The Price of Apples

I was fifteen that summer, and my world revolved around the corner store, the public pool, and the three dollars an hour I made watching the Calloway kids. The Calloways lived two doors down from us, in a house with a wraparound porch and a yard that always smelled like cut grass and dog. Ruth Calloway was a foster mom to four kids: two boys and two girls, all under ten, all with that quiet, watchful look that kids in the system get. Her husband, Leonard, was a quiet man who worked the night shift at the paper mill. They were the kind of neighbors you waved to, who brought over casseroles when someone was sick, who seemed as permanent as the oak tree in their front yard.

It was a Tuesday, July 21, 1971, when the phone rang. I had just gotten home from swim practice, my hair still dripping, and my mother was on the kitchen phone, her voice tight. ‘Yes, I’ll be right there,’ she said, and then to me, ‘Stay here, sweetie.’ She grabbed her keys and hurried out the door, leaving me with a cold pit in my stomach. From the front window, I watched her run across the street to the Calloway house. Leonard was on the porch, his face gray, his hands shaking as he pointed inside. Two police cars and an ambulance were already there, lights flashing but silent.

I didn’t know it then, but Ruth had been found on the kitchen floor, a half-eaten apple on the counter, the core still in her hand. The doctors would call it an ‘acute cardiac event,’ but the real cause was something they’d never find. It was something I would come to understand only years later, and only because I was the one who saw what came next.

I kept babysitting for Leonard, mostly because he seemed lost without Ruth, and the kids needed stability. They were the same age as before, but they’d become even more quiet, more watchful. They’d sit in the living room, staring at the TV that was always off, or they’d play in the backyard, but they never laughed. Leonard worked more shifts, and I’d come over at six, make dinner, get them in bed by nine, and wait for him to stumble in around midnight, smelling of sawdust and sweat.

It was a Thursday evening in August, three weeks after Ruth died, when I noticed the apples. We hadn’t had any in the house, but there they were, a bowl of bright red apples on the kitchen counter, like they’d just been picked. The kids were already in bed, and I was doing the dishes, when I saw one of them roll off the top of the pile and hit the floor with a soft thud. I picked it up, and it was cold, strangely cold, like it had been in a freezer. I put it back, and I heard a noise from the hallway—a shuffling, like someone dragging their feet. I went to check, but the hallway was empty, and the kids’ doors were closed.

That night, I dreamed of the apple tree in the Calloway’s backyard. It was the same tree that had been there for years, but in my dream, it was bare, its branches twisted like fingers, and at the base of the trunk, there was a door. I woke up with a start, my heart pounding, and I was sweating despite the cool night air.

The apples kept appearing. Every time I came over, there were more, and always in a bowl on the kitchen counter. I never saw Leonard buy them, and the kids never mentioned them. When I asked Leonard about it, he just shrugged and said, ‘Must be a gift from someone at church.’ But I knew better. On the third night, I took one of the apples home with me, out of a strange compulsion. I put it on my nightstand, and that night, I had the dream again, but this time, the door in the tree was open, and I could hear a woman humming, a tune I didn’t recognize.

The kids started talking to themselves, or rather, to someone I couldn’t see. The youngest, a six-year-old boy named Timmy, would sit in the corner of his room, having long conversations with the air. When I asked him who he was talking to, he said, ‘The lady in the apple tree. She says she’s always hungry.’ I felt a chill run down my spine, and I forced a laugh, telling him he had a vivid imagination. But after that, I started to notice other things. The house began to smell, faintly, like rotting fruit, even though there were no bad apples. The lights would flicker, and the TV would turn on by itself, always to static.

One evening, I was alone with the kids, and I went to the kitchen to get a snack. The bowl of apples was overflowing, more than I had ever seen. One of them was split open, its flesh black and pulsing. I reached into the bowl to throw it away, and as my fingers touched it, I heard a voice in my ear, a woman’s voice, soft and sweet, saying, ‘You shouldn’t have taken my apple.’ I spun around, but there was no one there. I dropped the apple, and it hit the floor with a splat, and the back door swung open, banging against the wall. I ran to close it, and when I looked out, I saw the apple tree in the backyard, its branches swaying as if in a wind, and there, under the tree, stood a figure—a woman in a white dress, her face obscured, her arms outstretched. I slammed the door shut and locked it, but I could hear her humming from outside, the same tune from my dream.

I called Leonard, my voice shaking, but he didn’t answer. I tried to calm the kids, but they were all standing in the hallway, looking at me with wide eyes. ‘Don’t open the door,’ Timmy said. ‘She wants to come in.’ I grabbed them all, herded them into the living room, and we sat on the couch, huddled together, listening to the humming grow louder, until it seemed to come from inside the walls. Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The silence was deafening. I peered through the curtains, and the yard was empty, the apple tree still and dark.

When Leonard got home, I told him everything. He didn’t laugh or call me crazy; his face went pale, and he whispered, ‘She found us.’ Then he told me the truth. Ruth had been a foster child herself, and she had been abused by her foster father, a man who had a thing for apples. He would bring her apples as a ‘reward,’ but they were always poisoned, both literally and figuratively. He had died years ago, but his spirit was bound to the apple tree in the yard, and Ruth had made a deal with it to protect her children. The deal was that the tree would guard the house, but it demanded a life every few years, and Ruth had given her own to fulfill it. Now the tree wanted more.

I didn’t believe him, but then I saw the look in his eyes, and I knew he was telling the truth. He made me promise not to tell anyone, and he said he’d handle it. But the next day, when I came over, the house was empty. The furniture was gone, and there were no apples. The tree was gone too, cut down, and the stump was covered in fresh soil. I never saw Leonard or the kids again. But sometimes, at night, I still hear the humming, and I smell apples. I’ve never eaten one since, and I never will. And I always keep my windows locked, because I know that the price for my thrice-blessed innocence was a single apple, and it’s still owed.