Chapter Text
The aphids were back.
No, that wasn’t possible. At least, Metrona didn’t think it was. She’d gotten rid of them not even a few days ago, and they were back, ruining their crops. She ripped off her covers and pushed herself up onto her knees so she could see out of her window better.
“What a horrible thing to wake up to,” she thought aloud. She turned to look at her brand-new brown stuffed bear that sat on her bed and asked him a question as if he could hear her. “Where could they have come from, Braxton? On such short notice, too?”
He didn’t reply, with his melancholy little face and two different colored eyes that matched her own. Though it really didn’t matter that he didn’t reply, because Metrona had already moved him onto her dresser so she could make her bed. She couldn’t waste any time investigating outside.
—
Metrona walked up to the edge of the garden and knelt down, hands and knees in the dirt, meeting the plant-eating aphids at eye level. She had thought for a moment that they were the same as yesterday’s crowd, but upon closer inspection, she realized they most likely weren’t.
“That’s not right,” she mumbled, pushing herself back up from the soil and wiping it off her hands.
“What’s not right, Darling?” Her father, Archibald, asked from the front porch, holding her sleeping little brother in his arms. Her father must’ve just woken up.
“Those aphids from yesterday are back,” she sighed, frustrated. Her eyes shut, and her brows knitted. She didn’t have any other idea than to use the ladybugs again, but if the aphids were going to keep returning, that didn’t seem like a very sustainable option.
“They are?”
“Yes, I don’t know how.”
Her bubbling frustration toned down a little as her father placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him.
“It’s not your fault, you know that, don’t you?”
“I, uh… um… yes…” she said, looking off at the field. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I know that’s what you’re thinking.”
He was right. She couldn’t help but hug herself and try to keep the reminder. It wasn’t her fault, but it sure felt like it.
“So, how are things going?!”
Metrona and Archibald perked up at the sudden call and whipped their heads around. Oh… goodness. Of all of the days…
Archibald sighed. “Things are going just fine, Lottie. You can go home now.”
“Those aphids are back, aren’t they?” Charlotte asked, looking up at him with what almost looked like a smile she was trying to hide.
“How did you know about that?” Metrona asked. “It’s not like we told anyone about it, ‘less you’re eavesdropping again like you always do.”
“Me? Oh, no, please. It’s not eavesdropping, it’s just getting in on the drama, Dear, and this is drama.”
Drama? Their crops being torn to shreds and their farm being put at risk was drama to her?
“How distasteful,” Metrona said quietly, noticing that it wasn’t as quiet as she thought it was when Charlotte glared down at her.
“Well, if you’re here for the drama, Lottie, how ‘bout you help us out a little?” Archibald cut in before Charlotte could bite someone’s head off.
“Me? Help out?” She began, her face dropping a little. “Ahem, Mr. Green, please understand. You know I would if I could, but I have a nice little greenhouse back at home to tend to, and I can’t let it go unmonitored.”
“And here I thought you were getting in on the drama, yes?”
“Yes, sir, but only for a few minutes. That’s all,” She gave a small smile and a wave. “I’ll see y’all later, maybe sometime this afternoon, the good Lord willing! Who knows?”
“Yeah,” Metrona mumbled under her breath as she and her father watched Lottie, her dear, sweet cousin, trot off on her horse.
The good Lord willing.
—
Metrona sat in the garden bed, watching intently as the ladybugs chewed at and ate the little aphids, tearing up their crops. Any other time, and any other day, she’d have felt gladdened by this achievement, but today, she couldn’t seem to let herself be. Not with that promise of an afternoon visit, and not with the lingering feeling she had that this problem wouldn’t be its last occurrence. What else could she do, though?
Metrona smiled anyway despite her worries, as she lifted a ladybug up from a leaf onto her finger.
“You’re all doing wonderfully,” she said softly.
She swore the ladybug smiled at her. So, she smiled back, then she scanned over the nearby crops. Her smile immediately faded at the sudden abundance of aphids. New aphids.
“No,” she whispered, her eyes widening as she hurriedly stood up. The ladybug flew off her finger as she whipped her head around at the garden around her. “No, this– this can’t be happening…”
Metrona gripped at her chest, feeling her chest fall and rise quicker than it typically did. She stepped back and lost her footing, slipping in the mud and falling backwards. It didn’t particularly matter, considering mud covered her trousers and boots already, but the sudden fall didn’t help her panicked state.
