Page 107 of The Book of Magic

Perhaps it was guilt that compelled Antonia to visit the Reverend later that afternoon, or perhaps she simply wanted someone to talk to. She called Kylie several times a day, but her sister never answered and now there were so many pleading messages on Kylie’s phone that there was no longer room to leave another. Reverend Willard was out on the patio behind the retirement home in his wheelchair, his face tilted to the sun. His skin was so fine his veins could be seen clearly. When Antonia pulled up a chair next to his, he opened his eyes.

“Annie!” he said. When startled his voice was a dry rasp, and he blinked several times, for it was becoming more difficult for him to tell the difference between his dreams and his waking life.

Had this been a week earlier Antonia would have reminded him that was not her name. Now, she let it go. If Annie was what he wanted, then Annie it would be.

“I’m getting used to you,” the Reverend said cheerfully.

“Don’t,” Antonia advised. “My aunt Franny and my mother and Gillian will be back soon and they’ll take over. You’ll be rid of me then.”

“What about your sister? The tall one?” The Reverend had on a white shirt, a black tie, and black trousers. Many of the other men his age were in bathrobes and pajamas, but he didn’t like to be seen in public that way. He missed his dog, but there was some man who had driven up from New York the other day, bringing Daisy for a visit, and she’d sat in the Reverend’s lap as if she’d never been gone.

“Everyone went to look for my sister,” Antonia said, thinking it was too complicated to say much more, only adding, “She’s missing.”

“Then you should make apple pie,” Reverend Willard suggested. When Antonia seemed baffled, he went on to explain, “Jet said that was how you found a lost daughter. You baked an apple pie.”

“She told you that?”

“Apple pie is one of my favorites.”

When the Reverend fell asleep, Antonia walked the few blocks to Magnolia Street and unlocked the door, after collecting the new stack of Post-it notes left by their neighbors. My son is unmanageable. My migraines have grown worse. I’m afflicted with sorrow that I cannot shake. Just yesterday, I was betrayed. Antonia crumpled up the messages, then went inside and fetched the mail that had been slipped through the slot—an electricity bill and the local paper—before going on into the kitchen. The house was so empty it echoed, and the woodwork looked dusty. Two baby field mice had somehow gotten in, and Antonia scooped them up in a pot and let them go free in the garden. The mice stood still in between rows of lettuce, frozen in fear, until Antonia shouted “Run.” She’d waited there for a while, prepared to wave away any hawks that might go after the poor baby mice while they skittered off through the clusters of lettuce leaves.

At last Antonia went to the kitchen to look through cookbooks, some of them so old their pages were taped to stop the paper from crumbling, two from the seventeenth century, although one of those was not quite a book, but rather a handwritten journal belonging to Maria Owens, featuring dishes like hedgehog pudding, Indian pudding, plum pudding, and something that was called Birds’ Nest Pudding, made with cored apples and custard. This was the book that appealed to Antonia. She thumbed through the pages and indeed came to a recipe called Lost Daughter’s Pie. In small flowing script were the instructions for the crust, made with butter and water and fine flour, and the filling, apples, cinnamon, and lemon if available, and pats of butter. Bake, place on a windowsill, and she will come back to you.

Antonia rummaged through the kitchen and found what items were available. Yes, there were apples, last year’s winter apples stored in the cabinet, wrinkled and small, but apples all the same, and a lemon, and a block of yellow butter in the fridge. Apples were said to be the food of love, as well as the food of the dead, of shades and spirits that went unseen; it was the fruit that could call to those who couldn’t hear any other sound. Antonia hadn’t time to fix a crust, but luckily there were some packets of saltine crackers in the back of the pantry cabinet, and she used them to line the pie plate, then made the filling, going a little too heavy on the cinnamon, she feared. She did the baking in the newer oven rather than the old woodstove, turned on the timer, then took the opportunity to have a nap on the window seat on the staircase, which had always been a cherished spot to curl up and read. When she woke, the scent of apples and spice filled the air, and she blinked back tears. Kylie used to follow Antonia everywhere when they came to visit the aunts; they slept up in the attic, as their mother and Gillian had done when they were girls. When they first moved in, Antonia was furious about leaving her school and Scott Morrison. She and Kylie would spend hours in the greenhouse plotting their escape. We’ll be our own people, they’d vowed to one another. We’ll do whatever we please. We’ll talk every day on the phone no matter how far apart we are.

