"Open your lips," the woman was saying. "That's it. Drink the apple spider. Good. Very good."
Anna sipped at the sweet liquid.
"Good. Very good. Rest some more. Close your eyes and rest."
How does she know who I am?
It's cool here. There's grass here- soft green grass.
Where am I?
Anna probed her belly, looking for the wound where the Red Eyes had stabbed her with the horrible barbed stinger. She remembered collapsing under the shade of the tree, her vision fading to black, her hands twitching as she lost control of her body... she was almost dead before she hit the ground.
But now there was nothing to her belly except for smooth, unbroken skin. As if it was all just a nightmare.
A cool breeze blew over Anna. It felt gentle, reassuring. She felt safe and almost... at home? For the first time since she couldn't remember when, she felt like she might be at a place that was home. Maybe not
her
home- but
a
home.
And that felt wonderful.
She closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
******************************
"You better get back inside, nigger," the cop said, low and menacing, his hand on the pistol in its holster. "That's right. Get the fuck back inside, you know what's good for you."
The door closed with a click. The cop could hear the scrabble of chains sliding into place, see the curtains being drawn. Nobody was really going to make a scene about a cop picking up some street trash.
The cop looked at the young woman he had stopped on the sidewalk. She looked scared, and defiant. He liked seeing both of those emotions.
"Do I need to cuff you? Or are you going to get the fuck into the car?"
"Cuff me for what? I ain't
done
shit."
He drew in his breath in an exaggerated way, bored almost, as if he'd done this so many times that the stupidity of other people in this game exhausted him. He shook his head, making a show at how dumb what she was saying was, how bored he was at the incredulity of her questions.
His hand still on his pistol, he limped over closer to where the young woman was standing the sidewalk, her eyes wide, her arms wrapped tightly around her skinny frame.
"What happened to your leg," she asked him, her eyes slits, mocking him.
He didn't mind that. Her hatred of him was going to make it all the better when he got her in the police car and slapped the smirk off her face. He was going to be rough with this one, hurt her, break her if he could.
Fill her up with cum while she cried in the back of his squad car, teach her what her place was, put her back the fuck on the street.
"Some bitch threw me into a wall," he told her. "One of those superheroine bitches that was running around the City a while back. The Strength? I forget her name. She ain't been around since I don't know. Probably dead by now- dead or she got the fuck out of this fucking City like she should have done."
"I need to go," she said quietly. Almost hard to hear. "I am meeting my study group at the library. I need to study for the ACT."
"You don't really strike me as college material. Come with me."
He grabbed her around her upper arm.
"The fuck is you doing!" she started to scream.
His hand flew up from where his pistol was holstered, slapping her across the face, hard. The sharp snap of the slap reverberated across the street.
More curtains drew close.
He looked up and down the street, still holding her arm strongly as she bent over and rubbed her cheek, tears flowing.
"Let me tell you what is going to happen," he said evenly, not looking down at her. "I'm going to take you to my police car, and we are going to get in it. We are going to drive around a little bit, and you are going to do exactly what I tell you to do."
He grabbed a handful of her tight braids and roughly pulled her head up to face him.
"This is the important part- this is where you want to pay some fucking attention, college material. Now, what's your name?"
"Alicia," she choked out.
"That's a pretty name," he said. "I thought you were going to say some stupid name like a lot of black girls have now. Shit I can't even
pronounce.
No fucking idea what you people are thinking with that shit."
He started to drag her by the arm to where his car was idling next to the curb.
"So, Alicia, what condition you are in when you get out of my car is up to you. You do exactly what I tell you to do, you'll be fine. You give me a bunch of bullshit, and I can't guarantee
what
the fuck I'm going to do in there. But if you are good, and you cooperate, you'll get to your library and study for your little college exam test. You got me?"
He opened the car door and shoved her in the back, climbing into the front seat of the squad car himself.
"Smart girl," he told her, glaring at her in the rearview mirror. "Maybe you
are
college material after all."
He kept a close eye on her as he fished a couple of white pills out of his shirt pocket. He unscrewed a cap from a half drank Diet Coke and washed the pills down.
"First time in a police car?"
She didn't answer.
"It won't be the last. I've been a cop for almost twenty-five years now in this City. Twenty-five years! Can you believe that. I tell you what, I seen some changes out there. It used to be that a cop got some respect, you know. Everybody respected the police back when I started- even you colored people knew some fucking respect for the badge- "
He bent over, coughing violently, grasping at his torso.
