Fair Trade

David lent against his favourite tree in the middle of his orchard. It sat on a small hill, from which he liked to survey his young empire. With the little time he had left, David climbed the hill every day with a woven basket and spent the afternoon picking apples, starting at his favourite tree. It felt like a natural way for his life to end and it contented him. He figured that content was the best he could hope for. 

When he bought the land ten years ago, it was the first tree he planted. He’d been apple picking with his daughter a week before and he had one Braeburn apple left. He ate the apple and planted the seed. Now, alone, he looked out at the vast array of apple trees radiating outwards, grouped by variety giving each direction a slightly different hue in the soft afternoon sun. 

With a smile, he lifted himself away from the bark and plucked a low-hanging apple. Looking down, he polished it on his shirt, then laid it gently in his basket. Looking up, he jumped. There was a young-looking woman barely a foot in front of him, looking out on the orchard with the same nostalgia and satisfaction that David had. David leant back against the tree to study the woman. Her hair hung in the breeze with a weight that begged David to take it in his hands. She wore a long, sleeveless, red dress with a slit up the side, revealing fashionable, black, but sturdy boots. As the entwining shock and intrigue settled in David, recognition took hold. 

“Lucy?” He asked.

Lucy turned and reached a long, delicate arm past David’s head. Entranced by her motion, he followed her hand as it passed his ear. The tree trunk stopped his natural motion and he accidentally kissed her arm. She didn’t shudder or pause. Her soft, sweet scent blended with the smell of tree sap and bark on the breeze. David stumbled his way around the tree, blood rushing from his legs to his cheeks. 

“You remember me!” She giggled and smiled as if she knew that no one would ever forget meeting her. 

“Y-Yes,” said David, straightening up. Lucy’s arm was still raised, assessing an apple. The pose exposed every feature and every curve of her body and a slow, playful spinning of her hips directed David’s eyes from a small patch of thigh revealed by the slit of her dress, up over her hips and past her soft, smooth stomach. David blinked and shook his head almost imperceptibly - this woman was dangerous, he thought, and a business partner, be professional. He noticed her smirk. She fluttered her eyelashes and looked back up at her apple. It seemed to grow slowly in her hand, red flushing through its skin like food dye in a glass of water. David felt uncomfortable daydreams grappling onto the back of his mind.

“This is what it was all for?” She asked, not really a question, bringing the apple to her lips. David stared at the apple. It was definitely not a Braeburn anymore - it wasn’t any variety of apple that David had seen, but it did match Lucy’s lips, and dress, perfectly. David realised he hadn’t answered the question and stole himself back into reality, though it didn’t feel much more tangible than a dream anymore.

“Er, yes,” he managed, “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“That is how this works,” said Lucy through a mouthful of apple. Somehow David found this melodic and unnaturally distracting. Lucy turned away and threw the rest of the apple over her shoulder, barely missing David’s ear. “Why apples?” She asked walking away. Her strides were slow and undulating. David watched her hips sway, getting pulled again by the daydreams before realising, again, he hadn’t answered her question. He followed her with a start. 

“I didn’t-“

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Lucy without turning around or slowing down, “I love apples. Started in the apple business myself actually, though I only had one tree back then. You forgot your basket.”

David stumbled over himself turning to his half-full basket of apples. “How did you-?” Never mind, he thought, rational questions didn’t apply here. “I didn’t choose apples, you did.” He began to run awkwardly with the basket, the lone apple rattling between each step.

“Oh yes,” Lucy turned and laid a hand on David’s chest. “You asked for,” she tilted her head as if trying to remember, absently fiddling with the buttons on David’s shirt, “a life of riches so you an provide money for your children and wife, and so you had something other than a few good memories to leave them when you die.” She turned sharply and marched on. "How are your little darlings?"

David's felt the temperature drop, took a breath and marched after Lucy. All temptation froze and shattered, leaving David's heart empty, but for a small, dense stone of guilt. "You'll not go near them," he said.

"Oh, no, I'm not interested in them,” she waved a hand, dismissing the idea, “ 'sins of the father' isn't really my thing."

"Very," David hesitated, "righteous, of you."

Lucy stopped. David felt the sun's glare through the leaves on the back of his neck like a hot iron fork. Lucy turned. David caught his breath, expecting to be faced with slit pupils, hideous fangs or breath of fire, but Lucy's face was beautiful and calm. She even smiled. 

"You children do have a funny idea of right and wrong," she laughed, "come on." She took David's hand and began to skip through the trees, leading him along. 

