PodCastle 652: Apple

* Author : L. S. Johnson

* Narrator : Tatiana Grey

* Host : Summer Fletcher

* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh

*

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Originally published by F Is for Fairy, from Poise and Pen Press

Content warning: sexual assault, gender-based slurs

Rated R.

Apple

By L. S. Johnson

Her Names

They were twelve, and between them they encompassed Dawn, Dusk, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Seed, Blossom, Harvest, Maiden, Mother, and Crone; that is to say, they were complete. Thus, when a thirteenth fairy emerged from the breath of sun upon earth they were to a one confused. None of them had expected another sister. They waited for some time — perhaps there would be more? For they had come in pairs and trios before, and Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter had practically exploded out of the same minute point of light. But no one else emerged for some time.

Finally, they looked to Dawn, who was eldest, and she looked at the new fairy and sighed. “What are you?” she asked plaintively.

The fairy didn’t know. She was fifteen minutes old and quite astonished at existing.

“We have to call her something,” Crone pointed out. (When her trio had emerged from the breath of the sun and were asked what they were, Maiden had said “beautiful,” Mother had rolled her eyes, and Crone had said “wiser than you.”)

The twelve fairies looked around, trying to think of what this one, singular fairy could be. Time slipped past, and they had other tasks to do, but still they could not think of a thing.

At last Dawn, who had been up for some time and wanted to nap, gestured to the nearest object. “We’ll call her Apple,” she declared, “until she figures out who she is.”

“She looks like an Apple,” Fall said to Harvest, who agreed, and as they both knew a lot about apples everyone thought the matter settled.

Between them they found a sweet little wood no one was occupying, with pine and oak and yes, even apple trees, and they suggested to the fallen branches and stones and mud that they come together into a cottage. Once the cottage was built they each gave Apple a present for her birth-day: a narrow bed; a table and chair; the secrets of fire, sleep, and flight; a jug and a wash-basin; a pot and a bowl to eat from; a dress to cover herself; and, rather inexplicably from Crone, a large, polished spindle.

“She’ll find a use for it,” Crone said vaguely when the others gave her curious looks, and they didn’t press the matter, for Crone was indeed wiser than all of them.

The fairies placed Apple in her new home, set everything right, gave her twelve kisses, promised to visit often, and flew away.

She was, by then, one hour old.

In her wood Apple quickly learned that she could only suggest, unless specifically invited to do more. She suggested the trees into bud every spring and suggested they drop their leaves for winter. She suggested that the bluebells spread far and wide in the dappled sunlight. She suggested a clearing where the birds and animals tested strength and will, and suggested hollows and burrows for them to nest and tend their young. She made stews and soups in her pot, and collected rainwater in her jug from the notched boughs and the fattest wildflower blossoms. She flew high above her wood and skimmed through its underbrush inches from the ground.