The Silver Bough

by Lisa Tuttle

  “My Latin’s pretty rusty, but I can probably remember enough…” He reached for the book as he spoke, but she pulled it away.

  “Never mind. I expect I’ll be able to puzzle it out myself.” She turned to another colored plate, which showed the golden apple from different angles and also cut in half, pips appearing like sad eyes in an owlish visage. There were other colored illustrations, but they were of different varieties, including crab apples and several varieties of domesticated red apples.

  “That’s the Fairest,” said Ronan, tapping one picture. “That’s what I remember eating.”

  “So you never ate the golden?”

  He shook his head. “I had the chance, but…no.”

  She closed the book and set it safely to one side before eating a cracker and cheese. She was trembling slightly, which she hoped was simply a physiological response to low blood sugar. She drank a whole glass of tea and poured some more before she addressed him again.

  “Why’d you come back?”

  “To eat the apple with you.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “Why bring me this book?”

  He sighed. “You won’t take my word for it, so I thought, if I could show you it’s true, there’s the history—”

  She laughed, startling them both. “Just because something’s in a book doesn’t make it true! Just because some ancestor of yours believed in magic apples—oh, honestly, trying to reason me into accepting the unreasonable…Given the state of my Latin, it’ll probably take me weeks to work my way through this little book. By then the apple could have rotted away. You’d have been better off relying on your native charm.”

  “I don’t know; you’ve been pretty resistant to it so far.” He spoke dryly and as their eyes met she had the sudden pleasurable sense that she’d met a good match, someone who appreciated her strengths and wasn’t simply out to exploit her weakness.

  Carried along on the strength of that feeling, she said, “I’ll tell you what. You don’t have to try to convince me of anything. I’ll give you the apple.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not—”

  “Don’t push it, buster,” she said sharply. “It’s the best deal you’re going to get.”

  “It’s no good to me without you.”

  “Now you’re being silly. Look, I don’t even believe this stuff about the apple, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not limited to certain specific people; it’s any man and any woman.”

  “Yes, of course it could be,” he said, a touch of impatience in his voice. “And I’ve just said—I’ve made it clear, haven’t I?—I want that man and woman to be us.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “Then you don’t understand,” he said. He leaned forward, looking across the table into her eyes. “You’re saying no to life and happiness—to whatever you want most in the world. You can have your heart’s desire. You’ll also be saving this whole community, bringing prosperity and good fortune back to Appleton, although I don’t blame you if you don’t care about the rest of them, since I don’t—never mind that,” he went on quickly as she opened her mouth.

  “Nobody else knows about this apple, or cares—although they should. But this town has forgotten that its fate is tied up with the apples. The old orchards are gone; the Apple Fair hasn’t been held in decades, and everyone has forgotten the real reason behind it. But the magic is still here, deep in the land—and the land knows. Every so often, it offers up a magical gift. The last time, that gift was rejected, and things began to go wrong. If this one’s rejected, too—” He stopped, and shook his head impatiently.

  “Forget the past. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but all that really matters is we’ve been given this chance. There’s a golden apple growing, first one in over fifty years, and it’s ours. Things happen when it’s time for them. This is our time—that’s our apple. There are cycles, seasons, whether we understand it or not, and that’s why you were drawn here to plant apple trees again, so it could happen as it’s meant to, and it’s why I woke up one morning a few weeks ago and knew I had to get back to Appleton. I thought I’d find the apple.” His gaze became very tender. “I had no idea I’d also find you.”

  Her heart pounded unpleasantly. “Me?” She spoke harshly. “You don’t know me. You never saw me before yesterday.”

  “I knew everything I needed to know the moment I set eyes on you.”

  She felt dizzy but tried to draw herself up, to sit higher in her seat, needing to look down on him, to show she wasn’t taken in by him for a minute. “Oh, really, and what was that? All the important things, obviously. Big house, land, no interfering relatives to get in the way; good cheekbones, nice legs, shame about the tits, but she’s got a private income—she’ll probably pay for her own implants once I convince her—”

  “What are you talking about? Nell, I love you.”

