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  In one hand, he held a glass test tube. With the other, he scooped up a clump of dirt and sprinkled it into the container. He put a cork in that tube and withdrew another from his cloak.

  This time, I watched him dig deeper into the earth, until his arm disappeared all the way up to the elbow. After fishing around in the soil, he pulled out a giant, wriggling worm between two fingers. I clamped a hand over my mouth and gagged in disgust as he dropped the slimy creature into the tube.

  While he continued to take more samples, I zoomed in on his face to get a better look. The wide brim of his hat cast a shadow over his features.

  I decided to take a picture so I would have proof of this trespassing weirdo.

  Only I didn’t realize until too late that I had left the flash on.

  The man jerked his head up as the bright light illuminated the field. I gasped but didn’t move from the sill.

  Instead of fleeing, the trespasser stared up at my window for what felt like forever. I held my breath the entire time.

  Then the stranger casually clipped the last tube to his belt, turned, and walked into the cornstalks until they swallowed him up.

  I shuddered. At least I had a photo of him now that I could show my parents, or even the police if necessary. I hoped that the flash had been bright enough to light up his face under that hat.

  Except when I looked down at my phone, the image only showed the barren pumpkin patch and the cornfield beyond it.

  The man wasn’t in the picture at all.

  5

  The next morning, the memory of the stranger seemed like a bizarre nightmare. When I went out to the pumpkin patch, I found a trail of boot prints too large to belong to me or even that nosy Charlie Slade.

  It had all been real.

  At breakfast, I told my dad what had happened. He stopped flipping pancakes when I mentioned the man in the dark hat. I figured that he would instantly want to call the police, or buy attack dogs, or install an electrified fence around the perimeter.

  Instead, his face scrunched up into a furious scowl. “It must have been that jerk, Ezekiel Slade. He was always taller than the rest of our class. First he vandalizes our sign, and now our crops?” He sighed. “Not that there’s much left out there to vandalize.”

  Could it be true? Could the man I saw last night be Charlie’s father? Maybe scaring my brains out in my own backyard ran in their family.

  Well, if that was the case, then I would get my revenge on both of them when my pumpkins beat theirs at the country fair!

  If I wanted to even have a chance of being ready in time, one thing was clear: I needed to start my patch today.

  After devouring a full stack of my dad’s signature butterscotch pancakes, I rode my bike into town. Dad suggested that I check out the giant waterfall that had given Orchard Falls its name. “Just don’t get too close to the edge!” he cautioned me.

  Although I had been sad to leave my friends in the city, I had to admit that it was more relaxing out here in the country—nothing but miles of cornfields and farmland, and no traffic in sight.

  My dad’s directions led me down the main road through the town’s sprawling apple orchards. When I reached the creek, I followed the path along its banks, heading south. The farther I traveled, the more intense the river grew. It eventually transformed from a serene trickle into raging rapids.

  I heard the roar of the waterfall before I even saw it. As I biked closer, I watched the river crash over a series of jagged stones that looked like broken teeth. After that, the water abruptly disappeared over the edge of a cliff.

  I had always been afraid of heights. One night back in the city, my parents had taken me to a restaurant on the top floor of a skyscraper. I nearly threw up my dinner every time I made the mistake of gazing out the window.

  I nervously moved toward the safety railing that protected the cliff’s edge. “Country Kayla is braver than City Kayla,” I told myself. “New town, new you.” With a deep breath, I finally mustered up the courage to peek over the railing.

  Big mistake. I immediately felt dizzy, mesmerized by the sight of the thunderous falls plummeting to the basin a hundred feet below. The water landed so hard that some of it instantly turned into mist and drifted off through the valley.

  I swallowed and stepped away from the edge. I had to close my eyes until the dizziness stopped. You’re safe now, I reminded myself.

  If only I knew just how wrong I would turn out to be.

  6

  Now that I had seen the town’s signature landmark—and faced my fears in the process—shopping for pumpkin seeds sounded like a tame, stress-free task. To my dismay, nothing was open when I arrived at the pathetic strip of storefronts that Orchard Falls laughably called “downtown.” The general store, the flower shop, the town’s only diner, which was the size of our garage—all closed because it was Sunday.

  I was about to give up when I came upon a chalkboard sign just outside of town. “Seed Sale!” it read. An arrow pointed down an unpaved road.

  I followed the path until I came to a rickety shack. Tall weeds grew wild around it, and the shop was silent except for the chirp of crickets out in the field.

  I stepped onto the porch. A swing rocked even though there was no breeze, as though someone had just gotten off it.

  It was hard to imagine that this little shack could be a real store, but a handwritten sign in the window cheerfully declared, “Come in!” so I shrugged and opened the screen door.

  The store was dark except for a few slivers of daylight shining through the grungy windowpanes. Shelves lined the cramped space, forming a maze. As far as I could see, there were no other customers—and no shopkeeper, either, for that matter.

  “Hello?” I called out. “I’m just here to buy some seeds for my pumpkin patch. Hello?”

