The Apple Tree at the End of the Path

Starring Lulu Twirl, George Washington

Lulu Twirl follows a hush she hears near an old apple tree, convinced it is hiding a secret song, but George Washington is equally certain the tree is simply a place for apples. When Lulu's secret-keeping leads them both astray and George's confident plan fails entirely, they have to work together in a way neither expected, and what they find changes what both of them thought they knew.

Lulu Twirl was listening to the path. Not to the birds, not to the wind. To the tiny hush between one thing and the next. "There," she whispered, stopping so fast her red ribbon slid forward over one ear. She had heard it again, a small secret quiet coming from somewhere ahead, and she was not going to break it by saying so out loud.

George Washington came up behind her, his boots crunching loud on the gravel. "I know where this path goes," he said. "There is an apple tree at the end, and I mean to find it." Lulu straightened her ribbon and said nothing. She wanted to tell him about the hush, but the words felt heavy in her mouth, like they might land wrong and scare it away.

George walked with long, certain steps. "The tree will be just around this bend," he said. But the bend led to another bend, and that one to a muddy patch where something had dug a wide, messy hole across the whole path. George stepped right into it. One boot came out without him.

George pulled his boot free with a horrible squelch. He sat on a flat rock and scraped the mud off with a stick, his jaw tight. "I was confident we were close," he said quietly. Lulu sat beside him and said nothing, but the hush was stronger here. She could feel it humming in her back teeth.

"George," said Lulu carefully, "do you ever hear the hush?" George looked at her. "What hush?" "The quiet between things," she said. "It is loudest right now, and it is coming from over there." She pointed past the muddy hole. In the tall grass beyond, a shape moved slowly through the shadows.

They stepped through the tall grass and stopped. The apple tree was there, its roots humped up over the ground, its branches heavy and low. And underneath, a small brown rabbit sat perfectly still, ears flat, nose twitching once, twice, then not at all. That was the hush. That was where it lived.

George reached up slowly and picked one apple. He turned it in his hand, cool and smooth and smelling of something sharp and green. "I thought I was only coming for the apples," he said. The rabbit blinked once, then hopped away into the grass without a sound, leaving the hush right where it had been. Lulu untied her red ribbon and laid it gently at the base of the tree.

They walked home as the sun went low and orange. George carried the apple in both hands. Lulu walked beside him, her hair loose where the ribbon had been, listening to the hush of her own footsteps on the gravel. When they reached the muddy hole, George stepped around it in a wide, careful arc. Lulu watched him do it and looked down at the path, a small quiet smile on her face.