A Dash of Demon
Author: J.-F. Dubeau; Amy Frost
Date: 2026-06-16 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Paranormal; Mystery; Fantasy; Adult
Description: Miriam DuFour is at the end of her rope. Kicked out of cooking school and living in her ex-boyfriend’s apartment, nothing in her life seems to be going right. That is until she inherits the estate of her dead great-grandaunt: a little café in the forgotten town of Achewillow. Intent on selling the business and using the money to make a fresh start, Miriam visits Achewillow and discovers that the village sits firmly on the border between Vermont and Quebec. But that isn’t remotely the strangest thing about the place. There’s a cloud worshipping cult, a widow with a ghost husband, immortal racco
Publisher: Inkshares

A DASH OF

DEMON

ACHEWILLOW: BOOK 1

J-F. Dubeau and Amy Frost

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2026 J-F. Dubeau and Amy Frost

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

Published by Inkshares, Inc., Oakland, California
www.inkshares.com

Cover design by Lynne Hansen, lynnehansen.zenfolio.com

Illustrations by Matthew Sargent, www.skippinginfinity.com

Chapter headers by J-F. Dubeau

Interior design by Kevin G. Summers

ISBN: 9781950301836
e-ISBN: 9781950301843

LCCN: 2026937277

First edition

Printed in Canada

Table of Contents

1. A DASH OF DEMON

GRAVESTONES TO MILESTONES

THE ROAD TO ACHEWILLOW

STEAMPUNK MONSTROSITY

OPEN FOR BUSINESS . . . SORT OF

MISTAKES WERE MADE

THE COMFORT OF SACRED SPACES

THE KILLER AT THE DOOR

ENTER THE INQUISITION

THE NAME OF THE DEAD

SANCTUMS

CAVALRY ON A DARK HORSE

THE PENDULUM OF BROKEN CHOICES

THE HUNGERING NIGHT

THE NEXT RECIPE

NOT WITHOUT BREAKING A FEW EGGS

2. HOLIDAY SPECIAL

A MOST CANADIAN HAUNTING

3. recipes

ORANGE POPPY SEED HONEY Cake

Coffee Cake Muffins

Butter Pecan Sandies

Miriam’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pistachio-Marzipan PetitS Fours
acknowledgments

Achewillow Citizens

Also by J-F. Dubeau
inkshares

1

GRAVESTONES TO MILESTONES

I like to think of myself as a romantic.

That doesn’t make me an idiot, though.

Don’t mistake my use of the term romantic to mean I’m all about trite clichés like long walks on the beach and bubble baths by candlelight. I do love all that stuff, but that’s not what I mean when I say I’m a hopeless romantic.

I’m a romantic because I love to dream, and I let those dreams get the better of me. I look at the horizon of life, and all I see are welcoming shores and a lush island paradise. I don’t get into a relationship because I want a summer fling. I do it because I’m looking for a life partner, an accomplice, and someone who’ll follow me to the tail end of my twilight years in a retirement home. I didn’t go to cooking school so I could be a sous chef at some random pop-up restaurant in downtown Montreal. I don’t want a food truck. I slave away at these dumb classes, do the dumb assignments, and listen to my dumb teachers because I’m going to have a five-star restaurant—No! A chain of five-star restaurants, with locations in Paris, LA, and New York. When I die (with my life partner in that retirement home), my name will live on as the name of a legendary dish beloved the world over.

I’m hopeless because no matter how often life tells me these dreams are the stuff of fantasy, I get back up and toss myself at them again.

My mother used to say, Miriam, you’re mistaking stupidity for perseverance. And I used to believe her. That’s not fair, though. Stupidity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. When I got refused at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, I signed up for the Institut de Tourisme et d’Hôtellerie du Québec in Montreal. Not as prestigious an establishment, but all I’m looking for is a diploma. With that, I can secure an apprenticeship, and I’ll be on my way. When I’m done, Le Cordon Bleu will be begging me to give classes. And I will say non.

So, as hopeless and romantic as I may be, I’m no idle dreamer.

Every day I get up, get showered, and get dressed. When I’m scheduled to work, I put on the green apron, I smile, and I serve caffeine and sugar to fellow students and dullards alike. I pull my shifts with as much enthusiasm as can be expected from a human machine whose function it is to provide fake cheer and chemical alertness.

When I’ve got classes, I drag myself there, too. Drag might not be the right word. I love the kitchen. Even the classroom kitchen at school. I’m at home in any kitchen. If I believed in magic and destiny, I’d think that kitchens and I have a mystical bond. It’s like invisible ribbons are growing out of me, connecting me to every counter, stove, and oven in the world. They’re more than rooms and appliances, but extensions of my own self.

See? A romantic.

But classes are little more than a formality. I can make a soufflé as easily as I draw breath. Or layer a mille-feuille with as little effort as you’d need to make a bed. I have a lot more fun with pastries and fancy cakes, which I suppose is what’s expected of a girl like me in the kitchen. But I can roast a lamb to perfection and caramelize veggies with the best of them. Simply put, I do by instinct what my teachers required years to learn.

And they hate me for it.

Which, I suppose, is why I’m here, sitting in Dean Mack’s office. Again.

“Ms. DuFour, we have got to stop meeting like this.”

The old man who runs the Institute is trying to make light of the situation, but I can see in his pale, tired eyes that this is serious.

“I didn’t start it,” I explain. I sound like a child, but it’s true.

“You called Chef Gagnon ‘pedestrian and incompetent.’ Need I remind you that he is your teacher and mentor?”

“He tore me apart in front of the whole class. Called my coq au vin ‘school cafeteria chicken broth.’ That’s completely unfair! The recipe he’s shoving down our throat isn’t only uninspired, it’s barely edible. So, I showed a bit of imagination and flair and tried to improve on his catastrophe. Is that a reason to humiliate me in front of my peers?”

The Dean’s eyes narrow. I can see him struggling to disagree with me. We’ve done this dance before. I know he agrees with me that Gagnon acts like he’s some reality television star. He belittles students on a regular basis, as if stepping on the heads of those under his charge is the only way to elevate himself.

“Chef Gagnon is a reputable teacher and chef. You should have been honored to be counted among his students, Ms. DuFour. He even said, after your application exam, that you were a promising baker. We’ve talked about this; he’s been demanding with you because he knows what you’re capable of.”

“Of course he thinks I’m a promising baker!” I roll my eyes. “Because I’m a woman, I bet he thinks all I’m good for is making eclairs and—wait. ‘Should have been’?”

This was another dance we’d shared countless times. Gagnon loves me. Gagnon thinks the world of my skills. He thinks I’m so gosh-darned talented. As a baker, of course. Then I ask why he keeps taking the piss out of me. Occasionally I spice it up by mentioning my suspicion that he’s actually jealous. Then there’s the threat of suspension, I get a warning, and we’re all on our way. But something’s different this time around.

“What do you mean, ‘should have been’?” My voice shakes as I speak the question.

“You’ve had sufficient warnings, Ms. DuFour, and Chef Gagnon has made it clear that he will no longer teach you. His class is a prerequisite for graduation, so that leaves you, and us, very few options. I’m afraid I have to expel you from the Institute.”

My vision narrows, contracted to a tunnel by the implication. Is he kicking me out of school?

“Wait. I can learn to bite my tongue. Hell, I’ll even follow his stupid recipes. I’ll even apologize! Don’t kick me out. I need this diploma!”

I loathe the desperation in my voice. Like a different kind of child, one with no agency or self-respect. I feel stripped of pride, begging for the right to learn.

“These are old promises, Ms. DuFour. You can’t expect to insult a teacher through a whole semester and not face some kind of repercussions.”

“I didn’t insult him.” I say those words, but I already know it’s a lie the Dean can call me on. And he does.

“You said, and I quote: ‘It’s true what they say; those who can’t do, teach,’ followed by something about how he uses too much flour. Chef Gagnon doesn’t teach because he’s incapable of a career in the field, Miriam. He owns two successful restaurants in Montreal and one in Quebec.”

And I’ll have that many in LA and New York, I seethe with quiet contempt.

I can’t anger my way out of this, though. And I’ve already negotiated way past the point of tolerance. I’ve spent all the goodwill I was going to get from the Dean, and Gagnon never had much to spare.

I walk out of the Dean’s office in something of a daze. I have—had—a baking class that started half an hour ago, and I feel like I should be running there, hoping I haven’t missed too much. I loved the baking class. Easy credits.

Instead, I find myself stepping outside into the sun. The weather has no right being so hot this late in September. My mood demands a dramatic rainfall, or even a thunderstorm; instead, I get sweltering humidity. Even the sky is turning its back on me.

I guess I should go home, though the apartment I’m living in barely qualifies anymore. A quick look at the time tells me that if I go back to the apartment now, Trev will still be there. And if he’s there, then that boyfriend-stealing bitch Cindy will be there. I don’t know if I have the patience for her right now. It’s enough that I have to deal with a brand-new catastrophe without having to stare the fallout of the previous one in the face. I’d be liable to toss her, or myself, or both of us, off the third-floor balcony.

I’m barely down the subway steps and already regretting the thought. Cindy’s fine. As far as boyfriend-stealing bitches go, she’s been far too kind and understanding. At times, it helps me get through it, and other times, I want to strangle her with her stupid blond braid.

Sneaking into the apartment unnoticed is impossible. The front door opens directly into the living room, and the lock makes a deafening racket. Plus, noise echoes through the stairwell, heralding the arrival of guests and roommates. Sometimes, I get lucky, and Trevor and Cindy are still in Trev’s room, and I can walk in unnoticed. I want to barricade myself in my own room and sink into a cave of self-pity for the next decade. Avoiding conversation is best for everyone involved.

The problem with my room, though, is that it’s a lair of chaos. A mountain of packed boxes, piled high on the far wall, foretells a move that’s taking too long to happen. My desk is covered in a thick forest of disposable cups from half a dozen cafés and coffee shops. The variety of shapes and sizes gives the ensemble a near-artistic quality. Move my unaltered desk into a modern art gallery, and it looks like an installation piece. A commentary on addiction and the desperate state of the rat race. Here, it’s a reminder that I drink too much coffee and am too lazy to throw out the empty containers.

Lost somewhere in the myriad cups sits my virus-stricken laptop. Like some geriatric patient in a hospital, immune system too weak to fend off even the most benign illness, the poor thing is falling apart. It would be a catastrophe if it were to give up the ghost since it’s my only link to the digital world. I have a smartphone, I guess, but it’s not that smart, and with a limited data plan, I have to rely on the goodwill of public Wi-Fi.

There’s a lump in my throat as I trace back why I’m still relying on antiquated gadgets. I can’t afford new toys. I don’t have a good job, and I’m saddled with student loans. I can’t get a better job without finishing the program I just got kicked out of, and I still have to pay a chunk of the tuition.

At the very least, I can request more hours from the coffee shop until I figure out what to do next. The distraction and extra bulk to my paycheck are as good a way to cope as any. Especially if it gets me out of this goddamn apartment.

I’m greeted by a dozen emails, most of them spam I don’t know how to rid myself of. All I want is to log onto the coffee shop’s HR portal and update my availability. But right there—between a warning to “upgrade my information” for a bank I don’t do business with and a so-called long-lost rich cousin promising me a fortune in broken English—waits a message from my supervisor.

On average, she sends emails on training, for new products, and whatever promotion is happening the following week.

