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The tree stood alone at the edge of the orchard, its limbs twisted like hawsers mooring the trunk to the sky. Parched leaves scratched and chittered against the bark like bats. It seemed as though a fire had consumed the tree but left it standing.
“Where were the apples?”
“Three there,” Kevin said, indicating a place on the grass. “And two there.” He pointed to a low branch.
“Didn’t it seem strange to you that such a tree should yield golden apples?”
“What kind of tree should they come from?” He scooped a handful of pebbles from the dirt.
The old man was silent for several long seconds before speaking. “Do you know the story of Sigvald and Hetha?”
“Who?”
“Sigvald was a warrior a long time ago,” the old man said. “He invaded the town of Ulfhednar but promised to stop the raids if someone could bring him a basket of apples.”
Kevin poured the pebbles from one hand to the other and looked at the basket. “What’s so hard about that?” he asked.
“The apples had to come from a log that Sigvald dried in a special oven. No one could do it, so the raids went on and on. Then one winter day a woman named Hetha asked for the chance to make the log give fruit. Sigvald agreed, and she set fire to the log, burning it to ashes.”
The old man paused to cough lightly, and Kevin, who was now aiming a volley of pebbles at the tree trunk, looked at him in the brief silence.
“Sigvald asked what she was doing,” the old man went on. “She explained that the log had to be purged. Then she gathered the ash in a great sack, and she journeyed to a nearby orchard. Each day she scattered ash at the base of every tree.
“Again Sigvald asked what she was doing, and she said that the ash had to be awakened. And he agreed again, though he’d never heard of such a thing. All this time the raids had ceased while Sigvald followed Hetha, for he was sure that no fruit could come of the log.
“Eventually Spring returned to Ulfhednar, and the trees in the orchard came to bloom. Then summer, and apples started to appear on the branches. When they were ripe, they turned a rich, golden color, and Hetha went through the orchard with a basket, picking only the best fruit. She presented them to Sigvald, declaring that the log had made fruit through the living trees.
“Sigvald wouldn’t believe it, and he refused to abandon the raids. But Hetha defied him to find the ash anywhere in the orchard. When he couldn’t, he had to agree that the ash had turned into the apples he now held.”
The two stood at the base of the blighted tree for several quiet minutes.
“Is that true?” Kevin asked skeptically.
“Well,” said the old man, “the raids stopped.”
“Sigvald’s a funny name,” Kevin observed, and he threw the remaining handful of pebbles into the grass.
A breeze stirred in the orchard, turning through the leaves and filling the air with the gentle scent of apples and cut grass.
“Why do you want them?” Kevin asked.
“I’m old and tired,” wheezed the old man. “I’d like to have what’s mine.”
Kevin returned home with his remaining three apples. The basket hung at his elbow and swung lightly with each step, but the towel wrapped the apples snugly.
The high afternoon sun baked the gravel driveway, where Mike bent beneath the open hood of the two-door. His fingers were blackened from the engine, and his hands worked busily, turning a ratchet wrench back and forth with a staccato clicking.
“What’s wrong with it?” Kevin asked as he approached.
“Plugs are shot.”
Kevin nodded as though he understood. “You can fix them, right?”
“I’m putting new ones in,” Mike said.
“And then it’ll run?”
“Good as new.”
That night, Samantha and Kevin sat at the kitchen table with the basket of apples between them. Mike stood beside the stove, stirring a pot of spaghetti.
“How’d you like Dina?” he asked.
“Kind of pushy,” Samantha said.
Mike laughed. “Sometimes she comes on too strong.”
“She’s a know-it-all,” Samantha said. “Ovaries! She needs another apple as a control.” She looked at Kevin. “What do you think?”
“What does ‘Sigvald’ mean?” he asked.
Samantha glanced at Mike, who shrugged. “Where did you hear that?”
“An old man in the orchard,” Kevin said. “He told me a story about Vikings.”
“You should keep away from him,” she scolded.
“He said that the apples were his,” Kevin went on.
Mike strained the spaghetti over the sink, and a cloud of steam rolled along the countertop. “I thought you found them,” he said.
“I did,” Kevin’s voice trailed off.
“If you found them, they’re ours,” Samantha said. “Nobody owns the orchard.”
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