O Apple Tree

On the edge of town there is an apple tree that stands alone in a field, its branches picked clean of fresh green apples around summertime by the town’s children. This year is no different as the children make the journey across the field, keeping below the line of the hedges to avoid the farmer’s eye line, and filling their upturned shirts with apples before making the return journey back to market to sell the apples to the market stall, eating the choicest ones on the way.

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However, something is different this year. The children fall sick and are confined to their beds, and a few even die. Thankfully no one else eats the apples and gets sick, but the town is still looking for someone to blame for the deaths of the children.

Possibilities

1 Farmer Evan Wolcott’s farm is failing, and every year he has had a smaller harvest, and had to sell on a little of his land to neighbours. Wolcott has turned to extreme measures to protect his interests, and a few months ago he turned to the books locked away in the attic that had belonged to his brother, the one who had travelled east to learn about magic and summoning.

On the first day of summer, Wolcott carried out a solstice ritual from the book and asked for the old gods of fertility to bless his farm, which they did, infusing the farm with a vigour that Wolcott had never known before. The nature spirits that guard the farm against ruin are ruthless. The spirits struck out against the children for stealing from the farm, and the sickness will kill the rest of them if something isn’t done.

2 The apple tree had a name a few hundred years ago; the Gallows Tree. A notorious witch was hung from the tree by the name of Jane Williams and her last words were reputed to be that she’d live on forever. Williams used magic to bind her spirit to the tree, and she has remained within the tree since then. She has strived to recreate her old body by exerting her limited influence on anyone who lingers near the tree and has been responsible for a small number of murders and suicides in the town.

When the children came this year, she tried a new tactic by transferring a portion of her soul to the apples the children picked. The cursed apples will eventually kill all the children and Williams plans to reanimate their bodies and then enact a ritual to restore her body.

3 The apples have nothing to do with the sickness of the children, but the man who bought the apples from the children did. The apple vendor is a serial killer who travels from town to town poisoning children. He gave the children some poisoned sweets as thanks for the apples, which cause the sickness. 

© 2009 Paul Hebron