  “Get out. You want that apple? It’s yours. Take it, and go.”

  He stared at her, openmouthed, looking as if she’d hit him in the face.

  “Did you hear me? If the apple’s so important, take it; find yourself somebody else to share it with.”

  “I don’t want anyone else. That’s what I’ve been telling you. Nell—”

  “Stop calling me Nell! I’m Mrs. Westray. That’s right—you didn’t know that about me, did you? I have a husband, and—and I love him very much.” She had to stop, choking on unexpected tears. “So I don’t need you. How dare you! You don’t know anything about me. See?”

  “No,” he said flatly. His face had gone slack. “Well, Mrs. Westray, I’m sorry to have troubled you.” He stood up. “I suggest—no, I strongly advise you to share that apple with your husband, and as soon as possible. Because there’s not much time left. If it’s not eaten soon, it’ll be too late, and not just for me. For everyone.”

  From Recollections of Alexander (McNeill) Wall

  (unpublished; no date)

  I was slow to realize that my little girl had grown to womanhood, but the reason is understandable. When you live with someone, seeing her day in, day out, your own perceptions adjust along with the tiny increments by which aging progresses, so that the familiar, beloved person appears to your eyes the same as she ever was. In addition, Emmeline had been always a solitary child, having, by choice, few companions and no friends of the bosom, so that it was never brought to my attention, by the fact that one young lady had become engaged to be married, or another had gone to Glasgow to train as a nurse, that my little girl was just as marriageable, trainable, and generally grown-up as her friends.

  My Emmeline dwelt in a world of her own, a realm of fairy tale and fantasy, made up of books and pretty pictures, old tales, songs, and the local landscape, which she was always sketching and painting and making up stories about: inside that cave slept a fire-breathing dragon; beneath that lake was a magical city where no one ever died; on that road she’d once seen the Queen of the Fairies pass on a fine white horse…She cared more for Fairyland than she ever could for the unhappy reality of the Twentieth Century, and, foolishly, I was happy for what I saw as her innocence. I never recognized the danger until it was too late.

  I remained in blissful ignorance until May of 1916, when I slowly realized how my daughter’s solitary life had changed. Every afternoon a bevy of young ladies—the very finest blossom of local society—called at the house, either to wait upon Emmeline, gossiping and giggling in the drawing room, or taking her with them on some excursion or other. She had acquired a retinue, like a young queen, and when she told me, beaming with shy delight, that at the end of the summer she was to be crowned the Apple Queen, it all began to make sense. I should have been pleased for her, that she had managed to grow from being a rather odd, solitary child into this lovely young woman, and to be awarded such an honour by her peers—but it made me uneasy.

  I had no idea how the queen of the annual fair was chosen; this was a “women’s matter” and too frivolous for me to question, until my daughter w
as involved. By tradition, she would be crowned by a stranger, an unknown man who would step out of the Fair-day crowd at the appropriate moment. This, at any rate, was the story, but it was no more to be uncritically believed than any other bit of folklore. Young ladies of an age to be chosen for this role often had sweethearts, whether or not they were recognized by possibly disapproving parents, and even I had noticed how very often, and swiftly, past queens ended up married to the “strangers” who had crowned them! It seemed likely, therefore, that this important role was not left to chance but was rather arranged behind the scenes, and that the “queen” herself must surely know his identity—most likely chose him.

  I felt quite certain that Emmeline had no sweetheart. She showed no interest in any of the local lads, for none of them could match in glamour the heroes of her beloved fairy tales. When I quizzed her—at first subtly and then more openly—she was amazed by my suggestion that there could be any trickery involved. There were always strangers at the Fair, visitors from far afield, and she expected it would be the same even in war-time. She told me about the girl who’d been queen two years past, who’d fallen in love at first sight with the visitor from Ireland who’d stepped out of the crowd. A month later she’d eloped with him, to the horrified consternation of both families, for her family were Free Church, and he was of the Roman persuasion.

