Brackwater

The drive from Portland took four hours and ended on a road that Google Maps confidently described as a road and was in fact a logging track with opinions.

Dr. Petra Walsh arrived in Brackwater at dusk with a cracked rear bumper, a field kit, and a referral from the Oregon Department of Agriculture that described the situation as a "localised fungal anomaly requiring preliminary assessment." The assessment request had come from the town's vet, because Brackwater did not have a biologist and the vet was the closest thing.

She found him at the general store, a compact man in his sixties named Harlan who shook her hand once and looked immediately relieved, which was the look of someone who had been holding a problem they were glad to pass on.

"How many animals?" Petra asked.

"Twelve confirmed. Maybe more we haven't found." He paused. "Cows, mostly. One horse. They don't die — they just stop. Lie down and breathe and won't get up. Vet from Coquille came out last week, couldn't find anything wrong internally. Called it neurological."

"And the bloom?"

Harlan looked out the window at the darkening treeline. "You'll see it in the morning. It's easier to show you than explain." He paused again. "It's been here longer than the town has. Most people here know that. Most people here have made their peace with that."

Petra waited for him to say something else. He didn't.

She took a room at the only motel, a four-room building behind the post office, and lay on top of the covers fully dressed and stared at the ceiling and thought about the phrase *made their peace* and the careful, specific way he had used it.

In the morning, she would see the bloom.

That night, she dreamed of roots.