The Silver Bough

by Lisa Tuttle

  To enter this Otherworld before the appointed hour of death, a passport was necessary. This was a silver branch of the mystic apple-tree, laden with blossom or fruit—though sometimes a single apple sufficed—and it was given by the Queen of Elfhame or Fairy Woman to that mortal whose companionship she desired. It served not only as a passport, but also as food; and it had the property of making music so entrancing that those who heard it forgot all their cares and sorrows.

  NELL WAS UP and out of the house as soon as it was light, hurrying across the meadow and into the scented hush of the walled orchard, wondering how she could have been fooled.

  She had been raised by thoroughly secular people. She’d never belonged to any church; she had no established religious beliefs to console or disturb her. But she was not an atheist, and she couldn’t accept an entirely materialist view of life. She knew that her husband—and almost certainly her parents, too—had believed that death was the end, but she felt differently. People were more than their material bodies; they had souls, and those might be eternal. She’d read about karma and reincarnation and astral planes and physicists’ theories of other worlds, never quite finding the answer she was looking for, but believing it was out there. As for an actual, physical Heaven, with a geographical location, that idea had seemed too naïve to take seriously—until last night.

  She knew the meaning of the silver bough in folklore, but what about in real life, in her own orchard? Could it possibly be a sign from Sam, an invitation to join him in the afterlife? And if so, was that more wonderful than terrifying?

  And so her thoughts had run on until, at some point during the long, restless night, it had finally occurred to her that the man calling himself Ronan Wall, the man she had let into her orchard, might be responsible for the blossoming branch.

  She remembered how he’d touched it—he’d wanted her to remember that. Of course it was a trick; the flowers were made of silk or paper, and he’d turn up the next day to pass himself off as special ambassador to the Otherworld. No need to ask why: He was a con man, simple as that. He’d picked her because she had money, a house, land, and, as a lonely widow without family or friends, she made an easy mark. He’d done his research and decided to use her grief, her longing, and her interest in apple trees against her. If he really was, as he claimed, a descendant of the Walls, he might be driven by more than the usual con man’s desire to profit at someone else’s expense; maybe he felt her property was rightfully his. Oh, but why make excuses? He was a con artist, and she’d been extraordinarily gullible. At least it wasn’t too late. She wouldn’t let him set any more traps for her. She wouldn’t believe a word he said.

  She half expected the blossom to have disappeared—otherwise, she might find it had been an illusion, convincing only in the half-light of dusk, which daylight would dispel.

  But it was still there, clustered thickly along the same slender branch from which the single golden apple hung. She put her nose right up to one cluster of the creamy, pink-tinged flowers, close enough that she felt the pollen-bearing stamens tickle her nostrils, and inhaled the soft, sweet scent. It was real, all right, and the branch, too, was natural. If there was some explanation other than magic for the out-of-season flowering, she was convinced it could not be human trickery.

  She aimed a mental apology at Ronan Wall, wherever he might be, and lingered to stare at the singular apple. It was ripe and ready for picking and should not be left for much longer. The sight of it made her mouth water. What a great breakfast it would be, eaten just-picked, out of doors. But superstition, or something else, stayed her hand. She didn’t have to believe in magic to feel it was wrong to go against the local custom. Just because the apple had appeared on her tree, on her land, didn’t make the decision of what to do with it hers alone. In the old days, the community had decided, choosing an Apple Queen to share the fruit with her love, and their good fortune spread to the whole town—at least, that was the story. There wasn’t time now to organize a competition, but there must be plenty of deserving, attractive young women about the place. She should ask Kathleen…

  She remembered then, with a little lurch of her heart, how things were: She had totally alienated her one potential friend in this town, cutting her off and willing her to leave last night. She was on her own again. There wasn’t anyone else she could ask. She thought of Jean, the woman who ran the organic shop, and remembered her broad Yorkshire accent: another incomer. So was the plumber, and that Mr. Murphy who’d put up her greenhouse…but did it matter where they came from originally? The Murphys had been here nearly thirty years; they had grownup children, one of whom worked as a hairdresser.

