I walk back to the garden after he leaves.
The binder feels heavier now, like failure soaked into its pages. I sit in the dirt, legs folded, arms wrapped around my knees, and stare at the vine bed where everything once felt alive.
And I cry.
Quietly.
Because it’s not just about rezoning.
It’s not even just about Thorn.
It’s aboutDad.
He believed in things no one else saw. Swore trees talked to each other. Said soil had memory. He used to sit at the dinner table with mulch under his fingernails, trying to explain how life moves beneath what we call dead.
And I never had proof for him.
Not when the doctors asked what he meant.
Or when the family whispered that he wasn’tright.
He died with no one believing he wasright.
Except me.
And now here I am—face to face with the same disbelief, the same sterile dismissal, and I’m still coming up short.
I wipe my eyes and whisper to the earth beneath me, “I couldn’t prove it for him. But maybe I can for you.”
The Grove doesn’t stir.
But I feel the pulse of it.
Faint.
Waiting.
If I can’t give them data, I’ll give them wonder.
If I can’t win with logic, I’ll win withtruth.
But I can’t do it alone.
I stand, grab the binder, and head toward the heart of the Grove.
“Thorn,” I whisper, voice trembling. “Please. I need you.”
CHAPTER 16
THORN
She calls for me.
Soft.
Desperate.
It winds through the roots like a song the Grove never expected to hear again.