The Thing In The Orchard Had Knees That Bent The Wrong Way

Our orchard is nine trees and a fence. In September the ground goes yellow with windfalls and the wasps get drunk and my mother pays me to rake.

I went out at dusk with a torch because I had left the rake against the fence and my mother has strong opinions about tools left out in dew.

There was a figure between the fourth and fifth tree, and my first thought — I want to be honest about my first thought — was that it was a heron. Because of the way it stood. Very still, weight on one side, head lowered like something that fishes for a living.

But herons are not five and a half feet tall, and they do not have arms.

It was collecting apples. It would bend, and the bend happened at the wrong point, high up, so that the lower leg swung forward instead of back, and it would pick up one apple, turn it, and set it down again. Not eat it. Set it down. Then take another. It did this maybe six times while I stood there with a torch I had not switched on, because switching it on felt like knocking on a door I did not want opened.