The Bleached Orchard

The orchard behind our cottage in the Welsh hills was my favorite place, especially in the autumn. The trees, gnarled and ancient, bore fruit that never seemed to ripen, their pale skin the color of moonlight. I was six when I first saw the man among the apple trees.

It was October 31st, 1999, the day the villagers called the ‘Night of the Hollow Wind.’ I had wandered past the crumbling stone wall that bordered our garden, following the sound of a stream I’d never noticed before. The water was black as ink, and it wound through the orchard like a serpent. At its heart stood a tree with ivory bark, its branches twisted into a shape that made my stomach churn. The man was leaning against it, watching me with eyes the color of sun-bleached bone.

He was tall, with hair like spun gold and a skin that shimmered faintly, the hue of skimmed milk under a full moon. His suit was the black of a raven’s wing, and his smile revealed teeth that were just a shade too sharp. ‘Little one,’ he said, his voice like honey and gravel, a strange blend of accents I knew only from old films. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

He held out his hand, palm up, and in it lay a single apple, its skin so pale it seemed to glow from within. ‘This is my gift,’ he said. ‘Take it, and I will show you the secrets of the orchard.’ I remember the coldness of his touch as our fingers brushed—a chill that seeped into my bones and stayed there. I bit into the apple, and the flesh was sweet as summer, but my gums bled where the skin broke.

The orchard shifted. The trees seemed taller, their branches reaching like grasping fingers. The stream turned to silver, and I could hear whispers in a language I didn’t know, yet understood with a primal part of me. The man—if he was a man—beckoned me deeper, telling me of a realm where light never touched, and where beings like him walked among the roots of the world. He called himself Eldrin, and he said he was a prince of the hollow places, a guardian of the spaces between worlds.

But when I tried to speak, my voice came out as a rustle of leaves. Eldrin laughed, a sound like cracking ice. ‘You will learn to speak the old tongue,’ he said, ‘if you wish to stay.’ And I felt a twitch in my chest, a pull toward the void in his eyes. The orchard blurred, and I saw other children—silent, pale, with eyes like his—standing among the trees, their hands reaching out toward a dark sun that pulsed on the horizon.

Terror gripped me, sharp and cold. I dropped the apple, which hit the ground with a wet thud, and I ran. The trees seemed to close around me, but I burst through the wall back into our garden, gasping. When I looked back, the orchard was gone. In its place was a bramble thicket, and the air smelled of rotten fruit.

I never told anyone the full truth. They found me by the stream, shivering, with a bloody lip and a strange mark on my palm—a pale circle, like the ghost of an apple. I grew up, moved away, but the orchard appears in my dreams. And sometimes, when the wind blows hollow, I hear his voice, soft and patient, calling, ‘Come back, little one. The fruit is ripe.’

I haven’t returned to that cottage, but last week, I received a package with no return address. Inside was an apple, pale as moonlight, and a note written in a silver script that I can only partially read: ‘The orchard remembers. Soon, you will walk among us.’