Beyond the Spring Breeze: The Orchard Summer novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: Hard Frost
The hard frost came on a Wednesday night, at twenty-six degrees, and it came quietly.
I woke at dawn to a window gone white.
Every blade of grass in the yard was furred with ice, and the apple leaves that were left hung stiff and silver on the branches.
The thermometer on the barn said twenty-four.
I stood at the kitchen sink with my coffee and looked out at the orchard, and I knew what day it was.
My mother came in behind me and stood quiet.
"Is it today?" she said.
"It's today."
"What does that mean?"
"It means the summer is over," I said. "That was the deal. From the last petal to the first hard frost."
"Did you make that deal with the thermometer?"
"With a man, Ma."
"Then it's the man you should ask, not the thermometer," my mother said, and handed me my cap.
I walked out the back door into a world of glass.
The grass crunched under my boots.
Every branch rang faintly when the wind touched it, and the light was low and pink behind the barn.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Beyond the Spring Breeze: The Orchard Summer are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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