  She imagined going into the warm, scented air of Curl Up & Dye and presenting the golden apple to the girls who worked there. “To the Fairest!” she might announce, and then what? Toss it like a bridal bouquet and see who managed to catch it? Suggest a beauty competition to be judged by the star of the local football team? Wouldn’t they just laugh at her? And wouldn’t they be right?

  She left the orchard and made her way back to the house, pausing on her way to pick a handful of fat, glossy blackberries to add to her muesli. Already the day was shaping up into a fine, dry, bright one, and she guessed it would be unseasonably hot again. This late spurt of unusually warm weather wasn’t enough to explain the sudden appearance of the blossom on her tree; but since she’d ruled out trickery, she had to try to think up some other, nonsupernatural, explanation for it.

  As she ate breakfast, idly swirling the fragments of mint leaves in her teacup, she thought of the tree she’d found growing wild, the one she’d taken the cutting from. For all she knew it was a late bloomer, or some strange variety that customarily carried apples and blossom at the same time.

  She still had the map, and a penciled “X” marked the spot where she’d found the solitary apple tree. It would be easy to find; she could walk there in under forty minutes. Comparing her tree with its parent might not tell her much, but it was such an obvious thing to do, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before.

  Two hours later, she was walking in circles, stubbornly sure of her ground, yet lost. She trudged on, wiping the sweat from her face and getting more and more thirsty and hot, and more and more cross with herself every time she stopped to consult the map. She should have been able to find the site, even if the tree itself had gone. She remembered it so clearly: on the edge of the pine plantation, near a stream, growing just beside a pile of rocks she’d decided must be the remains of a cottage, or, at least a walled enclosure. Why couldn’t she find that, at least?

  Of course, things did grow incredibly rapidly in this moist, mild climate, even though the soil was thin; maybe the pile of rocks she remembered was now buried beneath brambles and bracken, completely hidden from sight.

  For about the sixth time she returned to the stream. Already she had traced its entire course, remembering that as she’d taken a cutting from the tree she’d heard the musical rush of water over stones like the sound of tinkling bells. Houses were generally built close to a source of water, so she felt certain she could trust her memory. But when she reached the bubbling spring that was the source of the stream, and there was still no sign of a single apple tree, she had to accept that it must have been uprooted or chopped down.

  She crouched, plunged her hands into the chilly water, and splashed her face, then raised the fresh liquid in handfuls and drank. Gradually, cooler and calmer, she considered another possibility: that she’d made a mistake when she marked the map, that it was beside another stream (after all, there were plenty of them), even farther from the original orchards, that she’d found her mystery tree.

  It wasn’t very likely, for she was a competent map-reader, but she wasn’t ready to give up and go home, so she checked the position of the next closest stream on the map, and struck out for it, striding along confidently despite the lack of a path.

  Within fifteen minutes she knew that she had never come this way befor
e. The ground began to rise more steeply, and the terrain changed, becoming rockier and more barren. This was not land hospitable to trees. Heather and spiky broom grew in abundance, nothing much taller. She spotted one small rowan tree, its slender branches already heavy with red berries, and remembered that they grew in the most inhospitable of sites, sometimes sprouting from a covering of moss on solid rock.

  She knew she would find no apple trees on such a barren moor, but she did not turn back. The weather was glorious; she enjoyed being out in the open, and found it especially pleasant to stride along quickly, stretching her legs, after creeping along, peering at the ground for familiar landmarks. It was a disappointment not to have found the tree, but it didn’t really matter.

