Alba the Apple Thief: A Tale of Lisnafaer

 

Part I

 

The wulf risked his life on a whim. Abandoning his pack, he turned his tail to rutting stags with their grating bellows and pungent scent heavy on the autumn air. Having crested the last rocky ridge on his ascent up the hill from the coast, he paused before the Faer Ones’ blessed apple grove on the heights overlooking the Western Sea. Afternoon light, cast from its waters, reflected from the red-green leaves and shimmered around the enrapt wulf.

He slipped between two fine young trees on the outer rim of interlocking circles. Their crooked branches, heavy with fruit, linked with their neighbors to form a ring of dancing apples, one after another in a grand spiral. Their curling leaves rustled, seeming to call his name, “Alba.” He followed from one circle to the next, drawn ever inward. Then he discovered the Lady of Light’s Tree—and the craving began.

The tangy-sweet perfume of her apples made his mouth water. The sight of them, golden with a crimson blush, flirted with him, wink-wink, between the scarlet leaves waving in the sea breezes. It pricked his skull like icicles aflame. Nearly swooning, he thought he heard sweet music like honeyed wulf song.

But no. Howls of his pack. Urgent. Commanding he join them. Torn between desire and duty, he wrenched himself away from the many-branched tree, tall, sturdy but supple, that bore the sweet fruit. He wandered for hours, dazed, retracing his steps. Just when he thought he had turned to the proper path, he came upon a tree he had already scent-marked. He heard voices, not wulf, calling to one another, warning of an intruder.

Desperate to break free of the maze, he closed his eyes. He breathed deeply. His ears turned, searching for the telltale sound of the sea. Forcing himself to focus, he heard the rhythmic roar of waves flooding and draining the rocky shore. He followed their ancient call to the grove’s edge but carried the image of the grand central tree like a beacon to his heart.

 

 

The demands of pack life consumed his waking hours, but no hunt or watch over the pups could stop the dreams filled with glowing apples. Haunted, he bided his time all through the winter, spring, and summer tree months. As he suffered losing their scent and dancing color that faded into the mists, his hunger grew. In the apple-ripe autumn the dreams intensified, now with song, enchanting and plaintive. Whenever he could escape his pack he headed for the Apple Coast. As before, entering the grove proved easy, leaving a trial. It took him two seasons to get in and out of the maze without getting lost.

As if their mission were to thwart the hungry wulf, the Faer Ones protected their apples. From his hiding place he’d watch the faeries’ sky-blue hands drop golden apples, even the windfall snatched from the grass, into heaping woven reed baskets. The Faer Ones’ steady-hoofed horses waited to carry them back to their mountain halls. The concentrated scent gave him a hunger worse than when his belly had screamed in the birthing den.

The Faer Ones’ Greenguard on daylight patrol had nearly caught him several times, but he developed a talent for curling his silvery black body around tucked legs and head so that they mistook him for a silver-veined hummock.

 

 

Part II

 

On the third autumn of his apple tree vigil, Alba had grown into a sleek, well-muscled young wulf. At dawn he accompanied the pack home from a night of hunting to their camp north of River Rona. He curled into a ball and waited. When their breathing lulled, he made his escape. Low-hunched and measured pacing, then a swift dash, brought him to the Faer Ones’ terraced grove. Like the red fox in search of speckled eggs, he crept through the interlocking circles of the grove’s labyrinth.

Unmoving since midmorning, his black head resting on his grey paws, he defied a rock torturing his caught rib to divert his attention from the heavily laden apple tree at the grove’s center. Only after the light reached zenith at midday did he approach the ancient yet ever-young tree and counted all the branches—fifteen new ones at least. He could smell each apple. His wet nose quivered. He flexed his soaked paws. His ears turned, searching for early warning of guards approaching the orchard. Not that they ever attempted to harm him, far from it. They’d hail him with a smile in their voices. If he couldn’t hide, he always turned tail. He desired no scuffle with the Lords of Light, not his enemies, but no friends either. They never left him one apple. This autumn would be different. He secreted himself in the tall grasses, determined to snatch his fill.

 

“Och, you. Applewulf!”

Applewulf ? Alba’s heart thumped. His wulf-keen focus had betrayed him; he ground his teeth. Scrunching into a tight ball, as still as the pesky rock, he peered through the silvered hairs of his curled tail covering his head.

Alba caught the scent of Faer One, not one of the two-legged blade carriers the wulves called cutter. The faeries had weapons of a different sort, unheard of to be carried into hallowed ground. At least the lore of the Keeper wulves never shared any tidings of such a thing.

The Faer One, taller than a wulf stretched from snout tip to tail’s end, raised a blue hand to shade his eyes and scanned the apple trees. The blue one squatted to observe the ground more closely. Alba’s eyes narrowed. Green leggings covered the male’s booted legs. A Greenguard.

So far the trespasser wulf had escaped detection. If caught, he knew he had no defense.

