The Silver Bough

by Lisa Tuttle

  “And?” she prompted after a few seconds.

  “And nobody there.”

  She didn’t think that was what he had been going to say, but their server was approaching with a bottle and two glasses on a tray, and by the time he’d tasted the wine and approved it, and two full glasses had been poured, the moment when she might have quizzed him had passed.

  They toasted each other silently and drank. The wine was soft and delicious and she relaxed and sighed with pleasure. “It’s like being on vacation.”

  “Could be a permanent state.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well.” He looked into his glass and took a gulp before he went on. “Have you heard of HyBrasil?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “A traveling island that appears and disappears. It could never be reliably charted because it kept moving, and was often surrounded by mists. It’s seen mostly by sailors, a few of whom managed to land on its shores; it’s also been seen on occasion by people from the coasts of Ireland and Scotland. The same sort of story used to be told about this place, the island of apple trees, Innis Ubhall, Avalon, the island of the blessed, where no one ever died or had to wear themselves out laboring, because there was magic in the very soil, or at least in the apples that the inhabitants dined upon, until, whether because of a navigational error, or interference from some sly culture hero, Avalon ran smack into the coast of Britain during a mighty storm and was ever afterward stuck fast. Stop me; you look like you’ve heard this one before.”

  “Sort of. There’s a man who comes into the library most days, doing research for a local history he’s writing—Graeme Walker.”

  “Graeme-the-Post. An absolute mine of local information. I was amazed to find out he’s a transplant from Glasgow. I’d thought his roots must be centuries deep. So, he told you the legend?”

  “Not as a legend. He says he’s got geological evidence that this area used to be an island. He says there’s no historical evidence for its being here before the sixteen hundreds. It’s certainly not shown on the oldest maps of Scotland.”

  He leaned across with the bottle and poured her some more wine. She was surprised to realize she’d already finished her first glass and resolved to slow down.

  “Does Graeme have a theory about the original inhabitants?”

  “The people who were here before the incomers came?”

  “That’s it.”

  She shrugged.

  “They were supposed to be immortal,” he said. “Once the island was grounded, though, they lost that magical protection and became more like ordinary folks. They began to age, and suffer from ordinary infirmities. They intermarried with the incomers. According to the stories, some of them became Christians and were happy to exchange their pagan immortality for life everlasting. As for the others—well, they didn’t die, but they kept getting older, and after a hundred or a hundred and fifty years they began to shrink and shrivel, getting smaller and smaller until they were no bigger than newborn babies. Their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren had to look after them as they aged, but since they ate less and slept more, like the babies they began to resemble, they weren’t much trouble to keep. Even so, as the years went by their descendants tended to forget about them, and instead of recognizing them as their ancestors, they thought these tiny little people living in cupboards and odd corners of the house and garden were some sort of supernatural beings, elves and fairies, to be treated with great caution—Kathy, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  The memory of her experience in Ina McClusky’s house came back in a rush, sending a panic flood of fear all through her.

  He put a hand on hers, warm and solid and comforting. “Hey. Kathleen?”

  “Something weird happened to me today.” She grimaced. “What you said reminded me of it, but—it’s crazy.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t think I’ve had quite enough to drink yet.” She laughed a little.

  “Drink up, then. Listen, I’ve never been a particularly credulous or superstitious kind of guy, but today, some of the things that’ve been happening…” He shook his head.

  “Like what?”

  “You’ll think I’m crazy.” He smiled at her, teasing, and she smiled back, her fear eased by the pleasure of his company.

  “Try me. You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine—unless this is just a trick.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “How can you be so distrustful when you hardly know me?”

  “I had a big brother.”

  “Oh, man, please tell me that’s not how you think of me! As your brother?”

  “I was using that as an example of—I promise you I don’t.”

  “Good. Because I really don’t need another little sister.”

  “Are you going to tell me about the weird things that happened to you today, or have we moved on to the subject of sibling rivalry?”