“Miriam, I’m sorry to inform you that during the repaving of the street in front of the café, we won’t be open past seven p.m. All evening hours are getting cut, and because the owner is trying to keep every employee, everyone will lose between five and eight hours a week. On the positive side, this will free up time for your studies, and we remain as flexible for you and your schedule as always. Take care. Laura.”

Empty paper cups go flying across my bedroom, some falling to the hardwood floor in a clatter, others landing quietly on my unmade bed. Unsatisfied, I let out a scream of frustration. Half rage and half despair, but all volume. It’s taking every ounce of self-restraint not to knock my laptop to the floor with the cups.

I don’t even like the work. I don’t mind the customers or even the majority of my coworkers, but I hate making the stupid espressos and Americanos. I especially loathe serving pre-made sandwiches and pre-cooked chili from plastic containers. I’m Miriam DuFour! One day my name will adorn the menu of the most prestigious dining establishments in the world. Tupperware containers filled with freezer-burned ground beef and canned tomatoes are beneath me.

But I need that job. If not for the money, then for the few remaining crumbs of self-esteem scattered on the dish of my life. I still have it, but with so few hours, I’ll have to start hunting for something different. I’ve no desire to keep living with my ex and his new girlfriend, which means shopping for a new apartment I can’t afford. Moving back with my parents remains an option, but the cost in pride would be unthinkable.

By the time there’s a knock on the door, I’m not sure if I’ve been asleep or weeping for a minute. All I know for sure is that my face is wet, and my spirit broken like a shattered dish, pieces strewn across the floor amid the empty coffee cups.

“Mim?”

It’s Cindy.

Her pretty blue eyes peer from a crack in the door, wide with concern and worry. I both want to punch her for being herself and leap into her arms for being there for me.

Cindy is the worst kind of person. The kind that sneaks into your life, making a nest in the middle of your day-to-day without you noticing. Like a bad parasitic infestation, by the time you realize she’s there, it’s too late. She’s taken over your existence, moved into your home, and stolen your boyfriend. And you thank her for it.

I can never decide if she’s manipulative and devious by design or simply too good-natured to hate. Usually, I’m happy despising her. It gives me a convenient target to vent my frustrations, muttering to myself on the way to and from school.

Today, I can’t find it in me to detest her as she deserves. The pretty little homewrecker is there for me, and for once, I’m glad of it.

“You okay, Mim?”

I can’t even hate her for the stupid nickname.

“I’m fine.”

It’s such a dumb, blatant lie. The kind you say when you’re begging for a follow-up question. Cindy indulges because, of course, she does.

“That scream earlier didn’t sound fine at all,” she says, letting herself in. For the first time in months, I’m self-conscious about my living conditions.

“They cut my hours at work.”

I try to make it sound like it’s not that big a deal. I can’t stand to have Cindy pity me, but at the same time, I don’t know that I want to be alone, either.

“Ouch,” she says, now sitting on my bed among the dirty clothes, picking up empty cups. “You want me to keep an eye out in case I see something else? We were looking for a receptionist at the clinic, but I don’t know if that would work with your school schedule. I can always ask if they could use a part-timer.”

There she goes, being generous and thoughtful. I’d probably hate working at her clinic. She’s an intern, shadowing a psychologist while working on her thesis, but I’d have to see her cheerful face every day. I bet the pay is fantastic, though. And I wouldn’t have to serve watery frozen chili anymore.

“Doesn’t matter. They kicked me out of school, too.”

She makes a face as if the news is a physical blow, cringing and wincing at the same time. It’s so sincere that for a moment I want to comfort her!

“Got into it with that teacher again?”

“Yup! Chef Gagnon. This time I went too far, it seems. He didn’t so much kick me out as refuse to teach me anymore, which might as well be the same thing.”

“Are they going to reimburse your tuition?”

“Does it even freaking matter?” I snap.

Cindy looks hurt. On any other day, I would have taken that as a victory. Tonight, I’m overwhelmed with remorse.

“I’m sorry,” I say, contrite. “It matters. And the Dean says I’ll be partially reimbursed for the classes I can’t complete.”

I feel like absolute crap. Everything is falling apart. I’m even contemplating moving back in with my parents, a blow to the ego that would end me. Yet, I bite the hand of the one person who reaches out.

Then I notice it.

Cindy’s holding something.

“Oh!” She follows my eyes, settling on the thick ochre envelope between her fingers. She seems to be discovering it again for the first time. The thick paper has seen better days. Bits of tape to keep it from falling apart and a collection of stuck-on addresses and postage information testify to its long and storied life.

“Maybe this is good news?” Cindy says, handing over the envelope.

My fingers tremble as I grab it. I’m at the end of my rope, and it’s difficult to keep up any pretense. But also, there’s something ominous about the thick package. I can see stains, like a coffee ring on the back, and tears at the corner from wear rather than damage. How long has this thing been traveling? What has this envelope seen?

Why is it here, in my hands, my name written in elegant letters on top of a fresh, white sticker?

I connect with the used-up nature of the paper. I can feel it sympathize with my own rips and scratches and stains. I stare down, reluctant to rip it further and see what’s inside. If it’s anything like me, all I’ll find are more tears waiting to escape.

“I’ll leave you alone to open it,” Cindy says. I recoil only a little when she puts her hand on my shoulder. “I sent Trev out to get dinner. He’ll be gone for a while still. If you need me, I’ll be in the living room, and we can talk.”

I don’t answer. What am I supposed to say? I can’t decide if I’m spiteful or thankful toward her for stealing Trevor away. I can’t bring myself to think of her as a friend, even though she’s everywhere in my life. I hate that I can’t hate her.

I run my thumb over the letters of my name. My full name: Miriam Antoinette DuFour. The slight relief of dried ink rubs against the pads of my finger. I try to make out the previous destination through the sticker, but the blurry letters tell me only that they were written by the same hand.

That person, if the envelope can be trusted, is one Helen Edna, notary public. I can think of very few professions that can send correspondence as ominous as a notary public. The amused fatalism of a minute ago cedes its place to full-on dread. I was right to think this is more bad news.

I get my filet knife from the kitchen to cut through the layers of tape that hold the envelope closed. Careful not to ruin the contents, I run the blade to create a clean opening. There’s a thick stack of papers inside, heavy with the threat of calamity. Reams of documents held together with staples and paperclips. There’s more hardware in here than in a flat-pack desk.

It’s all small print and legal jargon. Lines of bullets cover the pages like victims of a drive-by shooting. On each piece of paper, either at the top, hidden in text, or at the bottom next to a line crowned by an elegant signature, the name Helen Edna.

The deeper I dive through the stack, the more yellowed and dog-eared each document becomes. It’s an archaeological dig of notarized platitudes.

I flip back to the top page, white as virgin snow. Even the folds are crisp and neat. Apart from addresses, titles, and introductions, there is very little to the message.

Dear Ms. DuFour,

It is with great sadness that I inform you of the passing of Ms. Doris Colette DuFour.

Doris was taken peacefully by a stroke on the night of April seventeenth of this year in her home in Achewillow, Vermont/Quebec.

Attached you will find the specifics of her last will and testament, along with details of her inheritance. After going down the line of succession, Doris’s full estate has come to be in your name.

To receive the goods listed in the inheritance document, please schedule an appointment at my offices as soon as convenient. Should you wish to decline, please return the enclosed package, in its entirety, to sender.

Who the hell is Doris DuFour?

This feels like a terrible mistake. Somehow, someone mixed up some paperwork, and because of the similar name, this important document was sent to me.

It’s a painful reminder that there are worse tragedies in life than getting kicked out of school or losing a bad boyfriend. But it comes wrapped in a yellow envelope of false hope.

An inheritance. How fortunate a turn of events would that be? It wouldn’t take much. A few thousand dollars to wipe out a chunk of my student loans. Enough to afford to move with a little time to find a new job and a new purpose. What if it were enough to study abroad? Start fresh in another cooking school in New York or LA? Hell, I’d study in Miami if it meant I could keep cooking.

My hands lockstep with my thoughts in their curiosity. Before I can stop myself, my fingers have already flipped through several stapled piles of paper.

Each starts with the same cover letter, promising an inheritance while offering the possibility to refuse. A privilege that has been popular among the half dozen or so people in the line of succession before me.

The names are all a little familiar. When they don’t straight up have DuFour inserted somewhere, they strike a chord deep in my memory. Like long-lost uncles or aunts I haven’t seen since I was a toddler.

At the bottom of the pile, I get to the main course. There, on a simple page, is the bulleted list of items included in Doris DuFour’s inheritance. The sum total of her earthly belongings.

With only seven bullet points, it outlines the parts and parcels of a piece of real estate: the building itself, the café on the ground floor, and the second-floor apartment.

Each item is listed twice. Once in the State of Vermont, and again in the Province of Quebec. The seventh bullet isn’t an item but a provision: whoever accepts the inheritance must operate the business.

It sounds very exciting on the surface. My own café. I imagined a little place on the Plateau, here in Montreal. A perfect springboard from which to build my name. I could rename it after myself and change its vocation to suit my ambitions. From peddling coffee and pastries, it could shift to offering gourmet meals and fancy but efficient lunches. It would be my own little laboratory to experiment with what would one day become my signature dishes.

Except the address isn’t anywhere near Montreal, or any other reasonable city. It’s in Achewillow.

Where the hell is Achewillow?

Wherever it is, I doubt it can offer anything to support my ambitions. No one builds a culinary empire from a coffee shop nestled between two farms. I can picture it now: an old truck stop with art deco furniture. A Coca-Cola clock from the fifties behind a counter lined with red leather stools. A glass bell with a fresh-baked apple pie next to a mechanical register. Maybe they have a signed photograph of some mid-level celebrity who ate there once a few decades ago. I’m sure the Achewillow Café is very quaint and serves a killer cheeseburger, but it’s the last place I ever want to be.

Still. . .

Even at a loss, a property like that has got to be worth a few bucks. Enough to pay my loans, I’m sure. Even if I only broke even on the deal, it’d be worth going through the paperwork. It’s not my adorable little bistro on Saint-Denis Boulevard, but it could be the fresh start I need right now.

I wake my geriatric laptop. Maybe it’s old enough to remember a lost little city like Achewillow. In the end, it’s the internet I ask.

Information is scarce and anything but reassuring.

Achewillow’s website looks like a fossil from the dawn of the web. A top banner shows a photo of a quaint little town nestled between forests and fields, a church with two steeples dropped in the middle. There’s a vertical menu on the left with more information about the village, a map, and a way to return to the home page. The map looks incomplete and lacking in detail, while the information page is little more than a promotional paragraph for their annual apple festival.

Geographically, it seems to be located on the border between the United States and Canada, deep in Quebec’s south. Does the café have two locations? One on each side of the border? That would be twice the properties to sell.

Trying to find out more, I go back to my initial search and uncover a couple of news articles. Where I was expecting a sleepy town where nothing happens, I’m surprised to find that Achewillow has a story to tell.

Over the last few months, three bodies have been found near the small village. There’s precious little information available. No names or cause of death, only that foul play is suspected and that the police are looking for clues on both sides of the border.

That’s it. No information on the victims’ genders, ages, or any other details. Either Achewillow’s so small that happenings there are like a whisper in the news cycle, or someone’s doing a good job keeping things quiet.

Despite—or maybe because of—the air of mystery surrounding the small town, I find myself looking for a ride south. I figure I can take advantage of my reduced hours and have a look at this inheritance. If I skip a meal or two, I can afford to pay for gas and get myself to Achewillow.