Two hands looped under her arms and lifted her out of the mud.
“Metrona, Darling,” Archibald began, helping her stand up straight to meet his gaze. He had this stern look on his face. One that Metrona mistakenly read as disappointment.
“Papa, I’m… Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry, I tried. I really did.”
Archibald’s face softened instantly.
“What? No, no, Metrona, no,” he said, pulling her towards him into an embrace. She rested her head under his chin, closing her eyes. “It’s not your fault.”
Metrona’s eyes cracked open at the emphasis on that ‘your’.
“...Then, whose fault is it?”
“Your dear, sweet cousin, I’ve learned,” he said, his voice becoming stern again as he patted her back reassuringly. “That’s who.”
—
Charlotte leaned back against the wooden fence that lined the massive property she and her parents lived on. The once white house with its colorful red roof had diminished in its brightness over time. She looked up at it once or twice while she waited for Hell to come riding in on horseback, and she couldn’t help but scoff at the memories. The memories of townsfolk mentioning and whispering under their breath, how the house must have become so somber and dreary because of her mood. They saw the trouble in her eyes, being born a restless child. ‘Why couldn’t she be like her parents, and the good men before them?’ they asked.
The whispers made her blood boil like it simmered in the lakes of Hell.
Speaking of Hell, here it came, riding in on horseback, just like she thought they would.
Lottie threw on her fakest smile and waved at Archibald and Metrona, who didn’t look as pleased to see her.
“How are y’all doing on this fine day?”
“We’re doing about as good as you think we’re doing, Lottie,” Archibald said, feeling Metrona’s grip dig deep into his sides while she sat behind him. “What’s with the aphids? Where are you even getting them?”
“They love greens, I’ll tell you that,” she said, pointing off in the distance to the greenhouse sitting on her property. “If you wanna take a look, you absolutely can. There’s plenty of them, and they’re real friendly.”
“No, thank you,” Metrona said, echoing her father’s unspoken sentiment. “Having you stop sending them to our farm would be enough.”
“Here, how about I introduce you, then?” Lottie said, waving them off and walking to that greenhouse.
The Greens dismounted their horse to give her a rest, but they did not follow Charlotte. They let her come back on her own, with a gloved hand and a colony of aphids crawling all along it.
“See? Nothing to fear,” Lottie said, leaning down to Metrona’s height. “They’re like your little ladybugs down at your farm, just a little hungrier for something different. That’s all.”
“Why are you doing this? We’re family, and family is supposed to stick by one another. Not do… all of this.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Metrona, we’re not even related,” Lottie scoffed.
“Not by blood, but we are related.”
“No, we’re not,” she said, standing up. “Listen, just because Great-Grandpa Whistler and Grandpa Charlie had to be soft and take in Bixby doesn’t mean anything, alright? Even if it did mean something, why should I care?”
“Lottie, let’s face it: you aren’t even like your own family,” Archibald said. “Your family has been full of nothing but honest, hardworking people. They’ve always done what they can and have always tried to help others. You can’t even muster up the will to help an elder cross the street when they need it.”
“You must think I’m a fool, for you to stand there and say I’m nothing like my family and expect me to believe that. I’m just like my granddaddy, dwindling your business to keep ours going. You’re nothing but hypocrites if you found him tolerable but not me,” Lottie said, hand on her hip, letting the aphids crawl along her other gloved hand.
“The difference between you and Charlie,” Archibald began, with an impatient sigh. It was rare that he was impatient, and it made Metrona tense up a little. Usually, she was the impatient one. “…Is that Charlie never intentionally tried to harm our family. He changed that train route to save fuel, to keep costs low, and to keep transportation affordable for those who needed it. He tried to do what he thought was right, and that unfortunately meant our business got damaged in the process. He was new to running a business, and he thought that was the only option.
But when he realized there was a way to keep our farm in business, and still keep the train route short, he did what he could to help us out while helping others out, too. That’s why he let Daddy sell produce along the tracks. Charlie knew it’d help us. It’s why he bought from our family’s stock, even though he didn’t like us very much. He knew that’d help us, too.
Was he a little short-tempered and impatient? Sure, and was he a little uninformed when it came to running that business? Sure. That’s the difference, though. You’re not uninformed. You know fully well what you’re doing, and you’re okay with it hurting us. You’re not giving us any other options that’ll help us, like he did. You just want to see us suffer.”
