The Seventh Pie

At the county fair, Eli's job was to pin ribbons on pies after the judges left. He had just placed the blue ribbon beside Mrs. Voss's peach lattice when the head judge returned, pale and breathless. "Take it off. We counted six pies. There were seven." Eli checked the entry table. Six cards, six empty plates. Then he noticed a warm pie cooling beneath the volunteer desk, its crust stamped with the fair's old crest. No card lay beside it. Mrs. Voss saw it too. She set down her trophy. "That recipe burned with my mother's house," she said.