Chapter 21 #2
“Should you make a pie everyone thinks is good, I will take you to a livestock sale and purchase a new friend for you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you get if the pie is just as bad as yours?”
“An upset stomach comes to mind, but I will accept you taking me to a livestock sale and purchasing a new friend for me, which you will house at your property free of charge.”
“Wager made.” Either way, we’d have a good time at the livestock sale, and unbeknownst to him, I would consider the venture a date. “Darlene, when we regret this, show some mercy, please.”
“I keep a fully stocked medicine cabinet that can handle a crowd of upset stomachs. We’ll be fine. We might have to live with our regrets, but we’ll be fine.”
* * *
As Yuless made his pies trying to learn from his mistakes, I aimed to outdo him.
I thanked Isaac for his offer of assistance, cracked my knuckles, and began reading through the recipe, identifying which ingredients needed to be room temperature versus warm or cold, and set everything aside based on those requirements.
Once I had a sea of ingredients surrounding me, I watched a tutorial on every aspect of baking I didn’t understand, which ultimately involved everything.
As I doubted my ability to measure, I even checked how I was supposed to measure everything correctly, astonished to discover I’d gotten the basics on that wrong as well.
No wonder my first—and last—attempt at baking a pie had failed.
I hadn’t done anything right. At all.
Armed with the tutorial videos, I organized everything so I could move from one ingredient to the next, measuring it out in advance when I could and triple checking my work.
Once satisfied with my preparations, I dove in, giggling that the Devil had brought me enough to bake ten pies—and that he promised they would be baked precisely to my specifications, as one human had no real hope of simultaneously attending to ten different ovens at one time.
I would be in charge of monitoring one of the ovens as my contribution to the baking portion.
Lucifer also promised a bit of magic to cool the pies appropriately for consumption.
While I supposed someone with experience and confidence could handle the task with better grace, I approached the pie problem with the same determination I applied to the rest of my life.
Whenever a white, powdery substance crossed my path, I confirmed what it was before adding it to my filling or applying it to the crust. I questioned a few of the steps, but I obeyed the instructions as though my life—and pride—depended on it.
Which they did.
After almost two hours of waging war against my culinary foe, I reached the baking portion, covered in sugar, flour, and an assortment of other ingredients, I’d made eleven pies, one with a crust I’d battled with out of spite. “Lucifer?”
The Devil appeared beside me, and he laughed at the destruction in his kitchen. “I only left you with ten crusts, Crystal.”
I pointed at the rogue pie, which appeared like all the others, although it had a snow leopard pie pan rather than a tin foil one. “I decided I had to at least try to make a crust, and that one had the easiest instructions and spread the most flour around your kitchen.”
“I admire your tenacity. Which pie is going to be the one you bake?”
I pointed at the snow leopard one and the one beside it.
“You have two ovens here, so I will babysit both. I already heated the ovens, so mine are ready to go in.” I referred to the directions, read off how they were to be baked, and then added a few checks I’d learned from various tutorials, which involved closely monitoring the pie for the moment it reached a golden brown crust and how to check that the filling within was ready.
“I shall do as you ask.” All but my two pies vanished along with Lucifer, leaving me with two hot ovens and two disasters in the making.
Determined to not be the weakest link in my pie baking adventure, I stood a close and careful guard after checking four times the oven was the correct temperature for the type of baking dish I used, setting two different timers to know when I needed to check each.
The pie in the foil tin finished first, and once it passed the checks the instructions and tutorials suggested, I took it out and set it on the counter to cool.
Five minutes later, I worried for my homemade crust, which took longer to bake. Ten minutes after that, I spotted the first signs of the crust browning. Then, five minutes after that, the crust and filling passed its checks, and I removed it from the oven.
I took a cautious sniff of both, determining they smelled similar to what Isaac made when he opted to transform peaches into delicious treats.
I narrowed my eyes. Before I fell to the temptation of sticking my finger directly through the crust, which I’d decorated with poorly drawn flowers and smiley faces, Lucifer appeared and rescued both from my clutches.
“These must cool, missy. You can go gather the others for the judgment of the pies.”
“I’m going to regret this,” I muttered, but I headed off to do as told, not caring I wore more pie than had made it into the crust. If he cared about his place remaining clean, he wouldn’t have set me loose in his kitchen in the first place.
Rather than make use of the sitting rooms, everyone had stayed in the dining room, and someone had set the table again in preparation for eating pie.
“You all are going to die. I refused to accept any help making these pies outside of Lucifer following my instructions to get them all baked. I wasn’t allowed to taste test to see if they’re edible. ”
My mother raised a brow. “And you automatically assume you’re going to kill us with your baking?”
“I know what I did as a child, and I have no reason to believe this is not a terrifying repeat of that incident.”
“You were three years old.”
I scowled. “I don’t see how my status as a diminutive toddler has anything to do with the fact it was so bad I traumatized myself into having that as my first memory.”
My father threw his head back and chortled. “It was pretty bad. What I do not understand is how you, still a precocious three year old, had managed to roast a damned good chicken the next day.”
“I am excellent at cooking but suck at baking.”
