The village of Poulow was good at growing things.

In the grove of the apple trees, all was shadowy and silent. Esto, the tree caretaker, pruned the trees and checked the apples. Many trees flourished, with red, golden-yellow fruit all over them. About a third of the apples would grow a child, tucked perfectly in its core, while most fruit would have no children this year. But this one—he paused in front of a magnificent apple tree—its fruit troubled him. Sitting just above the fork of the tree was a large apple, distended and bumpy. Usually the apples were larger on one side, the right or the left, depending on which side grew the child. But this one was large in all directions, bumpy and uneven. He held his breath in concentration, straining his neck upwards for a closer look. Sometimes, if you were in the apple grove at just the right moment, you could catch the exact minute that an apple broke open, revealing a child. A little being curled up at the core in a crescent-moon arc, its tiny fingers translucent in the light. But the large, distended apple still looked the same as last night, no split open seams and cracks in it which indicated an impending ripening. Esto left the orchard for the night, striding under the arched branches hanging over the path, lit by glowing torches at all hours of the night so that the grove seemed alive, the trees rustling and waving leaves, and whispering secrets of apples and children and birth.

Moonlight glistened on the curves of the large, bloated apple, bulges bursting from it in uneven bumps.

Morning came, and confused whispers made their way up and down the packed-sand roads winding between the houses. "Did you hear?… Yes, two of them… never… Last night… even Esto couldn't explain it… Yes, that's what he said, two—"

A pair. The large apple had been discovered lying by the thick roots of the magnificent tree, split through the middle, and on each side of the apple, a baby. Two of them in total. There had never been two. Esto didn’t have an explanation. One baby per apple, none… but two? That was just… it just didn't happen. 

The babies, the Pair, as everyone called them, muttering to each other as they examined the babies, lay in perfect repose, with their eyes closed. Over the day, stray villagers would wander in, to wonder at this new and unheard-of occurrence, to examine the tiny babies. Everything was there, as expected. A pair of tiny ears that presumably heard the visitors' whispers, tiny round noses which surely couldn't fail to detect the pungent smell of fish drying in the sun in front of the food shop next door. "They're still small," Risha, the town doctor, said. "They won't open their eyes for another moon."

But she was wrong. On the tenth day of their birth, the Pair opened their eyes, and the village was terrified.

One baby had a pair of eyes that were obsidian black, all the way through. Their eyes were uninterrupted blackness, pulling your gaze into them, and you just couldn't look away. 

The other had pure white eyes, no pupils, just orbs of uninterrupted whiteness. You could only tell they were looking at you by the tilt of their head as they followed your voice.

That afternoon, the villagers conducted the Return. The Pair couldn't be brought up like that. They lay the Pair gently at the bottom of the magnificent tree that had laid their apple. Deep in a peaceful sleep, the Pair had their eyes closed. You wouldn't be able to tell that they were anything but typical babies. Except, of course, that there were two of them. The village elder, Soriya, covered the Pair in a heap of dry, orange-brown autumn leaves, leaving only their tiny heads exposed. "Rest in peace, small ones. Return to the earth, and when you are ready, we will see you in the next harvest." Soriya said that with her usual serious, melancholic tone. Babies who did not make it were always Returned to the earth, under the tree where they were born, and their molecules and being would make it into the next apples of the tree, ready to give life another try.

When everyone had left, Esto lingered by the large tree. He felt a strange sympathy and warmth towards it. "I'll see you in the next harvest," he said, touching the Pair's cheeks in goodbye.

He would not have to wait till the next quinquennial harvest.

That next morning, a child, looking to be the size of a six-year-old, stood under the tree where the Pair had been laid. The two babies were gone. In their place was the child, eyes a magnificent grey, sparkling and radiant under the sun. Esto took one look at them, and knew that he needed some help. Someone to work out what was going on. "I will follow you," the grey-eyed child said gravely, as if reading his mind. Esto led their way back into the heart of the village.

As they walked, villagers tending to the lush gardens, or grinding tea grounds in the streets, caught glimpses of the child's grey eyes, and gathered to have a closer look at the child's enigmatic gaze.

They made their way towards the village centre at a quick pace. "Esto, good to see you," Soriya said, straightening up from the pear tree that she was pruning. "Is something wrong?" she asked, concerned, looking at the pallor of his sweaty skin.

"I found—in the apple grove—, " he started.

But Soriya had caught sight of the child. "Yes?" she asked, bending down so that she was at eye-level with that serious, quiet, grey gaze. "Are you lost?"

The quiet child gazed around at the group of villagers who had amassed. About twenty of them had abandoned their work in the streets to follow Esto and the aura of intrigue. This was something different, different from the pruning, planting and harvesting of food.

"I was recently Returned to the earth. Last night,” said the child.

Some of the villagers looked around at each other, wondering. The only babies that had been Returned last night were the Pair.

"No, that's so fast…" Soriya muttered. It took more than five years for an apple child to grow. This couldn't be that Pair.

"Many have been Returned to the earth before me. Their molecules accumulated fast, and this morning I was born again," the child said. 

"And are you to live like other children?" asked a villager.

"What do we do with you?"

The grey-eyed child shook their head. "There is nothing you need to do with me. I will do something with you."

Soriya opened her palms. "You seem so serious, child. I will listen."

"All those who have Returned to the land before speak through me,” the child said.

There was a pause as the villagers worked through their thoughts.

"Even Gaii?" a lean, wrinkled elder asked, remembering a baby who had been Returned when she was younger, a pudgy little ball which had endeared itself to her before passing from the winter cold.

The child paused, and was quiet, as if listening. "Yes," they said. "She is here with me."

"And Rovvi?" Esto said, remembering the apple baby who had been Returned the last harvest.

"Yes. They speak with me," the child said. 

"And Plink?" asked another voice in the group.

"Yes," the child replied.

"What about Toewna?"

"Jirt?"

"Quirie?"

"Here. They are all here with me," the child said.

"Here…" the villagers sighed. So many had come back. Usually, there were so few, in the quinquennial harvests.

"I know the secrets of trees who heal," the small child continued, their voice steady. "I know the secrets of trees who fade away with tangled branches and uneasy limbs. I will teach you. You will know."

"And we can bring more of the Returned back?" a villager asked.

"I will teach you the songs which make the trees flourish, the songs which bring them back to life. The song that prunes them so that they rest and are in peace. The Returned will grow back when they are ready.”

Soehe, a fish-hunter, stepped forward, smiling. "How do we start?"

The child contemplated her, looking from the top of Soahe's head, down to her muddy boots, dirty from wading in the stream.

"Come."

You needed to listen, to learn the songs well.

It was a year later that someone sung their first song. 

Seohe stood in front of a young, green sapling, as tall as her. Its aura shimmered in front of her, its iridescent green glowing. To her eyes, at least. A few villagers watched, unable to see the shimmering aura which singled it out to Seohe. It was her tree to sing to.

With low, almost inaudible words, she moved her hands around the plant, touching only the air a few centimetres away from the tree itself. The young tree moved, it rustled, and crept a lithe branch towards the sky. It was her tree to take care of now. 

It grew healthily—five inches a year. Growing child apples was a slow process. And so it should be, with each new apple treasured and cared after, looked over, by the anticipating but patient villagers, knowing that they would see all those who Returned, again.