“The Forked Bough”

Colored pencil on blue sanded paper

Story:

At the edge of the Orchard - where the air grows still and time coils inward - there stands a tree unlike any other. Its limbs bear no ordinary fruit. From a single branch hang two apples, bound by fate and spell. One shimmers like a silver secret, cool and luminous as the first breath before dawn. The other glows with shadowed warmth, rich and velvet-dark, humming with old knowing. They are twin truths. One reveals. One conceals. To pluck one is to leave the other behind - a choice not easily undone. The Forked Bough is not just a tree. It is a threshold. And the apples it bears… they are questions disguised as gifts. Choose with care. The orchard remembers.

Spell:

One for light and one for lore, Silver hush and shadow core, Pick the path, but not them both, Truth is bound by silent oath, Touch the stem and time shall bend, One to start, and one to end, Choose with heart, not fear nor plea, The fruit will know who you must be.