Her hand was soft in David's hand, cracked and calloused from a decade caring for his orchard. She seemed smaller now, and the weight had fallen from her hair. Even her dress seemed to hug her a little less provocatively. He jumped from root to dirt-softened root to keep up with Lucy, swept along by a soft breeze and distracted by the sun flickering between overhead branches.

He felt his mind pulling away from him. It found a happier time, running through an orchard that he didn't own, pulled along by his daughter, Eve. Eve used to skip between the roots, where only children's feet could fit and he would hop along the roots as he did now. They ran through the orchard for hours, playing games, picking apples, telling stories, laughing. Eventually, Eve slipped on the soft mud and David swooped down to catch her. He felt like a hero until he tripped on a root. They ended up lying in the golden comfort of the evening sun. Then he just felt like a dad. 

That was ten years ago and the last time he saw Eve. 

Lucy stopped, nearly making David trip trying to stop. 

"How long have we been running?" David asked, "this doesn't look like my orchard anymore." It looked like the orchard he'd run through a decade before. 

"This is where all the best apples are," Lucy said, plucking the largest Pink Lady that David had ever seen. 

David plucked a Braeburn that dangled beside his head.

"These were always my favourite," he said distantly, polishing the apple against his shirt, "my little girl liked Galas."

"And your son?" Lucy asked, tossing her Pink Lady into David's basket. 

"I don't know."

David continued to pick low hanging apples. Lucy held out a flat hand, palm down, and watched a tree root grow silent and steady from the soft dirt, twisting and warping until it formed a flat surface. She sat and watched David. Occasionally she’d look up at an apple and it would fall, carried by a sudden gust, into David’s basket. 

"Could I see him?" David asked, his basket was nearly full. Lucy gave him a sympathetic look. "I didn't think so," he said, "is this the same orchard we met in?" 

"Not exactly," said Lucy admiring a leaf, "I did model it on that orchard though. Call me whimsical." 

“I wish my daughter didn't have to be there."

“Don’t worry, I made sure she doesn't remember me."

David's heart dropped, "does she remember the day?"

"I'm not a monster," Lucy feigned offence, "I let her keep her last day with you, though she might have preferred to forget it. Your wife had to work real hard to make up for that little piece of abandonment."

"Well," muttered David, throwing an apple into his basket, "I had to protect them from my deal with you."

"Woah," cried Lucy, leaning back on her root, "don't blame me. As I said, 'sins of the father' is not my thing. They'll have to make a deal with me themselves for the pleasure of my company."

David swung around, apples cascading over the side of his basket. "Don't you-"

"We could make another deal?" Lucy interrupted. Her legs swung under the root, like two out of sync pendulums. 

"You're already going to drag me to Hell," said David, plucking another apple, "and I lost everything in our last deal."

"Drag you? You've followed me quite willingly so far. And you got everything in our last deal. Leaving your family was your decision, imagining that you could somehow protect them from me." Lucy began to look genuinely offended, "I'm not after anyone! I just offer desperate and greedy people what they want, before they decide to take it for themselves. You all end up in Hell anyway."

David looked down at his apples. "What deal would you like to make?"

"Come with me willingly and your bloodline is off-limits." Lucy held out a hand to shake. Seeing his trepidation, she continued, “Hell is not all made equal, you know. There are those I punish and those who serve me. You could serve me. It's not heaven, but it's not so bad."

David considered this then, tentatively, shook her hand. She smiled a toothless smile.

"Let me finish picking my apples first," said David in a broken voice. He continued to fill his basket, taking smaller and smaller apples, until absolutely no more could fit. "Is this how you normally get people?" He asked, "by guilt-tripping them?"

"Some follow me because I look pretty," said Lucy without a hint of smugness, "but I realised your children would work better on you."

"Is everyone so easy to manipulate?"

"Mostly I let people manipulate themselves - you barely took a nudge - but yes, I can get most people to follow me willingly"

"And those who don't?"

"The 'drag me to hell' cliche came from somewhere," said Lucy, hopping off her root, "this way."

Lucy led David around a particularly large tree. As he passed it, two smaller trees came into view, bent over into each other. Their peripheral branches tangled and entwined until it was hard to distinguish which branch belonged to each tree.

"Follow me through the trees and our deal is set," said Lucy, walking toward the gap between the two trees. 

The breeze picked up to a light gust and swept soil into David's eye. He tried to watch Lucy, but his eyes became sore and wet with tears. He gave in and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. The wind dropped. Lucy was gone. The orchard was still and silent. David walked up to the two trees, took one last look around the orchard, half expecting to see Eve run up to him and shout ’tag’. He sighed, then followed Lucy into Hell.