“The night we met. When I found all those apples on my side of the fence.”

“What did you see?” she demanded.

“All I saw was you,” he said, which made Claire’s features go soft as she looked up at him. “What—” He didn’t get to say anything else, because Claire had decided to kiss him.

“Hey,” Bay said. “Where did all the photographs go?”

PART THREE FORESIGHT

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER

14

I can’t reach them,” Sydney said. Bay was lying on her side on the grass, her head resting on her arm. She’d been dozing that Sunday afternoon in the garden, but the sound of her mother’s voice caused her to open her eyes. Claire and Sydney had propped an old wooden ladder against the trunk of the apple tree. Sydney was at the top, reaching toward the branches. Claire was holding the bottom of the ladder steady.

“I might be able to reach that one,” Sydney said, pointing to a lower branch on the other side, “if we move the ladder.”

Claire shook her head. “It will move it before we get there.”

Sydney made an exasperated sound, hissing through her teeth. “Stupid tree.”

“Hey, I thought I’d find you out here,” someone called. The sisters looked over their shoulders. Evanelle was walking down the path.

“Hi, Evanelle,” Sydney said as she backed down the ladder. She stopped at the fourth rung from the ground and jumped the rest of the way, her skirt billowing in the air like a parasol. That made Bay smile.

“What are you girls doing?” Evanelle asked as she got closer.

“Trying to get the photographs of Mom away from the tree,” Claire said, even though she was only doing it because Sydney wanted to. Bay noticed that Claire had been distracted lately. Today she was wearing two different earrings, one blue and one pink. “It’s been six weeks. I don’t understand why it won’t let us have them.”

Evanelle looked up at the black-and-white squares sticking out among the leaves and apples on its highest branches. “Let it have the pictures. That tree always loved Lorelei. Leave it be.”

Sydney put her hands on her hips. “I’m going to cut off its branches.”

“The branches won’t break,” Claire reminded her.

“It’ll make me feel good to try.”

“It will conk you with apples.” Claire sighed. “Maybe we can get Bay to talk to it again.”

“The only time we’ve even been close to getting to the photos was when Bay said she wanted to see what her grandmother looked like,” Sydney explained to Evanelle. “It lowered a branch to show her but snapped it back when we tried to grab it.” Sydney turned to Bay, who closed her eyes quickly. Ever since that night, the only time she got to hear the good stuff was when no one thought she was listening. “Let’s not wake her.”