The Berry Girl

The old house is surrounded by brambles. Tangled blackberry bushes grow ten feet high, a wild thicket that nearly laps up against the front door and walls, threatening to swallow the house whole: a sea of thorns and darkly gleaming fruit. More berries run riot in the back; raspberry thickets sprawl to the edge of dense woods. In a cleared space, strawberries grow. But even this patch is untamed; the tiny jeweled fruits lie tangled with tall grass, with thistles and larkspur and ox-eye...