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Previously: Elsa Trigo, beekeeper, found seeds of trees burned in 1994 inside eleven inherited hives. Eight remain to plant before the 30th.
Day 29 dawns. There are zero comfortable hours left: the lorry arrives in twenty-four. Elsa Trigo comes down from the flat to the yard and lines up the eight boxes she hasn't opened yet. She counts the seeds of each one with an open palm, without mixing them. She gets 340: pear trees, plum trees, an apple with a long name, two varieties with no record.
Rosalía Nevado, president of the neighbours' council, calls at seven. She says only three things: «the lorry leaves at six in the morning on the 30th», «we've had thirty years without rain at this time» and «I'll come down at eight with two watering cans».
Amaro Cid, the county vet, arrives at nine with the van loaded with sieved soil and eight bamboo stakes. He doesn't talk much. He piles the soil along the low wall and waits with his hands in his pockets. When Elsa asks if he wants coffee, he says no and that he already did his part in the previous chapter.
The county nursery sends Baltasar Pérez, a propagation technician, with a list and a stamp. Baltasar looks at the seeds over his glasses, takes photos and signs a delivery note for each box. The stamp reads: SEEDS RECEIVED FOR IN-SITU SOWING, BEFORE 30TH AT 24:00.
Sowing in situ means planting the seed where it is meant to grow, not in a seedbed. Elsa hands out the eight sites: five in her father's orchard, two on the edge of Amaro's land and one in the meadow that used to be Ovidio's. In Ovidio's meadow she digs a bigger hole and adds a handful of seeds from box number 5 (mixed, with no record), in case any belong to the varieties that don't have a name yet.
At five in the afternoon the seven neighbours Rosalía had summoned by WhatsApp come down to the field. Each carries a watering can, a knife and a wooden tag. Elsa hands out the seven remaining boxes and keeps number eight, the one that goes to her father. She explains just one thing: «don't put them more than three fingers deep, don't press them down». Baltasar writes the names and varieties on his list.
Julián Trigo, Elsa's father, a retired fruit grower, appears at the end with his arm in a sling and a plastic bag. He says grandma cleared out the last seven bags from the bar chest freezer, and that Rosalía brought them over half an hour ago. They are names Baltasar doesn't have on the list: Sorbeda apricot, black cherry, two apple trees from the eastern slope. Elsa adds them without a word, and the seven are distributed among the seven holes already dug.
At half past eight, Baltasar signs the last delivery note dated the 29th and adds a handwritten note: «sowing complete; empty boxes withdrawn». The seven neighbours leave without toasting. Rosalía turns off the light on the low wall. Amaro loads the empty boxes into the van and takes them to the council storeroom, initials still burned clearly on the wood.
Elsa stays alone with box number eight. She opens it in Ovidio's meadow, by hand, without tools. Inside there are thirty-two seeds and a small wooden tag nailed to the bottom, with a single letter carved on it: J. It is the box her father marked the day he reported his own orchard. She planted the last eight by hand, one for each empty hive, and on the one that belonged to her father she nailed a small wooden tag with the full name of the variety and the year they had burned it.