[For Olive]

[piemakerprince]

Some days, much like the rather nice one the girl named Chuck was enjoying outside in the orchard as she studied various ways to make various cheeses, the pie maker found himself unable to do much of anything at all but bake pies.

Or a pie, in this case

Comments

[abandonedpie]

The plucky neighbour was in fact feeling rather out of pluck at that moment. Her talk with Chuck had not gone the way she'd thought it would. In fact, it was as if it were a train, derailed, and yet unable to stop due to it's momentum, its precious cargo of secrets spilled everywhere after the resulting crash. Olive and Chuck were the survivors of that crash, both wounded in their ways, though Olive's wounds were less severe, she still felt as if she were in a state of shock.

Seeing Ned in the kitchen reminded her of the secret she had been told to her, the one of Ned and his touch. She stopped, looking him over, wondering how it was a person could have such a curse. "Oh my god, Digby died and you brought him back to life? Is that why you never touched Digby? That touchy-touchy thing? One more little scratch under the chin and Bam!"

She went to him, her arms tight around the Piemaker in sympathy, "All that time when you just needed someone to touch you."

[piemakerprince]

Ned had no idea how it happened.

One moment he'd been lost in the past, and the next, he was suddenly being hugged by Olive as she babbled on about-

"What? How - that's, that's silly, nobody can wake the dead, it's impossible - Olive, breathing, I need to breathe -"

[abandonedpie]

"You don't have to lie to me anymore Ned," Olive pulled away from the Piemaker, oblivious to his distress, or at the very list, misunderstanding it. To her his distress was from having his secret known, an understandable ache that came from keeping something so difficult inside of himself for so long.

"Chuck told me all of it."

[piemakerprince]

Ned's mouth opened as though he had something to say, but no words came out. He'd gone so long with his secret being kept secret by himself and only two other people; it felt strange to have Olive finally know.

That didn't mean he liked having it be known. Since he was a boy, his gift had brought nothing but pain.

"It wasn't her secret to tell," said the pie maker, and he went back to scooping fruit into a pie waiting to be made. It was the one thing that had always made sense, a recipe that stayed the same over the years.

He shook his head. "How did it even come up?"

[abandonedpie]

"How did it come up?" Olive might have snapped a bit more snappishly than she intended to. She was tired of secrets, both her own, and other people's. It seemed that between the three of them they had secrets enough for seven, maybe even ten.

"Oh you know. A girl wants to know the truth behind her friend faking her death. That truth leads to another fact, about people who can bring people back to life."

It had not struck Olive until that moment that Ned had in fact been keeping this secret from her, along with likely many other things. "Did Emerson know?"

[piemakerprince]

Ned winced slightly at the tone of Olive's voice. While he never ever thought Olive would find out and did his best to keep her out of his affairs with the alive-again, he wasn't blind. Or deaf. Or dumb, for that matter. He knew it was only a matter of time before Olive's curiosity grew into suspicion which then might have exploded in all their faces, letting the dirty, sticky truth out.

It wasn't the sort of scenario Ned was fond of.

"Yes," he answered as he finished with the fruit and began rolling dough for the crust. She knew now, there was no need to keep lying. "That's what we did. He found a dead body, I brought them back to life, we asked them how they died, solved the case and collected the reward."

[abandonedpie]

"So Emerson knew, and Chuck knew, and Digby obviously knew," as she counted her list, she ticked off her fingers, holding the three of them up. "That just leaves one person who didn't know. Funny how that works, that one person always in the dark about everything."

It was how it was, she supposed, in the end. "One of these things, not like the other. You'd know about that? One of these things just not belonging?"

[piemakerprince]

Just a little more pressure was added to the rolling pin with every roll as Olive went on, until the pie maker rolled a crust so thin it didn't deserve to be a crust in the making.

"I didn't tell them, Olive, just like I didn't tell you." Ned set the pin aside - still not looking at Olive, it must be said - and balled the dough up again to start over. "Emerson found out by accident and Digby and Chuck were - I couldn't - there was no telling and not telling, they just knew."

It wasn't much of an excuse.

[abandonedpie]

Olive leaned against the counter, picking a piece of fruit likely destined for the pie and popping it in her mouth. "Did you think that if you did tell me that maybe things would have been better? That secrets just build on more secrets until you have a double-decker secret sandwich?"

[piemakerprince]

This time Ned finally looked at Olive. "No, I wish nobody knew. I wish I didn't have this secret to keep in the first place."

Even if it had brought Chuck back to him, there was a whole lifetime of hurt there Ned would have given anything not to have lived through. He turned back to the dough to give it a second chance. "But there's no changing the past, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

[abandonedpie]

The Piemaker had a point, she thought as she swallowed the slice of apple. Having a secret such as that - being unable to touch the one you love - it was not something that Olive wanted to imagine.

"You're right. It's not a very nice secret," Olive Snook admitted with a sharp sigh. "I guess all the secrets are out now that Chuck knows the truth about her mother."

[piemakerprince]

Ned still worked the dough - he'd done it so many times he could do it in his sleep - but the rest of him paused at Olive's words. He didn't know anything about Chuck's mother because she didn't know anything about Chuck's mother.

Olive knowing a secret about some truth having to do with Chuck's mother was the last thing Ned expected to hear. "What truth about her mother?"

[abandonedpie]

Grabbing another piece of apple, popping that in her mouth as she shrugged one shoulder, her arms still resting on the counter. "Eh, Lily is her mother. Is there any coffee?"

[piemakerprince]

The dough was a lost cause.

Ned's mouth dropped open, and he stared at Olive. "Lily is her mother? But...what? Why would she lie to her like that? You told Chuck? Where is she?"

He had dozens more questions fighting to get through, but the last seemed the most important. Ned could imagine Chuck's emotional state at the moment, and didn't want her to be out there alone with that sort of news.

[abandonedpie]

"Last I saw in the orchard," she said blase, filling herself with the conveniently pre-sliced apples. "Yes I told Chuck. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep secrets like that? It builds up and builds up, until you just can't keep it inside anymore, just bursting out. Sometimes you just can't stop it."

[piemakerprince]

"I do know," said Ned, looking a bit lost. He didn't care that Olive was eating away half his pie filling; all he could think of was Chuck out there alone, dealing with the news that her mother was not dead, but alive and well. Alive and had lied to her all her life.

It was too similar to when Ned's own secret had burst out, him helpless to stop it.

"I - I have to go find her," he finally said, and wiped his hands on his apron before taking it off. "You can finish the pie if you want, and can you keep an eye on Digby?"

However much Ned wanted to leave right then, their conversation had something of an impact on him - he was asking Olive, not dismissing her as he'd done so many times before back home at the Pie Hole.