Windfall Apples
Or, Reggie finally comes through
Tom came running full tilt across the back yard, red-faced and clutching his baseball cap in one hand.
“Mom!” he cried, skidding to a halt at the open kitchen door. Ngel, the house elf, jumped down from his high stool and said, “What’s up, Doc?”
“Hey there,” Tom said, and hugged him, which made him chortle, turn a somersault, and lose a slipper.
Kat looked up from stirring a big cast-iron pot on the stove. The kitchen was hot, and smelled deliciously of lamb and wine. She pushed her dark hair off her face and smiled at her son.
“Hey, calm down, there! Ngel, put your slipper on, you’ll catch cold, or something. Tom, what is it?”
“Mr. Cacciatore says a lot of apples fell in his garden because of the wind, and we can take all the apples we want! Mom, come on! There’s millions of apples, for free!”
Free apples, a bounty for a witch raising a child on her own. Mason jars full of applesauce flashed through Kat’s mind. A fat jar of sauerkraut sweetened with apples; moist apple leather laid between sheets of parchment; pies, and whole apples carefully laid down in clean straw to stay sweet over the winter.
“We’ll go,” she told Tom. She leaned over the pot and decided that the stew would keep fine. She put the lid on the pot, whisked her apron off, and unhooked a woven basket from the wall. “Organize everything for preserving apples,” she told Ngel.
“Right-o,” the elf said. “Does that mean apple tarts?” He looked up at Kat with a hopeful smile.
“Sure,” said Kat. “But get going.”
Ngel skittered off to the pantry, counting items off on his long fingers. “Pots and kettles! Knives and spoons! Jars, sugar, and spices!”
Ngel was a young house elf that Reggie, Kat’s late husband, brought home from a trip abroad. His previous masters had mysteriously disappeared, leaving him alone in their abandoned cottage. Kat and Tom made a pet of him right away. He became a useful, somewhat pampered, family member. “The best thing Reggie ever brought home,” Kat would say.
He was still chanting lists of things as Kat and Tom left.
“Not so loud, Ngel, Reggie’s asleep,” Kat said.
Reggie was embodied in an oil portrait that hung on the kitchen wall. He had been a handsome wizard with romantic brown eyes and a way with women. Warm-hearted and feckless, he liked to take off on “explorations” from which, he assured Kat, he’d come home loaded with treasure.
Of course, he never found treasure. When he landed a little money, he spent it on good times with the lads. On her part, Kat found a job teaching ancient languages in an academy of magic.
Reggie’s last exploration took him to Egypt, on a search for treasure in the magnificent tomb of a Pharoah.
Unfortunately, the pharaoh’s jackal-headed guardian spirit disliked being woken from his centuries of dusty silence. When Reggie tried walking around the enormous statue, it raised a fist and knocked him dead.
Reggie’s body lay sprawled on the floor to desiccate over the next few centuries – a warning to future intruders. But his ghost flew to his portrait in Kat’s kitchen and stayed there. It was all Kat and Tom had of him.
There he was, in an elaborate golden frame. He stood before a red plush curtain, a swashbuckler’s hat on his head, gloved hand on sword, and a conceited smile under his carefully curled moustache. But just then he’d been taking a little nap, so his eyes were closed, and his hat tilted over one ear.
He woke up with a snort and pushed his hat back on. “Hurry up, someone’s waiting for you over there,” he said loudly.
Kat glanced at him. The painting was rocking a little on its nail. “At Mrs. Cacciatore’s, Reggie?”
“Go and find out,” Reggie said. And shut his mouth with a snap.
“Oh, alright,” Kat said, humoring him. “Say good afternoon to your father, Tom.” Looking at the painting, she said, “Stop rocking, or you’ll fall down.”
“Hello, Father,” Tom said dutifully.
Reggie’s portrait smiled down on the boy, then shut its eyes again. The painting dimmed down until only a blank canvas was left in the frame.
“I guess he’s tired,” Kat said, puzzled. But that was Reggie; never there when you needed or expected him.
She strode out, shaking her dark hair in the breeze. Some ancestress had passed down her almond eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. Men, both human and magical, tried to take up with her, but she’d grown wary and aloof.
Tom skipped along beside her, forgetting his ten-year-old dignity. They walked two backyards over to the Cacciatores’ garden, the largest in the neighborhood.
The old couple cultivated a small apple grove, and they were generous with their surplus fruit. They approved of Kat cooking everything from scratch. It showed an old-country frugality which so few young people appreciated anymore, they said.
They often sent their green stuff over: a bag full of tomatoes, or a big bouquet of green beans, or a basket of raspberries they claimed they couldn’t use.
Kat put the gifts to good use in the kitchen. Although more than once she wondered why the old couple chose to share their harvests with her.
