Apples to Apples, Dust to Dust
Christopher ran towards the nearest tree, keeping one eye on the bundle of snake. He plucked a dark green apple. He bit deep. It tasted, disappointingly, of apple: sharp and sweet.
‘It’s fine,’ he said, ‘but it’s not golden.’
At least, that was what he meant to say. In fact he said nothing, because as he opened his mouth, a cascade of bubbles, each perfect and translucent, poured out.
Anya snorted with laughter. ‘A spheril tree!’
He spat out the apple. ‘A what?’
‘We couldn’t grow them in Dousha, because the soil’s wrong. If you catch the bubbles in a jar, they’ve got rare properties – I forget what. Something medical.’
Anya ran to the next tree and sank her teeth into a small yellow apple. Instantly she yelped, her hair standing on end.
‘The electricitree,’ said Ratwin. ‘Apologisations, Anya! I’ve seen one of those long agoes in the west: I should have warneds you.’
The next apple was deep red. It tasted of chocolate cake, a taste that morphed on Christopher’s tongue, even as he recognised it, to strawberry bootlaces and then to something spectacular and new – like a cherry, but sweeter and more vivid.
‘It’s called an Appsolutus. It tastes of your favourite thing, even if it’s something that you’ve never tasted and only imagined,’ said Anya, reaching for one too.
Jacques snorted, and smoke puffed around his head.
‘I would remind you,’ he said, ‘that you have no time to waste.’ He flew to land on the closest tree, bit an apple and vanished.
In his place was a transparent blur. He choked, and swallowed, and reappeared.
‘An Anonomia! No thank you! A creature of my beauty should not be invisible!’
Anya darted along the row to pluck another. She shuddered. ‘Ugh. It’s sour.’
Christopher stared at her. Her hair seemed to be moving of its own accord. ‘Anya! Your hair!’ he said. ‘It’s growing!’
Anya grabbed at her head, stunned, as her hair cascaded down her shoulders, down her back, down her knees to the ground: it began to pool in yellow piles at her feet.
‘How do I make it stop!’
‘Spit out the apple!’
She spat. ‘By the Immortal!’ She looked at the great piles of hair on the grass. ‘A Rapunzel tree. I won’t be able to run with it like this.’ She drew a rapier and sliced the hair off to ankle-length.
Christopher looked up at the sloping garden. ‘We need to work faster. Come on.’ He picked an apple at random and bit into it – and then he screamed as the apple in his hand caught fire. The piece in his mouth erupted in flames. He spat it out, the roof of his mouth instantly blistering.
Anya stared wildly around her. ‘That’s a feu tree!
My father told me about them – quick, there’ll be a balm tree nearby!
Like nettles and dock leaves.’ She ran to the neighbouring tree.
‘Here,’ she said, taking a bite from the apple and handing the chunk to him.
‘Ugh, it’s like wax. Rub it on your burn! Quick, before it gets worse.’
Christopher rubbed the wax on his burnt hand, his scorched tongue and mouth. The pain lessened, though it did not vanish.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Keep going.’
One turned into a rock when Ratwin bit it. ‘Ah, scobberlotchers! I chippeds a tooths.’ Another turned into a rat, which scrabbled in Christopher’s hands; one became dirt in Anya’s mouth. Jacques was stretching out his tiny neck towards another, when Anya called: ‘Jacques! Stop!’