Crooked Daylight by Helen Slavin

Author:Helen Slavin [Slavin, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Agora Books

* * *

In the orchard the sunlight dappled through the leaves and the boughs were heavy with fruit not yet harvested.

“What d’you reckon?” Michael was sniffing the skin of the apple in his hand and Kendra, the farmer’s elder daughter, was slicing into another. Charlie was taking a bite from the Kingham Pink.

“It’s good.” She already knew which apples they would take. From her current standpoint she could see the marks in the lichen on the bark of each tree which told her what each apple would taste like. The ones they would need were further up the orchard, on the slight slope, they had a slight golden glow to the leaves in the sunlight, almost like a halo. “Put it on the maybe list.”

Kendra nodded.

“Good acidity,” she offered, and Charlie agreed.

“Can we try further up the slope d’you think?” She waved in a general way although her instinct wanted to point to the exact trees like a hunting dog on the scent of prey.

“Yeah sure. That’s where the oldest trees are, the heritage ones…” Kendra gave them the potted history of the orchard as they walked onwards. Charlie already knew how old they were and when they neared the trees it felt like greeting old friends, Charlie needing to reach out and touch the bark. As she did so she had a sensation rush through her like all the winds and sunlight and rainwater that had ever washed over the tree.

Her grandmother had not been surprised the first time she had ever talked about this. They had been up in the orchard at Hartfield Hall with Grandma Hettie. Charlie had been about eight, Anna had just turned fourteen and baby Emz who had been about two then. It had been a fractious afternoon and they were rather bored with the visit to Hartfield. Finally, they had had a competition to see who could guess which apples were sweet, which sour. Anna had to taste them, and her predictions were wrong. Charlie was always right. Sweet. Sharp. Dry. Juicy.

“What speaks to you?” was all her grandmother had asked, matter of fact. Charlie had told her because at eight it did not seem odd. Later, she came to understand that things like that needed to be kept private. Secret. Charlie understood. She smiled to think of the fact that she learned later that they were not supposed to be in the grounds of Hartfield at all, it was private property and they had been trespassing.

Charlie broke from her thoughts and looked up, Michael was watching her once again, intent. He smiled.

“You were miles away.” His voice, soft as the breeze. His shirt, the exact green of the orchard, leaf and apple and grass. Charlie’s focus was shifting away from the apples and she snatched it back.

“Ha. Sorry. Brewing thoughts.” She turned to Kendra “These are the ones.”

Kendra looked at her.

“You haven’t tasted them yet…”

There was a brief moment of confusion and this time Charlie covered her tracks.

“Oh. Ah. No… I meant these are the ones we should taste.

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