As the sun set over the south-western Missouri Ozarks, Jackie McIntosh looked up at the sky and mopped the sweat from her brow. She had spent all morning harvesting apples from the orchards she ran with her brother, and she was exhausted. She couldn’t wait to get a nice cool shower and crawl into bed.
It sometimes got lonely in the small rural community she lived in—everyone was friendly and all, but she got bored of seeing the same old people day in, day out. Her older brother (whose name was John, but everyone just knew him as Big McIntosh) was a man of few words, but he was just about the closest thing she had to a friend.
The people in the town nearby were friendly enough, of course, and Jackie (whom they had affectionately nicknamed Applejack) was always more than happy to take the apple cart to the town market every Sunday, but the brief exchange of pleasantries she usually enjoyed was hardly a substitute for real friends.
Her little sister, Jennifer, was only seven, and therefore spent most days at the school in town and couldn’t help out on the farm. Jackie loved her very much, and called her Apple Bloom because she wanted to see her sister “bloom like an apple tree in springtime.”
Big McIntosh was not quite so fond of his youngest sister, although he hid it well under his layer of stoicism. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but he couldn’t help but blame Jennifer for their mother’s death; there had been complications during her birth and, despite the town doctor’s best efforts, Mrs Mary McIntosh had passed away a few hours after Jennifer was born.
Traumatised by his wife’s death, and afraid of the idea of running the farm and bringing up the three children on his own, their father left home shortly afterwards. He had left Mary’s mother, Doris Smith, in charge of the farm, but she soon became unable to run the orchard herself due to her old age and passed it on to Big McIntosh.
Jackie sat on a stump and thought about her parents. She quickly wiped away the tears from her eyes—she couldn’t be seen to cry—and turned to go inside. As she did, she heard a loud roaring sound from above. He eyes still bleary, she looked up to see a plane soaring across the amber sky.
It looked like it was spinning out of control, and it descended rapidly. It soon disappeared behind a small mountain nearby, and a loud crash shook the orchard. Jackie ran towards it curiously.