The Language of Cherries

by Jen Marie Hawkins

  Agnes fidgeted and cracked her knuckles, like she was popping all the tension right out of the air through her fingers. After a deep breath and a paralyzing bout of silence, she stooped beneath the counter and rummaged a bit until she came up with a piece of parchment paper. It was black around the edges, like it had been ritualistically burned. She extended her arm, and the breeze from the air vent made the page flutter between them.

  Evie didn’t realize her hand was shaking until she reached out to take it. The paper was warm between her fingers, as if it had its own life force. She’d forgotten how red the words were, and wondered for the first time if it was written not with cherry juice, but with blood.

  She read it again, stumbling over some of the unfamiliar words.

  O mór Alban Hefín

  Lend us your draíocht

  With powers of awen

  Engraved upon rock.

  I scatter these ashes

  On mourning tree roots

  Infuse here an essence:

  Their spirits through fruits.

  May love here still flourish

  And comfort our loss

  By the otherworld’s link

  With harvest and blás.

  When sea winds blow gently

  Through midsummer’s veil

  Preserve here the stories

  While cherries tell tales.

  May only the purest

  Inspired eyes see

  The memories kept here

  By the Aisling tree.

  “The spell was for him.” Agnes’s voice broke open on the last word. “I wrote it myself the day we scattered their ashes over the roots of the Aisling. Only ashes are powerful enough to create a connection to the Otherworld, ye see. Those visions were supposed to be for him, a safekeeping of their memories and inspiration to go on, but he’s a stubborn lad. He’d never eat the cherries himself.”

  Every word seemed to writhe out of Agnes’s mouth, and Evie got the distinct impression that she was telling her more than she was supposed to.

  “You don’t have to explain it all,” Evie said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I figured most of it out. I remembered the line about the memories of the Aisling tree. And while cherries tell tales. And when you told me the thing about it meaning dreams, I wasn’t sure if it was the dreams of your family, or if the tree itself maybe had its own dreams and memories. I just needed to know I’m not crazy. I’m sorry for pressing—”

  “It’s okay.” Agnes cut her off, wiped her hands with a towel and tossed it aside. “The spell found a way. Just promise me one thing.” Her eyes glassed over with unshed tears.

  Evie nodded, waiting.

  “Keep sharing those dreams with Oskar.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Oskar’s Journal

  Princeton, Boston,

  Philadelphia,

  London.

  Four applications take me two hours to complete.

  Edvin won’t let me quit early.

  I’m already pushing the final deadlines.

  The café walls close tightly around me.

  We could’ve done this at the buh-buh-barn, I tell him.

  You need distance, Oskar.

  Distance

  is all I ever feel.

  Except when I’m around her.

  Edvin asked me about her on the way over.

  On Agnes’s insistence, I’m sure.

  If I still had a dad,

  would the conversation have been so awkward?

  She’s pppretty, I said,

  and left it at that.

  Lots of pretty girls outside Elska.

  I just shrugged.

  When we’re done, he drives me back in silence.

  The whole way, I hope he drops me off.

  But of course, he comes inside.

  To see Agnes.

  Conspiring is no good unless you have an accomplice.

  Their eyes meet across the counter, and I see it happening.

  The slow burn catches and a flickering flame grows.

  It’s not that I’m not happy for them.

  Or Agnes, in particular.

  I just wonder how

  she’s over the pain

  and I’m not.

  I’ll never be over it.

  Agnes points to the window,

  a conspiratorial smile lighting her face.

  She’s in the orchard, lad, painting.

  My gaze follows her gesture.

  Dark hair waves

  from under the branches

  of my tree.

  Wow, Edvin says. She’s something.

  I’m well aware.

  And right now, all I want to do is kiss her again.

  Her lips are the only place

  I’ve ever felt something that made me forget.

  Even for just a moment.

  I let the wind toss the door against the barn

  as I head toward her.

  Hoping I don’t lose my nerve.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Evie

  That bruise on his face gave a little more color to the black-and-white mystery Oskar had been since the moment she met him.

  Evie couldn’t imagine who’d want to hit him. Certainly not Agnes. She was a robust woman, but Oskar was big and broad in a way that would make even the toughest guys think twice about throwing a punch. Nothing about his demeanor said he’d ever hit back, though. He was strong but silent. Intimidating but gentle. A definite duplicity existed in him.

  They both stared at her painting.

  Beneath her trembling brush, a new image took shape. If it was the tree’s memories coming to life on her canvas, she wanted to know what it was trying to tell her. What had Agnes meant by the spell found a way? Found a way to what?

