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you see a man, hidden beneath the bows of a weeping willow just beyond your apple orchard. there are whisps of smoke clinging to him, barely perceptible between the gaps in the thin green leaves. the taste of something foul yet sweet carries over the wind, layering over your tongue, making your stomach roil.
you can't make out much of the man, can't even tell for certain if it is a man, though something in your gut tells you otherwise. after spending a few moments staring, you avert your gaze, and begin picking apples again. your orchard is rather small - barely an orchard at all, really - but you are also the only one tending to it. best not get distracted and leave some of your trees wanting.
all the while, eyes you cannot see stay locked onto you, burning into your back like a brand.
finally, after hours of work, you are finished, and without thought, you turn to look at the man hiding within the weeping willow. only to find no one there, despite the warmth lingering beneath the skin that says you're still being watched.
glancing around your property, you find it empty of everything but yourself. you don't know how to feel about that.
instead of lingering on the strange man, you decide to put away the apples you had plucked. some remain in the bows of the trees, left to ripen further, but you still collected a good amount. typically you sell them fresh, but maybe you could keep a few to yourself, make something like pie. you aren't very good at baking, but it had been so long since you did something kind for yourself.
-
the next day, when you go out to check on your trees, the man is once again hidden within the bowed limbs of the willow, and you can barely make out dark skin that glimmers with sweat under the summer-fall sun.
once again, you ignore him in favor of your trees, check over each one for more ripe fruit. you don't find as much as you did yesterday, but you pick what you can. the weekly market is fast approaching, and you want to sell as much as you can. the strange man would have to wait.
just like the day before, by the time you're finished, he has disappeared, leaving only that rotten smell behind. and, somehow, it doesn't taste as horrible as it did before.
-
it's midnight when you wake up in a cold sweat, chest heaving, the air holding you down to your bed like a weight. you gag on the sweet scent of rotting fruit, eyes burning with tears you can taste on your lips.
it's midnight, and smoke is seeping into your room from the windows, glazed lilac beneath the full moon, shining like it's encrusted with diamonds. it smells like roadkill, and you fight not to throw up in your mouth.
the glimmering mist grows into a black hand, tipped with dark purple claws. it moves closer, caressing your stubbled jaw, its thumb digging into your cheek just enough to draw blood.
the smoke forms another hand, and this one draws over your lips, pressing until your mouth is forced open. you flinch, preparing for something foul to impress itself up your tongue. but instead, all you can taste is apples on those fingers. they play along your tongue, creeping towards your throat, introducing other flavors - burning wood, ruddy iron, salty flesh - that mesh so nicely with the fruit already there, and you begin to relax.
even when claws scrape over your esophagus, and it gets hard to breathe with your mouth full, it only makes you more pliant.
air dusts over your face, smoke toying with the edges of the cuts littering your cheeks, yet you can't open your eyes.
something wet, like a dog's tongue, slicks the minscule tears, and the burn makes you eyelids flutter. a small sound, something inhuman, fills the otherwise silent room. there is no fear to feel, despite the fact that some sort of strange beast, something made not from flesh and bone but mist, has you within its grasp.
you fall into a deep sleep, chest aching from a lack of air and stomach full of scent.
-
by the time the sun begins to shine through your open window, you do not remember why your throat burns, nor why there are tiny abrasions on your face.
and when you go to check your field, there is no man hidden in the bows of a giant tree because there is no giant tree to be seen. there never had been. how could you have forgotten?
-
the day of the market, you wake covered in sweat with iron on your tongue. you try to move but your body resists, throbbing with an unfamiliar agony. your dark, curly bangs obscure your vision, leaving only your chest on display.
you must have kicked off the blankets in your sleep again. it feels too hot to be september - or is it october? for a moment, you can't recall what time of year your apples grow ripe. you've become more forgetful as of late.
fighting through the tremors to push away your hair, you make eye contact with a beast. it stands at the foot of your bed, wisps of darkness curling around its limbs like vines. antlers protrude from either side of its head, framed by long red-brown hair, like the fur of a deer.
its eyes glow a sickly green, like evil magic in children's cartoons, against dark velvet sclera.
its limbs are wrapped in pitch black flesh, buldging over defined muscles, tall enough for its antlers to scrape the roof; tall enough that it had to bend over to fully fit inside your small room.
there is terror, but then there is not. it drips away no matter how you claw at it to stay, drained by the scent of apples and death and heated metal.
