Angel wings across a back

The Bramleys came down all at once this week, the way they do when the nights turn cold before anyone expects it. Dad would have been out with the ladder by six, cursing the wasps, but I've been doing it on my own and the fruit is piling up in the long grass under the wall faster than I can gather it. I'm writing this on the back step with a bruised apple in my lap, because the kitchen is full of jars and I haven't the patience for either.

Mrs Pargeter from the next farm came over on Tuesday to ask whether we'd keep our gate shut. Her geese had got out again and gone straight into the far rows. She stood under the old tree a long while looking up at the top branches, where a single white feather had snagged on a bough and was turning in the wind like something wanting to leave. She told me her mother believed a feather caught in an orchard meant someone was about to be forgiven. I said I didn't think it was for us to decide, and she laughed and said that was exactly what her mother used to say.

I climbed up for it this morning, which was foolish, and it came away clean in my fingers. It's longer than my hand, with a grey edge like pencil shading gone soft at the tip. I've pressed it between the pages of Dad's seed catalogue, next to the old Egremont Russet, so you'll have to forgive the smell of paper.

Come up at the end of the month if you can. I'll keep the other feather for you, the one with the notch in it. We can drag the cider press out and see whether it still works, and I'll show you where the wall gives way.

Love, Nell