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The woman who wears the full moon in her hair passed slowly behind the trees, her scalp skimming the stars, as Kip stole swiftly through the woods away from the shoreline where her little boat was cradled in the rocky shore. It was late August, and the smell of apples ripening in the vast Orchard tinged the whole night green and sweet. Kip carried no lantern for light, passing unseen through the underbrush until she reached the edge of the Orchard itself.
Having never seen it with her own eyes before, she paused to take it in.
In the moonlight, the rows of ancient apple trees seemed to stretch on and on forever, great columns of gnarled trunks, reaching branches in full leaf, heavy with blushed golden fruit.
Kip could hear soft singing. She had heard that the Orchardists would post sentries in the trees at night to sing to the fruit and make it swell, and their hymnal voices in the night were eerie.
Shaking away the hypnotic spell of the music, Kip crossed the rows one at a time, keeping low and avoiding the trees where the singing was loudest, knowing there would be a green-clad Bracker perched high in the branches, ready to sniff her out.
The Orchard was acres wide, and the going was slow. But Kip was patient; nearly every day of her fourteen years had been spent on the sea with her father and brothers, and you didn’t get anywhere as a fisherman with the sin of impatience hanging over you.
Once, Kip was especially grateful to have checked her way before crossing, for she looked up in time to see the ghostly form of a large hound cross the row she was about to cross herself. Its eyes glowed lamplike in the dark, raising its head to scent the air. Kip froze, waiting, as the dog seemed to stare right at her, into her, through her. But then the lamplike eyes went out as it turned and went on its way, seeking out the borders of the Orchard on its own mission.
Sooner than she imagined, she reached the opposite edge of the Orchard and crossed the final row into the woods once more. She crouched in the brush and pulled the small paper map out of her pocket, hand-drawn in haste, to make sure she was following the right path.
A long, sorrowful howling rent the night in two, startling Kip so that she nearly dropped the map, and just beyond where she sat a pair of hounds trotted in stride down the nearest orchard row before pausing to scent the air and then slip off their separate ways, vanishing into the Orchard like shadows.
With shaking fingers, Kip folded the map and put it away in her pocket again. The black wool coat she had taken from her father was too big for her and smelled of low tide; she felt sweltered in it, the summer heat oppressive in the stillness of the woods.
Pushing on, Kip kept to the trees as best as she could to avoid being seen, knowing that she was walking parallel to the road into the village if the map was steering her true. Sure enough, lights were soon visible through the trees, the dim amber glow of lanterns in cottage windows.
Kip reached the edge of the treeline and the Bracker village lay ahead of her. It seemed that everyone was asleep, for she could see no people walking around. But as she watched, she became aware of the hounds passing to and fro between the homes, keeping their vigil over the community by night, barely seen.
There ahead, as Kip peered through the gloom, she could see the big oak tree at the edge of the woods, the one circled on her map. She made her way quietly toward it.
The oak towered over the other trees, summer-green with tiny acorns forming, and as Kip drew near she saw a shape sitting beneath it.
“Kip?” came a whisper.
Relief flooded through Kip as she drew forward. “Liddy, is that you?”
The shape stood and it was Liddy, her red hair dull in the moonlight, dressed all in Bracker green and gold linen, a brown handmade shawl draped over her thin shoulders. There was a small leather bag sitting by her bare feet; her only belongings in the world.
“I thought perhaps you had decided not to come,” Liddy said, throwing her arms around Kip and squeezing her tightly. “I’m so glad you did!”
“I promised I would,” Kip whispered, smiling. “But if we’re going to go we must go quickly. The hounds are everywhere.”
Liddy nodded solemnly, picking up her bag and throwing the strap over her shoulder. “I know a way. Follow me.”
Without a backward glance, Liddy took Kip’s hand in hers and led her away from the oak, down a path only she seemed to know through the trees. The moonlight disappeared in the dense forest. Kip trusted that Liddy knew where she was going, and she was shocked at how sure and certain Liddy’s grip on her hand felt.
“Are you sure about this?” Kip whispered.
