“Hah!” Daniel snorted, deliberately loud. “Gods? What utter cobblers!”
“Idiot!” Mrs. Fowles snarled. “I warn ye to rouse them not!” She hitched up her skirt and started to hurry away from the brothers, and the Twins. Her face had turned as white as the snow underfoot, and fear danced in her rheumy eyes. “You will pay the price for rousing Nug and Yeb, mark my words! We will all pay the price!” With her final warning hanging in the air she scurried away, towards the church.
“Silly old fool.” Daniel laughed.
“Yeah,” Jonah agreed. “But...” His pregnant But left hanging he grabbed his brother’s arm. “Maybe we should leave it alone. The old bat might have a seizure if we go on.”
“What?” Daniel blurted. “Now who is getting chicken?”
Jonah huffed. “I am no chicken!” He held out his hand. “Gimmie the toast, and I can show you.”
Daniel did as requested and watched his brother stalk over to the largest of the Twins. He scrabbled around and finally found a foothold. The nearest hollow that he could deposit the spiced toast into was several feet from the floor, but Jonah was strong and agile so it took no time at all for him to reach it. He stuffed the toast, which was soaked in mulled cider, inside, then gave Daniel the thumbs-up.
“Go on then!” He goaded. “Your turn!”
Daniel strutted over to the adjacent tree and grabbed an overhanging branch. As he strained to pull himself aloft a voice came to him on the wind.
‘Tasty’
“What did you say?” Daniel shouted across to his brother.
“I did not say anything,” Jonah replied.
Daniel reached the v-shape in the branches, reaching into his pocket for the spiced toast. Jonah had climbed down and joined his sibling at the foot of the second tree.
“You alright up there? Do you need me to come up and hold your hand?” He shouted up.
‘Hungry’
“What was that?” Jonah asked his brother.
“I did not say a word,” Daniel replied.
“Yeah, you did.” Said Jonah.
“I really did not.”
“Well, somebody said ‘Hungry’.” Jonah looked around. The wassailing party was over at the opposite side of the orchard, and Mrs. Fowles had vanished. It was just the two of them, and the Twins.
Daniel looked down at his brother with a pitying look. “Nice try,” He sneered, “but you are not going to scare me that easily.” He grabbed a fistful of toast and stuffed it forcefully into the gaping hollow of the tree.
The tree began to shake and writhe. Jonah turned white, while his brother bellowed in agony and surprise. Daniel’s free arm pressed against the trunk of his attacker, his dangling legs kicking against the gnarled body of one of the Twins. Jonah rushed forward and grabbed his brother by the boots, tugging hard.
Daniel screamed as he hit the ground. His arm was gone from just below the shoulder, and the crisp, white snow was dyed a pinkish-red. Jonah was trying to pick up his brother when a huge limb crashed down towards them, and upon impact Daniel’s ribs were crushed with a sickening crack. Jonah jumped backward out of reach, and could only stand by impotently as his brother’s bloody corpse was scooped up, disappearing into the hollow.
Jonah turned to run when the snow in front of his feet burst upwards. Thick, tentacle-like roots shot out of the gaping maw and looped around his left leg. The force of the tendril yanked him off his feet, and he landed with a painful blow to his coccyx that drove the air from his body. The root was dragging him towards the tree that killed his brother.
‘Mine!’
The second tree took umbrage at its greedy sibling, and swatted its trunk with a large limb.
‘He is mine!’
Jonah started to scramble backward as the root slackened its grip. He was nearly free when the ground erupted again. This time the roots were fatter, and came from the other tree. In moments he was being dragged under the soil towards his doom. The blood surged through the massive, twisted trunks. The shackles that bound them to this hallowed spot were straining, about to break.
‘More!’ Grunted the larger of the trees. ‘Feeling stronger, must have more.’
‘Yes. More!’ The other replied.
The sound of merriment carried on the wind. They could smell freedom. The only thing that could free the Twins from their earthly prisons was the warm fluids of the Druidic bloodline that had imprisoned them in their current forms. For the Twins, as Mrs. Fowles had warned, hadn’t always been trees. They had, indeed, once been gods.
* * *
By midnight the party had broken up, and the majority of High Bend was safely tucked into their beds. Their bellies were full, and their spirits high. The wind had risen, and the snow had once more began to flutter to the frozen ground. The only people left in the orchard were a handful of villagers that represented the founding families. They were huddled around the fire, imbibing deeply of the strong cider.
Squire Edwards had been accosted towards the end of the festivities by an excitable Mrs. Fowles, who had warned him of the antics of the Green brothers. He, like all of the founders, had Druidic blood. It was their ancestors who, as legend had it, imprisoned the diabolical gods within the ancient apple trees. Time had, however, twisted the truth into nothing more than a campfire tale designed to scare unruly children. Nobody believed in the Twins anymore, except for Mrs. Fowles.
“I will kill that pair of ruddy idiots!” Fergal Green snarled. As the father of the two drunks, he was understandably annoyed that they had whipped poor Mrs. Fowles into such a lather. “They should know better than to upset old ladies.” His mustache twitched with agitation as he poked the fire with a long stick of apple-wood.
The founders gathered every year after the wassailing to distribute rotten fruit from the last harvest around the roots of the Twins, as a kind
