"Why is he mad about it?"

"Because I gave him something that led him to the instructor instead of back to James, like he hoped. So naturally Fred thinks he has to spend the rest of his life with that teacher. He cracks me up sometimes. He's soon going to realize that he makes his own decisions. All I do is give people things. What they do with them is out of my hands. You know, he even asked if I would sneak him an apple from your tree tonight, as if that would tell him what to do."

Claire shivered slightly, even though she was encompa.s.sed by the steam from the boiling pot in front of her. "You can never know what that tree will tell you."

"That's true enough. We didn't know what it showed your mother until she died."

The kitchen went still. The water stopped boiling. The clock stopped ticking. Sydney and Claire instinctively moved closer to each other. "What do you mean?" Claire asked.

"Oh, Lord." Evanelle put her hands to her cheeks. "Oh, Lord, I promised your grandmother I would never tell you."

"Our mother ate an apple?" Sydney asked incredulously. "One of our our apples?" apples?"

Evanelle looked up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry, Mary. But how can it hurt now? Look at them. They're doing all right," she said, like she was used to speaking to ghosts who didn't talk back. She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat with a sigh. "After your grandmother got the call about Lorelei dying in that huge car pileup, she figured it out. She told me after she had taken to her bed, about two months before she pa.s.sed away. As close as we can figure, Lorelei ate an apple when she was about ten. The day she ate that apple she probably saw the way she was going to die, and every wild thing she did afterward was to try to make it not come true, to make something happen that was even bigger than that. We figured that you two brought her back here, that for a while she accepted her fate because you needed taking care of. Mary said that the night Lorelei disappeared again she found her in the garden, for the first time since she was a child. She might have eaten another apple that night. Things seemed to be going well here; maybe Lorelei thought that her fate had changed. But it hadn't. She left you girls here to be safe. She was supposed to die alone in that huge wreck. The tree always liked your mother. I think it knew its apples would show her something bad. It never tossed apples at her like it does the rest of the family. It's always trying to get us to know something. But Lorelei had to drag a ladder into the garden to pick one. Mary remembered finding the ladder outside the garage after Lorelei left. Are you girls all right?"

"We're fine," Claire said, but Sydney was still a little stunned. Her mother didn't pick her fate. She didn't pick the way she lived. But Sydney, in imitating her, had chosen chosen to do those things. to do those things.

"I'll just head outside, then," Evanelle said.

"Watch out. The tree is cranky today. It keeps trying to move the table. Even Bay can't reason with it," Claire said. "We're hoping it doesn't freak Tyler and Henry out."

"If those boys are going to be in your lives, you better tell them everything. The first thing I said to my husband when I was six years old was, 'I have to give people things. It's who I am.' Intrigued him so much he came to my window that night." Evanelle took her tote bag and walked outside.

"Do you think she's right?" Sydney said. "About Mom, I mean."

"It makes sense. Remember, after we got the phone call that Mom had died, Grandma trying to set fire to the tree?"

Sydney nodded. "I can't believe I left, wanting to be like her, when she left because she saw how she was going to die. How could I have gotten it so wrong?"

"You're a Waverley. We either know too little or we know too much. There's never an in-between."

Claire seemed to have let the hurt go, but Sydney shook her head sharply. "I hate hate that tree." that tree."

"There's nothing we can do about it. We're stuck with it."

Sydney looked at her, exasperated. Claire obviously didn't want to share in the drama. "Your deflowering has made you stoic."

"Will you stop saying that? You make me sound like a dead plant." Claire took a platter over to the stove and started taking the corn on the cob out of the pot. "And Evanelle is right. We should probably tell Tyler and Henry."

"Henry already knows. That's one of the good things about someone who has known you, accepted you, your whole life. He already knows how strange we are."

"We're not strange."

"Henry told me something the other day," Sydney said, stepping over to Claire. She rubbed at an invisible spot on the countertop by the stove. "Something I didn't know. I've been thinking about it a lot."

"He told you that he loved you?" Claire said, cutting her eyes at Sydney.

"How did you know that?"

Claire just smiled.

"I like having him around," Sydney said, thinking out loud. "I should kiss him. See what happens."

"And Pandora said, I wonder what's in this box? I wonder what's in this box?" Tyler said as he entered the kitchen. He walked up behind Claire and kissed her neck. Sydney turned her head away, smiling.

Henry had called earlier and said he was running late, so Tyler and Evanelle and Bay were already seated and Sydney and Claire were bringing the last of the dishes out to them when Henry finally knocked at the front door.

Sydney set down the sliced tomatoes and mozzarella and went to the door as Claire went ahead to the garden with the blackberry corn bread.

"You're just in time," Sydney said as she opened the screen door for Henry. He was acting as he always did. She was acting as she always did. So what had changed? Maybe nothing. Maybe this had been here the whole time, and she just didn't see it because Henry was a good man and she didn't think she was that lucky.

"Sorry I couldn't get here sooner," he said as he entered.