  A woman with long copper hair was walking away, toward the barn on the horizon of the painting. Around the periphery of the canvas, branches with cherries jutted out. As if the artist doing the painting was the tree itself. Evie felt like she could be the artist or the subject in this one; she, too, would be walking away soon.

  Her heart had been beating itself bloody against her ribcage ever since he’d walked up. Something had changed between them. There was a closeness that wasn’t present before, one that could only be shared when two people had felt the inside of each other’s lips. It was like having a secret that nobody but them could ever know, even if they told the world about it. Which made it even more devastating that her time with him was ticking down. It made her want to turn around and kiss him right then, because in a few weeks, she wouldn’t be able to.

  “I’m probably going to have to leave soon.” Her statement shattered the quiet. Even the breeze stilled against the sadness. “My father is sending me to New York to live with my mother.”

  As usual, he said nothing. She didn’t expect him to. He stayed so motionless that she peeked over at him to make sure he was still sitting there. His eyes stayed trained on her painting.

  “Guess I should learn to speak better Icelandic if I’m going to tell you goodbye.” She put the final touches on her painting and dropped her brush in the water cup, and then twisted her body to face him.

  The air was colder today than it had been in days past, which felt appropriate somehow. It was easier to be sad when it was cold, to fold in on herself and hide beneath layers.

  If only there was a world where Oskar and Abuela and the Florida sunshine could co-exist.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Oskar’s Journal

  I’ve been thinking about running away.

  She draws her knees under her sweater,

  stretching it out.

  I try not to think about

  the golden skin

  under that woven pale fabric.

  But I fail.

  Silly, because I’m probably too old to run away.

  If she ran away,

  maybe she’d stay here.

  With me.

  I let that thought


  plant a shaky smile on my face.

  It wobbles

  under the force of my pulse,

  like it might

  slide

  right off my face

  into

  my

  lap.

  Something simmers

  in the air

  between us.

  It’s weird, right?

  She rests her head on her knee,

  long locks draping down,

  tickling the ground.

  Her big dark eyes study me.

  This thing between us.

  We can’t even have a two-sided conversation.

  But we can kiss like we did yesterday?

  There she goes again,

  picking apart my thoughts.

  I erect a stone fortress in my brain,

  trying to keep her

  from seeing the things

  going on behind my eyes.

  And speaking of that—I shift.

  Fluff my sweatshirt over my waist.

  God. I have never kissed anyone like that.

  I think of the most repulsive things I can conjure.

  Rotten cherries.

  Bjorn’s bathroom.

  Agnes’s angry face.

  There.

  That’s better.

  If Agnes hadn’t come outside…

  She lifts her head, leans in, whispers,

  I wouldn’t have stopped.

  I would’ve let you do whatever you wanted.

  My throat aches as I swallow.

  Candid is a new thing for me.

  Everything anyone has ever said to me

  since the accident

  has felt like a code

  that needed cracking.

  People dance around the truth with me.

  Not her, though.

  There’s no guesswork.

  She invites me to look into the window

  of her most private thoughts.

  Would she be so honest if she knew I understood?

  I’m guessing not.

  Her cheeks deepen in color

  and she looks away,

  back to her painting.

  Looks like New York is a sure thing now.

  But I can leave next year.

  Maybe I’ll come back here.

  And bring Abuela with me.

  She shifts in her sweater cocoon.

  I know that’s smarter than running away.

  But I hate having to give Rhona even a year of my life,

  when it takes a year away from Abuela’s.

  Rhona couldn’t give me any of hers when I was growing up.

  It’s too late now.

  My stomach hurts for her.

  I lost my mother, too.

  But even now, I know she loved me.

  Still loves me,

  if there’s really a place

  beyond the grave.

  In a way,

  her loss is worse than mine.

  Because she never had it to begin with.

  It’s like a void, you know?

  I wish I could fill that void for her.

  For the first time,

  I consider something I said I never would.

  America.

  Would I feel differently about it

  if she was there?

  Would she?

  There are two ways I could ask her.

  The first is with my lips.

  The second,

  also with my lips.

  I lean in.

  Take her by surprise.

  It’s even better

  than the instant replay

  my mind’s been suggesting.

  I never wanted to eat cherries again.

  But here,

  against her mouth,

  I remember the sweetness.

  The love that once filled this orchard.

  Maybe it exists beyond the property lines.

  A sneaking suspicion creeps up behind me,

  like the prickle of someone’s stare.

  I pull away.

  Glance behind me

  at the window of the barn.

  Agnes and Edvin scramble

  to turn away when I see them.

  Fury replaces the hope

  almost instantly.

