EVERVIRGIN

The air in the village of Baia was never truly warm, not even at the peak of summer. That morning, a thin layer of mist still crept between the apple trees, covering the Madllive family orchard in a quiet, milky haze. Elanda stood among the rows of plants, holding an old woven basket whose edges had begun to loosen with age. She took a deep breath. The scent of damp soil, morning dew, and the faint aroma of burning wood from a neighbor’s stove had filled her lungs for eighteen years. Elanda bent down, her slender yet strong fingers carefully parting the leaves that hid clusters of wild berries near the edge of the garden. Her movements were slow, almost rhythmic. Every ripe berry she found was picked with delicate care, as though she feared hurting the branch that carried it. In this village, everything moved slowly, as if time itself refused to rush through the silent Romanian hills. “Elanda, don’t forget to check the back near the fence!” her mother’s gentle voice echoed from afar, followed by the clinking sound of a metal bucket. “I will, Mother,” Elanda replied softly, her clear voice breaking the quiet of the morning. She walked toward the old wooden fence that leaned weakly from years of decay. Her footsteps made no sound against the wet grass. To anyone watching, Elanda seemed strangely out of place within the roughness of her surroundings. Her faded cotton dress and loosely braided dark hair could not hide her flawless skin and perfectly balanced features. As she worked, her thoughts drifted back to the previous night. Inside the attic of their small house, while the entire village slept and only the crickets remained awake, Elanda had turned on her phone. The cracked little screen was the only window she had to the world beyond Baia. Through a weak and unstable internet connection, she had done something that still made her feel a little foolish. She had submitted a form. Just a modeling application she had found in an online advertisement. She attached three photos she had taken herself near the attic window at sunset—no filters, no makeup, just herself staring directly into the camera with an expression that was difficult to read. “Just to find out,” she had whispered to herself at the time. She never expected anyone in some glass tower in Paris or Milan to pay attention to the photos of a girl who spent her days pulling weeds in a forgotten corner of Eastern Europe. Elanda paused for a moment, standing upright as she gazed toward the horizon. Beyond the dense pine forest stretched a world far larger than anything she had ever known. A world she had only seen through her phone screen or old magazines her father occasionally brought home from the city. “Elanda? Daydreaming again?” Her father suddenly emerged from behind the bushes, carrying a hoe over his shoulder. He smiled faintly, the lines on his weathered face telling stories of decades spent working the land. “No, Father. I was only thinking… whether this year’s harvest will be enough to repair the storage roof,” Elanda lied softly, offering him a sweet smile to ease his worries. “It will be enough. It is always enough, as long as we never stop trying,” he replied while gently patting her head with his rough hand. “Go inside. Your mother already prepared hot tea. Let me finish the rest.” Elanda nodded. Carrying her now-full basket of wild berries, she walked toward their small wooden house. Before stepping onto the porch, she paused and slipped a hand into her skirt pocket, pulling out her phone. There was no signal in the orchard, but she checked her sss inbox anyway. Empty. She let out a quiet sigh, feeling both relieved and disappointed at the same time. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe her destiny truly belonged to the soil of Baia, just like the apple trees that had stood there long before she was born. She stepped inside the house, welcomed by the fragrant steam of herbal tea and the crackling sound of wood burning in the stove. Everything felt peaceful. Safe. Elanda sat near the window, sipping her tea while staring at her own hands—hands stained with soil, yet gifted with long, graceful fingers. What she did not know was that, far away in a minimalist office lined with white marble somewhere in Western Europe, an agency assistant was enlarging her face on a massive monitor. The assistant fell silent, captivated by the clarity of Elanda’s gray eyes, eyes that seemed capable of staring straight through the screen itself. Without hesitation, the assistant pressed a button, marked Elanda’s email with a golden star, and moved it into a folder labeled: “Priority One.” Back in the village of Baia, the day continued peacefully. The sun slowly climbed higher into the sky, casting its light over the apple orchard and the girl quietly sipping tea, unaware that the course of her life had just begun to shift. Everything still felt like a slow summer dream— before the winds from the West arrived, carrying an inevitable change. Happy reading