Chapter Six
E very muscle begged for sleep as I stumbled through the café doors the following morning.
I hadn’t been so exhausted in years . I managed to get some rest, but only after hours of tossing and turning on the hard, dirty hardwood. And it was clearly early in the morning by then, because it felt like I’d been asleep for a whopping five minutes when Rowena knocked on my door.
“Good morning,” she greeted with a sly smile. Considering how dark it was outside, it sounded less like a friendly wake-up call and more like thinly veiled mockery.
I forced a grin, which felt more like my wolf form baring its teeth, and shuffled out the front door. I followed the witch to the café, lagging several steps behind for the ten-minute walk.
The fatigue was still hanging over me like a damp, heavy cloud once we finally made it through the back garden and into the café kitchen. Rowena hung her cloak on a nearby hanger, gesturing for me to do the same, and hid a chuckle behind her hand as I rubbed my bleary eyes.
“You really aren’t a morning person, are you?”
This time, I did bare my teeth at Rowena. Since I was in my human form, it was considerably less intimidating than I would’ve liked, and the witch simply crinkled her nose and strolled away toward the kitchen door.
“Let me know if you need anything,” she said with a wave as she disappeared into the café.
“Uh…”
Once again, I was left alone in the kitchen, with no guidance, no instructions, and no idea what to make.
This time though, I wasn’t going to let my anxiety pile up until my ears and tail popped out.
Instead, I strolled brazenly through the kitchen door, letting it swing behind me, and peered around the dimly lit café.
A teapot was already boiling on the hot plate, which I assumed was the work of Mavro, and Rowena was crouched next to the fireplace with a box of matches.
“Sadly, Mavro is my only bonded fire elemental,” Rowena explained as I stepped closer.
Her voice startled me. She hadn’t turned around since I entered the front part of the café, and I hadn’t realized she was aware of my presence.
“Since he’s busy with the tea, I have to turn to old-fashioned means for this darn fireplace. ”
I watched as she stuck the first match, which fizzled out before she could get the thick logs to light.
She plucked newspapers from a pile and stuffed them into the fireplace, pressing the second match against the ink-stained paper.
I caught a glimpse of the front-page headline – Werewolf Frenzy Threatens Halloween Night Festivities – before it was promptly consumed by the hungry flames.
With the fire now content to burn unassisted, Rowena stood up and turned around, brushing dust off the bottom of her black dress.
“Need anything?” she asked.
“Yes, uh…” Calm. Be calm. No ears and tail popping out today. “I was just wondering what you’d like me to make today. More scones? Cookies? A pie?”
Rowena raised a dark, slender eyebrow. “You had a recipe book back there, didn’t you?”
I froze. I had left my grandmother’s cookbook on the kitchen counter overnight.
Not that it was an issue Rowena saw it, since it was just an ordinary cookbook that had nothing to do with my werewolf heritage.
What made me curse myself was the fact I’d left it behind.
It was one of my most treasured belongings, and I needed to be more careful so I didn’t lose it for good.
“Yes, I do.”
Rowena brushed past me and walked behind the counter, checking the temperature of the teapot. “Today, make whatever you’d like. Whatever you’re best at. We can determine a more routine menu once we get customers flowing back in here.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Sounds good. Thanks.”
I walked back into the kitchen and leaned my torso over the counter, pressing my weight into my elbows to keep me upright.
I was tired. So tired that once I opened my grandmother’s recipe book, which was still at the end of the counter where I left it, I could barely read her scratchy handwriting.
The words all blurred together into an inky mess.
There was a tiny mirror above the sink, and as I splashed cold water on my face and looked at my reflection, I realized how large and dark the bags under my eyes were.
Ugh. I need coffee.
I knew Rowena was a tea enthusiast, but there had to be coffee somewhere in this kitchen. It was a café, after all.
Doesn’t the word café literally mean coffee? I pondered as I scrounged through the upper cabinets. I found plenty of baking supplies, including a large bag of chocolate chips – something that was difficult to acquire on Hollenboro – but no coffee.
I hated the idea of bothering Rowena again. But I also hated the idea of going without my morning dose of caffeine. So, I strolled back through the kitchen door, walked up to the front counter, and asked Rowena if she had any coffee grounds.
She wrinkled her nose, as if I’d just asked for a cup of boiled dirt. “Um… no.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“But this is a café. Doesn’t that mean coffee in some faraway human language?”
