The town smiles with cider on its breath, but Detective Cass Ryder knows the soil is sour. Transferred from the city to farm country, she thought she was chasing small-town drunks and cattle rustlers — not graves planted like crops.

When teenagers stumble on a skull beneath the apple trees, the orchard answers with more bodies, each buried upright, each arranged with a farmer’s patience. Locals whisper about the Orchard Man, a ghost story Cass once laughed at. But as the pattern stretches back decades, it knots around her own childhood — and the brother who vanished without a trace.

Every clue points inward. Every secret roots deeper. And when Cass uncovers a fresh grave with her own name scratched on the lid, she realizes the orchard isn’t just a crime scene. It’s a legacy. 

The Bone Orchard


The ground swallows me to the ribs and keeps going. Clay salts my teeth. A hand climbs my leg, nails neat, patient. I drop the pry bar and ride the pull; fighting makes earth mean. The seam shuts with a polite click. The orchard sighs like a chest getting its way.
“Cass!” Caleb’s voice scatters...

The Orchard Opens

Root Line

Sister Row

Understory

Red Thread

Key Teeth

Harvest Hours

Split Root

Sealed Row

Root Vault

Old Teeth

Pressure Ridge

Bellmouth

Choir Line

Hollow Name

 Breakwater

Counterhour

Counterseed

Dead Reckoning

 Underflow

Split the Hour

Answer Hour

Undertow

Sump Hymn

Orchard Face

Wellmouth