in one grotesquely large hand lays an apple, the skin a mottled mix of red and yellow and green. before your eyes it decays, eaten from the inside out by dark rot. in a matter of seconds, it shrivels into little more than ash, crumbling to the ground between its fingers.
your stomach pulses, aches, and you press down with the heel of your hand, as if that'll do you any good. the creature continues staring down, face as still as a statue's.
then, it smiles, lips opening wider than should be possible on something so humanoid. its fangs glinted in the moonlight, dripping with something near-black. a long tongue tasted the air, flickering like that of a snake.
and then it spoke a language you couldn't understand, one that made your head flare up and your body thrum with pain. yet somehow, you knew what it was saying. "I've finally found you."
there were questions resting on the tip of your tongue, caught in the back of your throat, but your voice was stolen away by the sinister glow of its eyes.
you blinked, and in that infantismally small second, it was at your side, claws carding through your dark curls, tugging on the strands and straining your tender scalp. you gasp, but it comes out silent. "Persephone. I've come for you."
your name is not persephone, you know it isn't. but you can't deny that, somewhere inside you, that name means something important. when you try to reach for it, that nugget of knowledge, it dodges your grasp, slipping from between metaphorical fingers.
something drips onto your lips, tickling like feathers, and you lick at it without thought. it's metallic on your tongue, salty going down your throat. it tastes like what a deer carcaus off the side of the road smells like. like an apple fresh from your orchard. you can't help the sound of enjoyment that rumbles in your chest.
more dribbles down from the beast's eyes like tears, landing on your face, your neck, your chest. the room grows hazy. for some reason, you think of pomegranate seeds and hellfire.
"It's time to come home, Persephone." he says without opening his mouth, body somehow growing larger, hair lengthening and antlers piercing into the roof and talons drawing blood from where they bite into the delicate flesh of your face. and for some reason, you want to follow him.
something about him draws you closer, makes something in the back of your head perk up and take notice. you nod, smiling, grasping his shoulders with trembling fingers. you don't say anything, because you know your voice will come out wrong.
and he smiles smiles smiles, and opens his mouth, smothering you in darkness.
-
It takes a few weeks for anyone to come and check on the apple farmer. He's always been strange, less inclined to induldge in polite conversation with his neighbors, but his absence from the market had finally drawn the attention of his regulars, and thus the authorities.
Two cops drive out to the orchard, chatting along the way about things that neither of them care about. The drive is a long way from the city, and by the time they arrive, they want nothing more than to go back.
Nothing seems too strange from the outside, aside from the apple trees. They look dead, even though fall had yet to end - and they had been told that the trees prosper at this time of year. The fruit laid on the ground are rotten, split open and leaking something black and viscous. A sample is taken and bagged before they enter the house.
The inside, too, seems normal. Too normal, in fact. The rooms are messy, but not overly so. There are no strange smells outside of the kitchen - which was full of food gone bad, though not by very long - no obvious signs of assault, robbery, or kidnapping. It was as if the farmer had disappeared into thin air.
No clothing missing, no toiletries, nothing. One of the cops sighs into her hands, scrubbing over her face. "There's nothing here. No clues, no weird shit, nothing! Let's just go back."
Her partner nods, standing back up from a croutch with a groan. "Yeah, sure. Guy probably just went on vacation or something." As they exit the house, his eyes catch on something. "Say, you remember seeing that earlier? That big-ass tree?"
He points at the edge of the property, where a large weeping willow sits, branches swaying along an invisible breeze. There's something hidden behind the branches, but he can't quite make out what. This doesn't disturb him in the slightest.
The other cop turns to look, then scoffs. "Of course it was. How do you not remember seeing it? Moron." The last part is whispered beneath her breath, but he hears regardless.
He scowls. "Right, my bad. Let's just go." He walks faster towards their vehicle, not noticing the eyes burning into his back. The woman follows, similarly ignorant to the gaze watching her leave.
In a matter of minutes, the two are gone, leaving the empty house and the rotting orchard behind. On the edge of the property, there is a weeping willow, branches swaying to an unheard rhythm. Beneath the heavy veil of its limbs, a beast dances with a human, apple juice dripping from their chins, limbs decorated with blood.
On the edge of the empty lot, there is no weeping willow, no thin-leaved arms brushing the ground, hiding a god and his lover from view.