I post my message on SadlBag, a ride-sharing website. I lean back, thinking it could take a week before I find someone willing to make the trip. After all, there can’t be that many people going back and forth between Montreal and Achewillow. Hell, what are the chances of anyone making that direct trip?

I let my mind wander, now that it’s no longer pulling me back to my wreckage of a day. Instead, it lingers on the idea of owning a café in a small town. My brain tries to figure out who Doris DuFour was and if she is indeed a relative. I’m tempted to call Mom and ask what she knows, but then she’d ask how I’m doing, and I’d have to confess to another failure. I’m not ready to do that.

For a moment, I wonder if I’m even allowed to inherit a property. I’m nineteen and therefore an adult, but are there restrictions I’m not aware of?

I’m about to dig into a fresh search to find out more when a notification pops up.

It’s from the ride-sharing website.

Going to Achewillow tomorrow. Leaving from Place Versailles at seven in the morning. Be happy to give you a ride.

Gulliver

That happened a lot faster than I thought it would. And it is much too convenient. Any reasonable woman would decline or even delete the original request. What are the chances someone would be going to Achewillow of all places? And hanging out on the same ride-sharing board I decided to use? If movies have taught me anything, it’s that going to Place Versailles tomorrow at seven, hours before the mall opens, would end up with me dead, like those three victims in Achewillow.

Awesome!

I’ll spring for gas for the trip. How do I know which car is yours?

Miriam

After all I’ve been through today and over the last few weeks, I’m anything but reasonable. I am a romantic, after all, and what romantic wouldn’t take some risk for a bit of adventure?

Intoxicated on purpose, I start picking up the coffee cups that litter my floor and bed. It takes a few trips to get them all in the kitchen’s recycling bin, but I get it done.

That makes two victories in one night. Ever since opening that envelope, I feel a new sense of hope and exhilaration. Even if this whole thing ends up being a waste of time—or worse, a scam—at least I have something to look forward to.

I run my finger along the handle of the filet knife absent-mindedly. The filet knife, along with all the other kitchen utensils, pots and pans, mixers, and measuring cups, are the only things that belong to me in the apartment.

I pull the knife out of the block and appraise the edge. It’s as sharp as a razor’s. I try to keep my knives keen enough to cut through bone, and this one is no different.

I never hear Trevor come back. Instead, I put my earphones in and turn on some soothing music. I force myself to get as much sleep as possible so I can make my way to Place Versailles in the morning. Wouldn’t want to miss my ride to my potential inheritance with a potential murderer.

Knowing my filet knife is hidden in my purse helps me find slumber; I may be a romantic, but that doesn’t make me an idiot.

2

THE ROAD TO ACHEWILLOW

I don’t like strangers.

I know everyone says that, or at least every introvert I know says that, but I mean it more in the sense that I’m scared out of my wits when I meet new people.

Not that I have any more reason than anyone else. At five feet and five inches, I’m technically taller than the average woman. I spend my days cutting meat and kneading dough, so my upper body strength is rather remarkable. Most important, though, I’m boring-looking. I don’t look like I have anything worth stealing, and I’m almost invisible in a crowd. Brown-haired, sun-deprived young adults are a dime a dozen.

But being boring-looking would also make it easy to dispose of my remains. Being unremarkable cuts both ways, I suppose. Which is why I’m showing up to meet my ride with my eight-inch filet knife in my purse.

To be honest, I’m more liable to hurt myself while fishing around for my keys than successfully defend myself from an assailant. But I feel safe knowing it’s there.

I should have been more worried about my promise to pay for gas.

The guy said he had deliveries to make in Achewillow. I assumed he had an SUV, or maybe a minivan. But the only thing in the parking lot at Place Versailles is an enormous eighteen-wheeler. I hold out hope for a moment that the SUV is behind the huge truck. But the guy standing next to the cab, waving in my direction, confirms this is my ride.

He’s huge: a solid six feet, four inches, with broad shoulders and a construction worker’s build—not so much athletic as raw power. He’s waving his arm in the air with the exuberance of a child at a parade.

I’m tempted to abort, to turn around and leave. I can’t afford to fill up a truck that size. Though that will hardly matter if I end up dead on the side of a forgotten Quebec back road. The whole thing was a bad idea. There’s a reason all those other presumed relatives passed on inheriting the café. And even if I’m pigheaded enough to find out why, I don’t have to take a ride from a serial killer, or, at the very least, a complete weirdo.

Even from this distance, I can see the goofy smile on his face. Grinning teeth making up a grin as bright as it looks sincere. He looks so happy to see me, I can’t bring myself to turn tail and run. Can I?

Before I know it, I’m already within twelve feet of the cab. The truck is even bigger up close. How much gas does one of these things consume? Two? Three gallons per kilometer?

It looks like a well-maintained machine, though. The trailer, while generic enough, is clean and rust-free. Which is a feat considering the weather up here. It doesn’t have any markings or brands, so I assume the driver is a freelancer or something. The cab is a faded tomato-red. Also clean, but without any of the modern design notes newer trucks have. No rounded edges or streamlined headlights. The name Eddie G. is stenciled onto the door in black in a god-awful font.

“BakingMim?” he asks in a thick, deep voice. He could narrate horror movies with that voice.

“Miriam is fine. Eddie G.?” I ask timidly.

He laughs. At least his laugh is honest and friendly, in line with his exuberant wave. He laughs deep and from the back of the throat, eyes closed, and chin raised high.

“The ‘G’ is for ‘Gulliver,’ my middle name. ‘Eddie’ stands for ‘Edmund,’ but I hate the way that sounds. You ready to go?”

“About that.” I take another look at the truck’s size. “I don’t know how much it costs to fill that thing up, but wouldn’t I be better off renting a car at that point?”

He laughs again, like I said the silliest thing. The way he tilts his whole head back when he laughs makes it look like the clouds are in on the joke. I know I’m not.

“Don’t worry, Miriam,” he reassures me, saying my name like he’s tasting a new flavor for the first time. “You won’t need to fill up the truck, just me when we stop for breakfast. Okay?”

I nod, but with his size, it may not be that much of a bargain.

Either way, it’s too late to turn around. Maybe the trip won’t bankrupt me after all, which only leaves the possibility of getting murdered.

Gulliver ends up eating as much as I assumed he would. Four eggs, five strips of bacon, two sausages, a slice of ham, some beans, four slices of toast with copious amounts of butter and jam, and a mountain of hash browns.

Thankfully, the truck stop we drop by once we leave the greater Montreal metropolitan area is as cheap as it gets. I get away with paying for both meals with a twenty-dollar bill.

It’s the exact kind of place I expect and dread to find in Achewillow. Busy, noisy, and more like a factory than a restaurant. The coffee is “damn good” because everything else on the menu is the same level of mediocre. Not that the eggs and bacon are bad, but they lack flair, imagination. There’s no magic here. It’s a place to pack in calories while reading the newspaper (they still have actual newspapers here!) or making small talk with the waitresses.

My driver has no small talk to offer, too busy shoveling breakfast into his mouth. We both stand out from the crowd. I’m the only woman not shuttling dishes, food, and coffee, while he’s the only man who isn’t a taciturn grump.

Once back on the road, I’m tempted to ask Gulliver about Achewillow. Has he been to the café? Some reassurance that it’s not the kind of place with bottomless cups of black coffee and all-you-can-eat baked beans would be nice. But what if it is? Ignorance is bliss until I know if I’ve wasted my time.

Instead, I fall back on inane platitudes.

“So, Gulliver, eh? How did that come about?

“Aha! Yeah, it’s a weird one for someone of my ancestry.” He waves a hand over his face like a game show hostess, punctuating his dark mahogany skin. “Dad was huge into old fiction. Jules Verne, Jonathan Swift, Charles Dickens. You get the idea. Mom wouldn’t let him name me after any of the characters, but she let him pick my middle name. Though how awesome would it have been if they’d named me Tiny Tim?”

He laughs at his own joke, one he must have told a thousand times, sitting tall in his seat, so that I don’t miss the punchline.

“Is that why you go by Gulliver? Subverts expectations?”

“Ha! Nah. My real name is unusable in polite society,” he says, then pauses for effect. “Edmund Kemper.”

His eyes shift from the road to gauge my reaction. If he was expecting shock, all I have for him is confusion.

“I’m sorry. I have no idea who that is.”

“Really? You’ve never heard of Ed Kemper?”

“I have not.”

At this point, he sounds like I told him I’d never seen the moon or an airplane. Whoever this Kemper guy is, he must be a big deal.

“It’s cool. It’s cool,” he says, sensing my frustration. “Maybe you’ve heard of his other name: the Co-ed Killer!”

Ugh. Here we go. This is how I die.

I clutch my purse, filet knife inside, close to me. If this guy has some Co-ed Killer fetish, he’s not making me part of it without a fight.

“The dude was huge and smart for a killer. Murdered ten people in under two years. Finished it off by killing his own mother and one of her friends, then turned himself in. For those who know, it’s a bit of a loaded name. So, I go by Gulliver. Would you have accepted the offer of a ride if that’s the stuff you—”

“All right! Enough. I get it.”

It’s rude, but I cut him off. I don’t know what to expect. Here I am, telling him to shut up in his own truck while he’s giving me a lift for a very reasonable price. He’d be within his rights to leave me by the side of the road.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t like true crime stuff. Serial killers give me nightmares. The less I know, the better.”

His lips tighten, and he nods to himself, eyes back on the road. I don’t know if he’s offended or disappointed, but at least he’s not talking about his namesake anymore.

A few minutes trickle away. The overcast sky finally releases its cargo of rain. Long wiper blades dance in front of us, clearing the windshield. The grip on my purse loosens, and my plans to reach for my filet knife fade away.

I’m about to start relaxing again when Gulliver turns to me, large grin on display.

“So, have you heard about the bodies in Achewillow?”

It’s with terse goodbyes and a half-sincere thank you that Gulliver and I part ways.

With all the anxiety of talking about serial killers and murders, I forgot to tell him where to drop me off. Not that I expected door-to-door service in his enormous truck.

The weather had been fine for the second half of the trip. The rain clouds quickly dispersed, revealing a magnificent white cumulus, enormous and bright in the midday sun. It remained in the sky, floating above Achewillow during the last leg of the drive.

The town is larger than I expected. Not by much, but it’s bigger than the forgettable crossroads the website makes it out to be.

While I wouldn’t call the place bustling, it doesn’t lack for life.

The main road, uncreatively named Rue Principale, is large enough to boast a narrow median strip. It serves as a modest downtown area with semi-detached buildings of various architectures. Ranging from postwar victory houses to eighties suburban designs, they’re all two- or three-stories high, most with businesses and stores on the ground floor.

Across the street, lined up in a neat procession, are six people wearing pure white robes, their long hair neatly braided. They look like they’re either from a theater group or a cult. Though, from my experience with the former, they’re not much different from the latter. Other locals nod and smile at them as they pass by, so their group must be relatively benign.

I walk past a few raccoon-crossing signs, which I’ve never seen before and makes me smile. Not even Mount Royal in Montreal, where it’s teeming with the animals, has those. I guess people of Achewillow are worried about running over raccoons more than the average community.

Closer to the middle of town, I notice two lines painted across some of the streets, on the sidewalk, and even on the sides of buildings. One is a sun-bleached red and the other a weathered blue, and they appear to bisect all of Achewillow.

