The Crabapple Pact

The oak’s gnarled arms beckoned us from behind the peeling white fence, its crown a shaggy green halo against the summer haze. The Forrester house had been empty since old Mr. Forrester passed, and the town whispered about why no one bought it—something about the well in the backyard, the one filled with stones. But to us, it was paradise. The oak was perfect for climbing, its low branches like a staircase to a kingdom of our own. My nanny, a wizened woman named Lola Ipe, had warned us: ‘Don’t go near that tree, children. It’s not a tree. It’s a door. And the things behind it don’t like being watched.’ But we were twelve, and curiosity is a stronger drug than fear.

One Good Friday, the air thick with the smell of burning palm leaves from the church down the road, we slipped through the gap in the fence. There were three of us: me, Manolo, and the twins, Kara and Lira. We’d done this a hundred times. We scrambled up the oak, our usual perches—Manolo on the thick branch over the well, the twins on the twin forks near the top, and me on the low crook that offered a view of the overgrown garden. We were playing ‘Shipwreck,’ pretending the ground was shark-infested water, when the branch under Manolo gave a crack like a rifle shot. He dropped without a sound, his head hitting the lip of the well with a sickening thud. Before we could even scream, the branch under the twins snapped in two, dropping them into a heap of limbs and leaves. And then mine—the branch I sat on, the one that had held me a hundred times—broke clean, and I hit the ground with a jarring force that knocked the wind from me.

We lay there, stunned, pain radiating from our bones. I remember thinking, ‘We should go home.’ And we did. We limped, crawled, and dragged each other through the fence, the heat of the afternoon pressing down. According to my mother, we each collapsed on our own doorsteps within minutes of each other, our faces ashen, our bodies wracked with fever. I don’t remember that. I remember the tree, the fall, and then… a dream of walking through a hallway of wet wood, with small, moth-like things fluttering around my head, whispering in a language I almost understood.

The fever lasted three days. My mother said I convulsed and spoke in tongues. The other kids were worse. Kara and Lira never woke from their fever dreams—they became vacant, staring at walls, humming. Manolo’s parents took him to the city hospital, but the doctors found nothing. He came back a week later, but he wasn’t the same. He wouldn’t speak, and he’d flinch at the sight of tree branches. My mother, desperate, called Lola Ipe. My nanny came, took one look at me, and her face went pale. She made a sign against evil and said, ‘You made a pact. The tree takes a toll.’

That summer, we were forbidden from the Forrester property. But I couldn’t stay away. Not because I wanted to go back, but because I started dreaming of the tree every night. In the dreams, the tree was taller, and the well was open, and a voice called out my name from its depths. I’d wake up with dirt under my fingernails and scratches on my arms. My mother thought I was sleepwalking. The twins’ parents moved away, hoping to escape the curse. They left in a hurry, leaving behind their furniture and a row of dead potted plants on the porch. Manolo’s family stayed, but Manolo would sit on the porch all day, staring at the fence, his lips moving in a silent conversation.

The day before they were to bulldoze the Forrester house to build a parking lot, I snuck back in. The fence was more dilapidated, the grass waist-high, but the oak stood, its leaves unnaturally green against the brown weeds. The well was still there, capped with a rotting wooden lid. I walked to it, my heart pounding. I lifted the lid, expecting darkness, but instead, I saw a face looking back at me—Manolo’s face, but older, and his eyes were gone, replaced by the empty white of moth wings. He smiled, and his mouth was full of oak leaves. ‘We waited,’ he said, not moving his lips. ‘The pact is for a year. And a day. You came back.’

I turned to run, but the branches of the oak had begun to curl, reaching for me like fingers. I dodged, but one snagged my ankle, and I fell. The branch dragged me toward the well. I fought, digging my fingers into the dirt, but it was no use. The last thing I saw was the sky, and then the world went dark. I woke up in my own bed, my mother crying over me. ‘You were gone three days,’ she said. ‘We thought you were dead.’ But I wasn’t. I was just different. Now, when I see a tree, I hear a hum, low and hungry. And sometimes, in the dead of night, I feel a tap on my window. It’s Manolo, or what’s left of him, his face against the glass, his lips moving in the same silent words: ‘The pact is renewed. The tree is patient.’

I never told anyone the real truth. That I went back on purpose. That I chose to take Manolo’s place. Because when I lifted the well lid, I saw my own reflection, but my eyes were green, and there was a branch growing from my temple. The tree only needs one of us at a time. And I decided it should be me. So now, I wait. I wait for the year and a day to pass. I wait for the next fall. And I wonder, if I cut down the oak, will it set me free? Or will it just make room for a new tree? There’s a sapling in my backyard. I didn’t plant it. But every night, it grows a little taller, and the leaves brush against my window, whispering the names of the ones who will come after.