The town had always known how to keep its silences. Wisteria Bay preferred whisper networks, glances that said more than words, and a tendency to "stay out of it" when things got messy. But Elara no longer had the luxury of silence.
She needed voices. She needed faces.
She needed Wisteria Bay to choose.
It began with a list.
Rowan helped her pin it to the old corkboard in the café: a call for volunteers. They needed people willing to walk the ridge, to help mark boundary trees, sift through old maps, and support the incoming surveyor with local knowledge. She knew it was a risk. She half expected the board to be ripped down by morning.
But by noon the next day, five names were already written in curling ink beneath hers.
By sundown: sixteen.
The first to arrive was Jonah Ellison, a retired forest ranger with legs like oak trunks and a voice that still carried the rhythm of wildfire warnings.
"I've walked that ridge for decades," he said. "Long before Sterling came sniffing around."
Then came Lorraine from the historical society, her arms full of photo albums dating back to 1969. "Your grandmother hosted May Day dances up there. I have pictures—she strung wildflower garlands between the boundary pines."
Even Paul Whitman, the town's most stubborn farmer and someone Elara had clashed with years ago over land use taxes, showed up.
"You may have been a pain back then," he said, tipping his hat, "but I'd rather stand with you than sell my soul to Sterling."
The surveyor, Marta Reyes, arrived three days later in a beat-up truck that looked like it had survived a few wars.
She stepped out in thick boots, surveying poles slung over one shoulder, and offered a dry smile. "I like a good fight," she said. "Especially when the land's got a memory."
They began that afternoon.
The team hiked up Honeyfern Ridge, cutting through overgrowth and brambles. Marta marked each old stone, every corner tree with ribbons and GPS points, cross-referencing with the 1967 deed and Elara's grandmother's journals. It was precise work, time-consuming. But bit by bit, the boundary came into focus.
Then the sabotage started.
On the third day of surveying, they found one of the corner markers—the oldest one—missing. Torn out, the soil disturbed.
"Deliberate," Marta said, crouching. "No way this happened naturally. Someone knew exactly what to remove."
That evening, Rowan discovered tire tracks near the base of the hill. Someone had driven in under cover of night.
The sheriff's office took a report but made no promises.
"Without a camera or a witness, it's hearsay," the deputy said with a shrug. "We don't take sides in land disputes."
"Except when the guy on one side pays for your re-election BBQ," Rowan muttered.
Elara felt the heat rise in her chest. "We're not asking for favoritism," she said. "We're asking for protection."
"Then you'd better post some signs," the deputy said. "Or hire private security."
The next blow came subtly.
The town's weekly paper, The Wisteria Bay View, ran a front-page editorial questioning the "validity and motives" behind the Honeyfern Ridge dispute.
"Is nostalgia worth more than progress?" the headline read.
Beneath it, in slick, persuasive language, Sterling's PR team spun a tale: a town on the brink of economic revival, stifled by one woman's refusal to let go of the past.
"They're painting me as selfish," Elara said that night, staring at the paper with shaking hands.
Rowan crossed his arms. "They're scared of you. Which means you're winning."
"But winning won't matter if public opinion turns," she whispered.
He reached for her hand. "Then we remind them what this land means."
The next community meeting was standing-room only.
Elara walked into the town hall with Rowan beside her and the original deed clutched to her chest. Marta brought full-color maps and flagged GPS coordinates. Lorraine brought albums. Jonah brought voice.
"We're not here to stop progress," Elara said, voice cracking slightly. "We're here to protect legacy. To remind this town who we are—and who we were."
Then she passed the microphone to Lorraine.
Page after page of photos went up on the projector: children chasing ribbons under spring skies, elders gathered on the ridge for solstice bonfires, families sharing jars of honey harvested from the very hives still thriving on the land.
Jonah added the final words. "This land doesn't belong to Michael Sterling. It belongs to the stories of this town. You take the ridge, you erase those stories."
The room was silent. Not in disagreement—but in awe.
Someone clapped. Then another. Then a standing ovation.
Later that week, the finalized survey documents were submitted to the court.
The boundary markers aligned with the 1967 amendment. The ridge was inside Honeyfern land. Sterling's claims—based on manipulated GIS overlays—began to unravel.
But Elara knew better than to celebrate.
Michael Sterling had built empires on the ruins of people just like her. He wasn't going to walk away.
Still, for the first time since she'd returned home, she felt something deeper than fear.
She felt momentum.