Beckoning of the Gate

The Apple and the Tree-1

{3}

The Apple and the TreeThe hike to the Valley’s southern outskirts and her family’s estate was not a long one, but it was steep. A stranger to these parts might have struggled with the incline, but Santha, having trod this road for nigh on twenty years, strode up it as nimbly as one her goats. Herding sheep and oxen through this terrain was too difficult. Their lumbering bodies and clumsy footfalls kept them to the eastern pastures, which were level and closer to the town centre. Not so her goats, who thrived on the largest mountain in Seratora and all the challenges it presented.

The southern outskirts were home to only a few Valley farmers who enjoyed the calm isolation it offered. To Santha, it was a boon. Prying eyes were scarce and the risk of interaction almost non-existent. Now, more than ever, she craved these walks and the solace they brought.

Except for today.

Today, they could not distract her from her thoughts. And with every step that brought her closer to home, the trepidation built, for was it truly her home anymore? The argument she’d had with her mother two weeks ago flooded her mind, making her sad at first, and then angry. ‘Go, then, you ungrateful child. Leave. Just see how far you will get.’ Mama’s voice cut through Santha again, and she crossed her arms and lowered her head as if to bear the brunt of a raging storm. To hells with that stubborn old woman. To hells with them all.

The smell hit Santha first, as it always did, and she inhaled deeply. The scent of her goats was heavy in the air. The brick chimney of the cottage, leaning amicably upon its thatched roof, came into view. She held her breath, as much to savour it as from anticipation, as she narrowed her eyes. No smoke. A good sign that Mama was not in and she needn’t sneak by this time. This had always been the plan; nevertheless, Santha let the breath go with a sigh of relief.

Slowly approaching the white-picket fence, she strained her ears for any noise or activity. Mama may not be in the kitchen, but that did not preclude her from the grounds entirely. One could never be too careful.

Satisfied that no one was home, she unlatched the fence and made her way past the cottage and down the path to her goats with growing eagerness.

The natural short-hairs frolicked outside their pen in the back paddock. Though confined by the white-picket fence on all sides, the herd had spread far since she’d let them out at dawn to graze. The grass was thick and green, rich from the recent rains over Mount Tora and Serrin’s Mountains. She gazed at her goats lazily as they munched, her worries forgotten for the moment.

Oh dear. It will take some time to round them up, she thought with satisfaction. Untying her bonnet, she laid it and her handbasket on a water barrel beside the pen. Hitching up her skirts through a loop at each hip and ribbon cunningly sewn on the other side, she went about the chore as if she had all the time in the world.

Crook in hand and tongue clicking, she strolled over to the pair closest to the pen. ‘Hello there, sweeting,’ she cooed at the youngest of the herd, only a few days old, as he suckled at his mother, who continued to graze contentedly. ‘I’ll never understand why Papa decided to call you Malroy. You’re definitely more of a Milky,’ she told him, petting his pure white fleece. He turned to her and bleated happily, as if in agreement, his snout drenched in mother’s milk.

Santha laughed and stood, dusting off her skirts. ‘Better get you two back inside then.’

Easier said than done. Gertie, Milky’s mother, was a determined nanny and she clamped down on the grass roots for dear life when Santha’s crook made its way around her neck. After a couple of heaves, the goat relented and allowed herself to be led to the pen with her offspring still latched firmly to her teat.

‘Some good grass this year, huh?’ Santha rolled her sleeves and hitched her skirts further. Tying the ribbon securely at each hip, her thighs were on full display—an unseemly sight to many, no doubt, but not a goatherd of over a decade. ‘It seems I have competition.’

The breeze that caressed her knees was a welcome respite to the hot sun beating down as she took up the crook once more and held it aloft to make herself appear larger. And with a ‘hey, hey, hey’, she marched over to the bulk of the herd, swatting the grass as she went to show she meant business. Unfortunately, they were even less convinced than Milky’s mother. Either she was losing her touch, or the grass was more succulent and irresistible than she’d anticipated. A few failed attempts at ushering them towards the pens had Santha resorting to manhandling them one at a time instead. It was a thankless task, every one of them straining against her and each bolder than the last.

‘Quit your struggling, you little bastard,’ she groaned at Constable, a grisly billy-goat who was making every effort to pull in the opposite direction of the pen, uprooting grass as he went. ‘If you don’t, I’ll have Papa take you to the markets to be sold. How would you like to be skinned and eaten by a strange family after—rah—living such a life of—hah—luxury!’

Santha stumbled. Constable saw his opportunity and took it. Rearing up with a hearty bleat, he pulled Santha close, catching her off balance, then slammed his head none-too-gently into her stomach. She fell onto her backside while Constable shook himself free of the crook and sauntered off to re-join his brothers and sisters.

Santha lay for a while, staring up at the clear sky, winded and humiliated. ‘A stew’s too good for you,’ she muttered to herself. ‘I’ll make you into boots instead. Soft goat’s hide, perfect for travel when I finally get out of this godsforsaken town.’

Irritated bleats from behind reminded her that her work was far from done. Still flat on her back, Santha craned her neck upwards to look at the five measly goats she’d managed to hustle into the pen thus far. Even upside down, their faces seemed to taunt her—Milky’s too.

