The first pear hit the tent before Mara got the second peg in.
Her son laughed. Her daughter shouted that it had nearly struck her. Above them, a branch folded down like an elbow. Another pear fell.
“Stop shouting,” a man called from the shed.
“Tell the tree,” her daughter said.
Mara rose with the peg in her fist. They had walked since morning. Her brother’s ankle was wrapped, both children were hungry, and the grass under the orchard looked like the first good place to stop.
The man came across carrying a basket. His ears tapered to points, but his boots were muddy like hers.
“These trees fold their branches toward loud noise,” he said. “You can’t sleep under the fruit.”
“Then where?” Mara asked.
“Bare grass beyond the fence. Or my packing shed, if there’s space. I’m Kesh. I rent this orchard.”
The shed had a high step. Her brother had been leaning against its wall when they arrived. He couldn’t climb that step without help, and he was tired of being lifted.
“The grass has no shelter from the wind,” Mara said. “Does the shed have another door?”
“A loading door at the back.”
“Let me see it before we move.”
Kesh looked at the half-built tent. “You should have asked before putting that up.”
“I thought nobody was here.”
“I was in the shed.”
Her son found the fallen pear and bit it. Kesh opened his mouth, then shut it. Mara asked her son to give half to his sister.
He offered the bitten half.
“The other half,” Mara said.
Kesh put down his basket. “Come look.”
The rear door opened at ground level. Inside, stacked crates left a narrow lane to his tools. The floor was dry. Through the front windows Mara could see the trees, bending more slowly now that the children had stopped arguing.
Her brother came round the shed on his own, using his stick. He looked through the door.
“I can do that,” he said.
Mara set down the tent canvas. She had spent the day answering for him. She let him enter first.
Vana arrived before dark with a shelter list and a small pot of soup. She had sent the family to this orchard while town workers cleared beds in the meeting hall.
“The beds will be ready tomorrow evening,” she said. “Tonight has to be agreed with Kesh. I don’t own his shed.”
“Nor do I own the orchard,” Kesh said. “My lease runs through harvest. I can’t promise anyone land.”
“One night,” Mara said. “That’s what I need to understand. Where we can sleep tonight, and where we go tomorrow.”
Vana showed her the family’s names on the list. Four beds, one of them by a wide doorway for her brother. Mara read them aloud. The children leaned over her shoulder to check their own.
Kesh needed the lane to his tools clear by dawn. Mara needed room for four people to lie down. Her brother pointed at two empty crates beneath a workbench.
“Those could go outside,” he said.
“Not the one on the left,” Kesh replied. “It has my scales.”
Mara and Kesh moved the empty crate. They spread the tent canvas along the wall, away from the tool lane. Her brother tested the ground-level door with his stick, then sat without being lifted.
The children wanted to explore the orchard. Mara said they could look from the doorway. Kesh warned them that the branches moved at night even without noise. He did not offer to make the trees behave differently.
They ate Vana’s soup from their traveling cups. It was thin, and the children scraped them clean.
“Will there be more tomorrow?” her daughter asked.
“At the hall,” Vana said. “Supper with the other families.”
She left to check another temporary shelter.
After dark, Mara’s son began to tell his sister a loud story about a pear that chased people. Kesh knocked once on the wall from his little room at the far end.
The boy lowered his voice. Through the window a branch eased back toward the trunk. His sister put a finger over her mouth, and they finished the story in whispers.
Mara lay awake listening to the wind strike the roof. Under the roof, the children slept through the wind.
In the morning Kesh found a dozen bruised pears beneath the tree where they’d argued. Mara offered to help gather them.
“You don’t owe work for the floor,” he said.
“I know. We dropped some of those.”
She collected fruit while her brother watched the children from the loading door. Kesh sorted pears into separate baskets. The damaged ones would have to be used first.
“Do you hire people for harvest?” Mara asked.
“Two days next week. That’s all I can pay for now.”
She asked the hours and the wage. Then she said yes. Two days she could count.
They left for the hall that afternoon with their tent rolled and their cups washed. Her son thanked the tree. It did not answer, though one branch moved as the wind changed.
At the hall, her brother chose the bed by the wide doorway. Mara carried their supper to a table they shared with another family. Her daughter made room for their four cups.
“Here?” the girl asked.
“Tonight,” Mara said.
Her son shifted over so she could sit between them. For once neither child argued about which half of the bread was larger. They were both busy eating.
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