Jack dropped a piled-high bucket of apples at my feet. “The pink ones. Your favorite,” he said.

When Jack had called that morning, Sunday, to suggest a cider press, I thought he was crazy. It just didn’t seem like the appropriate weekend for something so trivial. But he’d insisted, arguing we needed a break and an excuse to see each other. That point won me over.

Penny, Marik, Jinky, Shauna, and Tina came clomping up the gravel path with a crunch of gravel under their feet. Shauna was already a surprise addition, but . . .

“Tina!” I squealed, barreling into her for a hug-turned-body-slam encounter. I could tell she was flattered by the attention, once she got her wind back, anyway.

“When did you get in? What are you doing home? How’s Iowa State? How’s Matthew? When did you cut your hair?” I hadn’t realized how much I missed Tina, who had been such an important component of my transition to Norse Falls last year. Had it not been for her and Penny, I’d have been new-girl roadkill.

Tina held her thumb up. “I got in yesterday.” She brought her index finger to join it. “I wanted to check on my family after all the reports of damage.” Her middle finger was next to join the lineup. “Good, but tough.” She added the ringman. “Still my guy.” With her “about two weeks ago” comment, she brought the whole hand to her hair for a fluff of the new do.

“Is everything all right with your family?” I asked, biting back my top lip.

“Yes. They’re fine, thank goodness. We lost a couple of trees and an old shed out back, but nothing major. There was a mountain of crap to clean up, but it could have been a lot worse.”

We were all quiet for a moment. I thought again of those who weren’t so lucky. An apology formed in my throat, but I managed to swallow it.

“I, for one, think we’ve all earned a little breather today.” Penny stepped between Tina and me. “I can’t tell you what a great idea this is. Anything to divert attention from . . .” She nervously adjusted the crochet cap from under which dropped two thick russet braids. “. . . All the hard work we’ve been doing.”

“Check it out,” Jack said, calling the group’s attention to a contraption that, by all appearances, was predated only by the wheel. “It’s an old-fashioned barrel press.”

“That thing is sick,” Shauna said. I thought it was a compliment, but I wasn’t entirely sure.

Jack demonstrated the workings of the contraption for everyone. It looked like nothing more than an old washtub on a stand with a top funnel device, some kind of crank handle, and a spigot at the bottom. It was as simple and crude-looking as anything I’d ever seen. Jack dumped the apples — skin, stems, and all — into the top opening. As he cranked on the noisy wheel, the apples were smashed into their subatomic particles, and a slush of cloudy cider poured into a bucket positioned below the tap. It wasn’t the most sophisticated or pristine of operations, but, then again, my own afi had a meat grinder on his kitchen counter. Yuck.

“It smells wonderful,” Marik said. Up until then he’d been so uncharacteristically quiet that I’d failed to really notice him. His skin was so pale it was translucent, and he had the stoop of an old man. Of course, he was an old man, a very old man. The problem being that he wasn’t an old soul, or any kind of soul, for that matter. Yet even in this deteriorating state, he was enjoying himself.

The cider was poured into an old metal jug, from which speckled tin cups were filled. Once again, I was struck by the way Jack’s family farm was like a wormhole to the past. No wonder the Álaga Blettur, a power place, had gone undetected here. The entire property was a wonderful little bubble of magic and history. Though I was sure that, with the post-storm rebuilding, Norse Falls and Pinewood were in for changes, I sensed that this place would resist.

When Marik eased himself onto a battered picnic bench, I noticed Shauna eyeing him.

“Are you OK there?” she asked. “You don’t look so hot.”

“On top of everything else, there’s a virus going around. A bad one,” Penny said, talking fast, even for her. “My grandmother volunteered at the hospital Friday night and said they had an above-average caseload of severe flu symptoms.”

Shauna took a step back. “If you’re contagious, shouldn’t you be holed up at home?”

Marik ran a hand over his glistening forehead. “I should have listened to Penny earlier. Maybe she’s right. To be on the safe side —”

“I’ll drive you,” Penny interrupted, “if it won’t leave anyone stranded.”

“I can take the others home,” Tina offered. By the look on Shauna’s face, she was more than happy to avoid the walking contagion that was Marik.

As they strode away, I witnessed a crushingly tender moment between Penny and Marik, who appeared to be arm in arm but with him listing toward her on every third or fourth step. I couldn’t help feeling gutted by the sight of them. It was going to end badly — very badly — for both. I felt my whole body shrivel with the thought of it.

The entire party seemed to fade a little with their absence. We ate cinnamon-and-sugar-dusted donuts, homemade by Jack’s mom. Jack and Jinky pitched horseshoes at a pin, while Shauna, Tina, and I sat atop the picnic table, dusting crumbs from our lap. I asked Tina more about Iowa State and her course load. She claimed to like the school but made no mention of their unfortunate mascot.

“Any news from Pedro?” I asked finally.

“Liking Minnesota State,” she said. “Matthew keeps in touch with him.”

Pedro, Penny’s boyfriend last year, had been a little harsh during their breakup, but, overall, he was a good guy, and I was glad to hear he was doing well.

“Well, I’m driving back tonight,” Tina said, standing and stretching. “Are you two ready?” she asked Jinky and Shauna.

Once the others were gone, Jack grabbed his backpack from under the picnic table and removed a small, clear water bottle with an inch or so of brown sludge at the bottom.

“A gift,” he said.

I looked at it. It didn’t appear to be much more than a swallow and, well, nasty-looking.

“You shouldn’t have,” I said, not taking it.

He shook it at me expectantly.

“No, really,” I said.

He forced it into my unwilling hands. “You’re as stubborn as your afi, who, by the way, this is for.”

“For Afi?” I asked, confused.

“When I got there Friday night, you, Hulda, and Penny’s grandmother were so busy you didn’t even notice me. Hulda had dropped the other half of the apple she sliced into. I picked it up for her and brushed it off, and next thing I knew Leira was crying, and the crisis seemed to be over. And you know how I believe in an apple a day. Even if this was just a half, it seemed special. And your afi could stand a little boost, could he not? So I kept it and pressed it, figuring what the heck?”

“Thank you. Thank you,” I said, throwing my arms around Jack’s neck while holding the bottle aloft like something precious and fragile. So it wouldn’t be administered at a vortex while the universe’s powers were in flux, but it couldn’t hurt. And if anyone could cheat death out of an extra hand or two, it was Afi. Stubborn old coot!