Harry's Trees

At the memorial service for his wife, Beth, held in a Quaker meeting house in Waverly, Pennsylvania, Harry Crane sits motionless and mute. When mourners share memories of Beth's warmth, Harry whispers "Wait here," bolts from the building, and runs across the lawn. His imposing older brother, Wolf (Gerald Wolford Crane), tackles him to the ground. Pinned beneath Wolf, Harry's hand uncurls to reveal a crumpled lottery ticket he has clutched for five days.

A flashback reveals how Beth died. Walking to a movie on Market Street in Philadelphia, Harry, miserable in his desk job at the USDA Forest Service, became fixated on buying a lottery ticket. Beth begged him to quit and pursue his dream of working with real trees, eventually starting a business called Harry's Trees. Harry shouted "Wait here!" and crossed to a convenience store. While he bought the ticket, a demolition crane collapsed and a steel beam killed Beth. The losing ticket becomes Harry's "unlucky talisman," the embodiment of his guilt.

The narrative shifts to Amanda Jeffers, an ER nurse in the Endless Mountains of northeast Pennsylvania. Amanda's husband, Dean Jeffers, collapses and dies of a cerebral aneurysm while plowing roads. Amanda tells her nine-year-old daughter, Oriana, that "the angels came for your father," a description she immediately regrets. Over the following year, Oriana immerses herself in fairy tales, convinced Dean became a red-tailed hawk in the forest behind their house, and leaves food among the trees for him.

Meanwhile, Olive Perkins, the seventy-nine-year-old volunteer librarian at Pratt Public Library, receives The Grum's Ledger, a fairy tale handwritten in an old accounting ledger. It tells the story of a grum, a miserable creature who sits atop a hoard of gold coins until he begins throwing them away, growing less grummy with each coin released, and uncovering beneath the gold his buried true love. Unsettled by the book's sadness, Olive gives it to Oriana, who loses it in the forest while searching for her father.

One year after Beth's death, Wolf's wrongful death lawsuit against the demolition company settles for seven million dollars, roughly four million after legal fees. The money crystallizes Harry's guilt; he believes he traded Beth's life for wealth. He drives to Wilderness Tract A803 in the Endless Mountains, the forest he managed remotely for a decade. He ties a noose to a sugar maple branch, stands on a stone wall, and prepares to jump. At the last moment, he spots a mini Snickers bar in a knothole, candy Oriana left for Dean, and reaches for it. He slips, the branch snaps, and he crashes to the ground, striking The Grum's Ledger at the base of the wall. A red-tailed hawk circles overhead.

Amanda and Oriana arrive from the other side of the wall. Amanda finds Harry's Forest Service ID; Oriana secretly picks up the fallen lottery ticket. Harry hides the noose and claims he fell while climbing. Oriana leads them to an elaborate tree house Dean built in a massive American beech tree, where Amanda tends to Harry's injuries. Alone with Harry, Oriana reveals she saw the noose and declares that Dean, as a hawk, saved Harry by placing the candy in the knothole.

Harry rents the tree house from Amanda, who hopes his practical presence will cure Oriana's enchantment. Harry resigns from the Forest Service and texts Wolf that the settlement money will be given away. That night, Oriana hides The Grum's Ledger in Harry's pillowcase, and he reads its opening lines before stopping. Days later, he reads the book aloud to Oriana, who insists Harry tell the lottery ticket's story as a fairy tale. Harry narrates Beth's death as the tale of a man who chose a magic ticket over his wife's outstretched hand. Oriana unveils her plan: Harry must convert the money into gold coins and give them away, as the grum does, but as a genuine adventure.

The novel introduces a wider community. Ronnie Wilmarth, Dean's friend, appoints himself guardian angel to Amanda and Oriana. Cliff Blair, a dairy farmer, has been sleeping with Amanda since Dean's death; when she discovers Cliff secretly filmed them and shared footage with his farmhand, Hoop Sloane, she ends the relationship. Stu Giptner, the town council president, schemes to foreclose on Amanda's house after learning she is behind on her mortgage.

Harry transforms by climbing 127 trees over two weeks, rebuilding his body and processing his grief. At dawn he climbs the beech to its summit, communes with Beth one final time, and plants his Forest Service cap at the top. Days later, he buries his wedding ring at the base of the sugar maple, where he meets Olive. She tells him of her secret romance in 1955 with a young man named Alexander Grum, who abandoned her the night they planned to elope because his father disapproved. Harry buries his ring beside Olive's long-buried engagement ring.

Harry purchases American Gold Eagle coins from an online bullion dealer, shipping them to a PO box in Scranton. He and Oriana fill six burlap bags, matching the six numbers on the lottery ticket, and deliver them to towns chosen by flipping a coin onto a county map. Oriana hides the rest in an abandoned quarry. The deliveries go viral under the nickname "Susquehanna Santa." When Amanda discovers Oriana's stolen gold coin and internet searches about buying gold, she tracks Harry to a delivery in Wynefield, where a Rottweiler named Brutus has torn open the bag. Harry reveals the full truth: Beth's death, the lawsuit, the suicide attempt, Dean saving his life. Amanda slaps him, then gently rests her hand on his cheek. Recognizing the plan is healing Oriana, she gives her blessing to finish.

Bag four arrives unexpectedly on Amanda's doorstep. Harry delivered it to Hoop's trailer, but Hoop brought it to Cliff, who saw it as a chance to make amends. Amanda accepts the gift, pays her debts, and tells Harry he must stop blaming the lottery ticket: Buying a ticket does not cause cranes to collapse. Harry accepts that the ticket held no magic.

Wolf traces the Susquehanna Santa stories to Harry and heads for the forest. Stu stumbles into the quarry and discovers the remaining gold; Wolf catches Stu with gold coins and forces him to the quarry. Oriana, spotting Stu, races ahead and finds the gold. Ronnie, who deduced the quarry's significance from an illustration in The Grum's Ledger, catches Oriana when she nearly falls and helps load the gold into his truck. Wolf taunts Harry that love always ends in disaster for the Crane family, then stands on the quarry rim as if to jump. Harry pulls him to safety, and Wolf vanishes into the forest.

That midnight, Ronnie delivers the final bag to Olive's doorstep with a note: "It will never be enough, but I hope it is something. Love, the grum." Olive uses the gold to renovate Pratt Library, reading Treasure Island aloud on the steps in an event that goes viral and draws donations from around the world. Olive later warns Harry not to repeat Alexander Grum's mistake: He died alone because he was afraid to seize love. Harry goes to Amanda's house and asks her to list her guarantees against misfortune; she admits there are none. He asks whether she will face all the unknowns with him, and Amanda says yes. They embrace as Oriana watches from her window, thinking that a kiss seems like the perfect way to begin. Wolf drives away with Brutus, the Rottweiler he freed from an invisible fence in Wynefield. The shock of crossing the boundary restores something in the dog's surgically silenced vocal cords, and Brutus barks for all the world to hear.