The lines even cross a park, the paint replaced with inlaid stones: terra-cotta-hued for the red, cool slate for the blue. The park itself is an oddity. It’s not too big and not too small, its concentric design centering around a large tree stump. A stone dais and a ring of bushes frame the stump. The stone lines split to go around the bushes, creating their own circle. At each end of the delineation is a tall flagpole. On the blue side, a proud American flag billows in the wind. On the red side, a majestic Canadian flag waves across the sky.

Considering the logo of Achewillow is a strange, stylized tree, I assume this has some sort of local significance.

I’m more intrigued by the explicit national divide that splits downtown. Gulliver had explained how Achewillow sat on the border of the United States and Canada, but I didn’t realize he meant it literally. There are plenty of cities and towns that sit on the border. But I’d never heard of any place where one country ended and the other began without interrupting the city’s layout.

Looking like a fool, I walk up to the line and take a step into U.S. territory, then a step back into Canada. I go back and forth like this for a solid minute before the novelty wears off. Or before I realize I’m procrastinating.

Across the street from the park is a large Romanesque revival church. It has one steeple in the United States and another in Canada. The structure looms large over the trees.

No doubt, Achewillow is an odd duck of a town. From the old man on the corner holding a sign that reads Don’t worry. The end is a while still, to a street vendor selling faery wings (butterflies), it seems everywhere the eye lands, more strangeness awaits.

I have to admit, the street has some charm. It reminds me a little of Montreal, with businesses and storefronts on the ground floor and metal staircases leading to apartments above. The town is mostly stone walls and redbrick structures with old wooden-framed windows, with a handful of modern constructions here and there. My brother, an architecture student, would have a field day naming all the various features on display.

The offices of Helen Edna, notary public, are across the street and a little way down from the church. The building and sign stand out because of how boring they look. Not that I expect many eccentricities from a notary. But my short stroll through downtown has opened my mind to more interesting possibilities.

Unfortunately, Helen Edna is as boring as her office suggests. Lean and austere, her personality is as desaturated as the palette of her office. Short, ash-blond hair, meticulously combed, barely makes it to the collar of a beige blouse. She’s a carbon copy of a bank manager caricature.

“Ah. There it is,” she says, pointing at a line in the paperwork I’d brought with me. “You can’t sell the property.”

“Which one?”

She looks at me like I’m a moron who can’t figure out that fire is warm and water is wet. Her perfect posture makes me feel like I’m slouching despite my best efforts not to.

“The café,” she explains, putting slow emphasis on each word.

“Aren’t there two cafés?"

I snatch the papers back from her, flipping to the itemized list.

“There! One property, land and immovable, in Canada, and another in the United States.”

My sense of victory is short-lived. Helen Edna frowns at me like a concerned mother, but instead of a skinned knee, it’s my intellect she’s worried about.

“That’s one property.”

I stare back. Like a dunce, I spend far too long unable to figure out the obvious before it hits me.

“It’s on the national divide?”

“Yes,” she says, still impatient.

“So, whatever is built on the line can’t be sold, ever? That doesn’t make sense. What if I sell it as two properties?”

“You can’t do that. First of all, Doris made it clear that she didn’t want the property sold. Besides, even if you went around a dead woman’s wishes, there are technicalities to consider.”

I’m losing patience, and it shows. I frown and drum my fingers on her desk, leaning forward. If I can’t sell the property, I want a concrete reason why, not vagaries that lead to more questions than answers.

“It might be easier to show you in person,” she offers with a large helping of condescension.

I don’t know if it’s my intolerance for red tape, laws, or rules, but Helen Edna is visibly irritated with me. She frowns and gets up, impatiently gathering her papers. It could also be my lack of emotion at the passing of my great-grandaunt Doris that bothers her, but I can’t help it. I never knew Doris, and I’m not going to feign emotions for decorum’s sake. Besides, I’m just as annoyed with Helen as she is with me. Especially the way she’s looking down at me from her perfect little glass desk, with her gray diploma-covered walls and that perfect fern in the corner. I’m a goddess in an apron. I’m thunder and wind with a mixer and icing sugar. I bake macarons that make grown men weep. While I may not have gotten into the school I was hoping for, an acceptance at the Institute is nothing to sneeze at. I was selling cakes to neighborhood moms for their kids’ birthdays when I was still in high school. So, what if I don’t understand real estate? Cut me some slack, lady. I can only be breathtaking at so many things.

We leave her office, Helen Edna wearing a sharp navy business skirt with a matching jacket, a leather attaché in her left hand. I drag my feet, attempting to drink in as much of Achewillow as I can. She doesn’t bother to look behind, confident I’m keeping up or uncaring if I don’t. I assume we’re heading for her car, which I guess will be the most boring model of BMW sedan. Probably black-gray. But we walk instead.

I get to sample a little bit more of the village. There’s a sign for a bank farther down the road, and a small Italian restaurant across from the park. The smell of garlic and roasted tomatoes tells me that while not fancy, they probably serve a decent Bolognese. After a few blocks, we stop.

Gulliver’s truck is parked right there, monopolizing half of Rue Principale. I watch him for a full minute, pulling one stack of crates after another on a trolley. I recognize everything coming out of that truck. All the standard brands of supplies we used in school. Bulk ingredients like Five Roses flour by the box, butter by the tub, and sacks of raw sugar. I see the possibility of each load not for what it is, but what it can become, and my tongue traces my lips in anticipation.

Helen Edna is instead frozen in anger.

“Mr. Kemper! What do you think you’re doing?”

Gulliver (I refuse to call him Edmund after what he told me) stops, leans on his trolley, and flashes the notary his biggest, brightest smile.

“My job, Helen.”

“You have no business going inside that property and have no deliveries to make until succession has been finalized.”

“Doris paid for her deliveries until the end of fall and gave me a key. Unless someone takes possession and tells me otherwise, deliveries are getting made.”

Helen Edna retorts something, citing this or that code of law, but I’ve stopped listening.

While they bicker about food deliveries, I walk, slack-jawed, around the red cab of Gulliver’s truck.

And I see it for the first time.

The Achewillow Café.

It’s not a truck stop or a chrome-covered greasy spoon. No one here serves poutine or a quick burger and shake. Adjectives take to the arena and battle it out, with only the true champion able to describe the café. Is it quaint or elegant? Refined or rustic? Whatever it is, I can’t escape how charmed I am with the place.

The front door is crowned by an overhanging sign with the café’s name. Nothing so gaudy as a neon or backlit acrylic billboard. Rather, the letters are tastefully carved into painted wood. Discreet halogen lamps are mounted on both sides of the sign, keeping it visible at night.

The length of the façade is covered with glass, allowing in copious amounts of light when a truck isn’t in the way. There’s a small green awning above, but it’s mostly decorative and too small to be practical. It’s no Parisian bistro, but this place would be at home in any of the trendier neighborhoods of Montreal, like Notre-Dame-de-Grâce or the Old Port.

Stepping between stacks of boxes, I tiptoe across the threshold.

Sun pours through a large window that stretches the length of the front wall, putting the whole street on display for patrons. Dust particles dance in the white, warm beams. Neatly aligned tables with matching chairs flipped upside down line the edge of the dining area. The walls are painted a rich cream and crowned with intricate carved moldings, the hue of baguettes. The furniture upholstery is a dark pumpernickel, while the chair frames and tabletops are shades of rye. The only hue not borrowed from baked goods is a soft, muted green, like that of a weeping willow’s leaf at the height of summer. It wraps around the edge of the counter, adorns the gingham pattern of folded tablecloths set aside on a table, and gives a touch of life wherever the Achewillow’s logo can be found.

The argument and sounds from the street all fade away. I walk among tables like I’m navigating a dinner party with no set destination and trying not to touch anything.

For a moment, I indulge in running my index finger over the surface of the food counter. Dust lifts in my finger’s wake. I notice cobwebs around the register, and every glass in the display cabinet at the back is gray and dull.

A glass display case embedded into the counter sits barren but for a few rows of empty metal trays. I smell dust instead of butter and coffee and cinnamon. While everything is in pristine condition, no one has cleaned for a long while. The place looks gutted. What’s a coffee shop without food? Might as well have stripped it of its soul.

I stroll the floor as if I own the place (and really, don’t I?). Behind the counter are the kitchen doors. On the tiled floor, about a half inch wide, I find the red and blue painted lines that split Achewillow between two countries.

The lines continue into the kitchen, splitting it into even halves. It’s a decent kitchen, stocked with all the appliances and utensils a baker could desire. Lined next to the wall are boxes and boxes of goods and ingredients. All the things Gulliver has been delivering while Doris enjoys her final rest. The paradox doesn’t escape me that they got rid of all the prepared food only to replace it with vast quantities of everything necessary to make more.

The Achewillow’s soul isn’t gone. It’s waiting to be reborn.

It’s not a world-class restaurant. You can’t fit a whole kitchen staff with sauce boys, sous chefs, waiters, and a sommelier in here. No one is flying in from a New York culinary magazine to do an in-depth report on the Achewillow. Franchises and sister locations won’t be popping up all over North America, either. This place is unique, and in a way, it’s wonderful.

But it’s not for me.

It’ll fetch a good price. The idea of finding a buyer is intimidating, but I can see the potential.

Maybe that’s why others up the line of succession didn’t want to be bothered. None of them took the time to visit, so they couldn’t appreciate the true worth of the Achewillow Café . . . once in the right hands.

I trace my steps back to the entrance, the heavy shadow of Gulliver’s truck obscuring the light from that side of the café. Numbers based on nothing race through my mind as I re-evaluate how much I can get for the place. So, it’s not two separate properties as I had imagined, but the quality and location could make up for that. If Helen Edna could help find a way to respectfully ignore Doris’s last wishes, this could be the windfall for my fresh start.

For the first time in forever, my spirits are lifting. The property won’t be that hard of a sell at all. I just need to bypass the hurdle of whatever last wish Doris DuFour shoehorned into her will. Take that, Chef Gagnon. I’ll go to a better school with better teachers.

I’m about to step outside, where I hope Helen and Gulliver have settled their differences, when a stack of mail on the table closest to the door catches my eye. And at the top of the pile, a folded newspaper.

On an average day, I’m not much for print media. But let’s be honest: Who can ignore the word murder written in bold capitals across a headline? Especially considering the conversations I’ve had over the last twelve hours.

The Achewillow Gazette, judging by the text noting American dollars, must be from the U.S. side of the border. It’s last week’s edition. With a sidelong glance, I read the first few lines of the article. Fortunately, the lede is barely buried in a shallow paragraph.

A third body was discovered in Achewillow last night, near the corner of Stonebrook and Elm. The victim, a young woman, was found by a resident of a nearby apartment complex. Local authorities have not released further details. However, a first responder at the scene reports that the victim was found without her abdominal organs. While the cases have not been officially linked, the circumstances of this murder match those of the previous two local victims.

No suspects or motives have been identified at this time. Lieutenant Julien L’Amour of the Achewillow Police Department warns the population to be wary of strangers and for young women to avoid traveling alone after sundown.

“I knew I saw a resemblance.”

Gulliver’s deep voice cuts through the silence and my concentration like a hot knife through ice cream. I almost jump out of my skin.

How does a man so large hide so well in plain sight? I’ll blame my own distraction for now, but there’s something eerie about a six-foot, four-inch monster able to sneak up behind me without so much as a sound.

“Resemblance?” I ask, struggling to maintain my composure.

“With Doris,” he says, tilting his head as if to get a better look. “It’s the crow’s feet. You both have them when you squint. She had them when she was laughing, which was pretty much all the time. You have them when you worry or when you’re thinking. Like now.”

Crow’s feet? Like wrinkles? How dare he?

