The Earth Falls to the Apple.

NOMINATED FOR A PUSHCART PRIZE 2017

Ursula’s mother ordered a live peacock from the city. So dear a price was paid for its transport that she almost wept when the bird arrived, limp and hardly breathing. She watched as cook killed it, baked it, and used a fine brush to paint in the faded color on its rattier feathers before sticking them back into its body. The result looked lavish, if a little lopsided. Ursula’s mother let out her breath. She placed it in the center of the table, where it got cold and tatty because she wouldn’t let anyone carve it. The table was heaped with other fine and costly foods. There was mutton in aspic and all manner of savory pastries, and pheasant soaked in almond milk, and cheese baked with pears. Everything that could be candied had been candied. Late-winter flowers were strewn on every flat surface of the hall. Garlands twisted around the ceiling beams, trailed down the columns at either side of the table. A group of musicians played a volta, while young girls scattered petals at the feet of the entering guests.

Ursula, arranged behind the sagging peacock, was the table’s true centerpiece. Unlike the bird, she sparkled with youth and vigor. She sat between her mother and father with her head angled slightly to the side, as she’d been taught to sit, hardly moving while everyone else ate. She was resplendent in blue silk. The guests wondered if they’d ever seen a girl so exquisite.

A stable boy wound through the crowd to whisper of Lord Thomas’ immanent arrival. Ursula’s mother fanned herself with a napkin, where half-moons of sweat had gathered under her arms. When His Grace had written that he’d be hunting in the area, and planned to attend Ursula’s fourteenth birthday celebration, Ursula’s parents scrambled to arrange a party. His Grace was a distant relation—the family’s only grand duke—and certain necessary repairs to home and village had to be put on indefinite hold. Masonry continued to crumble at the church, raining down on Sunday parishioners, to the consternation of the vicar; a doctor had yet to be summoned to attend to an escalating outbreak of sweating fever in the town; and a well turned up bad water. But repairs would have to wait. “Drink beer,” Ursula’s mother urged when the townspeople complained. Much of the manor’s livestock and most of the north wing’s furniture and tapestries had to be sold. “It’s for the good,” Ursula’s mother whistled through her wooden teeth as the last of the furniture was carted away.