The guard paced back and forth, fifteen yards from Alba’s nose. Looking up, he called, “Tell me, Applewulf, what is a hunter who should be patrolling the shores of the sea doing here in the Lady’s apples?” He laughed; the warm sound softened the chastening tone of his firm voice. Alba concentrated his gaze. The guard was young for a Faer One. His eyes gave him away. They had not yet been tempered into the faraway look of his elders who had spent eons in the green. Slim, but muscled for a swift yet enduring run, he wore a green weskit and shirt, good covering for one whose blue skin bore little hide. Alba took in his flowing white mane and full brows over faergreen eyes. Light glinted off a silver horn that dangled from his woven belt.

From the edge of the grove came a rustling. Alba picked up the scent of a second Faer One. “Arklevent. Where are ye?” a voice called. The voice reminded Alba of his pack’s high wulf.

“Here, Phelan, a stag’s leap from Lady Faer’s Tree. Stay there. I’ll join ye.”

Arklevent chuckled. “I know ye are here, Applewulf. Ye must go. Get ye home to your pack. Return not, especially not at night when, under the silver light of Good Gealach, the Nightguard bogies count the apples. Ere she slips to her day’s rest they tell her the number which she whispers in Great Grian’s ear. When Golden Grian rises to shine her light upon Lisnafaer, she also counts the apples. Woe to the one who breaks the tally, wulf!”

Night. Of course. How stupid he had been.

 

 

Part III

 

Alba sucked his paws and thought. What good did it do to wait for the apples to ripen if he could never taste them? He knew of no way to stop Gold Grian and Silver Gealach from their light dance, day and night, tree month by tree month. And yet. . . . Starving for one more whiff of the Lady’s apples, he paced the western shore of Avalach Crossing. The waves ebbed and flowed, like the long months he had bided his time. At the beginning of each new tree month, Gealach got lost, or hid. The night, denied her shining face, passed in total darkness except for the distant needle points of light tossed like grains of sand into the immense black. Yes. Gealach in hiding. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? He tore into the sea and rode the waves. His joyous yelps agitated the puffins.

A call from his pack back at their home camp cut short his romp. He heard the anger in their cries. They had warned him. If he refused to work for the pack, they’d drive him out. He’d have to fend for himself. Nursing his secret, he shook the salt water from his sopping hide. He climbed the trail up to the cliffs overlooking the foam capped waves, his tail high in the sea breezes.

 

Mindful of his duty, he joined their next hunt and managed to bring back to camp a pine martin he brought down in the verge of the woods and the cliffs. This token of his obedience to the hunt satisfied the high wulf. For three weeks he ran with the pack but when hunts got tedious he persisted in wandering away. Prey, fine for an empty belly, failed to satisfy some deeper longing. The scent of the apples grew stronger each day as they and Tree Month Vine ripened into harvest time. They called his soul. He must capture the Lady’s treasure before the Faer Ones carted them away.

Halfway through Vine Month he endured Gealach’s full face beaming upon the Apple Coast and pined for the waning of her light. Each night as they hunted her light dwindled into some secret hole in the heavens. He smiled to himself. Now more clever than willful, he hunted with the best of the pack and caught prey aplenty, enough to be buried against meager hunting when the High West turned cold. All seemed well to his pack.

Back in high wulf’s good graces, Alba searched the night sky, his eyes bright. He began to hear song. Wulf song? And did it come from within or from afar? He puzzled on this mystery.

 

 

Part IV

 

The dark time of Gealach’s new phase finally ushered in Tree Month Ivy, just days from the Autumn Equinox. Perfect. On the first and darkest night of Ivy Month he made his way to the apple grove. He had no need of Gealach to light his way. His nose served him well. So did his ears. The racket of the Nightguard’s patrol had already stilled calls of the terns and other creatures—even the dead could tell where the bogie denizens of the dark scrabbled through thickets or lumbered down black trails. He gave no thought to what the Nightguard ate, as long as he avoided their jagged teeth. Clearly, spooking prey did not concern them.

His jaws widened into a fanged grin. He had wallowed in a shallow sinkhole inland from the sea. Deep enough to trap sea creatures orphaned by low tide but not so deep as to ensnare the crafty wulf, it held the decomposing remains of several shellfish. He reeked of dead crab and putrefied kelp. Keeper wulves’ lore taught that the Nightguard lost all sense when the stench of seaweed assaulted their bulbous noses. Alba endured the irritating fumes that made his snout twitch. He stifled a chuckle deep in his chest, not daring to let one escape to warn the bogies.

He glanced upward. Good. Coastal fogs obscured the stars. Perfect. He made his way in an easy lope from one of his former scent-markings to another until he entered the labyrinth. The leaves rustled and wove a blanket of the fog. Damp settled upon his head and back; droplets fell from his whiskers. He licked them and swallowed the salty residue carried up from the shore. He knew his route well: left at the crooked double-trunk tree, right at the big rock, left and left again after two more rows of ebony trees. He paced on, careful but certain. He could hear the apple skins stretching, the fruit plumping to perfection.

