Anniversary Apple Pie
Avra Margariti
So you’re married to the Serpent of Eden (congratulations!) and want to bake your beloved spouse an apple pie. Only trouble is, they haven’t been able to taste a single thing since the Garden of Eden and their Creator’s curse (“and dust you will eat all the days of your life”).
Worry not, for if you follow this recipe, your serpentine sweetheart will surely be able to appreciate all the fine flavors of this sinfully good...
Anniversary Apple Pie!
Ingredients
A basket of apples, grown in sunless, chthonic depths, veins of midnight mauve traversing the juicy flesh
2 rolls of pie crust
2 teaspoons of cinnamon mixed with ground ghost pepper (the hotter, the better to awaken taste buds bespelled into atrophy)
A fistful of sightless worms, fed on the dead matter of exiled kings and lost prophets, their cells still resounding with old-world magic
1 cup powdered milk teeth folded into granulated sugar
1/4 cup bonemeal flour
One egg and one tablespoon of Stygian riverwater, for the egg wash
Instructions
Peel, core, and slice the apples; toss them with sugar, spice, flour, and worms, then arrange the filling in the bottom pie crust
NOTE: it is recommended you use an iron pie dish, stolen from an excavation site at darkest dawn when the black rooster crows thrice, the better to preserve the delicate balance of flavors
Cover the filling with criss-crossed stripes of crust, singing a latticework of arcane love songs into existence
Beat the egg wash until foamy, then brush over the upper pie crust in counterclockwise movements, painting invisible runes to seal the magic deep
Bake for 50 minutes in a pre-heated oven, until the crust is golden and the filling bubbles like blood
Rest your apple pie at room temperature for an hour while you dance through your den, looking in every darksome nook and cranny for where your sweet serpent slumbers, unaware of your anniversary surprise
About the author:
Avra Margariti is a queer author, Greek sea monster, and Rhysling-nominated poet with a fondness for the dark and the darling. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Vastarien, Asimov’s, Liminality, Arsenika, The Future Fire, Space and Time, Eye to the Telescope, and Glittership. “The Saint of Witches”, Avra’s debut collection of horror poetry, is available from Weasel Press. You can find Avra on twitter (@avramargariti).