  This is exactly what they want.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Evie

  They attended Thursday night Mass together because Papá had to work the weekend again. Evie had submitted her rushed portfolio to Magnet Arts but hadn’t heard anything yet. She’d stopped worrying about it.

  The past week had been better than all the others put together. Oskar let her talk to him; he never interrupted her. She unloaded, and he was there for her. And even though he didn’t understand her, it was okay, because just being there was enough. Maybe it was her imagination, but he did always seem to kiss her at exactly the right moment. On some level, he understood.

  So much kissing had happened that week. Under the shade of the trees. Behind the barn. In the cellar as they checked on the progress of the wine. She’d be content to spend full days doing nothing but kissing.

  Well, maybe she’d do even more than that, but it never came up. Part of her wondered if that meant he was a gentleman, or if there was something wrong with her that he hadn’t even tried. No hands in her shirt. No groping. No taking without asking. Always in her hair or on her hips. Intimate without crossing any lines.

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time at the orchard,” Papá said to her as they left the church. She jumped, paranoid that he’d somehow read her mind. “With the muchacho, I guess?”

  Evie fixed her gaze on the blurry landscape beyond her passenger window and rolled her eyes. This was not a conversation she was interested in having.

  He tried again, failing to take the hint. “Does he know you’re leaving?”

  “We don’t talk about it.” Evie turned and glared at him. “We don’t talk at all. He doesn’t speak English, remember?”

  “That doesn’t seem healthy.” Papá’s worried look gave her a small pang of satisfaction. She opened her mouth but closed it again, instead reaching forward to crank up the local radio station. Some song about boys smoking in the woods thumped in the speakers. Which, of course, made her think of Oskar. Things had changed since that night by the fire. No, maybe they didn’t talk, but she was starting to believe that he knew her in a way nobody else ever could. And knowing how soon their time together would be finished made her angry with her father all over again.

  Screw it. She’d just say it.

  “Going to live with someone who never wanted me in the first place is probably not exactly healthy either.”

  “Evie.”

  “Don’t worry about it, it’s only a year, right?” She waved him off. There was nothing for her in Florida but Abuela, but maybe she’d hop in her car and drive straight to Florida. He couldn’t stop her if he was in Iceland. She had a year to figure out if she wanted to go to college, or maybe she’d get a job and save enough money to move Abuela to a retirement home in a new city, where they’d both start over. Hell, maybe she wouldn’t even finish her senior year. Maybe she’d get her GED and call it a day.

  “Let’s spend some time together before you have to go back,” Papá said. “You’ve been gone so much lately.”

  His hypocritical complaint cut her so deep she refused to even respond.

  She wanted to spend her last week with Oskar. She might never see him again.

  AS EVIE WAS packing some of the things she knew she wasn’t going to need for the next week, Papá knocked on her bedroom door.

  “Come in.”

  He poked his head in the door, a smile hugging the corners of his mustache. “I have to leave for a work dinner en un momento, but Abuela’s nurse finally figured out video chat. Want to come say hi?”

  Evie dropped the books in her hands into a storage container and followed him into the kitchen. They sank to the dinette table together
. The dark-haired nurse smiled into the screen.

  “Oh, Evie! She’s going to be so happy to talk to you.” She stood up from a desk, holding her computer against her midsection. The background swirled behind her as she moved down a bright hallway.

  Evie’s pulse hummed in every pressure point in her body as she waited, watching the nurse knock on the door, go inside, and set the shaky screen on a table. When Abuela came into view, Evie held her breath.

  She’d never seen her look so tired. Her usually smooth salt-and-pepper hair was falling out of its bun, frazzled. Half up on one side, half down on the other. Behind round frames, her dark eyes seemed vacant. Awake, but unaware. She looked around for a minute before stopping on the screen. Instead of looking at the camera, she searched the picture on her own screen instead. After a moment, a slow smile crept onto her face. Her eyes flickered with recognition, and she drew wrinkled brown hands to her face. They trembled against her cheeks.

  “Nieta.”

  The word nearly wrecked Evie right then, but she held it back. If she were seeing Abuela in a week, instead of her mother, it might be easier to leave Iceland.

  “Hola, Abuela.”

  They talked for a few minutes. Evie told her about New York. She tried not to sound as disappointed as she felt, but Abuela picked up on it immediately.

  “Maybe I’ll come and see you there,” she said. “You can show me the Big Apple.”

  Evie nodded, knowing that would probably not happen, and the realization churned tears into her eyes.

  “Will you get to be in shows?” Abuela asked.

  Evie’s eyes narrowed on the screen, searching the depths of the vacant look that had returned. Before she could say anything, Papá cut her off.