A bogie croaked from the north edge of the grove. Alba crouched low, but hearing no answer, kept on. His shoulders swung forward, right then left twenty-five times, just as he had counted it. He knew the Lady’s Tree stood just ahead. In deep breaths he drew in the luscious scent, driving out the stink of the kelp and filling his bursting lungs.

He gathered his paws. As if he were attacking some grand stag in rut, he leapt. The nails of his back paws cast up little tangles of mud and grass. His front paws grabbed the lower branches of what he considered his tree, Wulfheart. The back paws clutched the trunk and up he scrambled toward a massive ball of mistletoe. Becoming its shadow, he curled his body into a tight ball at the triangle from which three branches reached out to the dark. He held his breath and waited. For once he could be patient.

 

 

Part V

 

An owl called, yes . . . genuine owl hoots, from a down slope tree within the grove. His ears turned toward then away from the familiar sound. He waited but breathed easier. Hearing nothing more than the owl and crickets droning in the grass, he uncurled. Climbing and traversing the branches, he followed his nose to a cluster of plump, invisible apples. He snatched three in his dripping jaws, crunched them as if they were deer bone, swallowed, and gulped two more. He crammed dozens more into his eager belly before kicking off a main branch. He leapt into space, airborne if only for seconds, before landing smartly on his hard-nailed paws. He licked his chops, eager to find even the tiniest morsel of apple flesh.

He broke into a flat-out run, his legs pumping, front then back, on and on, until he reached the tasseled grasses that marked the site of his home. He had escaped the Nightguard. He blessed the apples, as yet a fermenting mass in his belly, for obliterating of taste of the noxious kelp, if not the scent.

As he strutted into camp, no prey to share with the pack, but ready-no eager-to take his punishment, the notes of some elusive song teased his fevered brain. He sucked in cold night air and expelled hot vapours. He laughed. Successful and satisfied. The song and the wonder of the apple flesh, its juice, the snap of its skin, its sweet, biting taste all blended in Apple Thief's memory. He staggered to his night's rest.

 

They waited until first light. Had his head been clear, he'd have detected the pack's unrest. He would have been prepared. High wulf and his second in command loomed over him, sniffing, poking and sniffing, driving him to stand upright. He kept his ears and tail well down. Challenged to explain where he'd been, he could merely mutter something indistinct about the cliffs overlooking the sea,

"The apples?" high wulf demanded.

Alba's throat closed. He hung his head.

The rest of the pack circled their leaders, adding the weight of their hot breaths and guttural snarls to a wall of menace.

High wulf butted him as if he were a lazy pup. "Acorns for the deer, apples for the Faer Ones, deer for the wulf. That is Greenlaw. You stink of apple!"

"No. No," he blurted, "apples grow the light into sweet fruit, good for all.

The pack gasped and shrank back. They stared at him.

High wulf signalled. One by one, the youngest and his den mates joining the elders, the pack came at him, first sniffing then nipping, each nip getting fiercer until what had become a gang turned the nips to active bites. When all could smell his freely flowing blood, red on black hide, their snarls turned into howls, tones of fear riding on notes of hatred.

The high wulf drove him down. Gasping out his apple breath, Alba presented his belly, laid open in total submission. He had no choice. High wulf clamped his jaws over Alba's muzzle. He glared into Alba's eyes, not liking the smattering of green flecks highlighting the expected amber color. He growled a strangled disgust.

Alba's dam barked. "No," she said. "He chose to leave our hunt. Let him choose again."

High wulf's hackles bristled. Saliva flowed down his sharp fangs. Scalding drops blistered Alba's nose. "Choose wisely, rebel wulf. Flee or die."

The gang backed up their leader, even Alba's dam and his den mates.
Wulves must be wary, so often woe follows gladness; that's what the Keeper wulves warned. One night's misadventure. A lifetime of misery. A lone wulf. He'd be an outcast, wandering the wilds he had once patrolled. If he lived.

He forced himself to stare directly into his sire's eyes. "Flee."

High wulf let out a howl that shook the ground.

Alba scrambled for a purchase on the blood soaked earth, dug in his claws, and raced faster than he ever had on a hunt. With the pack's howls ringing in his ears he sped away from home and safety, from the pack of his birth to the mist-haunted unknown. Except. Except for the apples.

More than wulf, less than Faer One, he was Alba the Apple Thief, yes, Applewulf!

He ran as far as Wulf Tongue Pass. Far enough. The daunting pass arrested his flight. Waiting long enough to catch his breath, to still his heaving sides, he stood tall, tail held high. He looked to the sky turned deep cobalt in the east and listened for the song, counting on the stars to send it on the dawn breeze. The memory of his triumphant quest washed over him. He opened his mouth and sang.

From her hiding place beyond the Wulf Jaw Mountains, Silver Gealach smiled. She called Gold Grian. "Shine upon this wondrous day, Great Grian. A new song is born."

L. N. Passmore

 

L. N. Passmore bids you to come visit Lisnafaer and her other green worlds.