When We Plant the Apple Tree

Summary: Molly dies. Melody Farm falls into divine hands. A story about growing up, even if you're a god.

Flashbacks and inner thoughts in italics.

VI: Time

Working with a god was a little intimidating.

Finn picked a pumpkin and dumped it into the pile with the rest of the harvest. Summer had been mild, and although fall had blown all the green out of the leaves and grass, the wind hadn't quite become cold enough to warrant the townspeople wearing anything heavier than light jackets. Castanet had taken on warm hues of red and orange and gold that rivaled the sunset. This season's crops-pumpkins, peppers, carrots and rice-had done very well, thanks to the richly fertilized soil and the attentive watering they had received. Melody Farm was as productive has it had ever been, but despite this, Finn's heart was heavy. Molly was missing this. It seemed like it had been only yesterday when he had been helping her cover seed-filled holes with dirt. How could she be gone? How could she not be here, helping him? It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

He pulled another pumpkin free from its vine, knowing he shouldn't complain. He desperately needed help to keep up with the mounting backlist of chores that had to be done before the cold set in. Hadn't he even yelled at Lord Ignis when he first refused to offer assistance? The thought made his cheeks burn even though his anger had been justified. After all, Melody Farm was too important to him, to Sephia, to everybody, to just abandon. He had to fight for it, just like Molly would have. If Molly were here.

But the tall, imposing figure moving through the rice field with a scythe in his hand was definitely not Molly. Even though this was the third harvest that Ignis had helped him with, it still made Finn vaguely uneasy to watch him. Barefoot and shirtless, having abandoned his robe and cloak ensemble for a pair of loose cotton trousers, Lord Ignis looked, well, like a common farmer, if you discounted the way his skin glowed in the sun and the flames that sometimes whirled up around his ankles wherever he walked. Sheaves that would have completely hidden Molly from view only came up to the Harvest King's chest, and the way he cut them was mechanical and perfect and silent. Here was this stranger on the land, doing Molly's work, taking care of Molly's animals, harvesting Molly's crops. It was all so different. When Molly worked, her voice would ring out over the fields with frustration or anger or unexpected joy. And she'd sing. A lot. She had a forceful singing voice, which went a little off-key when she got really into a song, but it was always a comfort to Finn to hear her.

Watching the Harvest King work, though, he guessed there would be no more of that. Neither would there be impromptu trips to the ocean to cool off, nor picnics of vegetable sandwiches and fresh watermelon eaten by the catfish pond, nor naps taken in the shade of the orchard, with Molly leaning against the trunk of an apple tree while Finn curled up in the bowl of her straw hat. The memory made his eyes misty. He decided to fill the silence the way Molly would.

"Soil, water, warm sunshine," he half-hummed under his breath, tugging at another pumpkin. "My strength is yours, your breath is mine. You're the mountain, I'm the sea. Between us stands-."

"I am finished."

The Harvest King's shadow fell over him. Finn dropped both the vine and the song and fluttered to attention. Over Ignis's shoulder, he could see that all the rice had been evenly laid out in the sun to dry on a blanket. Stubby stalks jutted up from the field where it had all been harvested from. That was fast, he thought, and then said, "Thank you, Harvest King."

"You should pay attention to the weather, and cover the rice before it rains." Ever aloof, even when he was half naked, Ignis cast a bored look over Finn's slow progress.

Finn flushed. "I know that much, Harvest King!" he said indignantly, wrestling with another pumpkin. "Besides, I'll be done with this long before any storms come through."

Wordlessly, Ignis pulled Molly's knife from his pocket and knelt in the dirt next to Finn, brushing him away with the back of his hand. One clean cut severed the pumpkin from the vine.

The work went much faster with a pair of human-sized hands to help. Soon, all the pumpkins were lined up in orange rows beside the field and the wheelbarrow was heaped with green peppers waiting to be blended into vegetable juice. They pulled the last of the carrots up through the crumbling soil, the autumn sunshine warming their backs. If he closed his eyes, Finn could almost imagine her there with him, the ribbon on her straw hat fluttering, the watering can banging against her thigh as she walked, splashing water onto her boots—

"That song you were singing," Ignis asked suddenly, startling Finn out of his daydream. "What is it?"

Finn blew his pom-pom out if his eyes as he yanked on a particularly fluffy carrot-top. "Oh, just something that Molly used to sing when she was out here."

"It sounds familiar."

"I'm sure you've heard it before, Harvest King. It's a hymn that everybody sings in church in the summertime," Finn said pleasantly. "Would you like me to sing it for you?"

Ignis remembered the tune, but not the words. Molly usually botched the lyrics up anyway. Truthfully, he paid less attention to the voices raised in his praise in the church and more to the sounds of nature, but when Molly sang, he listened. Somehow, the song was only interesting when it was coming from her. He decided to change the topic.