  “It often happens so,” she prattled on. “It was fated. They say that if you share an apple with a man on the eve of the Fair, you’re bound together for life.”

  Although my daughter was, as I’d been forced to notice, grown to a woman’s estate, she was still, in many ways, a child.

  “Then you mustn’t share an apple with a stranger,” I said firmly.

  She gave me her mother’s smile. “Only if I love him, Daddy.”

  Emmeline was oblivious to the possibility that anything could go wrong, almost feverishly excited by what was to come. As discreetly as I could, I enquired of her female friends, but they all feigned a wide-eyed innocence and pretended not to understand. I believed Emmeline incapable of sustained deception, but these young ladies I knew scarcely at all; what if they were scheming to embarrass poor naïve Emmeline, or, worse, if they were out to further the fortunes of a friend, some impoverished young man who wished a wealthy wife…? I decided to take matters into my own hands. If there was to be a marriage it should be I, as her father, who arranged it, and no one else.

  I knew a man in Glasgow, an honest, reliable merchant who’d commissioned work from my old firm and who had long been a cordial acquaintance, and he had an unmarried son who had recently qualified as a physician. I had no expectations of his forming an alliance with my daughter, but I felt I could be easy in my mind if it happened. I invited the whole family to stay with us during Appleton Fair week, explained the role the son would be expected to play; given the necessity that he should appear to be “a stranger,” they agreed to arrive by steamer late on Saturday afternoon and make their own way to the Fair. But, as the poet says about the best-laid plans…

  I have no heart to rehearse here the series of mishaps and misunderstandings that ensued. It’s all long in the past. When Emmeline was led in her finery onto the public platform, blushing like a happy bride to the sound of cheering and applause, I was watching anxiously from a little distance. When the cry went up: “Who will recognize this maiden?” there was a moment of silent suspense, then a murmuring and rustling in the crowd, until a man stepped forward saying, “I see she is my Queen.”

  I was too far away and the light was too dim to make out his face, but although he seemed more shabbily dressed than I’d expected, there was something so confident and educated about his voice that I did not doubt he was “my” stranger. And when I saw how she looked at him, and clutched his hand as if she’d fall down without his support, I was relieved by my foresightedness. If she was to fall romantically head-over-heels with anyone, at least it should be a professional man from a respectable Scottish family.

  When the dancing started, I lost sight of her. The glimpse I caught of her being whirled about in the arms of a dark-haired, smiling man in an old tweed jacket—looking, it hurts my heart even now to recall, more ecstatically happy than I’d ever seen her—was the last I should see of her for almost a year.

  IT WAS ONLY her fourth full day, but Ashley was starting to feel like she’d been in Appleton for weeks. The problem was, she’d discovered, that there was very little to do there. People kept going on about the great weather, but sunshine wasn’t that big a deal to her. She liked beautiful scenery as much as the next person—probably more—but she didn’t want to spend every day sketching or painting the local beauty spots. The beaches looked great, but she wasn’t a surfer, it was too cold to swim, and, really, the thing that made a day at the beach fun was the company of friends and a cooler full of beer, kicking back and checking out the local talent, making new friends…The beaches here were way too empty. You could spend the whole day hanging out by the shore and never meet anybody but some enthusiastic dogs and their elderly owners. There weren’t a lot of young people in Appleton, that was for sure. Schoolkids, their parents, and lots and lots of old people—she’d seen more really old people doddering along the sidewalks of Appleton in a single day than she would expect to see in Houston in a whole year, unless she worked in an old-age home—but not many people her own age.

  On Tuesday morning she met Graeme walking his bike up the hill, his postman’s bag hanging limp from his shoulder. He nodded to her without his usual cheery enthusiasm.

  “OK?” She spoke uncertainly, wondering if he was ill.

