Abbernathy and the Cat Kingdom

(3) -The Persimmon Grove-

But no matter how troublesome Sebbi was, one thing would never change-- he was Abby's cat and she would always love him just as much as she loved Lucy. She only wished that someday, the cat would love her back.

"What's that?" Crum asked between gasps for breath as he closed the gap between himself and Abby.

She stared at the sweat-drenched boy, his pointed face framed by hair resembling dead eels. He looked like he'd just work the hardest he ever had in his life, and honestly, he probably had. 

I almost feel bad for whoever marries that, Abby thought.

"Well?" Crum said, impatiently tapping his foot on the ground as he poked Abby in the shoulder.

She swatted his hand away like it was a swarm of dung flies. "He's not a that," she said, jabbing Crum in the gut. "He's Sebbi. He's a cat, he's lovely, and he's mine."

She watched as Sebbi-- finally seeming to have noticed her-- released his captive, the little snake raising on its belly to give the cat a final hiss before slithering back into the woods.

Sebbi turned tail to follow suit, retreating into the shadows the wild Burla trees cast along the Tells' property line. Abby sighed as Sebbi disappeared, wishing the cat had stayed.

"What's this place?" Crum asked, walking past her, an elegant looking tweed long coat draped over the boy's frame.

His words snapped Abby from her thoughts and she continued behind Crum, eyeing the boy curiously as he played with something in his pockets.

"It's the persimmon grove," Abby said as the last hints of the sun fell prey to the night. "That's why there's trees," she added, splaying her arms wide above her head to really drive the sarcasm home.

Crum scoffed and rolled his eyes. "These don't look alive," he remarked, running his fingers along one of the tree's cracked, scarred trunks. "Are you sure they're even trees?"

"Yes," she huffed though she wasn't exactly confident in her response. "And they're not completely dead."

Abby found it hard to argue with Crum; anyone would have drawn a similar conclusion after seeing the barren, rotting trees of the grove.

They lacked vibrancy-- when at one time they may have held some-- taking on muted hues of browns and golds, disease ravaging their leaves. They never bore fruit and their branches grew gnarled and limp, dragging along the ground.

The grove had been Abby's mother's idea, one her father lamented but permitted because of a losing bet. Mimi often regaled Abby with stories of her mother and the grove, telling her of the stormy mornings where her mother, mud covered and completely soaked, would tend to the trees, plucking weeds and pruning branches.

They made jams and preserves come the late summer months when the fruits filled out and ripened, so many in fact that their underground storage almost burst at its seams with mason jars.

Abby tried to bring the trees back to their vibrant fruit yielding days, but she lacked the knowledge and the green thumb of her mother. No matter what she did, the trees stayed on the verge of death. So the girl resigned herself to keeping them company in their last days, hoping her presence provided them comfort as they passed from one plane to the next.

The tree closest to the edge of the property-- a particularly dead looking monstrosity-- had a name: Simon Ogretree. It was called this because of two reasons. Firstly, Abby had named him when she was younger and what better name for a persimmon tree could a four-year-old come up with other than Simon?