"We won't plant anything next month," he said. "The soil should rest. As should you."

"As you wish, Harvest King." A pause. "Do you think the new farmer will come soon?"

"I cannot say. Perhaps."

Finn uprooted another carrot. "I…I don't think I want another farmer to come, though. I don't want some stranger taking Molly's place. What if they don't water the crops, or cut down the orchard? What if they sell all of her animals and are mean and rude to the Harvest Goddess?" Finn sniffed. "I just want Molly back. Does that make me a bad harvest sprite?"

Finn's words had struck a chord in Ignis's heart, but he remained impassive. "No, it makes you a fool."

Oh, what does he know, Finn though, turning away in a huff. He never loved her like I did.

After the wedding, Ignis gave Molly his first and only gift to her: the ability to use the rune wall by Garmon Mine's entrance. She needed only to touch it, and it would transport her to the mountaintop in an instant, saving her the fifty-floor climb up through the mine. She stubbornly refused to use it.

"It's creepy," she told him. "There is absolutely no way I'm going through some portal in a rock. Besides, I need the material stone. I've finally got enough money to upgrade the house. Maybe I'll stop getting sick in the winter all the time when my roof doesn't have giant, gaping holes in it."

He hadn't pressed the issue. She remained his twilight visitor, emerging each day from the dark mine with only a few minutes left before sunset. Sometimes she would bring small gifts merely to show to him. Yarn that she had dyed, a garnet, some perfume that she'd made. Other times, she'd bring him apple cocktails that she'd been able to make in her spare time, and these he would drink. They made the mountaintop smell like her orchard, sweet and warm.

And she would talk. She never seemed to stop talking. She'd bring the whole day with her to dump on his dais, from how hard it was for her to catch a particular fish, to what crops were sprouting, to how warm the soil was when she dug her hands into it. Sitting on the edge of the platform, her feet swinging over the deadly drop to the ground, she'd talk of being a farmer. And even though her voice was grating and harsh, and her very presence disturbed the peace which he valued so highly, he found himself always listening.

Was his Castanet still so beautiful? Did the rain still make the air taste sweeter? Was the ocean water still so clear that you could see the light reflecting off the fishes' scales near the bottom? She told him the soil was somehow clean, and the crops would literally shine. Here was a human describing what he had only come to realize after he had first opened his eyes as a god.

He couldn't believe all that he had forgotten.

After a few months' worth of visits, after he had learned Molly's birthday, her favorite color and least favorite foods, the stories of her worst harvests and her most embarrassing moments, he finally descended his dais and sat down next to her. She looked pleased, and offered him her thermos of apple cider. It looked ridiculously small in his hands when he took it, but it warmed him all the same.

"Do you want to know about me?" he asked her solemnly.

"No thanks," she said, smiling. "I think I know enough."

The days tumbled on into weeks. The fall harvest came and went, and despite all of her distractions, Molly still produced a bumper crop and was rolling in gold by the time the first snow fell. She upgraded her coop instead of her house, saying that she wanted to try raising ostriches. Everyone in town commented on how happy she had suddenly become. Mayor Hamilton even visited Melody Farm one morning and gave her instructions on where to obtain a blue feather, which caused her to blush for hours. She worked through her embarrassment by buying ninety-nine packets of buckwheat seeds and planting every one of them. Still, as they worked, Finn saw her smiling.

Not a day went by when she didn't see the Harvest King's face.

Not a day went by when he didn't look forward to seeing hers.

Molly's oldest cow, Perkins, went into labor at the end of winter, when all the world was blanked out by a fierce blizzard. Through the whirling snow, Ignis could barely see the light from Molly's lantern shining through the barn windows, but he knew. He felt her heartbeat kick up in her chest when she realized it wasn't going to be an easy birth and when Perkins's body was wracked with pain. He felt the tiny life within the cow go out like a snuffed flame just as Molly's hands reached in and pulled it into the warm, dimly-lit barn.

Here it comes, he thought with something like despair in his chest, watching as Molly wiped its face and suctioned its nose. She pressed her fingers hard under its jaw, then ordered Finn to get a blanket. She tried several rounds of clumsy CPR before gathering the still-wet baby in her arms and bursting out into the cold.

She emerged from the rune wall in a shower of golden light, knees trembling under the animal's weight. Taking the stone arch's steps two at a time, she stumbled up to him. She hadn't even bothered to put on a hat. Snow stuck to her hair like stars.

"Please," she choked. "Help him."

The calf's black head lolled over her arm, its too-long legs flopping. Ignis did not move from his throne. "It's gone," he told her.

Her gloves tightened against its body. White tips of ice were already beginning to form on its fur. "Then bring him back," she said.

"I cannot."