  He shook his head. “No mail. The plane should have been in just after six, but there’s been no sign of it, and no word.”

  She frowned. There was hardly a breath of wind, and the skies could not have been clearer. “Maybe they had engine trouble? They’ll send one later, won’t they? They have to; I mean, they always get the mail through, don’t they?”

  He shrugged. “We haven’t heard. We can’t reach Paisley—that’s our sorting office. No reply from any of the Glasgow area offices—even if there was a wildcat strike we hadn’t heard about, somebody would pick up the phone. No answer from Glasgow International—none of the numbers, except the recorded messages. Those we could get, but not a single living soul. It’s like, you could almost think, the rest of the world has just been wiped out by some incredible disaster that somehow missed us, and we’re the only survivors—” His eyes widened at the look on her face, and he moved closer and grasped her by the arm. “Just joking! Of course nothing like that’s happened! Jings, take no notice of me, sweetheart! I never meant to scare you.”

  “You didn’t,” she said, coolly enough. But his words brought back the memory of an old black-and-white movie she’d seen on TCM when she was a kid, an old British disaster movie about the end of civilization. It was pretty lame, really, but it had given her nightmares about an abruptly depopulated world. “But that is weird. I mean, can you think of some reason why the people in Glasgow wouldn’t be at work today?”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’re all at work as per usual…it’s far more likely there’s a fault in the phone lines. We’ll have to get Hamish on to it.” He shook his head, and sighed. “Semiretired, and never the brightest spark…but he’s the only telephone engineer we’ve got living this side of the roadblock. We’ll just have to make do…Though I suppose we could communicate with the outside world by carrier pigeon.”

  “That would put you out of a job.”

  “Who do you think will be training the pigeons? One of my many untapped skills.” He winked at her. “So, what’re your plans for the day? If you need a trusty local guide, I’m available…”

  “Oh, no thanks. I’m…well, I’ve got some things I want to do,” she said, nodding in an attempt to impart conviction.

  “Well, you have a nice day, now,” he drawled in what she knew he meant for an American accent before he pushed on up the hill.

  She wa
ndered around the town aimlessly for a while, shopping as best she could. She bought a mug with a puffin painted on it, a dish towel displaying a map of Scotland, and some postcards in the newsagent’s, then went into the take-away fried fish shop to buy what was called here “a poke of chips.” The good-looking Italian boy was working behind the counter again, and his face lit up at the sight of her. She couldn’t help smiling back, although the memory of how he’d practically run away from her when she suggested he join her for a drink still rankled. Maybe he felt bad about it, too, but just as he was about to speak to her, the older, grumpy-looking man snapped something brusque and incomprehensible at him that wiped the smile from his face and sent him scurrying into the back, out of sight. So she paid the older man for her chips and took the bag away.

  She ate the hot fried potatoes with salt and vinegar, sitting on a bench overlooking the harbor. It was already a busier place than it had been on her arrival, the water alive with the traffic of small boats coming and going, and the pier full of people doing business. Half a dozen handwritten cardboard signs had been affixed to the railings offering water-taxi services and charter boats for hire by the day or hour. There were also a lot more small boats of different kinds, rowboats and sailboats, resting in the sheltered harbor.

  She leaned out over the railing after she’d finished her snack. Most of the boats were tied up and empty, but she noticed a woman sitting, half-reclining, in a flat-bottomed wooden boat that would have been more at home on a tranquil pond. She was dressed most impractically in a long, lacy white dress, her dark hair was piled up and decorated with white flowers, and in her arms, resting across her lap, she carried a spray of white blossom. Was she about to get married? Ashley didn’t see anyone else who might have belonged to a wedding party, and if there was a photographer around it wasn’t obvious. The relaxed woman in white had to be waiting for someone. She tried to think who she reminded her of, and suddenly recalled Emmeline Wall’s painting. She turned away, feeling a strong desire to look at that painting again. The library was about a two-minute walk.