Antonia slipped on some oven mitts and took out the wretched-looking pie. But despite the fact that it was tilted, with a crust that was salty and pale, the pie smelled delicious. Antonia set it on the windowsill as the recipe instructed. A single wasp was drawn to the sweet smell, and she batted it away with the mitt. “Begone,” she said as if she had invoked a spell she didn’t wish to have interrupted. She laughed at herself then, as she opened the window for the wasp to fly out before closing it and making certain all of the windows were locked. It was totally illogical to think that a pie made on one side of the Atlantic would call to a person on the other side, still you never knew the effects that might be caused by one small action halfway across the world.

She took the pie and walked back to the Reverend’s. By now the staff knew her; she was privately referred to as the pregnant Owens medical student or the red-headed one and they waved her on, thinking she might take after her aunt Franny, and no one wished to defy her. Do what you want to, do what you will, none of us will stop you if you bring no harm to others. Antonia went directly to the dining room, emptied now after a very early dinner hour. It was only half-past four and still bright outside, but here it was later than anyone might think. Antonia grabbed a plate, along with a knife and a fork.

The Reverend was already in bed, mortified to be seen in his robe. “I thought you’d disappeared, Annie,” he said accusingly.

“I went home and made the pie.” Antonia cut him a small slice. “How does this bring my sister home?”

“She’ll know it was made with love and she’ll find you.”

“Jet told you this? You’re sure?”

“She said love was the most important ingredient.”

The pie had been made with love, that much was true. Antonia, terrible cook and levelheaded medical student, would do anything she could to locate her sister. She tried the pie, and found it wasn’t half bad. In her ninth month she was hungry all the time.

“Are you ready for your life to change?” Reverend Willard asked.

“No.” The baby kicked her, and Antonia knew she had better be ready. “Maybe,” she said.

“Greatest thing you’ll ever do,” the Reverend informed her. Antonia thought about how he had lost his beloved son; he had never gotten over it, because no one can get over such a loss, and yet here he was, being kind to her. If he kept this up, she would be on the brink of tears. Then he ruined it by saying, “If you get married, I’ll officiate. So you’d better hurry up. I don’t have that much longer.”

“There is no wedding in the future,” Antonia told him, thinking about her strange dream in which she wore a white dress. “I’m not involved with anyone,” she said in a firm tone, and yet her tongue burned, as if she were telling a lie.

“Fine,” the Reverend said. “Have it your way.”

The pats of butter inside the pie had melted and were running over the rim of the plate. When she first came to visit him, all those years ago, Jet had told him that butter melted in a house when someone was in love. He’d been a grouch in those days, but he always liked to hear Jet’s stories. He hadn’t believed in love. He’d lost his wife young, and had ruined his son’s life by refusing to accept Jet Owens. Now he was open to everything and anything. He wasn’t even the same person anymore and when he thought of the man he’d been, locked alone in his house, filled with so much regret he could barely speak, he pitied that fellow, and was grateful for the day when Jet Owens came to knock at his door.

“I think I’m exhausted,” he told Antonia.

She straightened out his blanket. “Just remember you’re not dying while I’m watching over you,” she told him. “Don’t even think about it.” She sat beside him and took his hand. She had decided to stay until he fell asleep. Sitting there quietly, not rushing around as she usually did, she could feel the baby settle inside her. Heart of my heart. My darling one.

She began to hum a song, one that came to her unexpectedly while she sat there beside the Reverend in the fading dusk, the scent of apple pie perfuming the air.