The wind shrieked around the mountaintop, making Molly's goosedown jacket flap against her shivering sides. "What did you say?" Her words were quiet and incredulous.

"It was admirable that you attempted to save it, but you can't bring it back to life." He worded his condolences carefully, uncomfortably, not wanting to offend her but not understanding why she looked like she was about to cry.

"You can, though," she said, panic creeping into her voice. "You're the Harvest King. Don't you dare tell me you can't help me. You brought Sephia's Tree back."

"That was different," he said stiffly, hating her for this, for bringing her mortal woes to his throne, for thinking that he had the same heart that she did. "You cannot tamper with the natural law in order to save a single life."

"It's not different," Molly said, and now her eyes were filling up with angry tears. "It's not different at all. He hasn't been dead that long, his heart was beating just before he was born, I heard it, I was listening. All you need to do—"

"There is nothing I can do." He unfolded his arms. "Do not ask this of me."

Molly, close to blubbering, took another step forward. The calf was loose as a rag doll in her arms. It was tiny, so tiny. Like her, he thought. "Look, I know you're worried about messing with the natural order or whatever," she began brokenly, "but can't you do this one thing? I'm not asking this for myself. Just give this guy half a chance at life. Give him an hour, a day. Give him something."

"I can do nothing for him."

Her sorrow turned to anger on a dime. "You mean you won't," she said. "Why, because he's not as special as Sephia's tree? Because he's just a dumb cow, a piece of meat? You call yourself the Harvest God but you don't have any power here, do you? You're just some pretty-looking statue who's got nothing better to do than stand here-"

"Enough."

"-and let a human do all the hard work!" Molly's voice was hoarse with fury. "I'm the one doing everything! I can't even come to you for help. Where were you last year when that storm flattened all my wheat? Where were you when I was starving, when I had to practically sell my furniture to buy medicine for the animals? Where were you when I needed you?"

Her anger was an avalanche.

"You're fine to stand here and accept my gifts and watch me suffer, but whenever you're actually asked to do something, you pretend that you don't have the power! Do something for once! If you want to be treated like a god, act like one!"

The stinging words found their mark. Ignis backed away from her, drawing himself up to his full height. The flames that had been whispering around his feet suddenly blazed up in a cyclone of fire, melting the snow all around them and making her flinch away from the blasting heat.

"You dare speak thus to the Lord of the Harvest?" he demanded, and his voice was thunder in her ears, making her heartbeat stutter and the mountain shake underneath her boots. "You understand nothing, you insignificant, groveling, pitiful animal. From your first heartbeat to your last breath, your life has been mine to command. If I wish it so, I will make all your animals barren and your crops wither and your body sicken and die. I am Castanet. I am your god."

She shrank back before his anger, her eyes huge.

"Your hand rang the bells that woke me," he continued, his voice a cold contrast to the fire roaring around him, "but it is my breath that fills your lungs, my strength that carries you through each day. Soon enough the time is coming when I will choose to take these things away from you, too. Remember your place, human."

Ignis saw the words sink in, and her face changed as if he had slapped it. She drew herself up as tall as she could, but her chin was quivering. Two wet tracks slid down her cheeks, and a single sob worked its way out of her throat before she strangled it. Poised on shaking legs, she waited for him to deliver the final push to send her away. He saw she was waiting, and pushed.

"You're an imbecile," he said stiffly, turning his back to her once more. "You shouldn't have come here in this weather. Go home now."

She did. She turned and staggered back down the mountain, and he heard the ragged way she was crying as clearly as if she had been standing right in front of him.

He watched her bury the calf on the easternmost edge of her property. And then he watched her take her axe and walk to the tree which she had been so carefully tending in the orchard. It had long outgrown the pot under the window in her house, so she had transplanted it in the middle of the orchard, where it had gotten warm sun and mild rain all autumn long. It was easily twice her height and growing like a weed even in the midst of winter, a skeleton of branches tangling above her head. In the spring, it would sprout leaves and pale pink flowers. In the summer, it would bear fruit, and the apples it grew would be blood red, ruby red, red as the hair that Molly, for some inexplicable, heartbreaking reason, wanted to run her fingers through.

Ignis turned away only when Molly swung the axe blade against the apple tree's sturdy trunk with all of her might.

She did not stop chopping until she had reduced it to splinters on the ground.

Molly's rant was partly inspired by the fact that, if you marry Ignis, he lets you run around being pregnant and still doing all the chores on the farm AND going up the mountain to deliver gifts. Then, once baby's born, he's like, "Nice job. Here's a cradle. Bye."

Stuff I learned while writing this chapter: not all rice is grown in paddies. You can grow some kinds of rice in well-watered ground, instead of having to flood it. How educational.

This isn't my favorite chapter, but I've taken long enough to write it. I hope you enjoyed it anyway.

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to all that celebrate it!