“Yeah, well, a lot of people have crow’s feet. Especially at Doris’s age, I imagine.”

I try to go around him, but he casually stands in my path. A trolley full of boxes blocks the door, anyway, as if left intentionally to prevent my escape. His mouth is open in a smile, and he’s looking up at the ceiling as if what to say next were carved into the stucco tiles.

“Nah, nah, nah. It’s not that. It’s the whole package. The attitude. You’re like the bitter, dark-haired version of Doris. I am right, though. You are related?”

I don’t want to answer. As long as he’s blocking my only means of egress, I don’t want to give him anything.

“Where’s Helen?” I ask, suddenly noticing her absence.

“She said she forgot some papers at her office.”

That does not ring true. If anything, Helen Edna, notary public, seems too organized. It’s difficult to imagine she’d left behind documents when all she wanted to do was explain details about the property division.

“I need to pass,” I say, trying to keep the fear from my voice, but he either isn’t listening or doesn’t care.

“I should have figured it out sooner!” He slaps his forehead theatrically. “DuFour! Ha! I never called Doris by that name. I’m such an idiot. Of course you’re related! Granddaughter? Great-granddaughter?”

I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to have this or any other conversation with Edmund Gulliver Kemper right now. My hand reaches toward my hip, grasping for my purse. My filet knife! All I need to do is reach in and grab it. Maybe it’ll be enough to scare him off.

Or maybe he’ll grab my arm and snap my wrist, drag me into the kitchen, and eviscerate me with my own weapon. My imagination gets the better of me, offering a veritable cornucopia of unpleasant scenarios.

“Great-grandniece,” I hear myself mutter, each word a struggle to get out.

“Oh. I see. None of the other DuFours wanted the place? Ha! Their loss, if you ask me.”

His dark brown eyes linger on me for a few moments, each second a second too long. I can feel him evaluating me, doing the strange social accounting necessary to decide in what category a stranger fits.

“You look like a cook, too! Ha-ha! You’ll do a great job with the place. I know it.”

He takes a step forward; I take one back. My hand plunges into my purse, and I slice the tip of my ring finger on the edge of my knife. Already the blade is turning against me. Finally, Gulliver notices my body language.

“Hey,” he says, raising one eyebrow quizzically above his forehead. “You okay there?”

I can’t help it. In lieu of an actual answer, my eyes take a quick jab toward the newspaper on the table next to us. His gaze is quick to follow.

“Wait? You think this is me?”

At this point, I’m too distraught to see the difference between anger and confusion. The two blend in his face, and I can’t tell if he’s frustrated that I found his secret out or befuddled that I would think him a serial killer.

It doesn’t matter to my panic-stricken brain. All I want is out of this situation before the Achewillow Gazette has one more victim to report. Turning on my heels, I try to make a break for the back door.

Carrying bags of flour, kneading dough, and mixing batter have made me strong, but not fast. I haven’t made it two steps before massive fingers close on my left arm.

The scales of flight versus fight collapse as my bleeding finger find the handle to my filet knife. The moment I have a solid grip, they fall with their full weight on the side of “fight.”

My body twists, barely managing to break his grip, and I face my assailant once more. With a clumsy, arcing motion with my left hand, I assume the closest thing to a battle stance I can imagine. A little crouched, brandishing my blade in a shaky, nervous hand, I feel almost capable of defending myself.

Almost.

His face unreadable, but his temerity undeterred, the truck driver named after a serial killer takes a step toward me.

“I think you should put that knife down.”

And with that ominous warning, Gulliver takes another step toward me.

3

STEAMPUNK MONSTROSITY

I don’t think I’ve taken the time to explain how much I hate violence.

It’s not so much that I’m afraid of committing violence; I just don’t think I’m any good at it. Like with math, if I’m not immediately talented, I want nothing to do with it.

The drive from Montreal wasn’t exactly quaint or comfortable, but it had gone down without significant incident. When I took the filet knife from my kitchen last night, I thought of it as a deterrent. If my driver grew frisky or threatening, I could have pulled the knife out and threatened to separate him from his skin. That should be enough for him to abandon me on the roadside. Better than my body turning up in some forgotten ditch somewhere, right?

The moment I safely set foot out of the truck, I assumed any threat had been avoided.

I wave my weapon in front of me with what I imagine are deft movements full of threat and menace. I know how to debone a fish in less than a minute, and my comfort with the knife shows in my actions. At least I hope it does. Otherwise, I look like a fool waving my arms around, more likely to injure myself than others.

Gulliver has both hands up, palms out. I should recognize that as the peace offering it is, but in my panic, I fail to see the obvious.

I’m about to take a serious stab at Gulliver when Helen Edna, notary public and voice of reason, intervenes.

“Would either of you care to explain what I’m seeing right now?”

Her voice has the calm power of bureaucracy. As if witnessing clients engaged in paranoid knife fights were a daily occurrence in her line of business. It is enough to snap me back to reality. I’m not ready to admit that I’m being unreasonable, waving a knife around and all. Having her there as a witness de-escalates my reaction enough to lower the blade. I feel the sting of the cut on my finger and the blood on my hand.

“I. . . I’m sorry,” I mutter, looking for a logical explanation for my behavior.

It’s tense, and I expect Helen to break the silence with some matter-of-fact statement in her patented passionless monotone.

Instead, Gulliver’s deep-throated laughter echoes through the Achewillow Café, rattling the dust-coated glasses.

“It’s my fault,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye. “I talked Miriam’s ear off about serial killers and murderers on the way from Montreal, then I made a crack about the bodies being found and, well...”

He smiles his perfect white smile, a pearly apology.

“Ah,” Helen says with some measure of satisfaction. “You two have met. Mr. Kemper is many unpleasant things, but I doubt murderer is in his repertoire.”

“I guess my imagination got away from me,” I say, contrite.

It’s not clear whether I mean that or not. Gulliver towers above me, still blocking my way out. I had every reason to feel threatened. Enough to pull a knife on the guy? That’s more of a gray area.

“Here you go.” Helen hands Gulliver a piece of paper, already dismissing the incident. “In case you need it translated, this gives me the power to refuse any further deliveries or any sort of interaction with the property in light of Doris DuFour’s passing.”

Gulliver takes the document and starts to read it. Index finger and thumb play around with the shape of his chin as he ponders the verbiage.

He seems so adamant about making these deliveries for my dead great-grandaunt, looking over the piece of paper like a sommelier perusing a wine list. I almost expect him to pull out a pair of glasses and set them on the bridge of his nose so he can get into the fine print.

“This only counts until the property is passed on through the will,” he says, handing over the document. “And as far as I can tell, the inheritor is right here.”

He jerks his head in my direction, and I shudder. The ghosts of my paranoia won’t let me relax, even with Helen there and in broad daylight.

So, she had indeed gone to get some missing documents. And Gulliver hasn’t done anything particularly hostile, has he? And now he’s all smiles again, nudging his chin in my direction to make me his accomplice against Helen Edna and her rules.

“Not if she doesn’t accept the inheritance,” Helen states, the very voice of the letter of the law.

“Then I do. Where do I sign?”

The decision is quick, unreasoned, but so satisfying. Like a loaded bagel after an empty night, the decision feeds a hunger I hadn’t realized was there.

I still plan to sell the place. I may be charmed by the Achewillow Café, but there’s no way I’m moving from Montreal to this forgotten speck on the map. Everything here is weird. Small-town weird. The weirdest weird of all. Besides, selling the property is a stepping stone to my dreams, not the headstone marking where I bury them.

“Are you certain, Ms. DuFour?” Helen Edna asks. “I’m not sure this place suits you, and I doubt you’re what Doris had in mind as a successor.”

Her tone is flat and emotionless, like most of what she says, but the barbs are no less sharp. Over half a dozen of Doris’s relatives passed on the café before it even made its way to me. I doubt there is a perfect candidate to fill Doris’s shoes.

“Positive,” I answer, defiant.

With a sigh and a shrug, Helen Edna, notary public, takes out a handful of documents. She offers an elegant black fountain pen and begins the long and annoying process of having me sign and initial all the papers.

All the while, Gulliver keeps bringing in boxes, but by the time he’s done, setting down a hefty bag of oats on the counter, we’re barely halfway through.

Eventually, Gulliver finishes unloading his truck and leaves. So preoccupied am I that I don’t even flinch when he pats my shoulder on the way out. By the time I put my last initial down, I can’t feel my wrist anymore. Helen Edna looks satisfied as she tucks the papers safely in her leather attaché. Fishing around her pockets for a moment, she pulls out an ornate ring of keys. As she flips through them, each key catches the sun in turn, creating a cascading twinkle that looks almost magical. Like a sunset reflected over the waves on a Caribbean evening.

“The round one is for the apartment upstairs. None of the utilities have been turned off, though you might want to find the water main to make sure it’s open. I need to transfer the permits to your name, but for the time being, technically, the place is yours.”

Mine.

Helen Edna makes her way out, swinging the door open and setting the welcome chimes ringing. I hadn’t noticed them before. Probably because the door was propped open for Gulliver to bring in his delivery. But it seems fitting that the Achewillow waited until it was back in DuFour hands to speak its voice.

Mine.

I’ve never even come close to owning property. The closest would be when Trevor and I first rented our apartment. Back then, it felt like we owned the place. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a somewhat modern bathroom all to ourselves. It was intoxicating. But if that was like having a beer, this is closer to reaching the bottom of a fifth of whiskey.

The room spins as I consider the implication.

Mine.

Each of the chairs in this room, all the tables, the counter, the antique coffee machine, every tile on the floor, all of it is mine. Even the apartment upstairs, which I haven’t even set foot in, is mine.

Twenty-four hours ago, I hadn’t even heard of Achewillow or Doris DuFour. Now all her earthly belongings are in my name until I can find a way around the clauses that keep me from selling them. It’s too much to take in.

Alone at last, I continue exploring the café. The floor plan is fairly simple. The large dining room is split from the kitchen by the counter and pastry display. A door in the kitchen leads to a massive walk-in pantry. Everything is a mix of antique and modern. A block of knives, likely older than I am, and a refrigerator that can’t be more than a few years old. I stand at the sink and run my finger under the tap to clean off the blood, and then find some adhesive bandages to cover the wound.

Tucked at the far back of the café, next to a thin window covered by a sage-colored curtain, there’s a back door. It’s in a discreet corner beyond the counter, and looks like one of those heavy fire exits, though there’s no sign to indicate it as such. Starving for some fresh air, I push it open and step into an empty back alley. All I’m greeted with is the stench of two dumpsters, ripe from bellies full of garbage and a day in the hot sun.

In daylight, the garbage bins would be bright green, but as they’re swallowed by late-afternoon shadows, the hue is closer to pine needles. The alley opens to a small back road, across which sits a large open field with a few trees far in the distance. The village hasn’t disappeared, but this wedge of nature seems to push all the way to the Achewillow Café’s back door.

Focus returns despite the stench of rotting trash. Leaning on the frame of the back door, I listen to the sounds of the village.

The rare car engine mumbles from the other side of the building, and my breathing comes heavy and tired. Otherwise, there is an annoying silence to the village. Compared to Montreal, it’s like attending a corpse. There is no life here. Not since the sun started dipping toward the horizon. In the city, there would be voices and footsteps. Airplanes rumbling through the sky, and music finding its way out of car windows or bars and restaurants. You’d have to seek out silence in Montreal, and even if you found it, the pulse of the city would never be too far.

Here, there’s nothing but rare motor vehicles, the wind, and hissing.

