The orchard after the last basket

The harvest was finished. The last basket of apples had been carried down from the orchard that afternoon, and now the trees stood lighter in the evening air, their branches lifting a little now that the weight of the fruit was gone.

Hanne walked up between the rows as the sun went down. She did not need to walk up there. The work was done. But she liked to see the orchard at the end of the harvest, when it was quiet and the trees had nothing more to give and nothing more to be asked of them.

The grass under the trees was long and soft and a little damp, and it brushed her ankles as she walked. Here and there a windfall apple lay in it, round and red, and the air was full of their sweet, slightly winey smell. The light was low and golden, slanting through the branches, catching the last few leaves that had begun to turn.

At the top of the orchard, where the land rose to a small crest, there was an old wooden bench beneath the oldest tree. No one knew how long the tree had been there. Its trunk was thick and twisted and rough with lichen, and its lowest branches bent down almost to the ground, making a kind of room beneath them. Hanne sat down on the bench and leaned back against the trunk.

From here she could see the whole valley. The farmhouse below, with smoke rising from its chimney. The barn where the apples were stored in their wooden crates, stacked high and smelling of autumn. The fields beyond, brown and gold, and the hills beyond those, turning blue in the dusk.

The sun slipped down behind the hills. The sky above them went pink and then pale gold and then the soft grey-blue of a pigeon’s wing. A few swallows made their last loops over the orchard and then were gone.

Hanne pulled her cardigan closer around her. It was an old one, knitted long ago, soft and a little too big, with deep pockets. In one pocket she found an apple she had put there earlier and forgotten. She rubbed it on her sleeve until it shone and then took a bite. It was crisp and cool and sweet, and the juice ran down her wrist.

The orchard was very quiet now. There was only the faint rustle of leaves when a small breeze moved through, and the soft thud, now and then, of one more apple deciding it was time to come down. Somewhere near the barn, the old farm dog barked once, and then lay down on the porch with a sigh she could almost hear from here.

The first star came out above the hills. Then another.

Hanne finished her apple and set the core in the grass for the birds. She leaned back against the old tree. The bark was rough and warm through her cardigan, still holding a little of the day’s sun.

All year the orchard had worked. Blossom and leaf and fruit, and then the long days of picking. Now it could rest. The trees could rest. And so could she.

She closed her eyes. She could smell the apples and the grass and the cool evening air. She could hear the leaves, whispering.

The old tree held her. The branches hung low and sheltering around her.

The stars came out, one by one, over the quiet orchard.

And Hanne, beneath the oldest tree, fell softly asleep.