By M.J Campbell
Grandmother lived in our garden, in an ancient, traveller caravan. It had been stationary so long that weeds had clawed their way up to swallow the wheels, whilst ivy scaled the sides like siege ladders. She had stayed there for decades, though my brothers suspected it was centuries, and the many limitations of living in her caravan were now simply facts of life. Drafts, insects, the rustlings of wild animals, the relentless summer sun streaming in through the doorway, and the unfathomable depth of Libyan nights all seemed as natural as can be. She never strayed far, settling for the various wild roots and herbs that grew close by to brew her bitter tea. We lived comfortably beside her, the entirety of our large family sharing the small, cosy house my grandfather and great-grandfather built, just after they parked that caravan.
I would tell you where we lived, the rough location I mean, but I was young and cared little for anything other than swords made from reeds and the sticky plants we put in our sisters’ hair. We lived in a clearing at the centre of a green lime grove. The limes were bitter, but we never considered trying to sweeten them. Tart droplets of juice trickled down our chins as we lay on our backs and watched the sky drift from a sun-bleached blue into rich hues of amber and pink. I may not remember everything, sure, the perhaps more pragmatic details of it all, but does that matter? Would you rather hear about the coordinates or the provinces? I will tell you what I like, how I can still so easily hear my mother calling my brothers and sisters in for supper, before the heavens grew heavy and darkened into indigo.
Grandmother never joined us inside; she would not step foot even once into the family home. Mother yelled, but Tata never raised her voice. Her words were soft and made all of us silent; incantations we never even considered interrupting. There was no chimney inside her caravan, so the wise old lady sat outside rocking in her chair, stoking a small fire in front of her with a staff, blackened at the end. Like her aging abode, I suspect that Grandmother had slowly succumbed to nature. She hardly ever moved or talked to us unless she had a stern order or a story.
Gather up fallen branches and pile them next to me. The stars will not see me shiver.
Inside, we huddled around candles as the night dripped black and cold. Crackles outside as Grandmother threw another log on the fire. The smoke and the whistling steam from her little kettle intertwined and twirled up like snakes into the sky. If you stood on the opposite side of the fire from her, the grey haze swept away any wrinkles and clouded the cracks in the caravan’s faded yellow paint, making her appear like a traveller from some long-forgotten dream.
Nothing grew for miles beyond our orchard. Despite my father’s and uncles’ best efforts, our land could not be expanded. On the occasional trip to the nearby village, our only straying from the sanctuary, my mother would always laugh at my face and squeeze my hand as I faltered and slowed, horrified at the abruptness between luscious grass and cracked, dry mud.
About once a year, the men would leave, scouring for what they thought to be a promising plot in the arid that surrounded us. They planted. They waited. Weeks and weeks would pass without any signs of growth, of life. I once crept to the edge of the treeline to see their fallen faces and frowns, huddled around a meagre campfire that looked grey compared to Grandmother’s.
Every year they would try again and every year they failed. But they held out hope. They held out hope because of the lemon tree. One lone lemon tree that grew just past our borders, a jewel in the dirt. Always blooming. Always alone.
Our world ended with the last lime trees. The lemons bloomed just out of our reach. We burned with curiosity, asking the same questions you might be now. Why did nothing else grow around us? Did past generations plant this orchard with knowledge now lost? The house doesn’t look like it’s made out of wood from the lime trees, what then was it made from?
Our parents were quiet and answered in sparse words.
Grandmother, however, stoked us with her stories.
It is not the land beyond is barren. It is cursed. Once, this was all a grove of lemons, bright as sunlight. The angels and spirits danced and golden juice was poured and everything was Eden.
What was good and bright became stories, and as stories spread they became myth, and with myth came a winding trail of travellers. They came and they cut and they burned. Worst of all, they laughed. Not the laughter of angels and spirits, but of drink and greed. At first, the kind spirits of the grove had welcomed them all and provided, but they had grown angry.
They stopped eating the lemons and took new forms. Djinns. Demons. Jet-black figures with skinny legs and horns as tall as the trees. They devoured the travellers, and what trees remained were sickened with grief, turning their fruit green. The joy is gone.
We listened, spellbound.
Those demons still roam. They dance around our home, searching for ways in. But they are strangers now and have forgotten the paths inside. So, they wait. Luring. Tempting. That last lemon tree is a mirage; they create and cling to it like shadows. Never stray young ones. Do not lead them in.
She never explained why it was us they tried to tempt outside.
I believe my time in our grove started to end when I started keeping track of the days and years. Trying to be a man, I scorned what had kept me young. I started to squint my eyes through the smoke at grandmother, focusing on her wrinkles and how the gaps in her stories were filled with clouds. I started trying to spend time with the men in my family, chopping wood and sipping from the green bottles they bought in the village. And sometimes I would even follow them there. Vibrant, expensive cans on the shelves of the brand-new fridge in the shop called to me as I waited, more beautifully than any limes or sunset could. Lemonade. Nothing like water. Nothing like the bitter tea Grandmother made. Nothing like the tart limes. Golden lemonade. If they had called it ambrosia it couldn’t have sounded any sweeter to me. As we returned, deep gravelly laughter echoing in the fading day, it took my father’s scolding to lure my head away from the direction of the lemon tree.
One afternoon, after one of the old stories, the young ones quietly begged me as we ate chicken and bread together.
“Please, please, please! We could make lemonade.”
My brothers saw how my face sparked.
“You’re bigger and stronger than us. Please. Go in the middle of the night. Come back and tell us what you saw.”
I waited until the house was quiet, until even the candles slept. I stole out, quickly, quietly. Just a few steps out of the door, I froze. My Grandmother was awake, her face alight from the fire. Her gaze was without judgement, but she shook her head and pointed the blackened tip of her stick back towards the house. In return, I shook my own head, entranced by the glowing lemons that I felt tear my eyes away from my grandmother’s stare. I wandered off and she looked back into the dancing flames, throwing another log atop them.
The stars in the sky span across the heavens and my grandmother did not once look away from those flames, even as hours later, I stumbled back into our clearing and broke the morning silence by bursting out screaming. I wept; the many scratches covering my arms bled a colour that seemed so much darker than red.
The house erupted. The men came out with weapons drawn and shouted. The children howled. My mother ran to me, clutching me tightly to her chest. I felt her tears stream down her cheeks and onto my bruised neck. She eyed my grandmother who sat not far away, rocking back and forth with eyes vacant but all ablaze.
“Who did this? What happened? What happened to my sweet boy?”
Grandmother stood up out of her chair and spoke in a language I knew only in broken shards and fragments.
Nothing unnatural.
She looked at nobody as she creaked up the steps of the ancient, traveller caravan and shut the door behind her.