Hissing?

The bins are hissing at me. My already addled brain isn’t firing on all cylinders. It’s too tired from the roller coaster of life falling apart, then suddenly turning on a dime into a whole new direction.

So clearly the garbage isn’t hissing. I’m dumb and curious, though, so I inch closer to find out what is.

Like some cartoon burglar, I tiptoe across the alley, gravel crunching like breakfast cereal under my feet despite my efforts. The hissing gets more intense, louder, and aggressive the closer I get to my target. My hand reaches out, fingers gripping the sticky yet oily rim of the first bin’s lid. I ignore the revolting texture. My senses focus instead on the sound of my own racing heart and the intermittent warning from the metal container.

The lid is heavier than I estimated, and I can’t seem to lift it with one hand. Just as I reach with both to give it a good shove—

Bang!

Something behind the metal containers falls over with a loud clatter. I swear to God my heart stops for a solid ten seconds. By all rights, I should be dead, and it’s just by virtue of my own terror that my blood flows again.

Then, as if I were the one trespassing, a line of six raccoons saunters out from between the garbage bins. Twelve beady eyes fix on me as they parade across the alley, oblivious to my cardiac distress. One of them seems to have a red tag on its ear. Another, as big as a fat Labrador, strays from the parade and stands in front of the others.

I don’t know if raccoons have alphas or pack leaders or whatever, but that fat raccoon is definitely the boss. An obese monarch like a garbage-dwelling Henry VIII. He doesn’t limit himself to glaring, but I swear, in his own hissing way, he’s threatening me.

Once his court of trash is well on its way to the park, he gives me one final look before waddling after them.

Threaten me? On my property? Oh, it’s on, you fat little rabies incubator.

The water main for the apartment was indeed closed, but it doesn’t take much to get it open.

It’s not the need for a clean shower or to tidy up the place that motivates me to find it. Rather, an imposing and antique-looking coffee machine begs to be put to use. After all, I’ve been up since the crack of dawn after a fitful night and then a demanding day. I’m entitled to my addiction of choice.

Bubbling, gurgling, and hissing, the machine delivers on the promise of a steaming hot cup of coffee. Either the need and anticipation heighten the flavor, or this is the best mug of joe I’ve ever put to my lips.

The very last of the sun’s light dips below the modest skyline of Achewillow, forcing me to switch the lights on in the café. The wood furniture and accents take on a rich, cozy glow under the incandescent bulbs, painting the dining room in sunset hues. All the chairs and tables look worn and well used, suggesting a deep-rooted history and personality. The floor tiles display a variety of imperfections, like cracks and chips, telling of a storied past. None of it comes off as unkempt, but worn in, like a favored sweater with just a bit of fraying at the hem and cuffs. It is a welcoming place, and I allow a hint of kinship to weave itself into my heart as I think about who Doris might have been. If nothing else, she and I had similar taste in decor.

The café walls haven’t managed to keep the strangeness of the town from seeping in. One table is set on the national divide, bisected with faded red and blue lines. A framed painting of a white cloud looks precisely like the cloud that hovered over town earlier in the day. A row of wooden spoons hangs on the wall, a brass nameplate under each, next to the cash register. Each is used and weathered. Burnt at the tip and worn at the handle. They remind me of magic wands, crafted to match the owner’s personality.

The more I sip my cooling cup, the darker the streets of Achewillow get, and the more the café feels like something out of the Shire. Or maybe transplanted from Scotland or a version of New England that hasn’t existed for a hundred years. It’s an intangible quality, something beyond the sum of its parts, that offers a sense of belonging and safety.

Of course, it couldn’t last. No sooner do I find my peace than it’s once again shattered, this time by the sound of chimes and squealing door hinges.

For a second, I imagine Gulliver walking through the front door, and my eyes pop open. Helen assured me that he wasn’t a threat, but anxieties aren’t easy to balance with reason. Either way, even if it’s not Gulliver, someone is killing those women from the newspaper.

But it’s not Gulliver. And it’s not Helen Edna, either. Instead, a strange, short woman walks over to the counter and pulls out a stool. Short, obsessively coiffed black hair bounces, and long, intricate earrings dance as she sits down. She looks to be somewhere in her fifties and wears an orange-and-brown floral-pattern dress. It’s the kind of outfit that wouldn’t work on anyone without the attitude to back it up.

“I’m sorry, we’re closed,” I tell her, hoping she’ll pack up and leave, offering either an apology or some outraged grumbling.

Instead, she puts an oversized purse onto the counter, like a pioneer staking a claim. She isn’t a serial killer, but she’s a different kind of unwelcome guest: a customer.

“I’ll have my usual,” the woman says. She doesn’t explain what her usual is, nor does she bother to make eye contact. Instead, she digs through her purse and retrieves a tube of lotion.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “But we’re closed.”

Intense, soil-brown eyes lock onto mine. The calm vanishes from the woman’s round features, and a creeping impatience takes root. Without looking, she squirts a teaspoon of bone-white cream into her palm and rubs it onto her dark-copper skin.

Some customers just don’t take no for an answer. They act as if they own the businesses they patronize, treating staff like servants rather than employees. My instinct is always to show force and authority, but a softer approach has been drilled into me. After all, we wouldn’t want a client asking to speak to the manager, would we?

“Darling,” she says, a warning in her voice. “You’d do best to learn everyone’s usual around here. There’s a ritual to it, and believe me, you do not want to mess with ritual.”

“I’m not planning on staying long enough for that to matter. Not to mention, We. Are. Closed.”

“For me, that would be coffee with one cream and two sugars, and an almond biscotti. Though I suppose I can do without the biscotti tonight.”

She looks around as if just discovering the coffee shop is in disarray.

“I don’t have any cream or sugar, and I certainly don’t have any biscotti. Ma’am? We are closed. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

She frowns and lifts her chin, straightening her back. “Don’t you ma’am me, girl. I’m Olivia Fig. You call me Olivia or nothing at all.”

Who is this? Some local celebrity?

I manage to keep the thought off my lips and watch as Olivia Fig puts her tube of lotion away. The indignation melts like marshmallow on a hot mocha, and by the time she clasps her purse, my unwanted guest is all smiles and local flavor again.

I relent.

“Is black coffee okay? I can probably crack open a bag of sugar from the kitchen if you really need it.”

I don’t even know what to charge this woman for black coffee. Or how to work this register. It’s a dinosaur made with tin and Bakelite. I could murder someone with it, assuming I could lift the antiquity.

“Black is fine,” she says, setting her massive purse on the stool next to her.

“It’ll be a minute, though. I barely just figured this machine out.”

I scrounge up another cup, pull up my sleeves, and say a prayer to whatever god has purview over ancient steampunk coffee machines.

I try the same combination of dials and buttons that gave me a cup of coffee, but I am met with nothing but a hiss from the monster.

The contraption looks straight out of a Frankenstein movie. All dials and pipes and brass, it defies comprehension. We have a huge, three-spout coffee machine at work. It’s a beast, and it took me five full shifts to get the hang of it, but it has nothing on this antique.

“So, you’re a regular? You wouldn’t know where the instructions are, would you? On a stone tablet, maybe?”

The flippant question teases a smile out of Olivia. I don’t know why that matters to me. So far, the denizens of Achewillow—from Helen Edna to those weird guys in white robes to that fat jerk of a raccoon, even Gulliver—have done nothing to impress me. Olivia is different, and I can’t figure out why. Perhaps it’s the simplicity of her. Everyone else has had some weird thing that rubs me the wrong way. All Olivia wants is coffee, and while that’s another hair in my soup, it’s a simple thing, relatable. Getting coffee was my number one goal the moment I was left alone here.

“Y’know, you are Doris’s kin, aren’t you?”

I toss her a sidelong glance as I pull at a reluctant lever. Steam sounds ready to burst from the machine like some sort of confession appears to be bubbling at the surface of Olivia. I grunt and pull up my sleeves, ignoring the question in favor of doubling down my efforts.

“Mmhmm,” Olivia says, “that’s what Doris would have said.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Exactly. Doris was a quiet one. Big on doing, not on talking.”

“Ha! Then I’m definitely not that closely related.”

After all, it’s my big, stupid mouth that got me kicked out of cooking school. And not being as calm and collected as Cindy certainly didn’t help me keep Trevor. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they cut my hours at the coffee shop because I mouthed off to a client. The quiet one isn’t a title anyone would bestow upon me, except in the most sarcastic way.

“Mmhmm.”

A simple switch in inflection on Olivia’s part changes the whole meaning behind her wordless mumble. From knowing acknowledgment to knowing doubt. The common thread is knowing, which Olivia seems to be an expert at.

I manage to get the ancient contraption to make coffee again. I salvage two mismatched cups from a kitchen drawer and fill one with some raw sugar. It’s the most ad-hoc coffee run in the world, and I feel stupid as Olivia slides a two-dollar coin over the counter in my direction.

“I can’t.”

“Sure, you can,” she says, indignant that I would refuse payment. “I just saw you pull half this place apart to make this coffee. You deserve a little something.”

“Thank you?”

We sip our coffee, both making an effort to hide our disappointment. It’s not terrible coffee, but I am an experienced barista. I was already sipping the most wonderful cup, and now this? If the monstrous device can’t even be consistent, what good is it? I shoot it an irritated glance, like a warning shot, but all I get in return is a half dozen distorted reflections of my own anger. This means war, you piece of garbage.

“So,” I attempt to change the topic. “Doris. Sounds like you knew her?”

I’ve been compared to this distant relative all day, yet I know precious little about her. Helen Edna seems to have done rigorous research and believes we’re family, but it’s difficult to wrap my head around it. A whole branch on my father’s side that I never heard of.

“Mmhmm. She and I go way back. Then again, Doris stood behind that counter for the better part of eighty years. I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t part of the fabric of this town. Everyone in Achewillow knew Doris, and she knew everyone. But yeah, she and I were friends. Good friends, I like to think.”

There’s fondness in those words, and perhaps a little mourning, too, but Olivia Fig’s attention is on me, not the past.

“Eighty years?” I ask, taking a sip of coffee. “Is this place really that old?”

I had imagined the Achewillow Café as a relic from the eighties, maybe the seventies. But what Olivia just said would put it all the way back to the thirties or forties.

“Oh, girl. The Achewillow is way older than that. The village dates back to the early 1800s, maybe earlier. And as far as I know, there’s always been a café, or a restaurant, or an inn owned by a DuFour woman in town.”

I look around again, savoring the simple layout of the Achewillow Café. Part of me is mad at my father for never mentioning such deep roots in our family, but anger is easily eclipsed by awe. Running my hand over the countertop, I find a few nicks and scratches, wondering at the stories behind them.

“And has the café always been in this spot?”

“Probably not.” Olivia smiles, happy to indulge my curiosity. “I’m no town historian, but Doris shared a few things here and there. And how long d’you think you’ll stick around?”

Olivia grimaces as she asks the question, reeling from a fresh sip of the bitter drink.

“I’m not sure. Not long, I suppose. Until the notary has validated all the paperwork, and I can put this place on the market. Wouldn’t be looking to own a coffee shop, would you?”

“Mmh . . . Take the Achewillow for money? I’m not that big of a fool. And you won’t get anyone local to take it off your hands, either. T’was Doris’s dying wish that it stay in the family, and people in this town know better than to go against Doris’s wishes.”

Doris is dead and buried, I think. Her wishes don’t matter so much right now. But I nod along.