“In French it does, yes. But this is a tea shop. We only serve tea here.”
My mouth opened, then snapped shut. I wanted to argue that a café should serve coffee since it was literally what it meant, but I was too distracted pondering what “French” was.
“I see how it is,” Rowena huffed as she swept past me and lifted the boiling teapot off the hot plate. “You’re one of those uncouth folks who think coffee is superior to tea.”
“I never said that, but…”
“I’m not wrong.”
“Uh, well… yes. Coffee is better than tea.”
Rowena turned around, and I thought she was going to smite me with one of her witch spells right then and there. It was a horrible idea to be arguing with my employer about something so trivial, but saying tea was better felt so wrong . Coffee was clearly the superior beverage.
“Coffee has a higher caffeine content, yes, but that also means it can cause anxiety and increased heart rate,” Rowena explained as she poured herself a cup of Earl Grey.
She spoke with a heavy, authoritative tone, as if she were some renowned scholar of drinks.
“It’s also not recommended for people with high blood pressure, heart problems, or trouble sleeping. ”
“But, uh… coffee tastes better.”
“According to who?”
“Um… me?”
Rowena rolled her eyes, taking a long, slurpy sip of her hot tea. “You know what, fine. Have your preference for your unpleasant bean water. But here, we serve tea. That’s the end of it.”
I exhaled sharply, my nostrils flaring. “ Fine . And you can have your preference for bitter leaf juice.”
Rowena’s eyebrows furrowed, as if I’d just uttered some grave insult, and she turned toward her teapot and teacups.
“Just get to baking, human.” She huffed with her back turned to me. “It’s what you do best. Leave the drinks to me.”
Fine. I couldn’t argue with that. Baking truly was what I did best.
Even if Rowena won’t let me keep coffee in the café, I’ll find it somewhere in this village , I plotted a few minutes later as I stood in front of the kitchen counter, once again hovering over my recipe book.
Strangely, our little argument had given me a newfound burst of energy.
Maybe I couldn’t persuade Rowena that coffee was good, but I could at least fill the café’s pastry case with the best baked goods in all of Wisteria Grove.
I flipped through the recipe book, careful not to tear the decades-old parchment, and eyed the giant bag of chocolate chips peeking out of the upper cabinet.
I knew exactly what I was going to make.
Lined up in front of me, sprawled out on baking sheets all the way across the counter, were dozens of baked goods. And they were all made with chocolate chips.
Cookies. Muffins. Scones. Even whoopie pies with chocolate chips in the filling, although they’d turned out lopsided and messy.
Between all the baking sheets, the counter was dotted with sugar, flour, and globs of stray whoopie pie filling.
Mavro was sniffing a chocolate chip that had fallen on the floor, and I promptly shooed him away.
I had no idea if weasel-shaped fire elementals could eat chocolate without getting sick, and I didn’t want to find out.
The little weasel did, however, scowl at me when I helped myself to one of the slightly misshapen chocolate chip cookies. They were thick and chewy, just the way I liked them, and I laughed as Mavro let out a disapproving squeak.
“What? It’s just one cookie.”
His flames intensified until they were nearly glowing white.
“Alright, alright. I’ll give you an extra piece of charcoal if you stay quiet.”
Ten minutes and one happy, charcoal-bribed fire elemental later, I loaded the cooled sweets into the pastry case with Mavro on my shoulder.
I prayed Rowena wouldn’t notice I overfed him.
Thankfully, she was far too enthralled with the full pastry case to notice the weasel licking charcoal dust off his fiery little mouth.
“This is fantastic!” Rowena exclaimed, clapping her hands together. I smiled. It was the most excited I’d seen her since arriving in Wisteria Grove.
“How do they look?” I asked.
Rowena reached into the glass case and pulled out a cookie. She took a large bite, chewing for several seconds with a contemplative expression on her face.
“Well, they taste delicious,” Rowena replied, licking chocolate off her lips.
“So that brings me to my next question…” I frowned. “How are we going to persuade people I’m a kitchen witch? I can’t exactly cast a spell on these.”
Rowena nodded, swallowing before she spoke. “Oh, I have a plan for that. Have you ever heard of something called the Placebo Effect?”
“Uh… no.”
“It’s a human-made concept. It means if someone thinks a remedy or cure will fix them, it actually will fix them. Simply because they believed it would.”
“And that works?”