Tom waved to Mrs. Cacciatore, a short, plump woman in a floral house dress. She was moving among the trees, placing apples into a box. Red and yellow fruit dotted the grass, some already mushy and fermenting on the ground with a winey smell.
“Hello! I’m putting the best ones aside for you,” she said as they approached. “Even the bruised ones are good. Pick them up if they’re not too bad,” she instructed Tom. “You’ll help your Mama wash and pare them, yes? You can get lots of applesauce and pink juice from them.”
Kat didn’t say they already had a helper at home. She kissed Mrs. Cacciatore’s wrinkled cheek and said, “Pink juice? What’s that?”
“My son, Alberto, showed us how to make the most delicious juice from cooked apples,” the elderly lady said. “He’s visiting just now. Want to hear how to make pink juice, Tom?” she said, patting the boy’s shoulder.
“Sure,” Tom said. “But isn’t apple juice yellow?”
“It’s pink when you cook the apples with their skins on,” she explained. “Here - Alberto!”
A man emerged from the house and walked over, taking his time. He was tall, well-built, clean-shaven, and blue-eyed.
“Oh,” Kat thought. “Who’s this? Is that what Reggie was talking about?” Because Reggie was always harping on her to get married again.
“Trying to foist your responsibilities on some other man,” she’d tell him. Which was true. Sometimes Reggie would exasperate her to the point where she’d turn his picture to the wall to shut him up.
Now she watched Mrs. Cacciatore’s handsome son approaching. She raised her chin, ready to make a cool greeting.
“Hi,” Alberto said. “Isn’t it beautiful out here?” He looked around with pleasure. The grove was peaceful in the late summer afternoon, with mellow sunlight coming through the trees, and the air fragrant with apples.
“You’re neighbors, right?”
He looked at Kat with gentle courtesy. She was pleased that the man didn’t give off the usual masculine challenge, only calm friendliness. And a tiny buzz of magic, but it blinked out at once. She decided she’d been mistaken.
“I’m Kat, and that’s my son Tom,” she said, indicating the boy gathering apples a few yards away. “We live a couple of houses down the street.”
“And what will you make with the apples?” His eyes showed real interest.
“Oh, applesauce, and apple leather, maybe pickled apples, and some pies. I’ll keep the best ones for later,” Kat said.
“I love apple pie best!” called Tom.
“Come in the house and have Alberto show you how to make pink juice,” interrupted Mrs. Cacciatore, who had devious plans involving her handsome single son and Kat.
“It takes a little time,” Alberto said. “I’ll be happy to show you. Though better at your house. Mama here will drive me crazy in her kitchen.”
“Hah!” Mrs. Cacciatore said, indignant. “How would I do that?”
“Oh, you’d get under my feet and tell me what to do all the time,” Alberto said, laughing. His mother pinched his cheek affectionately. Both turned smiles on Kat, and Alberto’s eyes were especially warm. Kat felt a flicker of response despite herself.
“Handsome and courteous he may be,” she reminded herself, “But if he’s not magical, he’s not for me.”
“Alberto is a chef,” sighed Mrs. Cacciatore. “He was a computer engineer, very successful, until three years ago, then he decided -”
“I decided that I want to cook,” Alberto said firmly. He and his mother exchanged wry glances.
“I cook a lot myself,” Kat said. “When I get home from work, I cook. Tom helps, he likes to handle fruit and veg.”
Tom came to stand next to her with his basket full of apples. Alberto looked at them. They made an attractive picture - the woman with her hand on her son’s shoulder, standing together in the golden light, under the trees.
“If you like, I’ll go over now. Tom can help me make pink apple juice,” he said. “It looks like there are plenty of apples for everything.”
“Yes! And then we’ll eat Irish stew!” Tom said. “My Mom makes the best stew on the planet. There’s a big pot cooking on the stove right now.”
“My mother taught me how to make it,” Kat said modestly.
Mrs. Cacciatore said, “Good, good. Alberto, take this box for Kat. Wait, I’ll get a few more apples.” She went on gathering fallen fruit and pretending she wasn’t listening.
Was that a charm she muttered as she stooped and picked up the fruit? If so, it had nothing to do with apples.
“So, when are you coming over?” said Tom.
“Anytime your Mom says,” Alberto replied, looking at Kat.
“Could be now,” Kat said.
Alberto heaved the apple-heavy box onto his shoulder, and the three of them began the walk to Kat’s house.
In the kitchen, Reggie’s portrait came into focus again. He heard Kat and Alberto voices as they approached. It appeared Reggie’s eyes were moist. He wiped them with a gloved hand and gave a sad little chuckle.
Ngel also heard them coming. “Should I make myself scarce when the man comes in?” he said to Reggie.
“Nah, it’s alright,” Reggie said. “You stay. I’ll get out of the way.”
He waited for them to enter. When he was sure they could see him, he made a grand flourish with his hat, and bowed.
Then he disappeared, once and for all.
Good one