"It's too bad that your grandfather couldn't come."

"It was the strangest thing," Henry said as he followed her to the kitchen. "Just before we were going to leave, Fred drove Evanelle out to the house. She said she needed to give Pap something. It was a book he's been dying to read. He wanted to stay home with it. His leg's been acting up, and I think it was a good excuse not to come. I had to wait for Yvonne to come out to sit with him."

"Evanelle didn't tell us she went out there."

"She was in a hurry. She said Fred wanted to get some cla.s.s he was going to over with. So," he said, rubbing his hands together, "I finally get to see the famous Waverley apple tree."

"Two things you need to know. One, don't eat the apples. And, two, duck."

"Duck?"

"You'll see." She smiled at him. "You look nice tonight."

"And you look beautiful." Sydney had bought a new skirt for the dinner, a pink one with sparkling silver embroidery, and she preened a little. "Did you know I used to sit behind you in North Carolina History cla.s.s in eighth grade? I used to touch your hair without you knowing."

Sydney felt a curious sensation in her chest. Without another thought, she took two steps over to him and kissed him. The force of her body sent him falling back against the refrigerator. She went with him, not losing contact, and colorful paper napkins Claire had stored on the top of the refrigerator fell over the edge and fluttered down around them like confetti, as if the house was saying, Hooray! Hooray!

When she pulled back, Henry looked sh.e.l.l-shocked. He slowly, softly brought his hands up to touch her arms, and she felt goose b.u.mps.

Was that...did she really feel...

She kissed him again to make sure.

She felt it again, more this time, and her heart beat faster and faster. Henry's hands went to her hair. She'd kissed many men who wanted her, but it had been a long time since she'd kissed one who loved her. She'd forgotten. She'd forgotten that love made anything possible.

When she pulled back again, Henry asked breathlessly, "What was that for?"

"I just wanted to make sure."

"Make sure of what?"

She smiled. "I'll tell you later."

"You know, this means that there's no way I'm going out with Amber from the salon now."

Sydney laughed and lifted the plate with the tomatoes and mozzarella with one hand and led Henry out the back door with the other.

The phone rang as they stepped outside. She didn't hear it or the answering machine as it picked up the call.

"Sydney? This is Emma. I...I wanted to call to tell you that there's someone looking for you and your daughter. He doesn't look...I mean, there's something about him that..." There was a pause on the line. There was a pause on the line. "I just wanted to tell you to be careful." "I just wanted to tell you to be careful."

They ate and laughed well into the evening. Sydney and Henry's legs touched under the table and she didn't want to move, even to get up for a bottle of beer or cherry ginger ale from the aluminum tub full of ice by the table. As long as she touched him, she wasn't going to change her mind, she wasn't going to say he deserved better or that she didn't deserve something so good.

Claire lifted her gla.s.s after everyone had eaten. "Everyone make a toast. To food and flowers," she said.

"To love and laughter," Tyler said.

"To old and new," Henry said.

"To what's next," Evanelle said.

"To the apple tree," Bay said.

"To-" Sydney stopped when she smelled it.

No, no, no. Not here. Not now. Why would thoughts of David come to her now?

The tree shivered, and something only Tyler and Henry thought was a bird zoomed over their heads.

There was a thud as the apple made contact with someone at the front of the garden, near the gate. "f.u.c.k!" a male voice said, and everyone but Sydney turned.

She felt her bones break. Bruises popped out on her skin like a rash. The hollow s.p.a.ce between two of her back teeth began to ache.

"h.e.l.lo?" Claire called brightly, because this was her home. She didn't think anything this bad could happen here.

"Shh!" Sydney said curtly. "Bay, go behind the tree. Run. Now!"

Bay, who was very aware of who it was, shot up and ran.

"Sydney, what's wrong?" Claire asked as Sydney stood and slowly turned around.

"It's David."

Claire immediately got to her feet. Tyler and Henry looked at each other, feeling the fear radiating off Sydney and Claire now. They stood simultaneously.

"Who is David?" Henry asked.

"Bay's father," Claire answered, and Sydney could have cried in relief that she didn't have to say it herself.

From the shadows of the honeysuckle by the gate, David finally materialized.

"Can you see him?" Sydney asked desperately. "Is he really here?"

"He's here," Claire said.

"You threw a party and I wasn't invited?" David asked, and his shoes made loud exploding sounds on the gravel walkway as he approached, not a crunch like with normal footsteps, but angry, heavy bangs like stomping on paper caps. He was a large, confident man. His anger had never been to make up for any physical inadequacy or insecurity. His anger didn't need a reason so profound. He would get angry if Sydney didn't wear what he wanted her to, without first telling her what he wanted. That was why she didn't bring many clothes with her. She had so few pieces that she had actually picked out herself.

She tried to tell herself that maybe this wasn't so bad, maybe he was worried or wanted to see his daughter. But she couldn't fool herself. She wasn't going back to him. And he wasn't there to take her back. That left only one thing.

