something distinctly Fortean about “bloody apple” affair, though I have searched through all four of Fort’s books and found no record of the tale in any of them, nor any variant of this phenomenon. Indeed, there is little to go on beyond the article in Yankee(collected in Austin N. Stevens’ Mysterious New England; Yankee Books, 1971), though the legend of the tainted “Mikes” appears well-known locally. This one certainly seems right up Mr. Fort’s alley, young boys biting into shiny red apples only to discover globules of blood at the cores. Also, there is an echo here of H. P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Colour Out of Space,” recalling the poisoned orchards of Nahum Gardner following the fall of a meteorite-like object on his farm. Indeed, Lovecraft might well have known of Franklin’s “bloody apples,” though I can find no direct evidence that he did. The tree from which the apples are said to have grown was purportedly felled by the Great New England Hurricane of 1938, so would have been extant in March 1927 when Lovecraft wrote his story (not published until September of that year, in Amazing Stories; Vol. 2, No. 6, pp. 557-67). In the absence of any document linking the “bloody apples” of the Micah
And yes, it just ends right there, with the name Micah,about halfway down the single-spaced page. However, I was fortunate to discover a copy of Mysterious New England at the library in Moosup, and, sure enough, the story is on page 156—“Franklin’s ‘Blood’ Apples” by Joseph A. Owens. It corroborates everything on the typed page, which I can only assume must have been written by the same Dr. Harvey to whom the package of ribbons was addressed back in 2003. A nice little mystery, something to take the edge off the monotony of the last month, yeah? Well, it gets better.
Remember that woman at the store on the Plain Woods Road, the one who thought I had a “right” to know about this place’s previous tenant, but then wouldn’t actually tell me what she was talking about? Well, after finding the typewriter and the envelope of ribbons, after reading that page, I put two and two together, whiz-bang, and figured that she must have been speaking of Dr. Charles Harvey, as I’d already been told by Blanchard that the house’s former tenant had been a professor at URI. It seemed an unlikely coincidence.That professor pretty much had to be the same professor who’d written about the blood-filled apples. I googled the guy’s name and discovered that, yes, he did live here for almost three years, 2001 to 2003. Harvey was a folklorist and anthropologist with an interest in urban legends and occultism in the Maritime and New England. Born in Eugene, Oregon, in 1942, he received his doctoral from UC Berkeley in 1969. Dr. Harvey was on an extended sabbatical from the university, supposedly writing a book on the evolution and propagation of “fakelore” in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts when he died here,in Blanchard’s house, on August 7th, 2003. Well, no. Not actually in the house, but on the property. The obits were sketchy on details, but it seems he hung himself from a tree somewhere within the boundaries of the Wight Farm. He’d divorced his wife years before, and his only daughter lives up in Maine. That’s the stuff I was able to glean from the internet. But I also phoned Blanchard this morning, to tell him I’d likely be a couple of days late on July’s rent (still waiting for that damned check from Germany), and, as tactfully as I could, I broached the subject of Charles Harvey. I made notes during the conversation, pretty much a word-for-word transcript of that part of the calclass="underline"
Me: So, anyway, I just found out about that Harvey fellow, Charles Harvey, the suicide.
(long silence)
Me: The URI professor? Rented the place before me.
Blanchard: Yeah. I know who you mean. The man wasn’t right. So, what. You angry I didn’t tell you about him?
Me: No, I’m not angry. I’m just curious.
Blanchard: I’m the one found him, you know.
Me: No, I didn’t know that. None of the obituaries or articles I found online mentioned that.
Blanchard: Well, ain’t like it’s the sort of thing they hand out medals for, finding a man strung up in one of your trees. But I did. I found him not far from the house.
Me: This house?
Blanchard: Yeah. Used an extension cord, not rope, but it worked just fine. He’d been up there four or five days, the coroner said. That’s what they told me. It was hot weather, and that wasn’t a pretty thing to come upon. Birds had been at him, and the maggots, and whatnot.
Me: I had no idea.
Blanchard (sounding defensive): Hardly the sort of thing you go around advertising when you want to lease a house. Not the sort of thing attracts the element I want to be renting the place out to.
Me: No, I guess not. Still, you know, it was a bit of a shock. I have to admit that.
Blanchard: You’re not angry about this, are you?
Me (laughs): No, no. It’s fine. Really. I was just curious, that’s all. Poor man.
Blanchard: I suppose you gotta have sympathy for situations like that. Still, he wasn’t right, and he croaked himself owing me two months back rent. His girl up in Portland offered to pay, but hell, what kind of asshole would I have looked like taking the money from her?
Me: He was writing a book. That’s what I read.
Blanchard: Yeah, he was writing a book. You don’t come across like the superstitious sort to me, Miss Crowe.
Me: No, I’m not superstitious.
Blanchard: So, sure you’re not sore I didn’t tell you about him?
Me: I’m sure. Why didn’t the daughter take his typewriter with the rest of his belongings?
Blanchard: Daughter didn’t take none of his stuff. My wife sent a bunch of it off to the Goodwill, and I just threw most of the rest out. I thought someone might be able to use that typewriter someday, so I put it in the basement.
Me: And the ribbons?
Blanchard: Ribbons? You lost me.
Me: There was an envelope with ribbons for the typewriter. Several of them. I found those, too.
Blanchard: Yeah. There was an envelope. That’s right.
Me: So, what happened to his book? The manuscript, I mean. There was a page still in the typewriter. I assume he died with it unfinished.
Blanchard: Listen, Miss Crowe, can we please talk about this later? I don’t want to be rude, but I got business over in Wakefield this afternoon, and I’m already running late as it is.
I told him not to worry, that I was probably being nosy and that I hate nosiness, especially when I’m the guilty party. I promised again to have the rent to him by the 10th of the month, and he thanked me for letting him know I’d be late with the check, then hung up first. I switched off the cell phone, and promptly hid it from myself. Maybe I’ll find it later. Maybe not. If anyone wants to harass me, they can use the landline.
Anyway, I’m left to conclude that the late Dr. Harvey’s unfinished book, in all likelihood, went to the local landfill or a bonfire or whatever,if it’s true that the daughter in Maine claimed none of his effects. I can’t imagine why Blanchard would have lied about something like that. All that survives is that one peculiar page, incomplete reflections on “bloody apples” from a tree that died seventy years ago. I’ve been thinking about driving down to Connecticut, to Franklin (formerly Norwich), where Micah Hood’s cursed fruit is said to have sprouted some three hundred years ago. If I’m lucky, I might can get a magazine article or short story out of this.
And that reminds me, I got the extension on the novel. The extension on the original extension. The guillotine will just have to wait another six months. Dorothy’s a miracle worker, but I gather my publisher is magnificently displeased, and I’ve had to promise this will never, ever happen again and so forth. Which is rather like promising you’ll never get the flu again, or let it rain on the Fourth of July. Do they think I’m doing this shit on purpose, just to foul up their publishing schedule? Right now, I’d probably give all the fingers on my left hand (I type mostly with my right) for a finished manuscript to appease my editor and fulfill my contractual obligations. Something I could trade in for a decent goddamn payday. Anyway, maybe if I can give Dorry a short story to peddle, everyone will leave me alone for a while. Also, I think this will be the last entry I make in the notebook. I’ve got half a mind to dust off Dr. Harvey’s old Royal machine, feed it a little oil to loosen up the sticky keys and suchlike, and transcribe everything from the spiral-bound notebook to typescript. It’s something to do. And I haven’t felt like going near the laptop for anything but the web (mostly porn, I will admit) since I got here.