  As she continued to walk, she was puzzled by the increasing emptiness of the landscape. She saw a few low, creeping plants here and there among the rocks, but no grasses—even the heathers had disappeared. The ground was hard and dry underfoot, as if it had been weeks without rain instead of only a few days. Pausing to bend and examine it she found not solid rock, as she’d half expected, but soil that had dried to a fine, powdery dust, having had all moisture leached out of it. It was like a desert. For a moment she could make no sense of it, and then she understood: there must have been a fire. Of course, wildfire, caused by lightning or a hiker’s careless match, might have destroyed all local vegetation. Presumably the presence of so many streams and waterways had kept the fire from spreading very far.

  She sniffed the air and realized it held an acrid, smoky tang, suggesting that the fire was very recent. She wondered if it could still be smoldering somewhere, although, looking around, she could see nothing left to burn.

  Just ahead of her rose a small, bare, rounded hill. It had an odd appearance, as if some sort of path or channel had been worn into the sides, incised in a winding spiral from the base to the top. She had the vague sense that this meant something she should know, but she could not think why. The sight of the oddly shaped hill in this desolate landscape, the silence (there were no birds) and the lingering, unpleasant scent of burning on the hot and heavy air all combined to create a growing sense of unease.

  Checking her map, she found the hill was named Cnoc na Beithir, and although she’d never seen it before, she remembered the name from a winter’s evening of map-reading. Cnoc was a round hill, and her Gaelic dictionary had given four distinct definitions for beithir. It was “a prodigiously large serpent” and “lightning bolt” and “bear” and something else she couldn’t remember—some sort of fish. It had made her wonder how people could have managed with such an unnecessarily confusing language.

  Which of the four definitions had given the name of beithir to this hill? she wondered. Maybe this little cnoc had a reputation for attracting lightning. Maybe the dead, burnt-over look of the land was not due to anything recent. But that hardly accounted for the smell. Looking up at the clear blue sky—no chance of being struck today—she ignored the urge she felt to run away, and kept walking toward the hill, bearing slightly to the left, where the spiral path—if it was a path—seemed to have its beginning.

  At the base of the hill, just before the path began, she saw an opening, a cleft in the rock that was almost twice as wide as an ordinary doorway. She stopped short, her stomach churning. Although it was too dark to see anything inside the cave, she was sure there was something lurking in the darkness. The smell of burning was much stronger here, and she became aware of a sound that made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck: a low, sinister hissing.

  She felt rooted to the spot by the horrible threat conveyed by the sound. Impossible, of course, but it sounded like a huge snake. Of course, there were no really big snakes in this country—adders, although poisonous, were small and shy. Maybe a nest of adders, amplified by the rock walls around them, could sound like that, but she didn’t believe it. She imagined a prodigiously large serpent, more gigantic than any python she’d ever seen in a zoo, uncoiling within that dark recess, preparing to emerge and wrap itself around the hill, unwinding into the grooves it had worn in the sloping sides on other days when it lay there, torpid in the sunlight, digesting whatever it had devoured.

  Only today it had not yet eaten, and would be hungry. And there was nothing in this barren region for it to eat. Nothing, except her.

  Nell ran for it. There was nothing to be gained in stubbornly waiting to see what came out of that hole, and potentially everything to lose. She ran even though she didn’t believe in the thing she was running from, and her steps did not slow until she reached an area—lush, green, heavily overgrown—that looked familiar to her.

  She didn’t know how to think about what she’d just experienced. She hadn’t actually seen anything—she might have imagined it—was it possible that she’d been hallucinating, maybe because of heatstroke? It didn’t feel that hot to her, but she had been out in the sun for hours, without a hat—maybe that was all it was. She was eager to get home, to sit in the shade and sip something cold and sweet while she read one of her library books and forgot everything else.

  She was already halfway there in her mind when, approaching the garden gate, she saw someone, or something, crouched on the low stone boundary wall: an odd figure, like a gargoyle, knees raised and back hunched.

  Her heart lurched and she faltered, fearful that she might be forced to turn and run away again, this time from her own house, until she recognized Ronan. The reason for his odd posture was the large book he was poring over.