  I stopped talking when I noticed the glass jar on the shelf in front of me. Murky water swirled about inside. I picked it up off the shelf. As I peered through the glass, a dark figure slowly rotated into view.

  A black exoskeleton.

  A long, curled tail that ended in a stinger.

  Two powerful sets of claws.

  I stared into the dead scorpion’s four pairs of glassy eyes, and wrinkled my face in disgust. The rest of the jars on this shelf contained a series of other creatures. A python. A jellyfish. A horseshoe crab.

  What kind of creepy farm supply store kept the carcasses of dead animals on display?

  I went to put the jar back on the shelf—

  And found a man gazing through the gap right back at me.

  7

  I shrieked, so startled that I dropped the jar. It shattered all over the floor. Cold, foul-smelling liquid splattered against my shoes and socks.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” the man said in a raspy but quiet voice. He bowed his pale head. “My apologies.”

  He stepped around the shelf and I instantly felt embarrassed for screaming. The tall man wore denim overalls, leather gardening gloves, and a name tag that identified him as “Abel.”

  He was clearly just the shopkeeper.

  In fact, the man didn’t look that scary at all up close. He was probably my father’s age, though his skin was so smooth that he could have been younger. His graying hair was cropped shorter than his neatly trimmed beard. He must have worn colored contacts because his eyes were an unnaturally vivid shade of orange, like two marbles plucked from the fire.

  I realized I had just been staring in stunned silence. This guy probably thought I was a total freak show for breaking his jar.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said, pointing down at the mess of broken glass and the fluid soaking into the dusty floorboards.

  “Forget about it.” The man poked at the scorpion’s carcass with the toe of his boot. “It’s not like it can die a second time. What can I do for you today?”

  I took a deep breath and explained everything—moving to Orchard Falls, the rotting pumpkin patch, the competition coming up in a
few weeks.

  “I know that if I want to grow a pumpkin big enough to have a chance at the festival, it could take months,” I finished. “But if you have something that might even give me a head start, I’m willing to try.” I will do anything to keep Charlie from making a mockery of my new home, I added silently.

  I expected Abel to laugh in my face. Instead, he tapped his chin thoughtfully for a few moments. “I might have something of interest to you,” he said. A smile spread across his thin lips. “Please follow me.”

  8

  When Abel threw open the shack’s back door, a gust of hot, humid air instantly enveloped me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood upright as I passed over the threshold.

  I stepped out into a greenhouse filled with strange plants and flowers. Ivy crisscrossed the foggy windows. The sunlight took on an emerald tint as it filtered through the glass.

  As I passed down a row of specimens, I discovered that these were no ordinary plants:

  A cactus with spines that oozed droplets of golden liquid.

  A large Venus flytrap with a sticky layer of half-digested bugs.

  An orchid with petals that camouflaged with the scenery behind it when I approached.

  “Are these … natural?” I asked.

  “Natural?” Abel echoed. He stepped in front of the Venus flytrap. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but the plant seemed to lean toward him. He delicately ran a finger along the flytrap’s thorny teeth, and its jaws opened wider. “The world is full of organisms with extraordinary gifts. Sometimes they develop these talents on their own. Other times they just need a little push.”

  He pulled a flask from one of the pockets in his overalls and tapped a few drops of what looked like blood into the flytrap’s open mouth.

  When the drops landed inside, its jaws snapped shut.

  “For instance …” Abel continued, striding over to the cluster of bamboo next to me. The green stalks had grown so tall they seemed ready to burst through the glass overhead. “Some bamboo species can grow three feet per day. A pumpkin plant, on the other hand, takes three to four months before it matures. What if the pumpkin could learn something from the bamboo?”

  “Maybe the bamboo should teach a class,” I joked. “Get tall in thirty days or your money back!”

  Abel stared at me blankly. “Bamboo can’t talk,” he said matter-of-factly. “Its stem lacks a mouth.”

  Tough crowd, I thought. What a weird dude.

  He led me over to a small lab bench covered in diagrams of various plants and animals. The one on top showed a dissected tentacle from an octopus, with notes scribbled next to its suction cups.

  Before I could see more, Abel swept the drawings off the table with his arm. They fluttered to the floor, revealing a small chest. Abel unlatched the clasp and flipped open the top.

  I leaned in to get a closer look at the red velvet-lined interior. The box was empty except for four pumpkin seeds, each delicately placed side by side. Instead of the normal white color, these seeds were a deep shade of blue.

  Maybe it was a trick of the light, but they appeared to emit a faint glow, as if they were radioactive.

  “I bred these seeds myself,” Abel said, a swell of pride in his voice. “If they don’t grow in your fields, then I don’t know what will.”

  “Only four of them?” I asked. I couldn’t hide my disappointment. I imagined that Slade Farms must have a sea of pumpkins.

  Abel chuckled. “These pumpkins get monstrously big. I think even with four you’ll find you have your hands full soon enough …”

  When he said the word “soon,” I made up my mind: I needed those seeds at any cost. I pulled a wad of money from my jeans, everything I had saved up from babysitting over the summer back in the city. “How much?” I asked.