“You’re just a villain,” Metrona added in a quiet voice.
“So was he,” Lottie sneered. A vile look on her face that made Metrona’s eyes sting.
“No, not at all. Maybe a temporary antagonist for a short while, having an opposing want to Grandpa Bixby’s, but never a villain. Not in a million years. That loving man would never have been.”
She paused, keeping eye contact with Lottie, who stared at her back in offense. It looked like she didn’t know what to say.
“You, though? I worry there may be no love in you at all.”
Lottie’s brows furrowed, and she bared her teeth. Her face went red, and she turned away from them, leaving for the barn.
“Metrona, I…“ Archibald began, pausing to collect his thoughts as he watched Lottie rummage through the barn’s clutter. “I don’t know if I like you saying those kinds of things.”
“It’s a genuine concern,” she said, sincerely. She worried herself about the way she phrased it, now that she saw how Lottie reacted. “I didn’t mean to make her so angry, but I didn’t want to lie to her face.”
“Some things you don’t have to say out loud.”
“I know,” she said, regretfully
They watched Lottie come back with an axe in hand, and they swore both of their hearts plummeted at the exact same moment. Archibald took Metrona by the shoulder and moved her out of the way of Lottie’s path. She walked past them, putting the axe in a sling she wore, and she mounted her stallion.
“Where are you going?” Metrona asked, watching Lottie’s hands shake as she held the reins.
“I’m chopping that damn tree down, if it’s the last thing I do.”
And off she rode.
—
They didn’t make it in time. Even if they did, they weren’t sure there was much they’d have been able to do to stop her.
Metrona couldn’t help but gasp, even tear up a little, as she watched the axe hit the trunk of the apple tree. She winced as it pierced it again, and again, and again. She covered her face with her hands. The wood splintered and crackled as the tree split fully and fell to the side with a crash.
Metrona stared at it in disbelief, wide eyes peaking through her fingers, and simply whispered as softly as she could. “Why would you do that?…”
Lottie didn’t even fully turn to look at her. All she did was turn her head slightly and glare down at her.
“Because I’m nothing like you and your rotten family, and there shouldn’t be a thing in this world that links us together.”
Lottie tossed the axe at Metrona’s feet, and she began to walk away.
“I’ll make sure of that.”
Metrona looked at the axe, wide-eyed. Her eyes screwed shut and her face scrunched up as she began to cry softly.
—
“Metrona, Dear?” Archibald said softly, gently tapping in front of her at the dinner table where they sat now in the evening, having supper. She looked up at him, red rims beneath her eyes.
He sighed sadly, leaning over the table and cupping her face with one hand. “I know it won’t be the same, and I know what made that tree special was your granddad, but… nothing’s stopping us from continuing what he did.”
Metrona placed a hand on his, which cupped her cheek. “I know… but I… I don’t know.”
He nodded. “I understand. Take your time. Whether you decide to leave it be or plant a new one, let me know.”
She nodded back and eyed the basket of apples they’d saved from the tree that sat on the floor.
—
21 Years Later
“This,” Metrona began, kneeling down, hands and knees in the dirt, meeting Alice at eye level. “It’s a perfect apple to use for planting.”
“Isn’t every apple up there good for planting?”
“I mean, yes, but this one in particular is perfect,” Metrona said, pointing at the apple Alice had in her hands that she’d caught falling from the 21-year-old apple tree above. “It's perfect because it’s the first one you touched, so it must be the one we’re lookin’ for.”
With that, she stood up, brushed off her trousers, and lifted the 7-year-old up into her arms with a big swooping motion. Alice giggled at the movement and wrapped her arms around her aunt’s neck.
“We can plant this one out front, and it can be your own project.”
“But I don’t know how to grow an apple tree.”
“I can help you with that. It isn’t too difficult; it just needs time, love, and a lot of care. Sometimes it’ll get stubborn and sometimes it’ll frustrate you, but you’ve gotta hold out and do what you can.”
“What if it doesn’t work out?”
“You keep on loving it until it goes, and when it’s gone, you remember the good times you had with it. You remember the mistakes you might have made, too, and use them as a learning opportunity to help you grow the next tree.”
Metrona set Alice down on the front lawn, and she pulled over a bucket of soil, which held a rusty old spade as well. She knelt down with Alice and smiled at her before they began digging a small hole in the dirt.
“Though, let’s hope nothing happens to this one, and everything goes well. That’s all we can hope for.”