Golden Delicious

“The page is cracking, is breaking. We all know it. We’ve known it for some time. At least someone finally
said
it.”

—Haily Dampshire Mazette

“This book is very strange, but there are some good parts about auctions, and a lot of biographical information about the Auctioneer. When you understand where she came from—the obstacles she overcame—you’ll raise your bids even higher.”

—
The Auction Times

“
is a promising worrier. If only he could
write
as well as he can worry!”

—
Worry Illustrated

“… [B]ut not in all my wheelings have I ever seen a book shaped like an apple.”

—
Western Mass Trader

“A pair of pants, a shirt, a tie, some shoes.”

—
The Memory of News

“The book does offer historical information about Johnny Appleseed, some helpful prayer schematics, and the first and only accurate map of Appleseed.”

—
Heartfjord Current

“Volkswagens are one thing; apples are an entirely different thing. They are different in shape, size, and function.”

—
Studies in the Avant Garde

“I hear a burrowing. Can anyone else hear that? Like, a deep scratching?”

—
First Thought, Best Thought

“The cheek, the axis, the apex, the cell, and the stalk.”

—
The Book of Soil

“All I know is, I’m glad to have the Mothers on my side. Those Mothers kick ass!”

—
Tornado Monthly

“Now. Right NOW!”

—
The Daily Core

ENFIELD, CONNECTICUT

APPLESEED, MASSACHUSETTS

That afternoon I took the Reader to see the Memory of Johnny Appleseed. We left right after school on my customized Bicycle Built for Two, the Reader on the backseat and me on the front. We pedaled through the paragraphs of downtown and across Highway Five to the deadgroves near the west margin, where I figured we’d find the Memory planting stories in the soil.

That was the year that my Mom left us—sharpened the blades in her skirt, winged up her blouse, and flew off—and it was just me, my father, and my sister in our home in Appleseed. It wasn’t a surprise when she left; she’d been planning to leave, telling us she was leaving, for months. And everything else that she’d predicted had come true—the blight, the loss of meaning, all of it.

Even so, we were shocked when she actually went through with it. There was no official goodbye, no pep talk. My sister and I were in the TV room that afternoon when my Mom appeared in the doorway, wearing her flightskirt and goggles, a suitcase at her feet. “Well, I’m all packed,” she said.

My sister looked over at her from the couch. I pulled my headphones off.

“I’ll see you both soon, OK?” my Mom said. Then she saluted us and walked out the door and into the backyard.

My sister and I ran out after her. “Wait—right now?” said Briana.

My Mom lowered her goggles over her eyes and lifted off the ground.

“Mom—
wait!
” my sister said. “You can’t—what about—when will you be back?”

My Mom didn’t answer—it was like she couldn’t even hear Briana.

“What about
dinner
?” my sister shouted up.

My Mom looked down and made a face. “You’ll figure it out,” she called back. “Make some. Or have
make some.”

“Who’s going to do the
grocery shopping
?”

My Mom huffed. By then she was twenty feet high—then thirty, then forty.

I didn’t say anything. I was pretty sure that this was my fault—that I was the reason my Mom was leaving. I’d done something wrong, but I didn’t know what.

I was sad watching her go, though, and I missed her in the days that followed. I missed the obvious things—our trips to the Library and to the Bing for movie matinees—but also the things I never thought I’d miss: the sound of her footsteps as she vaulted up the carpeted stairs two at a time; the way she leaned over the kitchen counter while smoking a six-foot cigarette; the sound of her working out—practicing martial-arts moves in the worryfields, hitting the heavy bag in the garage, perfecting flight techniques out back. The house felt empty without my parents’
arguments—their subtle barbs, their all-out shoutfests. I even missed being yelled at—the way my Mom spat out the words
spoiled
and
selfish
, and, more recently,
brat
and
blabbermouth
and
badseed
, and in the days before she left,
piece of crap
, and
piece of shit
. I
was
all of those things—I
was
a spoiled, selfish piece of shit. I ruined everything. That was probably why I didn’t have many friends—why I rode my Bicycle Built for Two alone.

Then, a few weeks after my Mom flew away, Mr. Santos assigned us—you and I—a project in History about the founding of Appleseed. I told you maybe we could go see the Memory of Johnny Appleseed and interview him, and you looked at me funny and said, “I thought Johnny Appleseed was a
myth
.”

I considered that. “I don’t think so,” I said. “His Memory works with my Dad sometimes.”

“And he knows about the founding of Appleseed?” said the Reader.

“Sure,” I said. “He planted, like, every apple tree in Appleseed. I think that’s why they call it—”

“Does he know what happened to them?” asked the Reader.

“He says he does,” I said.

You—the Reader—shrugged. “I’ll go with you,” you said, “if you’re sure you know where to find him.”

“He doesn’t technically have an
address
?” I said. “But I can usually track him down.”

Truth was, I wasn’t sure I could find the Memory of Johnny Appleseed by myself. Usually
he
found
me
. I’d been on dozens of drives with my Dad, though, when he was
trying to locate the Memory for one job or another. Sometimes we spotted him hitchhiking on Old Five; othertimes he was riding his treecycle past Wolf Swamp or standing outside the Big Why, handing out brochures. Once we spotted him turning cartwheels on the Town Green. The last time we needed him, we asked at the Recycling Center and they said they heard he was up on Appleseed Mountain. When we got to the base of the mountain, we saw Johnny Appleseed walking through the trees with an armful of ifs.