deepwaterwritingprompts:Text: Where the last vampire’s heart was staked and buried, a cherry t

deepwaterwritingprompts:Text: Where the last vampire’s heart was staked and buried, a cherry tree grew. Every year we try to steal it’s dark, plump fruit, before the Council burns it down again. The stake put through the last vampire’s heart was carved of cherry wood. We know that, because of the tree that grew where it was buried, more than one hundred years ago.The Council have tried every way to destroy the tree that they can think of, from acid to axes, from poisons to prayers. The tree cannot be cut down, or dug up, or poisoned, or killed. Fire harms it, to an extent. The leaves and the bark burn, and though the tree never flowers it still bears fruit, which when ripe blazes as if soaked in spirits, with a blue fire. Every year, the tree is burned when the fruit is ripe - at harvest time, in autumn, months after every other cherry is gone. For a week before, the tree is guarded night and day, so that no-one can creep in and try to take a cherry.  It can’t be burned until every fruit is ripe - the green fruit doesn’t burn.Mothers tell terrible stories about that tree. That the fruits are filled with blood instead of juice. That a child who ate one died bleeding from eyes and ears and nose. That a pig who ate one turned into a monster. The kind of stories mothers tell to make us afraid of what is dangerous.But there are other stories, that we hear as we grow older. That the tree took root in the vampire, and partook of its magic, and the fruits likewise. That they grant gifts, to those brave enough to eat one. Eyes that see even in the deepest dark, or the strength of a dozen men, or the speed of the wind. Everyone knows the stories, swears that an uncle’s friend or a friend’s cousin got a fruit, and was changed by it, and left the village to make their fortune. And every year, there are attempts to steal the fruit, by those young enough to prize excitement over safety, who think of it as a game. They try stealth, and tricks, and bribery, and once or twice even the weight of numbers. They don’t succeed. The guards are vigilant, and wary… and armed. No-one talks about it, but a boy got a cherry about ten years ago. He carried it two or three steps before the spear entered his leg. The wound wasn’t fatal, not immediately, but it got infected and he died a week later. For a couple of years after, the attempts tailed off. But the young are foolish, and they’re back to their old tricks now. I have been a guard on the night shift for three years now. I am young for it - it’s rare that anyone under thirty is made a guard. But I never tried to steal the fruit, and I am the best fighter with staff and spear in the village. So for seven nights, in autumn, I stand guard over the unnatural tree. The fruit smells sweet and beguiling. It always has. There are fourteen guards positioned around the great tree, spaced out around it. I am paired with Isas, the oldest, whose speed with axe and club is legendary but whose feet and knees hurt him these days. I can see Laria and Nuen, off to our left. Ien and Ferlith are on our right, but blocked by an outcropping of stone. Our task would be impossible if it weren’t for three things. Firstly, all the fruit appears and ripens within the span of seven days. Secondly, the fruit of the tree never falls. It stays on the tree, ripe and tempting, until the burning. And thirdly, no bird or beast ever goes near that tree or touches the fruit. All we have to do is keep the young of our own kind away from the lowest branches of the great tree, thick with their tempting fruit, for seven days.Isas groans, and sits down on a rock to rub his knees with his hands. “This is my last year,” he says wearily. “I just can’t stand all night like I used to. You take care of your knees, Delo. Your knees and your back. Once they go, you’re no good for anything but sitting outside a tavern in the sun and telling stories about the good old days.” “I know. You say that every year.” I stand, balancing my weight on the balls of my feet, spear ready in my hand. When one guard rests, or has to pass water, the other one must be ready. That’s why we stand in pairs. “Don’t worry, my knees are fine.” “Yes, I used to say that. Now they grind like an old hinge.” He flexed them, first one then the other. “I hate this tree,” he says, with sudden venom, and it surprises me.  He’s never said that before. “I hate this damn tree.” “Why?” I glance behind me for a moment. Lit by the ring of lanterns, the unnatural tree seems to glow, its leaves still bright and green when all the others are changing and falling, the fruit smooth and shining like dark jewels. “Why? Because it’s evil, that’s why!” He turns too, glaring at the tree.  “Look at it! You’re a hunter, Delo. You know a trap when you see it. That fruit is bait. We see it, we smell it, and we *want* it. Even now, after all these years…” There’s longing in his voice, and loathing too. “Just like the monster it grew from, it hungers for us. It wants us. It wants to feed on us, and make us monsters like it is. And it won’t die! Real cherry trees live twenty years, or thirty, or forty, not over a hundred.” He turns away from it, rubbing his knees again. “I hate it. I wish we could be rid of it.” “I understand.” I pat his shoulder gently. A moment later, I spin, and my spear lashes out, and he jumps up with a yelp of pain. “What is it? What?” I ground the butt of my spear again. “Just a moth. Saw the movement out of the corner of my eye.” It happens sometimes - while no-one’s ever seen an insect on the tree, our lanterns draw the moths in during the time of guarding.“Ah.” He looks up, and indeed there is a pale brown moth fluttering above us. “Oh well. Not much longer.” He sniffs the air. “Dawn will be here in an hour. Then only one more night, and we’re done.” I know it, and he knows I know it - the words are for his own comfort, not mine. And while I stand guard for that last hour, the cherry that no-one saw me cut down with a razor-sharp spear-blade sits in my pocket like a coal. I never intended to do it. I felt the way Isas did, for years. The tree is so obviously a trap, a lure, bait for the foolish or unwary. No hunter can look at something like that and *not* see a trap. But at the end of this summer, I went to my aunt’s house, in the town. She married a councilman, went up in the world, thanks to a pretty face and sweet temper, but she’s still on good terms with her family. She sent for me, saying she was sure some wild creature was got into her house, that she heard scrabbling in the walls at night too big to be a rat, and saw droppings that looked like nothing she’d seen before.I was expecting a squirrel. It happens sometimes, and there are nut trees in her garden. I think it was a squirrel once, the creature I found in the attic. But it was as big as a small dog, now, reddish fur streaked and blotched with black, and its eyes glowed green in the dark when I cornered it. People would say, I suppose, that I should have killed it then.But I know animals. I know when a beast is sick, or maddened, or about to strike. This…wasn’t. It was looking at me with squirrel’s eyes, but there was something more there. Slowly, as if not to startle me, it moved to one corner of its lair, and pawed at a pile of tiny bones.Rats. It was eating rats. Perhaps birds, too, it was hard to tell in the dim light. It hadn’t harmed anyone. It was hiding, and eating rats.I lowered my short spear, then, just a little. No squirrel is that intelligent. Not intelligent enough to show me that. “What are you?” I asked it. If it was some kind of magical creature, killing it could be much more dangerous than letting it live. Bad things happen when you kill what is magical. The tree taught us all that. It rubbed its face with its paws, as an otter might, then it crept very cautiously towards me. When I stepped aside, it went to the other end of the long, narrow attic, near the ladder I’d come up, and it scratched very carefully at a floorboard.The floorboard was loose. And hidden under it, I found a dozen strange, reddish cherry stones, whole and perfect, and another which had been bitten in half. By this creature, I had no doubt at all.There was only one reason to hide cherry stones like this. Only one kind of cherry stone that would poison a squirrel and turn it into something else. And I remembered that every year, the members of the council go up on ladders, to pour pitch and spirits over the higher branches, to make sure the whole tree goes up.They’re the only people who ever go into the tree when the fruit is ripe.It would be so easy for them to take one.If a stone could change a squirrel this much, what was it doing to the council?The squirrel was intelligent enough to hide in a sack so I could take it outside. I’ve lived in an old shepherd’s hut for years, so I took it home with me. It’s been a good companion, these last months. My aunt loves her husband, who’s always seemed to be a good man. The squirrel is friendly and intelligent. The cherries didn’t turn them into monsters. When I get back home, I’ll eat the cherry. Then…I don’t know what will happen then. But I don’t think it’ll be something bad. I know - I do know - that sometimes a patch of fallen leaves is just a patch of fallen leaves, not the covering of a pit trap. Sometimes the sound of a branch breaking behind you is just a passing wild animal.And perhaps, sometimes a magical cherry tree is just a magical cherry tree. Perhaps. I’ll know soon. -- source link

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