The sky above Holt Orchard had begun to pale into a pale gold, the kind of light that made everything look older. Cassie wiped sweat from her neck with the back of her wrist and stepped back from the final crate, stacked unevenly in the back of her grandfather's old Dodge. The tailgate sagged under the weight of bruised apples.
The fruit hadn't been right all season. They were early—weeks early—and already soft to the touch. Half the trees were blooming twice, like they couldn't decide what time it was. She'd seen a peach-colored blossom on an apple tree that morning, clinging to a rotted limb like a leftover dream.
Cassie picked up one of the apples that hadn't made it into the crate. It was firm, perfectly shaped, blushed gold with red veins. She turned it over in her palm, rubbed the stem against her jeans, and took a bite.
The flesh gave with a crack—but inside, the apple was dry. Not shriveled, not wormed—just empty. The bite turned to ash in her mouth, tasteless and papery, like biting into a dead flower.
She spat it out behind the truck.
From across the field, Mae's voice rasped like gravel in a colander.
"Stop eatin' them. That batch's gone bad."
Cassie turned. Her grandmother stood beneath the porch awning, arms folded beneath her housedress, eyes dark as burnt bark. She didn't shout, didn't walk closer. Just stood there, as if she'd been watching a long time.
"They were ripe last week," Cassie called back. "Now they're mush."
"They ain't mush. They're wrong." Mae sucked her teeth. "Something's off in the roots. You feel it yet?"
Cassie didn't answer. The wind picked up faintly through the orchard rows, and the leaves whispered above her, high and thin. The orchard stretched down in rolling furrows behind the house—more than two hundred trees, planted before Cassie was born, before her mother was born, maybe before anyone remembered who first owned the land. It was part of the soil now. It breathed when you weren't listening.
Cassie wiped her mouth and tossed the apple into the bin. It landed with a wet thunk.
"We'll need to cull the east slope," she said.
"You won't," Mae snapped. "You stay clear of that side."
Cassie met her grandmother's eyes. There was no mistaking the look—not fear, exactly. Not concern. Just grim certainty, like someone watching a storm they'd already seen take down a barn.
"Why?" Cassie asked.
Mae didn't answer.
The light faded, and the orchard grew quiet—like something had held its breath.