumpkin sat crookedly on the kitchen windowsill.
The old coffee maker still had a handwritten note taped to the side reminding Morgan that four scoops meant four scoops, because apparently twenty-eight-year-old Morgan couldn't be trusted any more than sixteen-year-old Morgan had been.
She smiled despite herself.
That was why she'd come home.
There was an entire house to sort through before it could be sold.
Eleven years of Morgan avoiding Bellweather had eventually collided with one unavoidable fact:
Her grandmother was gone.
And the house wasn't going to empty itself.
Morgan opened the cabinet above the coffee maker.
Most of the shelves looked exactly as she remembered them. Mismatched mugs. Too many travel cups. A tin of coffee shoved behind a stack of filters.
And, tucked in the corner, the ingredients for the pumpkin coffee her grandmother made every fall.
Morgan hadn't had one in years.
She hesitated before reaching for them.
Soon, the coffee maker sputtered to life. Warm spice filled the kitchen as she heated the pumpkin mixture and frothed the milk in her grandmother's battered metal pitcher.
The first sip was almost right.
Not quite Grandma's.
But close enough that Morgan stood there for a moment with both hands around the mug, looking at an empty kitchen that didn't feel quite as empty anymore.
For the first time since arriving in Bellweather, she relaxed.
No strange keys.
No counting apples.
No childhood superstitions.
Just her favorite coffee in the kitchen where she'd first learned to make it.
She carried her mug toward the table.
Then stopped.
There was an apple beside the stove.
Morgan stared at it.
Red skin.
Perfect stem.
One small yellow mark near the bottom.
She hadn't brought an apple home.
Slowly, she put down her mug.
Maybe it was the one Mrs. Bell had handed her.
Except Morgan remembered eating that one before she left the orchard.
And she remembered the thirteen beneath the tree.
She had left every one of them there.
Morgan picked up the apple.
It was cold. Not refrigerator cold. Morning cold.
Tiny beads of water clung to its skin.
Dew.
Morgan's fingers tightened around it.
“No.”
She nearly laughed at herself. It was an apple. A completely ordinary apple. She grabbed a dish towel and wiped it dry.
Then she set it on the counter.
Her phone rang.
Morgan jumped hard enough to splash coffee over her hand.
“Jesus.”
She snatched the phone from the table.
Mrs. Bell.
Morgan answered.
“Hey.”
“Did you take one?”
Morgan froze.
“What?”
There was a pause.
When Mrs. Bell spoke again, the warmth had disappeared from her voice.
“One of the thirteen apples.”
Morgan looked toward the counter.
The apple sat exactly where she'd left it.
“No.”
Another pause.
“Good.”
Morgan swallowed.
“Why?”
“I went back after closing.”
Mrs. Bell sounded farther away now.
“There were only twelve.”
Morgan stared at the apple.
Its skin was dry now. She knew because she'd wiped away every trace of dew herself.
But Mrs. Bell had just told her there were only twelve beneath the tree.
Morgan looked down at the dish towel still in her hand.
It was damp.
The apple had been wet.
It had been beneath that tree.
And Morgan had not brought it home.
“Morgan?”
She tightened her grip on the phone.
“Mrs. Bell?”
“Yes?”
Morgan looked at the apple.
“What happens if someone brings it home?”