  “OK.” He took a fortifying gulp of wine. “Well, apart from the general cut-off-ness that’s descended on the Apple—no grocery deliveries, no mail, no phone service, et cetera and the fog—”

  “What fog?”

  He gestured out at the lights of the harbor, and she was surprised to see night had fallen already. “You can’t see it from here, but if you go up in the hills, to any height at all, there it is, out at sea, a line of fog, like heavy, low cloud, on all sides. We’re surrounded by it, much as we are by the sea.”

  She frowned, feeling the same uncanny prickling at the back of her neck as she’d felt on entering the library that morning. The feeling—she’d nearly forgotten after everything else—similar to what she’d experienced in Nell’s orchard, as of some other, non-human presence nearby. She pushed the thought away, determined to be reasonable. “That’s probably just a weather system, isn’t it? You often get fogs at sea, and if the air is warmer than the land…”

  “There could be a natural explanation. I’m just telling you, I’ve never seen anything like it—the way it’s stayed out there, in the same place, all day. It struck me as weird. Another thing—I don’t know how well you know Appleton yet, and I could be wrong about this, but I’ve seen things—buildings, mostly—looking like they’ve been in place forever, that I would swear I’ve never seen before.”

  She thought of the strange little shop she’d seen yesterday morning.

  “It doesn’t sound like much, I know.” He frowned down at his wineglass, moving it between his fingers. “But I have the feeling it’s all connected, and that it means something. A change.”

  “Like, the Apple is becoming an island again?”

  He looked at her and nodded.

  “Do you believe in magic?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she felt embarrassed by them. She didn’t think she’d asked that question seriously in her adult life—although as a child she had believed in magic, passionately, and would often quiz others to find out if they felt the same. She held her breath, waiting for his reply.

  He took it seriously. “Before…” He shook his head. “I’m not really sure what I thought before. But here—now—yes.”

  She felt certain that the few things he’d mentioned wouldn’t have been enough to change his mind. “Something else happened.”

  He hesitated a moment, then, reluctantly, nodded. “Phone calls. The phone would ring, and…” He frowned, looked away, swallowed hard. “The voices…they couldn’t hear me, I don’t think; it was more like I was overhearing a conversation, half a conversation.” He stopped and drank some wine.

  “Did you recognize the voices?”

  It took him a moment to find the words. “They were…yes. People I’d known, been close to. They were all dead. But I could hear them talking.”

  She told him then about what had happened at Ina McClusky’s.

  “I never thought the end of the world would be like this,” he said when she’d finished.

  Her heart gave an uncomfortable jolt. “It�
��s not the end of the world!”

  “The end of the world we’ve known. I guess it’s also the start of something new, one world dying, and another busy being born.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “There’s something going on that we don’t understand. I have a feeling we’re just glimpsing the tip of an iceberg, and it’s huge, and it goes down deep, into regions we can only guess at, or glimpse in dreams.

  “I keep being reminded of stories I read as a kid…the old legends that people used to believe were true. What if they are true? After all, even if magic doesn’t work in our reality, there might be other worlds where it does. And what if Appleton used to be part of another world that somehow slipped or strayed into this one, and now it’s being pulled back again—”

  “But why should it be? Why now?”

  He shrugged. “Why do apples ripen in September and not in May? It could be a cycle that makes perfect sense, if we could see it from the right perspective. Maybe it’s happened before, but only once in so many hundreds or even thousands of years.”

  “Atlantis?”

  He nodded. “Maybe.”

  “But didn’t Atlantis sink into the ocean, or blow up, or something awful? Avalon was paradise. If we’re going to find ourselves living in paradise, it should be wonderful, not sinister.” She thought of the old women in the wardrobe, and Dave’s phone calls from the dead, and a shiver ran through her.