“We can follow the river back to the shoreline,” Liddy said, as if in answer.
“No, I mean, are you sure about leaving?” Kip asked. “What if you change your mind someday and want to come home?”
Liddy stopped, turned around. “I can’t change my mind. When a Bracker leaves the Orchard, they are no longer part of the community. My name will be forgotten; it’s the way things are. But I can’t stay here any longer, Kip. I have to leave.”
“What about your mother and father?” Kip asked. She couldn’t imagine leaving her own parents behind without saying goodbye, or her brothers.
Liddy clenched her jaw briefly, swallowed, then said, “I have to leave.”
Without taking Kip’s hand again, Liddy turned on her heel and continued on her way, Kip following behind as best as she could.
Soon enough they came to the river, crawling serenely over the rocky riverbed on its way out to the sea. Without hesitation, Liddy strode into it in her bare feet. Kip knew that Brackers went barefoot all summer, but she was amazed that Liddy didn’t even flinch.
Kip followed, her boots squeaking as she entered the water. The girls stuck to the shallows, the water reaching their calves, the water sweeping the scent of their footsteps away.
Liddy had gone quiet, and though Kip’s mind was still full of questions she kept them to herself. There would be plenty of time to talk, once they were away from this place.
They followed the river on its path through the woods until the trees opened, the moonlight flooding in. They had circled back to the Orchard, and the river flowed through it, open to the sky, no woodland tangle to disguise them as they went.
Liddy paused, turned to Kip. “If we’re quiet, we shouldn’t be seen or heard,” she said. “The sentries are singing to the trees; they won’t be looking for us. But the river through the Orchard passes under three bridges, and there we must be careful, for the hounds sometimes hunt there for the night-creatures that stalk the brush.”
Kip didn’t like the sound of that, but she wasn’t given a chance to argue or ask questions before Liddy was off again, wading through the river with sure-footed ease.
Under the open gaze of the moon, Kip felt electric with fear, but she kept her eyes on Liddy’s shawled back and the rope of her braid swinging to and fro, only breaking her concentration to look down at her own boots and make sure that she wasn’t about to slip or stumble.
They reached the first old timber bridge and passed beneath it without incident, Liddy turning here and there to make sure that there were no glowing eyes in the dark.
On the way to the next bridge, Kip listened close to the sentries singing in the apple trees, the low vigorous hum of their voices in strange harmonies, the words both familiar and not at all. Kip thought about all the stories she had heard about Brackers, all the strange rumors and folktales and legends. Their beliefs about God, their discomfort with outsiders, their peculiar ways. She had seen Bracker women in their green and gold linen on market days down by the Port Salish wharf, the only days when they were allowed to leave their Orchard community, haggling with gentle confidence for fresh-caught salmon and crab and oysters, exchanging their heavenly homemade goods for that which they did not catch or grow themselves. They did not exchange or handle money, only trade. They always seemed so otherworldly and somehow alluring. Mysterious.
That’s where she had met Liddy. Kip had been fascinated by a Bracker girl her own age, especially one who seemed so interested in life away from the Orchard. For weeks they had found stolen moments to hide in the market stalls and talk, learn about one another, share their strange ways with each other.
Until the day that Liddy asked Kip to help her escape. That's when everything changed.
Kip watched Liddy’s braid dance back and forth, the hem of her green linen skirt soaked to the knee, and wondered, Is it such a horrible life here, to want to leave it?
The second bridge appeared and they passed it by. Kip’s heart leaped in her throat. They couldn’t be far from the sea, now. Not far from leaving this strange place.
Here, as they were nearing the edge of the Orchard, the singing of the sentries was fainter, a handful of tremulous voices joining and separating in the night.
The third bridge loomed in the rising mist. Liddy paused, looked around, holding her finger to her lips so that Kip would not be tempted to ask any questions.
Then, seemingly satisfied, she beckoned with her hand and she and Kip passed under the bridge as quickly as they could without splashing too loudly.
The treeline was just ahead, and the sea lay beyond.
