The Orchard Girl

In the autumn of 1994, I was seventeen and had been sent to live with my grandmother in the small town of Maple Hollow while my parents sorted out their divorce. My grandmother’s house was an old farmhouse at the edge of town, bordered by a sprawling apple orchard that had been abandoned for years. The trees were gnarled and bare, their branches like skeletal fingers reaching for the sky.

One afternoon, as I was helping my grandmother in the kitchen, we both noticed a figure standing at the edge of the orchard. It was a young girl, about nine years old, with mousy brown hair tangled and matted, and she wore a yellowed dress that looked like it belonged in a photograph from the 1970s. She stood perfectly still, staring at us through the window. My grandmother paled and grabbed my arm. ‘Don’t look at her,’ she whispered, but it was too late. The girl raised a hand and pointed directly at me, then turned and disappeared among the trees, vanishing as if she had never been there.

I asked my grandmother who she was, but she refused to speak, her lips pressed into a thin line. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing the girl’s face, her eyes dark and empty. At 2 a.m., I heard a faint humming coming from outside. I crept to the window and saw the girl standing under the largest apple tree, her back to me, humming a tune I didn’t recognize. She began to walk deeper into the orchard, and I felt a pull, an inexplicable urge to follow. I shook my head, slammed the window shut, and pulled the curtains closed.

The next morning, I found my grandmother in the orchard, digging at the base of the old apple tree. Her hands were raw and bleeding. She looked up at me with a haunted expression and said, ‘She comes for those who see her. I buried her here in 1982. I was young and careless, and she drowned in the pond. I didn’t report it because they’d have taken everything. She’s been waiting for me to set her free, but I can’t. She wants a companion.’

That evening, as the sun set, I heard the humming again, closer this time. When I looked out the window, the girl was standing right on the other side of the glass, her face inches from mine. She smiled, and her voice, soft and hollow, seeped through the cracks: ‘You see me. You’ll stay.’ I tried to scream, but no sound came out. My grandmother rushed in, but the girl turned to her and said, ‘You kept me here. Now I’ll keep her.’

I have been in this orchard for decades now. My reflection never shows, and I walk the trees with the girl. Sometimes, when the wind rustles the leaves, I hear a new voice calling out, and I know—she’s found another one.