  “I’m not sure it will be paradise, not for all of us. Probably not even for most of us. I think it has to be too much to hope for, that we’d all be allowed to share in the bliss, all three thousand plus of us rewarded with paradise just because we happened to be living here on this little spit of land at this moment. That doesn’t make sense to me. In the old stories it was never a matter of chance; people were chosen, and they had something to show as their mark of favor—usually a blossoming apple branch.”

  His words brought back a vivid memory of Nell’s orchard. “Would the branch have fruit on it as well as blossom?”

  “It might.”

  “Because I saw a tree like that, on Sunday. Just one branch of the tree was in blossom, but it also had a big yellow apple on it.”

  “Where?”

  “In Nell’s walled orchard. Nell Westray; she’s an American who settled here—she bought Orchard House a few years ago. It didn’t have any orchards left when she came, but she started growing apples.”

  “So there are apples again in Appleton. I wonder…What did your friend say about the blossom? Was she surprised?”

  “I don’t know. She was pretty calm at first, so I couldn’t tell if it was new to her or not. She said something about the unseasonable weather to explain it. But after that, she changed. That could have been the reason. She’d been so friendly before, and after that…it was like she couldn’t wait for me to leave.”

  “I’d like to see that branch. Orchard House—where is that? Could you take me there?”

  She looked from his intent, questioning face to her almost empty wineglass and winced. “You know, I’m probably not in a great state to drive…”

  “Hey, neither am I.” His hand came down again on top of hers and gently pressed. “There’s no big urgency. I don’t have to see this apple tree. I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I can’t help being curious, that’s all. I think it must be connected to everything else that’s been happening. But, listen. First things first. We should get something to eat. I don’t know about you, but with one thing and another, I missed lunch. Do you want to chance the kitchen here, or go somewhere else?”

  “My house is right around the corner.” Her heart gave a hopeful, fearful thump as she said it. “If you don’t mind something simple—pasta or an omelette—I’ll cook.”

  “That would be great.”

  He poured the rest of the wine into the two glasses just as she pushed her chair back from the table. “Hey, no hurry. We’ve got to finish this.”

  “I’m just going to visit the ladies’ room.”

  “Oh. Well, don’t be long, huh?” She thought he looked oddly nervous, but then he winked, and said, “Or I might drink the rest of the bottle myself. If you see our waitress, send her out and I’ll settle up.”

  She saw herself in the restroom mirror: rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes, tousled hair, lips wet and reddened slightly from the wine. For once, she had no fault to find with her looks. She looked as happy, as desirous and desired, as she felt. He liked the way she looked; he liked her. All they had been talking about, the roadblock, the telephones, the fog, Ina McClusky’s ancient relatives, passed through her mind without making the impact of a single, lingering look from him. Something had happened; something was going on, but at the moment, befuddled by lust and wine, she couldn’t seem to get to grips with it. Maybe it was too big to take in all at once. If Dave was right and Appleton had entered another realm, a place of myth and magic, it seemed to her that taking a fatalistic attitude might be best. You had to go with the flow and try to stay sane while accommodating such a huge shift in reality. What would be, would be, and she would just have to fit her life into the changed circumstances as best she could. She couldn’t imagine herself as either the hero or the villain of Appleton’s tale, which would surely have unfolded in the same way without her. But whatever was to happen, she was grateful to the fate that had brought her together with Dave Varney.

  On the way back through the dim corridor from the restrooms she passed their server.

  “Excuse me—could we have the bill? Out front?”

  “He’s paid already,” said the girl with a flick of her wrist. “He was in a hurry. I left your glass.”

  When she got outside Kathleen saw their table had been cleared except, as the girl had said, for her own, half-empty glass of wine. There was no sign of Dave.

  She told herself he’d probably just gone to the men’s room—he’d be back in a minute—but, with a painfully hollow feeling in her chest, she stood beside the abandoned table and looked around. Over by the quay, across the wide Esplanade, she saw a group of people, perhaps half a dozen, walking away toward the town center. Because of the darkness and the distance, she couldn’t make out any details about them. But there was one man, walking a little behind the group and hurrying as if to catch them up, whom she knew, even at this distance, by the set of his shoulders, the way he moved, and the ponytail that hung down his back.