The eleven pies I’d baked popped onto the table, and Lucifer strolled in from the direction of the kitchen a few moments later. “You don’t suck at baking. You gave up because you, a perfectionist of a toddler, had made something so bad you vomited trying to eat it.”
“Did you have to tell them that part?” I sat in my seat, leaned back to check on my chickens, who were in beds near each other, both sound asleep and likely under some divine being’s magical influence.
Under normal circumstances, Joy would have been doing her best to get on the table so she could have some pie.
Joy loved pie.
I, as an irresponsible chicken mom, gave her small tastes of good pie, refusing to subject her to the horrors single males of numerous species created in an ill-fated attempt to win a date.
“The leopard pie has a homemade crust, and we shall all partake of a sliver of that one,” Lucifer announced.
“The others were all made with the same recipe and method, and they are all quite similar. You may have larger slices of that. As there are ten of those pies, which is a going rate of roughly half a pie per person, don’t be shy.
There’s plenty of milk and ice cream for all so we may fully indulge. ”
“Yeah, in food poisoning,” I muttered.
Darlene giggled, and she went for the pie in the leopard print. “Dibs!”
Lucifer slapped her hands, refused to allow her to access the pie, and gave her the small slice he’d promised.
“If you like the pie, you can stalk her at your leisure to make you another one.” After making certain his wife wouldn’t bar everyone from trying some, he cut one of the other pies in half and put the whole thing on her dinner plate. “You can have that.”
Much like a starved animal, the succubus snatched a spoon and began shoveling pie into her mouth.
I stared in a state of shock and awe over her lack of manners and complete disregard for her dignity.
As though sensing they’d get smacked too, everyone waited for Lucifer to dish out the pie, which he did in half pie segments along with a small slice of the eleventh pie. He gave me the last serving from the pie he’d served to Yuless.
“Now, we should all begin with the homemade crust. I have given everyone a set of cards. Pick your grade. If you aren’t fleeing the room gagging, you will not select zero or one as your score. Everything else is fair game.”
As the only one without a set of cards, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “What happened to my vote?”
“You’d vote zero because we’re being dramatic.”
I realized he was right, and I sighed, forced to accept his decision. “Very well. Please confirm I’m not going to be the next person on my street to give somebody food poisoning.”
“You did not slather the pies with egg glaze when you took them out of the oven before sprinkling them with sugar, so you’re fine. Nobody is going to suffer from food poisoning due to the irresponsible handling of pie.”
I shuddered at the thought of my neighbors applying raw egg to the crust of already baked pies. “But the instructions say to do the egg wash before it goes into the oven.”
“Congratulations, Crystal! You can read. Due to your ability to read and follow instructions, you have won this prize of milk and ice cream.” Lucifer snapped his fingers, and a bowl of vanilla ice cream and a glass of milk appeared next to my plate.
“As the poor, unfortunate soul about to suffer through significant embarrassment, you can pick the second person to fall prey to your pie.”
I kept staring at Darlene, who had already defeated half her pie. “Is she all right?”
Did enough pie in the world exist to feed the Queen of Hell?
Lucifer joined me in observing his wife transcend into a ravenous beast fueled on dessert. “At this stage, I’m really not sure. Did you alter the recipe?”
While adding illicit substances to my pie might give me an advantage in the scoring, I preferred fair victories. “I did not add any drugs to the pie.”
“Well, that’s disappointing.” Lucifer armed himself with a fork. “Raise your weapon if you are watching Darlene to see if she chokes on her pie.”
Every fork at the table went up, mine included. Darlene ignored us in favor of chasing after peachy goodness. And if the pie wasn’t good, I would forever admire the woman’s ability to trick us all.
“You should try to steal a piece,” I stated.
“I value life, limb, and the ability to take my wife to bed, so I am passing on that. I might be immortal, but even I know better than to steal my wife’s pie.”
“Smart.” As everyone seemed afraid to partake of my offering, I dove in, aiming for the less intimidating slice of pie.
The crust behaved in the way I expected, surprisingly flakey for having been made by someone who had needed to look up most of the terms and methods used to create it.
The filling even stayed mostly together, leaving limited globs of peach to escape.
Knowing me, I’d lick the plate to vacuum up the essence of peach, even if the pie tasted terrible and I had to force myself to choke it down.
I took a bite, narrowing my eyes. It reminded me of a slightly less sweet version of Isaac’s pie and heavier on the peach flavor.
I wanted to accuse sorcery of being involved, but I hadn’t used any magic at all when making the pie.
As the first sample hadn’t attempted to kill me, I tried another to confirm my initial finding.
If the other pie tasted even remotely as good, I could understand Darlene’s perspective, and I’d be stuffing myself silly on it.
There was only one way to find out, and I cut off a small slice of the half pie.
Like the one with the crust I made, it was a little less sweet than Isaac’s, held together, and showcased everything wonderful about peaches.
“I wouldn’t marry me over this pie, but it is not terrible,” I announced before having a sip of milk and indulging in a spoonful of ice cream. “I think it’s fair that any single man of tolerable personality should be taken on a single date for presenting me a pie he baked equal to this one.”
Lucifer snickered. “Good luck with that, Crystal. You’re going to need it.”