‘Fine,’ she said with a pout, and staggered to her feet.

The day was too hot and humid to dawdle through her work anyway. If the stick wasn’t to their liking then perhaps it was time for the carrot—literally. She stomped over to her handbasket, now only half-full of kitchen scraps after spilling them in the town centre, and scooped it up. Next, she pulled down a small bale of fresh hay from the pen’s rafters and strew it at her feet. Adding a mixture of vegetable scraps and oats to the hay proved too alluring for the herd to resist. Drawn by the tantalising smells and sounds of their brethren munching away in the pen, the rebels charged inside to take part in the feast, butting and fussing to be first.

Santha sighed, wiping the sweat from her brow and tucking some loose strands that had escaped her plait behind one ear. She pursed her lips. Less effort but much too fast. She shut the gate and her sigh turned to a grumble. She should be off back to Dandon’s school. Tarrying would only lead to trouble. But Santha was not ready to leave, not quite yet. Surely there is wood to be chopped. She turned to the cottage. Still no smoke and the kitchen curtains were closed.

Santha shrugged and made her way up to her mother’s garden: beds of soil with seasonal flowers and vegetables close to the kitchen, cordoned off by a devious hoof trap Papa had laid when she was just a girl. It was an effective deterrent and kept the herd at bay. Near the kitchen door, leaning against the cottage wall, was the maul with its single sharp edge set into a heavy head, perfect for splitting wood. Beside it was a pile of logs just waiting to be cut.

She’d just set up and struck her first log with an impressive crack when she heard footsteps inside. Santha froze as the curtains at the kitchen window sprang open. The townsfolk had always said she looked remarkably like her mother, but it was only now, staring at Mama through the paneless window, that she supposed it might be true. The same startled hazel eyes stared back at her, the same sun-kissed complexion and round face. It was a reflection of what Santha was to become, but the woman looking back at her looked tired. Age, maybe—it was hard to miss the grey in the russet plait beneath her bonnet, or her thinning lips, dour and drawn. The frown lines on Mama’s forehead had only grown deeper since Santha had seen her last. Two weeks, now.

Almost as quickly as she’d drawn them, her mother shut the curtains again, but not before pressing her mouth into a thin line and furrowing her brow. Santha licked her lips, considering her options as she listened to the patter of her mother’s feet in the kitchen and the bang of pots and pans in preparation for dinner.

The noise shook Santha from her trance and lit a fire in her belly. Her anger returned and with it a compulsion. Curse you, Dandon, she thought sourly, flinging the maul to the ground and stomping up the back stairs. She pressed her hand against the back door, expecting it to be bolted and feeling deflated at the thought of having to meekly knock in order to be let in to her own home. Thankfully, it was not, and the door creaked open like a tomb being unsealed for the first time in centuries.

Mama was kneeling by the hearth, blowing on an ember from the morning’s breakfast. Santha stood for a while in the doorway, Mama’s back to her as the older woman placed more kindling into the growing flame.

Santha took a step forwards and Mama straightened a little but did not turn around. Santha’s anger blossomed like the flame in the hearth, roaring into life while her mother ignored her. But then her courage failed her, the flame subsiding to a menacing glow, and she stepped past her mother and into the adjoining rooms.

‘I’ve come for my things,’ she said over her shoulder.

Mama did not react.

Santha disrobed in her bedroom, washed sparingly from a pan of water she poured from her water jug (still full from two weeks ago), and dressed in clean underclothes and a coarse, brown tunic and leggings. She was pulling out more clothing from her sparse wardrobe when she spied something mauve tucked away in one corner. It was carefully folded, and when she picked it up, Santha knew instantly it was woven from expensive silk. The dress unfurled, spilling to the floor, all lace and frills with a hemline that would have brushed the ground if she’d worn it. A small fortune from Calloway, most likely, and completely impractical, especially in this heat. Santha scrunched her nose up at it and then relented, laying the dress on her bed gently and spreading it out so she could look at it fully.

It was extravagant, there was no doubt about it, yet Santha couldn’t help but like it. For all their differences (and there were many) she and Mama shared an awful lot in taste—when pragmatism was not required, of course. She ran her finger across the lace at the sleeves and sighed.

She bundled her belongings—three more sets of underclothes, a petticoat, two pairs of trousers, a spare dress, and a prized whale-tooth comb gifted to her by Dandon—into a hessian sack, and sat on her bed beside the mauve dress. Making up her mind, Santha stood with the sack in hand and went to the kitchen, leaving the dress behind.

A pot of goat stew simmered over the hearthfire. Mama pottered around, shredding freshly picked herbs from her garden into the bubbling stew. The rest she bound tightly and hung to dry near the window. Santha sniffed the hot and meaty smell with hints of rosemary and basil, with peppercorns from the plantations in the Southern Isles. She eyed Mama warily.

As if sensing being watched, her mother’s shoulders slumped and then straightened, for all the world like she was shifting a great load to get a better purchase. She turned to her daughter with a tight smile, one eyebrow raised. Guests might have mistaken it for polite enquiry, but Santha knew better. Instinctively, Santha returned the look before she could help herself, but then softened her expression.