Short Story Contest First Place Winner!

Hey readers! It's time to announce the 2025 Short Story Contest 1st place winner! Now, before you jump to the story itself, I want you all to know what a lovely time I had reading all your stories! Each one was written with so much creativity and followed the prompt so well. Thank you all for participating!

I will be posting the 2nd place winner next Monday, with the 3rd place winner the following Monday after that. But until then, I give you our 1st place winner!

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And the winner is . . .

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Wait for it. . .

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Just a little bit longer . . .

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BRIELLE B.!!!

Brielle crafted an amazing story filled with rich descriptions, beautiful scenery, and an intriguing character! From the first sentence to the last one, I was hooked. I was especially intrigued to find out what the MC's backstory was, and she did a wonderful job making me feel like I was in the story's world. Congrats, Brielle!!!

(Side note: if you could contact me via the contact form, Brielle, we can discuss the rest of your prizes 😉. Thanks girl!)

Now, for her short story!

Apple Pie

If the forest could cry, I think it would. It looked about to anyway. The sky was clouded over and a few raindrops splashed onto the fragile, fallen leaves that crumbled beneath my shoes. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets, trying not to look up as I grew closer to the house, focusing on each step instead.

As I neared the top of the steep driveway, I forced myself to look up at the house. It was tiny, painted off-white, and surrounded by the fall forest behind.

I came to the front porch. Do not look at the door. Trying to avoid looking at the door, which was painted pale blue with a round window, sort of like one in a hobbit hole, I grasped the knob without even looking. After coming here every day for eighteen years, I knew where it was from memory.

I stepped inside and familiar setting greeted me. It seemed nothing had changed. The same leather couch, the same antique wood lamp, same rug in the entrance. I peeled off my boots and stepped onto the floor, the feeling so familiar under my feet.

I hadn't been here since my senior year of high school, and now, a year later, here I was.

Home.

But it was too late now.

I walked through the old living room, dining room, my old bedroom, and the basement — still cluttered and covered in cobwebs.

As I thumped up the stairs, I came to the kitchen. I stopped at the center, beside the island. The kitchen seemed now gray, tinged with a slight bit of sorrow. Maybe it was the emptiness of it. Or all the things I'd missed in it. The family gatherings, everyone squeezed into the kitchen as they ate. Or the days after school where I had just taken my dinner and went to my room instead of staying to talk.

I glanced at the wall, where a cupboard hung next to the rangehood. A book was tucked inside next to empty jam jars. I took it out and retreated to the island, resting my elbows on the counter as I began to read it.

The cover was forest green and felt velvety in my hands, and the pages were worn and spattered with various cooking catastrophes. Most of the recipes were traditional — things like tarts, cakes, and cookies. It was a basic recipe book, but was covered in notes written in it, swirling cursive, some of the words blotted. The letters were so familiar, but I tried not to read them, to even look at them, as I flipped through.

Soon, I came to the last page where a recipe for apple pie was. This was that apple pie. The one she always baked on my birthday, for eighteen years.

But why? Why had I chosen to leave home and go out into the world when I could always be here, in the kitchen, breathing in the scent of cinnamon and apples in the kitchen forever?

Why was my vision going blurry? No, no, no. I scrubbed at my face, leaving a smear of mascara on my sleeve. It was only the cold, I decided. It makes your eyes water.

Sighing, I glanced at the ingredients.

• 6 apples

• ½ of a lemon

• ¼ cup brown sugar

• 1 tbs flour

• 1 tbs cinnamon

• 1 tbs cloves

• ¼ tsp nutmeg

• ¼ tps ginger

• 1 tbs butter

• 1 egg white

• Cinnamon sugar

• Pie crust

I sighed, tucking the small book under my arm. I guess I was going to the store. Hopefully the rim of red around my eyes couldn't be noticed.

Doubtful.

. ⋆  ⭑🍂༘⋆. 

I returned to the house an hour later, carrying a bulging shopping bag full of all the ingredients for that apple pie. I set it on the kitchen counter and took off my coat. I set to work making a pie crust from scratch, which proved difficult as the recipe I was following from the cookbook made things seem much simpler than they were. After much struggle, I made something sort-of-decent, then grabbed out the lemon, sugar, flour, and all the spices.

Glancing back down at the recipe for the last ingredient — the apples, I found a small note written in the same blotted cursive. Make sure to get the apples from the Tire Swing Tree.

I just stared at it. But . . . didn't the Tire Swing Tree not exist anymore?

Ditching my coat, I pulled on my boots and the door and flung it open, a blast of bitter autumn air making my eyes sting. (See? I told you.)

I ran around the house, dashing over the ground blanketed by fallen leaves and past the leafless trees, their branches matching the stormy sky. Down into the forest, down a slope so steep that I was falling down it.

And there it was. The old apple tree, its branches full of rosy, pink apples wreathed in amber leaves, a tire swing hanging from one of the stronger branches.

"Oh, it's still here!"

I thought it had been cut down after I'd left, but here it was. I flew to it and crawled inside the round tire just like a little kid. As I began to swing, spinning around and around, the fiery leaves blurring around me, the protective branches of the Tire Swing Tree surrounding me, I began to remember.

Soon, I grew dizzy and stumbled out of the swing, the world still spinning around me. I laughed, falling to the base of the tree until my vision steadied, then stood. I reached out to the tree and picked an apple, then went around picking five more.

I shoved three into my sweatshirt pocket, then carries the other three in my arms over the slope and back to the house, where I looked at the blue hobbit door, and back to the kitchen.

After washing the apples in the farm sink, I chopped them up and put them into a bowl, squeezing lemon juice and sprinkling sugar and spices over them, and poured it into the pie crust.

As I began to crimp the edges, I could almost feel her at my side, my mother, humming a song while dancing around the kitchen, baking and making dinner at the same time. Then I began to cut vents into the crust and sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top, and I could see him, my father, coming home from work at the front door, telling us about his day while stamping mud off his boots.

And as I slipped the pie into the oven, shutting the door, I sighed, crawling onto the couch and curling up into the old quilt that used to be on my bed. It felt like I was little again, at home on the couch after a long day of school. Safe.

I closed my eyes.

. ⋆  ⭑🍂༘⋆. 

The timer I'd set for the pie jolted me awake and I sat up, rubbing my eyes. Had I really slept for an hour?

Tossing the quilt back onto the couch I went to the oven, opening it up and taking out the pie. After letting it cool for a bit, I cut into it and put a slice onto a plate to eat.

I forked a bite, the warm, cinnamony sweetness of the crust mixing with the tart apples. It reminded me of them, and how much I missed them now that they had gone to be with Jesus.

But it was better to remember than try to forget, even if it took making apple pie.