We found Merrick in the old potting house.
The building stood where it always had, or at least where it had stood the last time we visited. Its door was open, and the smell of damp earth, leaves and wood smoke drifted into the orchard.
Merrick was sitting at his workbench, sorting a collection of seeds into small paper packets.
He looked up as we entered.
“Ah,” he said. “You've been to the old orchard.”
It was not a question.
Nell placed the pale stone on the bench.
“Do you know what this is?”
Merrick put down his seeds and picked it up.
He turned it over once, then again. His thumb rested on the small blue mark.
“Where did you find it?”
“Under the third tree.”
Merrick nodded slowly.
“I wondered when that would happen.”
Rowan folded his arms.
“Does everyone in this valley know what's going to happen except us?”
“No,” said Merrick. “Some of us are just better at recognising it afterwards.”
He placed the stone on the bench and went to a shelf at the back of the room. There he took down a shallow wooden box. Inside lay several stones, all pale and smooth, each marked with a small blue line.
Nell leaned closer.
“They're the same.”
“Not quite,” Merrick said. “Look carefully.”
The marks were different. One curved like a leaf, another resembled a small branch, and a third was almost a circle.
“Where did they come from?” I asked.
“From the ground beneath the old orchard.”
“Were they planted there?”
Merrick smiled.
“Stones aren't usually planted.”
Rowan looked at him.
“Some things in this valley are.”
Merrick laughed.
“Fair enough.”
He picked up the stone Nell had brought.
“These are not seeds, but they have something in common with them. Each one marks a place where something may begin.”
“Begin what?” asked Nell.
“That's not always known in advance.”
He took a small clay pot from beneath the bench and filled it with dark soil. Then he made a shallow hollow in the centre.
“May I?” he asked Nell.
She handed him the stone.
Merrick placed it in the hollow, covered it lightly with soil, and watered it.
“Now we wait.”
“How long?” Rowan asked.
Merrick shrugged.
“Until something happens.”
Rowan looked towards the ceiling.
“I see.”
Merrick returned to his workbench and opened another drawer. He took out a small wooden bird, the one with blue thread around its neck.
Nell recognised it immediately.
“That's the bird from the mountain house.”
“Yes.”
“Why do you have it?”
“Because I made it.”
“But it was there.”
Merrick nodded.
“Sometimes I make things before I know where they belong.”
He placed the bird beside the clay pot.
The room became very quiet.
Then, from somewhere beneath the workbench, came a faint tapping sound.
Merrick looked down.
“Ah.”
He moved aside a stack of wooden trays and uncovered a narrow opening in the floor. It was no larger than a cupboard door, with a small iron ring set into its centre.
Rowan crouched beside it.
“What's down there?”
Merrick looked at him.
“Roots.”
“Only roots?”
“Mostly.”
He lifted the little door.
Below it was darkness, but not the darkness of an empty space. I could see something pale moving far beneath us, like the underside of leaves stirred by a breeze.
Merrick did not descend.
“There's another garden underneath this one,” he said.
“Where does it lead?” I asked.
“Sometimes to the orchard. Sometimes to places the orchard hasn't grown into yet.”
Nell knelt beside him.
“Can we go down?”
“Not today.”
She looked disappointed.
Merrick smiled.
“There's no hurry. The roots are still finding their way.”
He closed the little door.
Then he turned to the clay pot.
A thin green shoot had appeared in the soil.
It was so small that I might have mistaken it for a blade of grass, except that its tip bore a tiny white bud.
Merrick bent over it.
“Well,” he said softly. “That was quick.”
Nell looked at the shoot.
“Is it the same as the one beneath the tree?”
“I think so.”
“Then what will it become?”
Merrick considered.
“Perhaps something that has been waiting a long time.”
He took the little wooden bird and placed it beside the pot.
The bird's blue thread had come loose. One end lay across the soil, touching the new shoot.
Merrick watched it for a moment.
Then he looked at us.
“I think the orchard has begun to remember its roots.”
Outside, a breeze moved through the trees.
And from somewhere beneath the old potting house, we heard the faint sound of running water.
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