On my third day, Jess tells me the story of the Fernery: how a rich woman who studied botany built it, a woman who came all the way from the East Coast. How she didn’t believe in the spring, but she did believe this place, Lovesick Falls, could be healing. How she thought it was more important to stay in love than fall out of it. I miss all the important details because I am drooling over the way Jess’s blond ponytail falls across her shoulder, like some fancy woman’s ermine stole. She looks like royalty and deserves as much as a queen.

On my fourth day, we touch. Hand to hand, while building bouquets. It’s accidental, and it takes me hours to recover.

At the end of that shift, Jess asks me if I want to see something cool.

I will follow you to the ends of the earth, I think about saying, but settle for “okay.”

“It’s kind of a tough walk,” says Jess.

“I can handle it,” I say.

Jess leads us into the woods behind the Fernery, on a trail that maybe isn’t a real trail, just a light tattoo that has emerged where other people have walked before us. Jess walks confidently, even in the places where the trail disappears. The ground practically shines where she takes her steps, like she’s so sparkly her footprints are made of glitter. The trees tower over us. The air smells slightly of lemons. She talks about the redwood canopy, how scientists discovered an entire ecosystem up there, full of water, animals, and life.

“This way,” says Jess, and veers from the path. Briefly, I hear Celia—Where’s the map? The compass? The emergency trail mix?—but Jess seems to know the way in her body. I leave Celia on the trail and follow Jess to I-don’t-know-where.

We cross a gully where a great tree has fallen, where the earth is so soft it can suck the shoes from your feet. Jess climbs over the tree, as confident as a squirrel monkey. She lends me a hand—her hand! In mine! The world stops!—and no sooner have I contemplated holding it, interlacing her fingers with mine, than Jess pulls away and points.

“There,” she says.

Across the gully, rising from a bed of ferns, is a tree with needles that are as white as bone. It’s a witchy ghost tree that stands out in the muted palette of the forest, the greens and browns and ochers. But there’s something stunning about it—as if snow fell over this one particular tree, settled lovingly over its branches, and ignored the rest of the forest.

It’s smaller than the neighboring trees, though still twice my height when we get up next to it.

“Is it sick?” I ask. I touch the branches, expecting them to be dry and brittle, but the needles feel healthy.