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One of the most notable landmarks on the island of Piffling was its cemetery. Tightly packed tombstones jutted out every which way in unneat little rows like crooked teeth.
On her increasingly less rare ventures outdoors, Antigone often found herself walking among the crosses and pointed-arched stones. Always reminiscing about embalmings of times past, better days before Chapman had taken most of their business away.
When the weather lifts to warmer notes, fragments of color begin to come along. Her brother’s ordinance to embellish the grounds with flowers, though admittedly did glamorize the otherwise ill kempt grounds, she found the addition of a cherry tree was perhaps a touch too excessive. He often insisted that it had been Chapman’s idea, but they both knew very well that the tree had been planted long before he’d come into their lives.
Regardless, whatever cultivar Petunia had sold to him was quite a unique one. Remnants of pink petals from its blossomed past decomposed on the ground as the now bountiful cherry tree sat as the guardian of the cemetery with its deep brown and age-gnarled bark. Within the thick green Antigone caught a figure adorned in red sitting among the branches.
Her approach was measured, carefully creeping one foot in front of the other. Head angled upward, tilted, disbelieving that she of all people would ever willfully climb a tree.
"My creepy girl." She murmured, only slightly turning her head to look upon her.
The ringmistress sat there, one knee pulled up resting on the branch, the other leg dangling below. Her cigarette perched between her fingers as smoke slowly escaped her nose. The red ribbon around her top hat inexplicably housed a small offshoot.
"Marlene." Antigone took another step forward, placing her hands on the tree tentatively. "What on earth are you doing here?"
“You have not found yourself sitting in a tree before?”
She cursed herself for telling her about all the absurd things her brother had ever made her do. “Shut up-”
Having lost her patience for Antigone’s spouts, she interrupted her. “Come join me.”
“Absolutely not.”
Swinging her leg over, the ringmistress sat on the branch proper. She reached her hand down, offering it to Antigone who in turn hesitated for a moment before taking it. The two of them may very well fulfill that silly childhood rhyme about lovers sitting in trees as she clawed her way up the tree.
While Marlene settled back into her former position, Antigone sat upon a branch jutting from the trunk adjacent to her, accepting the offer of cherries from her hand. Around them within the branches hung cherries in deep shades of red, the kind with a perfect touch of black-purple, and were all the sweeter for it. Her attention paid too closely to Marlene, she had forgotten about the small pip within these cherries, and so she swallowed it with an absurdly loud gulp as she watched Marlene spit hers out without much of a thought.
Antigone asked the ringmistress once more why she was there.
Her answer was simply a memory. Cherry trees dotted around her old village, along the village paths and in gardens. Her and her friends would often find themselves among the branches, eating the everso tart fruits until being chased off by the owner of whomever's garden they had just invaded.
There was also a very distinct tradition in her village in Slovakia, it was unclear if anywhere else ever celebrated the holiday this way. The way it would go, and Marlene’s distaste for this particular condition was blatant, as that the young women of the village would find youthful ends of cherry branches in hopes that they would soon blossom, and when they did the branches were to be gifted to the young men who had the girls’ favor, snuggled in the ribbon of their hats. It evolved over time, with simply the gifting of the cherry branch symbolized a love confession.
Her face tinged red, Antigone glared at Marlene’s hat. “Who gave you that branch, then?”
“Hm? Oh.” Marlene removed the pruned twig from her hat, toying with it. “Nobody.”
“What?”
“I picked it myself.” She said this in a rather unemotional, practical manner.
Antigone clawed a piece of bark from the trunk. “Why have you given yourself a cherry branch?”
“I never received one.” In her youth, Marlene had attempted to give several girls branches, but was always rejected. Except for precisely once with her best friend, who when asked about it swore up and down that it was her boyfriend that gave it to her, while Marlene had stood next to her trying to hide her appalled expression.
Perhaps it was only the ringmistress’s own notion of self-love in the case of picking a cherry branch for herself, but Antigone was still offended by the fact that she had not known about this tradition sooner. She looked up into the sprawling woods, eyes searching for a branch worthy of her ringmistress.
An offshoot stood out among the greenery, small and thin. The pink flowers that had long since fallen away clung for dear life at the tip. Legs trembling as she carefully stood upon the branch, she paid no attention to Marlene’s questioning look. She kept an eye on her movements, calculating how she would catch her if she were to fall.
It loomed just out of reach, but her determination got the best of her as she leaned forward, extended her arm, fingers barely grazing the end as her other arm grasped another adjacent branch.
Rough bark scraped her skin. It felt as though the more Antigone leaned towards it, the farther away it got. She would damn herself before she let one more desire slip away from her as she placed her foot into yet another branch.
Marlene could only watch her, unsure of what to make of her behavior.
With finality, she snapped the shoot, grasping it tightly. Entangled as she was among the branches, her own limbs began to resemble the gnarly boughs. The end of her dress caught in the shoots, she tore a hole as she disentangled herself. Uncaring for that, she triumphantly sat next to Marlene on her same branch, handing her pruning.
A somewhat blank expression crossed her face, she glanced back at Antigone who had her arms crossed.
“Well?” She prompted, growing frustrated by her lack of reaction.
Turning the thin branch in her hands, she tossed away her old branch and tucked away the new one in the ribbon of her top hat. Her lover’s ambition for something as trivial as a cherry branch was albeit admirable, ultimately completely ridiculous. It was not lost on her that if their roles had been reversed, she would very well have done the same for her.
“Thank you.”
In the same way Marlene had cracked open Antigone’s heart, blood splattering her face as she saw what was inside, finding a smaller version of herself living within, keeping her heart beating; Antigone now had turned to breaking apart the cherries in her hands, picking out the pip before indulging in the bittersweetness. Red stained her fingers, turning sticky.
Their love for one another streaked across their skin, their stained lips lingered close. Antigone’s head swam, briefly she lost her balance. Marlene braced an arm around her, keeping her near to her heart. Hands laced together like roots, they would not let these youthful feeling days pass them by as they got away from the humdrum.
When all the metaphors about women and fruit had rotted away, and all that was left was a ringmistress and mortician sitting in a cherry tree, basking in a warm evening glow; fulfilling childhood rhymes.