Suddenly, something slammed into Kip from behind. There had been no warning, no sound, and she was facedown in the river, scrambling and flailing as something heavy was pinning her down, snarling.
In the confusion and the rushing water she managed to squirrel her way out from under the thing, crawling toward the treeline as Liddy whirled, grimacing in terror.
Teeth. Kip felt teeth, crushing down into the muscle of her calf. She let out a sound she had never heard herself make before as pain flashed through her. She managed to look over her shoulder and see a hound, a tremendous black hound holding tightly to her leg, biting through the canvas of her fishing trousers with horrible ease.
Kip turned back to look up at Liddy just in time to see something that would haunt her forever.
As she watched, Liddy leaped, her body contorting mid-air in the flash of an eye, her green and gold linen falling away into the river as she became Something Else.
A hound. A big, black hound.
The dog-that-was-Liddy slammed into the attacking hound, shocking it so much that it let go of Kip’s leg, allowing Kip to crawl through the shallows toward the rivershore. She pulled herself up onto the grassy bank and lay there, sobbing, horrified.
The two hounds grappled in the water, biting and growling, great paws striking out and claws slashing. Despite the viciousness of the struggle it was eerily quiet, the two creatures seemingly aware of an unspoken need for peace in this sacred Orchard.
The murderous dance felt years long as Kip watched on in horror, but in truth it was only a handful of minutes. The dog-that-was-Liddy found the throat of the other hound, and it was all over.
Silence fell over the scene. The dog-that-was-Liddy approached Kip, and as she did so she rose up onto her hind legs and suddenly Liddy was there again in human form, trembling in the rushing river, her lips and teeth crimson with fresh blood and her red hair wild about her face.
She fished her clothes out of the river, wringing them out with businesslike efficiency and slipping them, still soggy, over her thin frame.
Kip was holding her wounded calf, her eyes wide in the dark, breathing shallowly.
“What are you?” she asked.
Liddy knelt beside her, wrapping a piece of wet clothing from her bag around Kip’s injury, her hands nimble and practiced. Then she looked up and met Kip’s frantic gaze.
“I’m Liddy,” she said. “Just Liddy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”
Then she stood, holding out her hand. “The sea is just through there,” she said. “We need to go quickly, before anyone else sees us.”
Kip rose with Liddy’s help, leaning on her as they both limped—wet and shaking—down the remaining length of the open river to the trees.
Kip turned only once to look behind them, and wished she hadn’t. There was no dead hound in the river, anymore. Only the flash of pale corpse-like skin in the blood-red shallows, no fur at all.
*******
The little rowboat left the shore of the Orchard Island, Kip strong on the oars the way she had always been taught, Liddy sitting shivering in the bow of the boat with her face tipped to the moon.
Kip had so many questions, but none seemed right to ask.
It was Liddy who turned to speak, once they were safely away from the shore, the song of the sentries in the apple trees and the howling of the guardian hounds well and truly behind her:
“Thank you. For coming to get me.”
But Kip didn’t know how to respond to that. So she didn’t.
Instead, all of the questions fell away into one, and Kip asked, "What will you do, now? Away from there?"
Liddy kept her eye on the sea ahead, never once turning back to the island of her birth. She met the rush of the wind as an equal, the blood still drying around her mouth, the green and gold of her Bracker clothing bright against the gray sea in the moonlight, her red hair brassy.
"Whatever I please," she replied.
The little rowboat drifted the rest of the way home to Port Salish in silence, and the woman who wears the full moon in her hair stretched her arms out horizon-to-horizon, the red dawn of a new day clinging to her sea-soaked sleeves.
END
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absolutely tremendous. There's worlds and worlds going on here.
Good timing because just last night I arrived at Tom Bombadil in my first read of LOTR--singing to the trees and all that has been on the mind.
I want to know more about brackers.
I want to know more about everything.
beautifully done.
What a stunning story. Your prose pulled me near. And this! “Despite the viciousness of the struggle it was eerily quiet, the two creatures seemingly aware of an unspoken need for peace in this sacred Orchard.” I won’t be surprised if my dreams take me back to the orchard’s perimeter tonight.