‘Isn’t it?’ asks Noon, gentle.
‘You’re just trying to make me crazy.’ But Riley feels panic rise. The line betweenisandis notwill not stay put, it wanders to andfro.
Noon smiles. ‘You decide.’
‘Please,’ Riley murmurs. ‘Just let me see Oliver.’
‘No,’ Noon says. ‘We can never see the person we love again – so neither can you.’
‘Have you seen the ghost of John?’ Riley mutters to herself. It’s the only song she can think of. ‘Long white bones with the skin all gone. Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on? Have you seen the ghost of John? Long white bones with the skin all gone …’ She focuses on the words, the rhyme.
A small hand touches her face. Riley opens her eyes. Peach strokes her cheek. She looks at Riley with large brown eyes.
The feeling hits Riley like a wave. ‘They’re sad,’ she whispers. ‘Why are they so sad?’
‘The worst things you can think of were done to them,’ Noon says. ‘And they never get to grow up. So we look after them, love them – the way people should love children. And,’ says Noon, ‘we find unforgivable people and we give their blood to the land in their honour.’ Noon leans in close to Riley’s ear. ‘In case you were wondering, you are unforgivable.’
‘No.’ Riley closes her eyes to shut out the children and the house and Noon. The world is beginning to pinwheel, she tries to hold tight to herself.
Leaf Winham’s face hovers before Riley, his voice brushing her ear like velvet. ‘They need the blood in the land.’
‘Leaf Winham did it by accident,’ Noon says. ‘He put blood in the land and it kept him safe. We’re way better than him. We don’t kill for pleasure.’
Leaf Winham smiles at Riley and licks her, tongue dragging up and down her cheek. His breath smells of lilac.
‘Why,’ Riley wonders aloud or in silence, ‘can I see so many ghosts in this place but not my father?’
‘He was weak,’ says Noon, unconcerned. ‘Only the strong survive death.’
‘You’re lying.’ Riley is not sure if she’s speaking out loud or not. Maybe it doesn’t matter. ‘You must be.’ Then it all comes up like a hurricane and swings over Riley’s mind, covering everything in darkness.
18The Nowhere Apple Farm
Once upon a time, at the turn of one century into another, Nowhere was an orchard. Sweet mountain apples grew there, ripe on the branch. Hundreds of trees basked in the sun and drank the rain. In mid spring the blossom was a thick carpet of white across the valley floor and the scent filled the air for miles around. Even on the lower trails people swore that they caught faint traces of that sweetness when the wind was right.
Nowhere Apples was owned by the Dunnings, a married couple who had been settled there some eleven years. They had built a farmhouse at the end of the valley; men from Ault and Fraser and Boulder dug the foundations and raised it. Thomas Dunning worked alongside them most days, sharing the sweat and the toil, and making sure there was beer at the end of the day. In time, they raised a flourishing orchard.
Jane Dunning had young eyes and smiled as if she meant it. When she came down to Ault for paraffin or sugar she asked after people’s children and remembered their names. Her husband Thomas was rarely seen in the low towns, but he had a kind way about him, itwas agreed. And he was a generous soul – if there was something you needed storing for example, which you did not quite care to keep at home – certain deliveries, items which had somehow escaped the eye of the authorities – why, Thomas stored it in the cellar, and you collected it when all was well.
The farm flourished, Nowhere apples became a delicacy and Nowhere cider was famed for its crisp flavour. The farm made work for men and women in the region. Jane joined a luncheon knitting group which took place in Ault each week on a Wednesday, riding her pretty warmblood bay mare down the mountain and leaving by mid-afternoon to make it back home by dark.
In due course Jane became one of the heads of the knitting group. Jane and another of the founders, Angela, took a particular liking to one another. So though they lived up on the mountainside, the Dunnings quickly came to be felt to be part of Ault. Jane’s health was not good and she often had bouts of illness lasting some months when she did not come down from Nowhere. But in the end she always reappeared, smiling and calm and ready with her knitting needles.
One day at knitting circle, when Jane asked eagerly, as she always did, after the families and relatives and children of the other women, her friend Angela raised her brows.
‘Why, Jane,’ Angela said gently, ‘you are so attentive to the families of others. I am sure that you look forward to having a family of your own.’
Jane smiled and tipped her head, with the light in her eyes that all women know.
‘No!’ Angela kept her voice low.
‘I’m sure it’s a girl,’ Jane said. ‘I’m going to call her after my sister.’ She rested her hand for a fleeting moment on the place.
Angela slapped Jane’s arm lightly then threw back her head and laughed. The other women looked at the pair with interest, wondering what was under discussion.
Jane quailed noticeably under the many eyes. Her face drained abruptly of colour. ‘I should not have told,’ she breathed into Angela’s ear. ‘Please, please do not repeat it.’
‘I would not dream of repeating it,’ said Angela, puzzled by her friend’s distress.