  Abel waved my money away. “Consider these a free trial,” he replied. “If you’re happy with the results, come back and see me again. By then, I’ll have even better specimens for you.”

  I couldn’t believe my luck. “Thank you,” I stammered finally. “I was starting to think this town was full of jerks.”

  Abel smiled, closed the lid of the chest, and handed it to me. “Well, like you, I’m not originally from around here.”

  Before I left, Abel gave me a detailed list of instructions for caring for the plants. It explained how far apart to plant them and how often to water them. He even included tubes of special fertilizer that he promised would accelerate their growth.

  After I had thanked him profusely, I climbed back onto my bike out front and placed the pumpkin seed chest in the basket over my handlebars. I called out a final “Thank you!” as I pedaled away down the lane.

  Abel stood on the front porch, waving a slow goodbye. I heard his soft voice say, “See you soon, Kayla Dunn.”

  It didn’t occur to me at the time that I had never told him my name.

  9

  The moment I got home, I headed directly for the old barn. The red doors creaked in protest as I pulled them open.

  The stale smell of manure and moldy hay washed over me. How long had it been since the barn had been aired out? It reeked worse than my musty bedroom.

  The inside of the barn was like a museum of farming equipment. A tractor that probably hadn’t been driven in years sat neglected in the corner. Rows of shovels and pitchforks lined the walls, gathering rust. A massive hay bale dangled from a hook in the ceiling, and I made sure to avoid walking underneath it. It would be hard to grow pumpkins if I was a pancake.

  It was a shame the barn smelled so bad. The lofts up top would have made an excellent place for a sleepover or a game of hide and seek.

  I eventually found the items I was looking for: a garden trowel for digging and a watering can so dented it looked like a group of kids had played soccer with it.

  On my way back past the house, my mother popped her head out of the kitchen window. “Hey, honey!” she called. “The neighbors sent over some of their boysenberries and I’m experimenting with a new jam recipe. Want to be my assistant? I’ll let you stir the pot and be my official taste tester!”

  I caught a whiff of something tart and fruity through the window. My stomach growled from hunger.

  However, I was on a mission and refused to be distracted. “Maybe later,” I told her. “These pumpkins aren’t going to plant themselves!”

  Mom laughed. “Okay, just don’t wear yourself out too much. Even the best farmers take snack breaks. And don’t forget, your first day of school is tomorrow.”

  Ugh. Like I needed reminding. I had always liked going to school well enough, but the thought of showing up for class in a small town where everyone already knew each other sounded like an absolute nightmare.

  I followed Abel’s instructions to the letter, using the garden trowel to build three small mounds. All together they formed a giant triangle.

  I planted one seed in each of the little hills, making a hole with the trowel’s handle. I took the fourth seed, which was larger than the others, and planted a fourth mound in the center.

  Then I filled up the watering can with the hose and soaked the entire patch until the soil turned dark brown. Back at the store, Abel had told me not to worry about overwatering them. “For these pumpkins to grow to their full potential, they’re going to need a lot of water—gallons of it every day. I bred them to be extra thirsty.”

  For the finishing touch, I sprinkled each plant with a few droplets of the special fertilizer Abel gave me. It looked like cough syrup, thick and red, as it dripped from the vial.

  When I was done, I stepped back and admired my work. The pyramid design of the mounds looked like some sort of ritualistic symbol had been carved into the earth.

  The next part would be the hardest:

  Waiting.

  10

  I woke up the next morning to the sound of my mother bursting into my bedroom. She sang the words “First day of school!” repeatedly in a melody she made up as she went along. She dramatically threw open t
he curtains, but I have no idea why, since it was so early there was no daylight to be found.

  I groaned and blinked the sleep from my eyes. I wasn’t sure what was worse: that the sun hadn’t even risen yet or that my mom couldn’t sing on pitch to save her life.

  I grudgingly rolled out of bed and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Everyone in my old school in the city had been obsessed with fashion, but I didn’t want to be branded a snob on my first day here. It was kind of a relief that I might not be judged anymore for being behind on the latest trends. Even kindergarteners in the city were wearing designer clothes these days!

  After eating some of my mom’s jam biscuits, I wandered out to the pumpkin patch. Ordinary seeds could take a full week to sprout, but I clung to hope that something might have happened overnight.

  I sighed. They were still just mounds of dirt, without so much as a speck of green in sight. Maybe that quack had sold me regular seeds. Heck, they could have been seed-shaped rocks for all I knew.

  The sun had finally risen by the time I biked to school. I felt anxious walking into the building, but the secretaries were so nice in the front office that I felt my nerves ease immediately.

  “Here you go, darlin’,” the redheaded office manager said with a thick twang. She handed me a class schedule and a slip with my locker combination. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then pulled a candy bar from her desk drawer and added it to my pile. “A little chocolate always gets me through the tough days,” she said with a wink.

  As I navigated the halls to my locker, my mouth full of chocolate, I thought that maybe the first day of school wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe a fresh start was exactly what I needed. Most of the students I passed gave me friendly smiles or waved. People in the city never even made eye contact with strangers.