The Seed Lady

Every town has a place people avoid without quite knowing why.

When Sergei Darkholm returns to Yucaipa, he expects heat, dust, and the quiet unraveling of a place that has already begun to forget itself. Instead, he finds a town unnaturally alive. Gardens flourish in impossible soil. Water never seems to run dry. The harvest is always good.

Too good.

At first, the changes feel like luck—until pets start disappearing. Then people. The ground shifts where it shouldn't. Roots press through concre...