Blue apples catch the light like polished sapphires, their skins faintly iridescent. Emerald green ones gleam like cut gemstones, almost glowing against the dark leaves. There are dusky purple apples too, deep and velvety, like plums dipped in twilight.
But the apples that stop me dead in my tracks are the darkest ones.
They hang heavy on the branches, their skin a red so deep it’s almost black, as though every fruit has absorbed the shadows around it. When the light hits them just right, they gleam like garnets—or dried blood.
My gaze is pulled to them irresistibly.
“What are those?” I ask, pointing before I can stop myself.
The vampire farmer’s chest puffs out with pride.
“Oh, those are the Pomme de sang I told you about, my Lady. Our farm is famous for them,” he says. “Why, without our Pomme de sang, much of the territory would go thirsty.”
“Oh, uh… does everyone here drink a lot of apple juice then?” Hanna asks.
For a split second, the old couple just stares at her…then they burst out laughing.
It’s warm, genuine laughter—the kind that makes their shoulders shake and their eyes crease and I can’t help smiling too, even though I don’t understand what’s so funny.
“Bless you, no, my Lady,” the old lady vampire says, dabbing at her eyes. “It’s the juice and flesh of the Pomme de sang—which means apple of blood, in case you didn’t know—that sustains most of our people and satisfies their thirst for blood.”
“But… I thought vampires drank blood,” I blurt. “I mean, real blood.”
The words tumble out of me, and I immediately wince, hoping I haven’t said something rude or ignorant.
But instead of being offended, they laugh again—kindly this time.
“My goodness, no,” the old lady says. “Think of it—we’re a nation of vampires. If we all drank each other’s blood all the time, we’d die out from blood loss. It just wouldn’t work.”
“Indeed it wouldn’t,” the vampire farmer agrees. “Which is why long ago our ancestors developed a strain of apple that produces all the nutrients we need to survive—that’s the Pomme de sang, you see. These days we mostly only bite each other when we’re Bonding.”
His wife gasps and swats his arm.
“Now, Alfred! Don’t you go talking about Bonding to these two innocent girls!”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek hard to keep from laughing.
Alfred. A vampire named Alfred. It just doesn’t seem right, but strangely, it fits the old farmer to a T.
Aloud, I say, “No, please—we’re not all that innocent. Er… wait, that came out wrong.”
“What my friend—your Queen—is trying to say is that we’re really interested in your culture and we’d like to know more about it,” Hanna says smoothly, saving me. She gives me a look, and I see that her green eyes are dancing with amusement.
“Well, we’d love to tell you,” Farmer Alfred says cheerfully. “But first, we need to get you some apple-picking gear.”
He and his wife disappear briefly into a small shed at the edge of the orchard and return with two sturdy baskets and a pair of long wooden poles. Each pole is at least six feet long, ending in a metal cup surrounded by four curved metal claws.
“See here,” Alfred says, demonstrating. He positions the cup around one of the apples, twists the pole gently, and the claws snip cleanly through the stem. The apple settles neatly into the cup. “Got one!” he says with satisfaction, like he was a fisherman hooking a fish. “And now you just lower it carefully into the basket and go on to get your next apple.”
He demonstrates, dumping the bright blue apple into Hanna’s basket.
His wife nods approvingly.
“It takes a bit of practice, but you’ll get the hang of it.”
“So—are you girls ready to get picking?” Alfred asks, then clears his throat. “Pardon me. I should have said ladies.”
“That’s all right—we don’t care about titles,” I say quickly. “And yes—we’d love to pick some apples.”
