It was morning. A cool breeze drifted under the shack’s door and brushed against Quill’s cheek. She turned her head and muttered to Renn that they needed to get a more comfortable bed, before remembering that she wasn’t at home and her husband was dead. Suddenly feeling drained, she sat up and looked around. Sunlight was streaming through the myriad chinks in the shack. It was time to get up.

Thirsty, she reached for the pack before remembering that the water was gone. The remaining wisps of sleep dissipated from her mind. She looked around and assessed the situation. Terrence and Aurelien were stretched out together, still sleeping peacefully. Aure was sucking her thumb. No doubt she and Terrence would also wake up looking for water.

Standing up quietly, Quill winced and checked her arm—the jagged line of congealed blood didn’t look pleasant, but at least it wasn’t oozing infection just yet. Opening the shack’s door, she said a quick morning prayer and took one last look at her children. They had had a long day. She could let them sleep a little more.

Outside, the overgrown grass was covered with dew, and the air felt clean. Quill breathed out and rested a hand on the door. As much as she loved her children, she couldn’t help but enjoy such time to herself. She smiled and looked around, letting the tiredness shrug itself off.

The first thing she noticed was that the trees were apple. The nearest one still held fruit, although most of the apples were rotting on the ground. A pair of small monsters, hairy serpentine things, hissed from the mildew and burrowed into the ground. Other than that, the orchard was still.

The second thing she noticed was that the lake in the distance was gone. Quill blanched. In its place, there was a monster. Five watery legs took form beneath the body as a head, or what passed as a head with no features, stretched into the clouds. The gargantuan monster was eerily still.

Quill had to hand it to herself for not freaking out. Fifteen years ago, she would have screamed if she’d seen a large spider.

As it was, she quietly hid behind the thickest of the nearby trees and forced logic to turn down her adrenaline. Something that big had no logical reason to eat her, she reminded herself, although it also had no logical reason to exist. But it seemed content with vacuuming up that cloud instead of hunting for her, and there was a good chance it wouldn’t even notice her, with her being so small compared to it. Then again, it could still step on her, also without noticing.

In the end, she decided to do as she usually did, which was grab the kids and run. And, if she could do it quickly, grab an apple or two. It was the closest they’d get to water, and there was no telling when they would next find food.

She headed back through the orchard, keeping a wary eye on the lake monster, which seemed perfectly content to just drink the clouds. Focusing back on the trees, Quill noticed with dismay that, like with the first tree, most of the fruit had already fallen and was rotting. The apples that remained hung high on their branches, far beyond her reach.

One of the apples wasn’t so far out of reach, though. It trembled on its branch, juicy and glistening with morning dew. Quill’s mouth started to water, and she swallowed, reminding herself that it wasn’t hers yet. Standing under it, she jumped. Her fingertips grazed the bottom of the fruit, making the branch quiver. She succeeded in pushing it up a few more times, but it never dipped low enough for her to grab anything.

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Since that plan clearly wasn’t working, she put a hand on the trunk and tested its steadiness. The upper branches might be too thin for her to climb on, but the lower ones looked steady enough. One hand gripped the first branch while she searched for a foothold. Feeling confident, she reached up with her wounded arm for the next handhold and bit down hard against the pain. It was nothing she couldn’t bear, until she let go with her first hand. Her balance shifted and her leg slipped, and suddenly she was hanging on by just her wounded arm, which wasn’t ready to hold an entire woman. A quarter second of flailing later she fell, twisting just in time to avoid hitting her face. Instead, she landed on her side, which didn’t appreciate such abuse. She sat up miserably, both arms registering pain.

A breeze nudged her hair. “Where is the cold place?” it whispered.

Quill sat up, startled. No one was there. Nothing was behind her, either. “Hello?” she called, her back to the tree.

“Where is the cold place?” the voice repeated. As the breeze whispered around her head, Quill’s gaze was drawn back to the massive, watery creature. Its featureless cone of a face was no longer inside the cloud, and though it had no eyes, she felt certain that it was looking at her. “I have come to seek the cold place. Is this the way?” it asked.

Feeling very exposed, Quill swallowed. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.”

The monster stared at her, and suddenly Quill’s mind was bombarded with images of frost and churning water. The freezing wind cut straight to her core, and in spite of the sunlight, she shivered violently. As quickly as they’d started, the visions and feelings stopped, leaving Quill reeling. “Where is the cold place?” the monster repeated, still barely above a whisper. Numbly, Quill found herself pointing north.

“Try up there?” she suggested timidly.

“Ah.” The creature pointed its head in that direction and went rigid. Still tense, Quill watched the creature for another moment. It remained motionless, though, and didn’t acknowledge her further. Clearly, it was absorbed in whatever it was doing and content with ignoring smaller beings, which was perfectly fine with her. She stood up gingerly. Apple or no apple, it was time to get out.

“Why have you come?”

She froze. The creature was once again talking to her, seeming to whisper just behind her head. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I have given you my reason, so you must give me yours. Speak freely, creature.” One of its massive legs curved fluidly, and a new whispered message found its way to Quill. “Why did you seek this place?”

“I, um…” The words wouldn’t form an answer. Would it be offended to hear that she was just passing through? Her mind was still on the edge of panic, and when she did open her mouth, her voice was barely a squeak. “I just wanted an apple. I’m sorry if—”

It happened so quickly that there was no time for her life to flash by her eyes. One moment, the cloud drinker was in the distance, and three massive strides later, it was within the orchard’s wall. It dipped its head, its featureless head with nothing to focus on and nothing to relate to, and suddenly it was a hundred—fifty—ten meters away. It plunged through the apple tree, pushing the largest branches aside with ease. Quill fell onto her back and covered her head, knowing that any defense was useless. A spray of water fell from above, soaking her clothes and hair and seizing her breath. A moment later it was gone, and she came out gasping.

A couple of apples fell into her lap.

She looked down at it, speechless. Her mouth felt dry. She looked up at the creature, which had put its head back in the clouds and seemed to have lost interest in her again. Standing up, she ventured a, “Thanks.”

“Mmmm,” was the only acknowledgement.

Still watching it, Quill took a bite of her apple, which was as fresh as it had presented itself to be. The children, she knew, would be waking soon, and they needed to prepare for the road ahead. Gathering her apples, she started to wring out her wet shirt, but something made her pause. It dawned on her that her water problem was, for the moment, solved.