Oak Creek was a compact, deliberate man with long black hair—sometimes braided, sometimes left to flow like rivergrass. His wife, Bethany, was a redheaded Southerner with pale skin and a voice as smooth as honey over hot cornbread. Together, they made a quietly powerful pair.
The surprising success of their tri-color sherbet push-up pops had changed everything. Made from the creamy blue flesh of the rare milkfruit, the sherbet wasn’t just a treat—it was a phenomenon. Scientists had started studying milkfruit as a potential dairy alternative, exploring uses in everything from pudding to baby formula.
Oak Creek and Bethany ran a humble website selling whole fruits, each one hand-polished and shipped with care. The pits were included—Oak Creek once proudly told the story of a single pit that sold for $300 on feebuy.com. He wanted families everywhere to propagate the once-extinct tree.
He had recently formed a quiet alliance with Green Feather, who shared the confidential name of his huitlacoche canning company. It was the kind of pact that meant something in their world.
Next came the cocktail cubes: jewel-toned milkfruit frozen into tri-color blocks perfect for sweet martinis. And just when they thought they couldn’t top that, they remembered the melons. Yes—they could grow melons. White paradise musk melons, to be exact. Bethany scooped their snowy flesh into delicate spheres and canned them by the dozen. They called them cocktail melon.
Their neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Potts, added to the flavor of the place. Mr. Potts had been crafting clockwork devices for half a century. Mrs. Potts made peanut butter fudge so divine the local preacher once tried to barter absolution for her recipe.
As dusk settled over the orchard, Oak Creek stood beside Bethany, watching their dogs chase fireflies between the rows of milkfruit trees. A box of polished fruit sat packed and ready for morning shipment—each one cradled like a Fabergé egg in shredded straw.
The world might not be ready for milkfruit baby formula or triple-color cocktail cubes, but out here, between Bethany’s laugh and the soft hum of the canner, the future was already fermenting.
And somewhere under the peach moon, Green Feather slipped a tiny handwritten note into Oak Creek’s palm.
“Oak—
Canning outfit I use is called Hollow Ridge. They’ll take fruit, melon, or mushrooms. You’ll need your own labels and glass, but they’ll seal it all. Cut me in for 2% if you make it big. 😉”
Comments (0)
See all