She had to protect Bay and Claire and everyone else there. The simple act of her coming back had placed them in a danger she never thought would follow her here. Or maybe the day she left ten years ago had caused this to happen, a series of events that led up to this one. Either way, this was all her fault.

"It's all right, everyone. David and I will leave and talk," she said. Then she whispered to Claire, "Take care of Bay." "Take care of Bay."

"No, no," David said. As he got closer, Sydney felt her body jerk, like an electrical shock. Tears came to her eyes. Oh, G.o.d. He had a gun. Where did he get a gun? "Please don't let me interrupt."

"David, this doesn't have anything to do with them. I'll go with you. You know I will."

"What in the h.e.l.l is going on?" Tyler said when he noticed the gun. He gave an incredulous laugh. "Put that thing down, man."

David steadied the gun on Tyler. "Is he the one you're f.u.c.king, Cindy?"

She knew what Henry was going to do mere seconds before he did it. These people were so innocent. They had no idea what they were up against.

"Henry, don't!" Sydney screamed as he lunged for David. A shot burst into the silence like thunder. Henry was suddenly very still. A stain of bright red started to grow over his shirt at his right shoulder.

Henry sank to his knees. After a few moments, he fell onto his back and stared up at the sky, blinking rapidly as if trying to wake up from a dream. Evanelle, as light and small as a leaf, floated over to him, unseen by David.

"All right," David said. "I guess we know now which one you're f.u.c.king. Everything here looks just fabulous fabulous." He lifted a foot, and with one push the table went over, plates breaking, ice skittering into the chicory. Tyler had to jerk Claire back to keep her from getting hit by the falling debris.

"How did you find me?" Sydney asked, to get him to look at her, not Claire. If he kept that up, Tyler was going to do something about it and get shot too. She glanced at Henry. Evanelle had taken a blue crocheted scarf out of her tote bag and was pressing it to his shoulder. There was blood everywhere.

"I found you with these, you stupid b.i.t.c.h." He held up a stack of photos. One mistake. One of many mistakes. She'd done everything to deserve this, but Henry hadn't. Claire hadn't. Maybe she should try to run, give the others time to call for help. Or grab an icicle-size piece of gla.s.s from the broken dishes on the ground and try to stab him. She thought she was getting stronger here, but he could still terrify her into submission. She didn't have the courage to stand up to him then, and she didn't know how to now.

David was carelessly leafing through the photos. "This one in particular was of great help. No More Bascom! North Carolina Stinks! No More Bascom! North Carolina Stinks!" He held up the photograph of her mother at the Alamo. The tree shrugged, as if recognizing Lorelei. He tossed the photos at Sydney as she backed away from him, away from the table and everyone she loved there.

"Do you realize how you made me look? I brought Tom home from L.A. Imagine my surprise when you and Bay weren't there." Her fingertips had gone numb with that news. Tom was his college buddy and business partner in L.A. Looking foolish in front of him had driven David to find her with a gun. He hated to look foolish. She knew that. She knew that over every inch of her body. "Stop backing away, Cindy. I know what you're doing. You don't want me," he turned and faced Claire, "to notice her. And who might you be?"

"I'm Claire," she said fiercely. "Sydney's sister sister."

"Sydney," he laughed, shaking his head. "I still can't get over that. Sister, hmm? You're taller, more st.u.r.dy. You don't look like you'd break as easily. You're not quite as pretty, I think, but you have bigger t.i.ts. But you're probably just as stupid or you would have he laughed, shaking his head. "I still can't get over that. Sister, hmm? You're taller, more st.u.r.dy. You don't look like you'd break as easily. You're not quite as pretty, I think, but you have bigger t.i.ts. But you're probably just as stupid or you would have known known not to take in what was mine." not to take in what was mine."

Tyler stepped in front of Claire, and David never turned down a fight. He took a step toward Tyler, but Sydney said, "Don't!"

David rounded on her. "What are you you going to do about it? You'll let me do anything. And you know why." He smiled evilly. "Where is Bay? I saw her here. Come out, kitten. Daddy's here. Come give Daddy a hug." going to do about it? You'll let me do anything. And you know why." He smiled evilly. "Where is Bay? I saw her here. Come out, kitten. Daddy's here. Come give Daddy a hug."

"Stay where you are, Bay!" Sydney yelled.

"Don't you ever undermine my authority in front of our daughter!" David advanced on her, but then an apple rolled to a stop at his feet. He looked over to the apple tree bathed in shadows. "Is my little Bay behind the apple tree? Does she want Daddy to eat an apple?"

Sydney, Claire, and Evanelle all watched, afraid to move, as David picked up the apple.

Tyler started to move, to take advantage of David being distracted, but Claire caught his arm and whispered, "No, wait."

David brought the perfectly round pink apple to his lips. The juicy crack of him biting into it echoed throughout the garden, and the flowers twitched and shrank as if in fright.