“I guess I’ll find someone from out of town then. I’m more than willing to sell the place below market value. Besides, it’s a charming little café. I’m sure someone will fall in love with it very quickly.”

“Mmhmm.”

Olivia sips her coffee, neglecting to grimace at the terrible aftertaste.

“What?”

“Girl, I don’t mean to be telling you how to live your life, but if you ain’t gonna run the Achewillow, be a dear and pass it along to whoever is next in line. The place deserves to stay in the family.”

“That sounds precisely like you’re telling me how to live my life.”

Against my better judgment, I finish my cup of coffee in two large gulps. The bitter liquid burns my tongue and throat, but it leaves enough taste buds alive to suffer the flavor. I hope Olivia gets the message that our conversation and her welcome have come to an end.

It’s a fool’s hope.

“Well, maybe I think you need all the help you can get.”

“I’m fine, thank-you-very-much,” I put my cup on the counter, praying she gets the message this time. “I’m sure Achewillow is. . . fascinating, but I’m more of a city mouse. I need to live somewhere with a pulse.”

She frowns. It’s a mother’s expression, a perfect balance of hurt and disappointment. You know the one. Where the eyes stay wide open, pushing up at eyebrows that in turn knit themselves down. Her lips get thin and pale as she presses them against each other.

“I think if you stay here long enough, you’ll find Achewillow has quite the heartbeat.”

“I’ll have to live with the mystery because I don’t plan on staying.”

“Your loss,” she says, pushing her half-full cup in my direction. I almost expect her to ask for her two dollars back. “You’ll never find a more welcoming and interesting little community than Achewillow.”

I don’t bother to think of a clever reply before opening my mouth to speak. I want to say I’ve had an interesting enough life already, but something interrupts me.

We liberally use the expression like nails on a chalkboard to describe irritating noises. It’s a simile we lean on to get our point across when something is terrible on the ears.

This noise, however, is exactly like nails on a chalkboard. Except in this scenario, we are inside the chalkboard, and the sound is coming from everywhere outside.

A moment passes, and we hear a hissing coming from the back alley, followed by the metallic clatter of a dumpster lid crashing down.

My lips part again to speak. It’s just the raccoons out back, I want to say, proving that being a city mouse doesn’t make me naive. But then, a shadow passes across the back window, barely visible through the curtain. Shambling through the alley, its slow gait reminds me of the homeless man I saw wandering the trees out back. The same aimless drive and awkward stride, as if on the brink of falling over with each step.

I mouth: What the hell?

Olivia puts her hand over mine and a finger to her lips.

She doesn’t seem afraid, not the way I am. I feel a tremor through my body. My knees shake, ready to bolt into a sprint if necessary. My muscles tense, and my skin prickles with goosebumps. I am flight.

But Olivia just focuses on the window, monitoring every passage of the shadowy figure. The finger touching her lips is firm and unwavering, a warning for me to stay quiet. She is fight.

A hand, bony and frail, hovers over the window as the figure passes again. Its fingers drag against the glass, and the café is filled with the ear-splitting screech. It only lasts a few seconds, but it echoes through the air and in my bones for a solid minute.

Olivia’s hand closes on mine as the figure’s steps settle behind the back door of the Achewillow. My mind races, struggling to remember if I locked the door after my argument with the fat raccoon. A stray thought goes in the scavenger’s direction, hoping he’s okay.

I want to sprint to the door and make sure it’s secure, to keep whoever—or whatever—outside. Olivia’s hand presses down, reassuring and restraining all at once.

A soft rattle at first, then more insistent, as the door handle is tested. The door shakes on its hinges with increasing violence. For a second, I think of my filet knife—I’m convinced the door frame will fail, and I’ll have to fend for myself against a real threat.

As I’m about to yank my hand from underneath Olivia’s, the rattling, pulling, and shaking stop. The shadow shambles one more time across the window. I know it’s the last time because at least ten minutes trickle by before either of us dares move again.

“Fine,” Olivia breaks the silence, nearly stopping my heart dead in my ribcage. “Achewillow isn’t perfect. But it does have a pulse.”

“What was that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, but you won’t mind me going home so I don’t have to find out, do you?”

She lets go of my hand and picks up her purse. She’s short and stocky and looks like she can probably do well for herself in a fight. But the way that shape rattled the door, I wouldn’t wish an encounter with it on my worst enemy. Even Gulliver would have a rough time against whatever that was.

“You’re going home, out there? Alone?”

I’m surprised by my concern for this woman who, a few minutes ago, was nothing but an annoyance. A nosy annoyance at that. Still, I’m not heartless. If the shadow belongs to the one responsible for the bodies found around town, then it might be looking for its next victim.

“You’re staying here? Alone?”

Not the answer I was expecting. I could go upstairs, but that’s a little close to ground zero of the terror I just went through. And I’d still be alone. I could find out if Achewillow has a hotel, but that’d be out of my current budget. Then again, budgets are for the living.

“Come on,” Olivia says, reading the worry on my face, no doubt. “You can stay at my place. I’ll show you how to fix a proper cup of coffee. Maybe even make you a decent breakfast in the morning.”

I couldn’t argue. Even the jab at my barista skills slid in and out of my ego without drawing blood or leaving a wound. I don’t know the first thing about Olivia Fig, but when the shadow threatened us both, her hand shielded mine.

It takes a moment to close all the lights and turn off the devil’s own coffee machine. All under the watchful eye of my new benefactor.

The front of the café isn’t anywhere as scary as the back. I wouldn’t call Rue Principale bustling, but we’re not alone. A handful of pedestrians are milling about while an old sedan struggles to get into a parking spot in front of a bar. Streetlamps cast small islands of light, warding off shadows where I expect to see a monster whenever I look.

“Come along,” Olivia urges, tightly holding her purse in one hand while taking my elbow in the other.

“Ms. Fig?” I ask, stuffing my keys into my pocket.

“Only people who call me Ms. Fig are my accountant and Mr. Fig, and only when they know I’m mad at them.” She stops to look at me, and I notice that, even though I’m not exactly tall myself, Olivia is even shorter. “Out with it.”

“Olivia.” I savor the name like a new dish. “What was that?”

“Hmm,” she says, pulling me along so we start walking again. A half smile on lips pushed tight slips through as she turns to face ahead. “Would you rather a comfortable lie or a painful truth?”

I give it a moment. On one hand, I’ve had my share of painful truths. A comfortable lie sounds like a pleasant place for my consciousness to lie down. But that isn’t me.

“Give me the truth, I guess.”

Olivia Fig maintains a stoic demeanor. She straightens her back and keeps her eyes on the sidewalk, guiding me calmly to what I assume is her car. But I feel tension in her hand. Her fingers are tight, clutching and unclutching my elbow in a fidgety rhythm.

“I think,” she starts, hesitating and looking for the word. “I think that was probably a demon.”

4

OPEN FOR BUSINESS . . . SORT OF

How exactly did I expect this to go down?

I assumed, in my naive and innocent way, I could somehow waltz into Achewillow in the morning and be out before sunset. Deed in my hand and ready to sell the café.

Was I simply intoxicated by the idea of wiping the counter of my life clean of misfortune? Or did I just lack the wherewithal to understand my situation? Either way, by the time night’s fingers closed on Achewillow, I’d hardly begun to unravel the knot of legal and administrative demands necessary to claim the Achewillow Café. This is going to take a while.

Helen Edna, notary public, is still determining whether I can sell the property despite Doris’s wishes. I can’t imagine it’s legal to shackle me to this property just because I accepted the inheritance, but until the avatar of legal red tape clears it up for me, my hands are tied.

Then, there’s Olivia Fig.

She claims to be a long-time resident of Achewillow and a lifelong friend of Doris. If I’m stuck here for another few days, I might as well learn a few things.

It’ll be a challenge to unravel which branch of the complex DuFour family tree I belong to, but Olivia seems capable of helping me figure it out. At least vis-à-vis Doris.

Driving through the ill-lit streets of Achewillow, exiting the village into the back roads between fields and farms, I realize just how isolated and far from home I am. The world feels small, its edge hiding just over the tree line flanking the narrow road.

“Demon, eh?” I ask, desperate to break the silence. “That’s a figure of speech?”

I get a little nervous as Olivia takes her eyes off the road, half frowning while she gives me an appraising look. My fingers squeeze the pull handle, imagining a deer leaping in front of the car with Olivia’s eyes averted.

After far too long of a second, Olivia finally sets her eyes on the road again, letting out a tired sigh.

“Mmhmm,” she says, hitting her turn signal. “Figure of speech.”

I’m mulling over her answer, debating the sincerity in her words, when I notice a sign that announces her home. Fig’s Orchard, a large and dimly lit painted wooden placard, calls out.

“Apples,” she says, turning her little blue car onto the gravel driveway. “Lots of people ask; the answer is apples.”

“I’m sorry?”

The trip from the café and out of Achewillow proper has taken less than ten minutes at a leisurely pace. Olivia is a quiet and ponderous driver, never exceeding forty kilometers per hour, and slowing to half that near deer, moose, and raccoon crossings.

“They see the sign and ask if we grow figs. We’ve got Granny Smith, Lobos, McIntosh, and so much more. We had pears for a few seasons, but they were too expensive to grow. Besides, we only needed them for the cider. But nope. No figs.”

I want to concentrate on what she’s saying. The woman is, after all, showing incredible hospitality. After the noises at the café and Olivia’s talk of demons, there was no way I was spending the night alone in the apartment above it. Says a lot that I’m more comfortable crashing at a complete stranger’s place at an orchard in the middle of nowhere.

But the more I think about it, the more I worry I made a bad decision.

It’s a modest little home where the Figs live. A two-story colonial with a wrap-around porch that sits in the shadow of an enormous barn. The words Fig’s Orchard can barely be made out, the white paint on the side of the barn swallowed by the hungry night.

The warm orange porch light would be inviting, and the soft flickering of a television through the living room window would be of comfort, if this place weren’t so isolated. I hate to fall back down the same paranoid rabbit hole, but I feel swept along with no options. Every new fear is a fresh wave pushing me around until the next calm stretch of current.

Behind the house, I see hundreds of silhouettes traced by the moonlight. I guess they’re trees, apple trees, of course, but at this point, my imagination has a grip on me, and I fear what might be hiding between them.

Olivia doesn’t bother fishing for keys or fumbling with a lock. The front door opens without contest, spilling us into the large living room.

The place is as cozy and quaint on the inside as it is on the outside, but shielded from the encroaching night by soft, warm lights. Wooden lamps with old, pleated shades illuminate a living room cluttered with souvenirs and mementos. Knitted blankets crowd every piece of furniture, and a luxurious and intricate quilt covers the back of an old couch.

“This is Henry,” Olivia whispers as we pass through the living room.

On an armchair so old the cushions look like they are melting into its frame lies what I suppose is Henry. It’s hard to get a measure of the man, sunken so deep into both the armchair and slumber, but I guess he’s Olivia’s husband. He’s tall enough that his feet hang from the footrest. His head is covered in short, curly gray hair, but the rest of him is covered in flannel and denim that vanishes between quilts and upholstery.

For a moment, I worry he’ll drown in his own saliva. It trickles out of his gaping mouth, the flickering light of the muted television glistening on his wet lips.

I give him a timid wave that he can’t see, unsure what else to do. At least it draws an amused grin out of Olivia.

“Let me show you to the guest room.”

My hostess leads me up a wooden staircase to a second floor draped in shadows. I imagine she’ll put me up in the attic, but to her credit, Olivia has an honest-to-God guest room. I know it’s a guest room because it smells musty and unused. The bed is small and creaky. The floors are creaky, too. And so is the door. The whole room groans and complains, bothered at being drafted into service after too long a time of neglect.

