“That’s a hell of a grudge. Like, imagine how much energy it takes to maintain it.”
“Yup. Kinda seems like ... a waste.”
Our eyes meet, entangle for a moment in the moonlight.
I look away. “Do you think the grudge is more on June’s side or Tommy’s?”
“Hard to say. It’s just always been there, long as I can remember.”
“Do you think there’s something more going on between themnow? Like ... old feelings, still there?”
“Fuck, no.” We glance at each other. “You think we’re enemies?” he says. “You should see those two when they cross paths.”
“I haven’t seen it.”
“There’s a reason.”
I consider all this, and how fucking weird it must be to live so close to your enemy. To be at war with your neighbor for so many years.
A neighbor you once maybe cared for?
“Do you think she’s lonely?” I ask, though I don’t know why I’d expect him to have an answer.
Mason is silent for a moment. Then says, “I think ... some people live alone so long, they just get used to it.”
God. I hope that’s not me one day.
We’ve reached the end of the apple trees. The orchard stops, or rather, is cut in half, by a simple, raw-wood farm fence. “The infamous fence, I presume?”
“Correct,” he says as we come to a halt.
It’s chest-high, with three vertical slats of wood. Some of it is ensnarled with weeds and bush. It appears unattended, forgotten.
Even more interesting and decidedly picturesque than the modest fence are the several large trees that stand along it on June’s side. The most impressive of which is the very first one, right in front of me. It’s immense, easily over twenty feet high and just as broad, dark and twisted, with long, thick arms covered in dark purplish leaves. It looks majestic and timeless in the moonlight.
I wonder how long it’s been here.
The path leads right to it.
I realize that I’ve seen this tree, at least the top of it, from the back porch of the Cozy Cottage; it stretches above the thicket of trees and bushes that surround the cottage.
“Did I mention you have to climb a tree?”
I gape at Mason, then at the long arm of the tree that swoops down over the fence and past our heads.
“It’s a plum tree,” he says, “so try not to knock off the blossoms as you go.”
“Uh . . .”
“Just kidding. There’s a gate.” He brushes aside some weeds to reveal the latch.
“And why is there a gate in this incredibly symbolic fence?”
“So you don’t have to climb the tree?”
“Wait. Is thisthetree? Like, the twisted tree of Twisted Tree Cider Co.?”
“This is it.”