  She swallowed down a bitter taste and stared, her hands clenching at her sides as she willed him to look around and wave to her, to come back, to explain. He’d just seen someone he had to talk to, someone he wanted her to meet…

  But as she waited and watched, the whole group crossed over another street and they all, Dave included, passed out of sight.

  She turned on her heel and hurried away in the other direction, toward home, blinking hard against tears of shock. She felt eviscerated; in pain, then numb, then, gradually, she started to get mad at his pointless cruelty. It wasn’t like he owed her any explanations. If he didn’t want to have dinner with her, if he couldn’t bear another five minutes in her company, the briefest, most banal excuse would have done the trick, leaving her disappointed, yes, but not devastated. Was he under some compulsion to toy with women and leave them humiliated? She was not giving him another chance. She didn’t care what he said; there would be no next time. She remembered how he’d walked away from her so abruptly that first time in the library and felt she should have known from that what he was like.

  His letter lay in wait for her: a square blue envelope all by itself on the hall floor.

  She picked it up and held it between thumb and forefinger like something contaminated. It would be full of lies and seductive promises meant to affect her like a cunning, slow-acting poison. She remembered he’d been afraid reading it had made her determined to run away from him. No. That’s what he’d pretended—to find out if she’d read it. Probably so he wouldn’t slip up and contradict himself. The thought of so many layers of deceit made her tired. She didn’t
have to read his lies. Curiosity was weakness, another chink in her very, very rusty old armor.

  She took it into the kitchen and walked straight over to the bin without switching on the light.

  But there was already a little light in the dark room, a shaft of it spilled through the window, coming from the library which should, at this time of night, have been completely dark. She froze, then slowly turned her head to look. Across the garden, a single lighted window blazed like a sheet of gold set in the dark stone of the long building. Strangest of all, the light came from a window that did not exist; an opening high on the side of a wall that, earlier this evening, had been solid, unbroken stone.

  NELL REGRETTED HER words as soon as Ronan walked away, but she resisted the temptation to call him back and explain. She was mad at herself for invoking Sam like that, for waving the flag of her supposed marital status—“I’m Mrs. Westray”—as if she belonged to one of those primitive cultures in which a woman’s only protection was what her husband could provide. And yet there was a sense in which she was still, and would always be, Sam’s wife. She would never marry again and was incapable, she believed, of ever loving anyone else with the wholehearted, passionate commitment she had felt for him. There was absolutely no point in admitting to Ronan that her husband was dead; what she’d said was emotionally true. Being widowed had not made her available. She might be sexually attracted to him, but she wouldn’t act on those feelings, especially not after what he’d said about marriage. There was no way she would ever marry him.

  He’d really gotten to her. She tried, when she was alone again, to forget about their meeting, but the memory of him haunted her. The sound of his voice, the faintly honeyed smell of his skin, seemed to hang in the air of her garden and made it impossible for her to concentrate on any of the tasks that normally absorbed all her attention. The weather bothered her, too; it was far too warm for the time of year, and even the level of daylight seemed wrong.

  Despite the disturbing memories that lurked within its walls, she forced herself to go into the orchard again. There were apples that needed to be picked. She looked at the mystery tree first, wondering if anything would have changed, and noticed at once that the blossom, while it still thickly decorated the branch, no longer looked as vigorous. The petals had spread open more widely and were beginning to look slightly tattered. The apple itself had never looked more beautiful, and she sensed that it was at its very peak, almost ready to fall from the tree. If she so much as touched it, it would drop into her hand. She was very tempted to do so; to eat this singular apple all by herself. Ronan Wall certainly wouldn’t bother her again, and if it brought her bad luck, well, when had she ever had any other kind?