The cop wiped his mouth when he was done, his breath ragged and painful.
"Fuck," he whispered.
"Fuck.
She broke some of my fucking ribs. Hurts like a son of a bitch to cough. They got me on all these pills- Vicodin. I'm taking six, eight fucking Vicodin a day just to get by and it still hurts like a motherfucker every time I cough, or walk up a flight of stairs, or whatever. Fuck."
He put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. He drove aimlessly down side streets, keeping an eye on her in the back. She sat silently, terrified, her knees brought up to her chest, shivering.
He turned the heat on for her, although it wasn't cold out.
"You got a boyfriend or something?" he asked her.
She didn't answer.
"Whatever, then. Let's just get it over with. I should tell you, these fucking pills make it so my dick don't get hard like it used to. Takes a lot of work. Just to tell you."
He pulled into a quiet alley and killed the lights.
******************************
Anna blinked, and opened her eyes.
She was lying on a soft cot, in the middle of a garden. It was nice and cool here, with flowers of all colors hanging from vines.
And apples- apples everywhere. Red apples, green apples, yellow. Anna had never seen so many apples in one place before.
Someone had hung garlands of soft fabric from the trees, and the fabric seemed to have filtered out some of the harsh red sun, leaving only a sunlight that was almost like the gentle yellow of the sun of Earth. A breeze drifted in from somewhere, making the flowers dance, revealing all the long and sharp thorns jutting from the apple trees themselves-
Anna frowned. Apple trees don't have thorns. They certainly don't have six-inch thorns all over them.
"More apple spider?"
Anna turned her head and saw a small and gentle looking woman sitting across from her. The woman poured a glass of brown liquid into a wooden cup. She handed the cup to Anna.
"Thank you," Anna said, sitting up and taking a sip.
The woman smiled.
The drink was sweet and delicious.
"Oh!" Anna said. "This is apple
cider!"
"Yes," the woman said. "I make it. Apple spider."
Anna smiled.
"Thank you," Anna said. "It's wonderful- apple spider."
"I'm glad you like it. I have as much as you want. Sorry- English is not my language. I am Korean. Korean is my language. I used to speak a lot of English- long time ago. Now I don't speak to anyone."
"Where are we? What is this place?"
"This is my little garden. I've been growing it ever since I came here."
"It's very beautiful," Anna good another drink of her cider, and looked around the garden. "But the apple trees- apple trees don't have thorns, do they?"
"I changed them," the woman said. "They need to be able to protect themselves here, and protect me, also. So, I changed them."
The woman stood up and poured more cider into Anna's cup.
"I am May. Drink the apple spider. It's healing you."
"I'm Anna- thank you. I feel much better."
"I have been healing you. You were very hurt- almost died. And he made a lot of bad changes to you, didn't he? Yes. He did a lot of bad things to you- I've been undoing those changes."
"I... I remember eating an apple, and then one of those Red Eyes poisoned me..."
"Yes. The tree was able to kill the- what did you call it? The Red Eyes. The tree killed it, and the tree let me know that you were hurt. By the time I got to you, you were almost dead."
"The trees can communicate with you?"
"Yes, of course. And I can communicate with them. Myself and my garden are more like a- what was the word from my biologist days- a super-organism. We are changing a little bit of this environment at a time. People from Earth can change things on this planet- this planet is dying, killing itself with poison. This planet knows this, and so things from Earth can change anything about this place. This planet wants to live and thrive. So, anything with intelligence can make any changes to anything here."
Anna stood up, feeling only a mild amount of pain where the stinger had plunged into her. How long had it been?
She walked over to one of the apple trees and put her hand on the rough bark. She looked up, saw the ripe fruit hanging heavily on the branch, saw the long, curved thorns glistening in the filtered sunlight.
She looked out past the trees, past the canopy, and saw the dead black sand in the distance, baking harshly in the cruel red sun.
"How long have you been here?" Anna whispered.
"Years now. I came with Roy- you know him? Right? The Detective? But he wasn't a detective when we first came here together. But you know him."
Anna nodded. She knew him.
"He wasn't like what he is now back then. He was strong, and gentle. Hopeful. He and I were lovers- we were going to make this place an endless garden, filled with love, not like Earth. No cities. No hurting. I loved him then."