  She felt a strong, half-guilty pleasure at the sight of him, which put her on her guard. Even if he wasn’t a con artist, he certainly wanted something from her. She had to stay sharp, which could be difficult in the throes of physical attraction. When she was near enough to speak without shouting, she said, “What do you want?”

  He looked up and smiled as if he hadn’t heard the warning in her voice. “I’ve got something for you.” Unfolding lithely, he slipped down from the wall and held out a large yet slim book, taller than it was wide, and bound in a hard-wearing, dark blue material.

  She frowned and crossed her arms.

  “It’ll interest you,” he said and, when she didn’t respond, he opened it and held it up so she could see a beautiful, full-page color print of an apple. It was not just any apple; she recognized it at once as her own mystery fruit. It was yellow-gold with a freckling of reddish blush, surrounded by soft green leaves and creamy, pink-tinged blossom all on the same branch.

  Her arms came down and she took an involuntary step forward. “What is that?”

  “James Alexander Wall’s Pomona. There’s everything you could possibly want to know about the apples that grow here.” He pressed it into her hands, and, unable to resist such a lure, she took it.

  Although she’d promised herself she would not invite him in a second time, she could not send him away with his book in her hands. The thought of standing here and quickly leafing through the book did not appeal; it was too important to skim. She was hot and tired, and still a bit shaky, after the experience on her long walk, and only wanted to rest. She took a deep breath and spoke politely. “May I offer you something to drink?”

  He smiled and followed her into the garden. She stopped beside the table where she’d had dinner with Kathleen, put the book down, and gestured him to a seat. “What would you like? Something cold? Iced tea or water or…some sort of fruit juice, I think. Wine? Or would you rather have coffee?”

  He was watching her with a disconcertingly close gaze, as if trying to commit her to memory.

  “Well?”

  He gave his head a small shake. “Whatever you’re having.”

  “Fine. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  As soon as she was inside, she dashed to the bathroom. She fought the temptation to shower and change out of her sweaty old clothes, to brush her hair and spritz on a little Issey. Really, Nell, could you be more obvious? You’ll keep out of sniffing distance. And he is not coming in.

  She mixed th
e last of a jar of instant peach-flavored tea with cold water and added all the ice cubes she had to the jug. Her stomach growled, and she remembered she hadn’t eaten lunch. She quickly sliced some cheese and half a dozen ripe tomatoes and put them on a tray with crackers, and carried them out to the garden. Ronan was sitting with his eyes closed, head thrown back to the sun, and at this sight of him, looking so vulnerable, she again felt the treacherous stir of desire. She bit her tongue so hard it hurt.

  She set the tray down, suggested briskly that he should help himself, and took up the book. “Where did you get this?” Her suspicion that the dark blue cover was a library binding was confirmed by the old-fashioned bookplate she discovered on the inside of the front cover: PROPERTY OF APPLETON PUBLIC LIBRARY. Beneath it was a square red stamp: RESERVED STOCK: FOR REFERENCE ONLY.

  “The library.”

  “And she let you take it out?” This book was surely too valuable to be let out on loan; it must be irreplaceable.

  “I got it for you.”

  She felt a twinge of guilt as she imagined kindly Kathleen even after Sunday’s disaster still thinking of something nice to do for her, asking Ronan to deliver it—yeah, sure, right. Give a valuable book to a passing stranger? The library wasn’t even open today.

  She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “And I’m supposed to return it to the library when I’m through with it? Or give it back to you?”

  He took a drink and shrugged. “As you like.”

  “What did you bring this to me for?”

  “You had questions.”

  “I certainly do.” She looked down, turning the pages. The text was a shock. It was in Latin, set in a heavy gothic typeface in at least eighteen-point. She’d been made to study Latin at school, and although she’d done reasonably well at the time, she wasn’t sure how much she’d retained. She looked across at him. “Can you read this?”