I sit on the bed, holding the towel and bathrobe Olivia gave me before going off to sleep.

It feels too early for bed. Had I really spent an entire day in Achewillow? The only answers I get are from stiff springs as I settle on the mattress. In turn, my stomach, empty and neglected, gurgles loud and angry.

I realize that, in all the excitement, I forgot to even eat. Not since sharing breakfast with Gulliver. I contemplate getting up and bothering Olivia for something to fill my gut. I don’t need much. A slice of bread or a piece of cheese, anything to quiet my stomach until I can get a real meal in me.

I bet she has apples.

After a few minutes, I relent. I can go hungry for a night.

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I open a few drawers on the vanity. The furniture in the room matches in the way all old furniture does. Everything is raw wood, factory-carved, and varnished. Dull brass handles and a tarnished mirror complete the antiquated look.

The drawers are empty, and so is the closet, apart from a stack of knitted blankets, neatly folded on a shelf.

I finish my inspection and start to feel the full weight of the silence and isolation. Looking out the window behind the house, all I see are the apple trees in the moonlight. Still reelign from the evening’s events, I test the windows to make sure they’re locked.

Exhausted, I lie down on the dusty covers fully clothed.

There’s a cozy familiarity to this kind of bed and this kind of room. When I was a kid, my parents would leave me at my grandmother’s, and I’d stay in my mom’s old room. It too was neglected. The furniture dusted once a month and the sheets only changed after each infrequent use.

I wonder if this used to be the bed of a daughter or a son. The decor is so generic, it’s hard to imagine who might have lived here. There are no posters on the walls, no knick-knacks taking up space on the dresser.

Sleep is elusive. The hunger and unfamiliar walls are only part of it. I can’t bring myself to close my eyes or even turn off the old, struggling lamp.

Thoughts of starvation, demons, serial killers, and dead bodies accompany me on the road to slumber, but somehow, I manage to get there.

The first sign I survived the night is the smell of overcooked bacon. I’m not mad about it. Overcooked bacon is the best kind, if you ask me.

A growl, deep and furious, rumbles from my belly. The sound is so loud it startles me fully awake. I take a moment to remember where I am and re-familiarize myself with the unfamiliar. Thankfully, the bright morning sun burns away the dread of the night.

I take myself downstairs. The creaking steps seem quaint and welcoming in daylight, not foreboding like last night. The restless sleep helped lighten my anxiety, but thoughts of serial killers and so-called demons keep creeping up in the back of my mind. Was it just some homeless guy trying to scare us, or a drunkard passing out in the alley? As I near the kitchen, memories of nails on a chalkboard are replaced by the complaints of a bellyaching husband.

“I don’t know who you’re trying to impress, but I am not putting that in my mouth.”

I try to anticipate what the voice is complaining about. The smell of singed meat and melted butter is overpowering. I can detect the telltale aroma of eggs, but I’m not exactly sure.

I do smell apples.

“It’s a hollandaise, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy it.” Olivia’s voice is motherly, strained but patient. “You’ve had hollandaise before,” she continues.

“I most certainly have not!”

The back and forth would have lasted a while, but I poke my head through the kitchen door and interrupt them.

“Hank! Hush your mouth,” Olivia scolds her husband.

Like the house, Henry looks a lot better in the daylight than he did the previous night. While I’m wearing the wrinkled clothes I slept in, and Olivia is wrapped in a thick, baby-blue terry cloth robe, he’s already clad in his work clothes. Denim jeans from a time before fashion, and a washed-out, red-striped cotton shirt.

He’s a handsome man, over fifty, with deeply etched wrinkles on dark skin. His hair, while gray, is short but full. His brown eyes are pools of kindness framed by annoyance.

Their kitchen fits the rest of the house like a glove, but bigger than I anticipated. The large room’s country decor favors ivory and olive greens. Raw wooden beams line the ceiling, reflecting the rich chocolate-brown hardwood floors. An island counter dominates the middle of the room, lined with stools on one side and a deep sink on the other. Floor-to-ceiling framed, glass cabinets with dark wrought-iron hinges flank another countertop opposite the island. Even the stove has a farmhouse feel.

I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself, but I wouldn’t say no to throwing together a meal in a kitchen like this. I like my workplace a little more streamlined. The Figs’ kitchen is the cooking equivalent of the big armchair Henry was sleeping in last night. It’s built for decadent comfort above everything else.

“Well, good morning,” Olivia greets me, her smile as radiant as the sun shining through the windows. “Care for some eggs Benedict?”

Olivia points me to a small round table near the patio door. Through the window, all I see are rows of apple trees. Most are dotted with red, luscious balls of sweet potential. Oh, the things I could make with them . . .

“Do you guys manage this place on your own?” I ask, taking a seat next to—but not too close to—Henry. “Looks like quite the operation.”

Proud as a peacock, Olivia brings two plates of English muffins and eggs covered in hollandaise, with some chopped green onion for color. She beams while putting the food in front of her husband and me. I can’t tell if it’s her cooking or being asked about the orchard that brings such a smile to her face.

“It’s a massive undertaking, but we handle most of the care and maintenance for the trees, along with preparing the cider.” She goes back to the counter to get a third plate for herself. “Henry hires some seasonal workers to pick the fruit, and some local kids help with bottling and labeling. Please, try the eggs. I have to know what you think.”

Henry pokes at his food as if it were a strange and threatening specimen. I watch him cut off a piece, hesitate as the sauce and yolk mix onto the English muffin, and take a bite.

He doesn’t smile or congratulate his wife on a job well done. Instead, he expresses his opinion in the next best way. Henry nods, cuts off a much larger bite, and stuffs it eagerly into his mouth.

With that seal of approval, I have a taste. Not bad. A little too much salt, and I would have cracked some pepper over the dish. A slice of ham or Canadian bacon between the egg and English muffin would have made the meal more robust, and there’s a little too much hollandaise.

Being a guest, however, I keep my observations to myself, offering instead a satisfied Mmmh.

I eat with the same gusto as Henry, but that doesn’t seem to be the reaction Olivia was hoping for.

“So,” I start, hoping to move the conversation away from food. “Must be weird around here these days, right?”

The Figs exchange a look. Henry has his mouth full, but it doesn’t stop him from expressing suspicion with a twist of his bushy brow. Olivia cuts through her egg, looking for her answer in the sauce and yolk.

“How so?” she asks, putting a bite into her mouth and chewing slowly.

“Well.” I shrug. “With a killer on the loose and all. I bet that makes things a little stressful?”

The kitchen suddenly feels very quiet. I hear Henry’s knife scrape the surface of his plate as he cuts the last piece of eggs Benedict into two bites. Even the chime of Olivia’s earrings as she raises her head is noticeable. I haven’t misspoke or put my foot in my mouth. Instead, the silence feels like the hush of a library, where everyone is busy with their own thoughts.

Olivia swallows and smiles. It’s the sort of calm smirk I associate with secrets and maybe even a bit of mischief. Weird to see it when discussing murderers.

“We try not to let it bother us too much,” she explains, her knife and fork already preparing another bite. “Of course, some people have decided to lock their doors and keep the porch lights on, but we can’t be jumping at every shadow. Achewillow’s a small town. We get all sorts of wildlife roaming the streets at night. Like behind your café yesterday.”

Henry pauses, his last bite of eggs Benedict an inch from his mouth. His annoyance and irritation has congealed into a quiet anger. He stares at his wife, waiting for her to notice, but even when she does, Olivia doesn’t acknowledge him.

“I thought you said it was a demon,” I say, trying to make it sound like a joke.

But no one’s laughing. Especially not Henry.

“Figure of speech,” Olivia says, though she seems to be addressing her husband.

Probably a demon.

The words stick to me like peanut butter on the roof of my mouth. I want to forget them, to let them slide out of my mind and into the past so I can move on to other things. Today is going to be demanding. With any luck, Helen Edna will have good news about waiving the provisions in Doris’s will. From there, I’ll go about the business of finding a real estate agent.

It’s all paperwork, numbers, and legal garbage. The faster I’m through it all, the better.

Olivia is gracious enough to take me back into town. The drive in is far more leisurely than the drive out, but this time, I get a better appreciation for the area.

From the direction of the farms, the city is so much clearer on the horizon. Like the prongs on a cocktail fork, the spires of the church stick out of the skyline and toward a clear, blue sky. The only thing that mars the azure expanse is a singular white cloud that still hovers like a ball of cotton candy.

Rooftops rise above rows of corn and wheat as we make our way down the road. They vary in design and color. Some are painted bright red while others are the dull, sun-bleached gray of asphalt shingles. I bet Olivia can name every building from this vantage point, just by their roofs.

“See the low, pale-green roof over there?” she says, interrupting my thoughts. “That’s the Achewillow.”

“The tree?” I ask, immediately realizing that’s not at all what she meant.

“No. Not the tree. The roof of the café. Doris’s café. Your café. Besides,” she insists with an added tone of mischief, “there’s no such thing as an Achewillow tree.”

Olivia parks a block from my destination, in front of a hardware store where she’s got errands. The streets are much like they were last afternoon. Active in that busy—but not crowded—way only small towns seem to manage.

Walking down the street, my bag over my shoulder and a crate of Fig’s Orchard apples in my hands (Henry insisted), I’m relieved to see there’s no huge truck casting a shadow over my café. I mean, over the Achewillow Café.

There is, however, a bit of a crowd.

And an ambulance.

And a police car.

For as long as I can, I hang on to the futile hope that this has nothing to do with the noises we heard last night.

Bright yellow warning tape partially blocks the café entrance, and an officer is keeping the crowd at bay. While some commotion spills out in front of the café, the focus seems to be on a narrow alley between the Achewillow and the neighboring building.

No one pays any attention to me as I weave through the curious onlookers. I go around the blockage, fishing through my pockets for keys.

All I want is to get inside and call Helen Edna, but I can’t ignore the possibility that all this action and yesterday’s events could be related.

“What’s going on?” I ask the closest onlooker. Middle-aged, he’s clad in overalls and wears a moustache that looks like a broom. Spots of paint here and there tell me most of what I need of his profession.

“They found another body,” he says, not bothering to look in my direction. Instead, he cranes his neck as if he might catch a glimpse of the unfortunate victim.

My stomach sinks.

Apple crate under one arm, bag over my shoulder, and the ornate key in my hand, I open the door to the Achewillow Café.

The tinkle of welcoming chimes cuts through the crisp air, spreading cracks through the hushed conversations on the street.

There’s a trick to searing meat properly. When you put meat in a hot pan, it sizzles, but at some point, the sizzle changes. It’s a subtle difference in intensity, but if you pay attention, you can hear it go from an aggressive hiss to a liquid purr. That’s when you know to flip the meat.

Something similar happens to the crowd assembled on Rue Principale as they hear the chime’s gentle ringing. Their curious murmurs turn to something else. Whispers of murders, suspects, and investigations melt into excitement, hunger, and thirst.

The crowd flips.

Their attention is no longer on the alley and whatever lies beyond the yellow tape. They’re turning toward the café. Toward me.

I close the door and make a point of locking it. I only switch on the lights near the kitchen and counter, leaving the rest of the dining area dark. Still, the crowd forms an orderly line in front of the café, spilling onto the street where yellow tape keeps them from the sidewalk.

“This is your fault,” I tell the coffee machine.

Even though I’ve yet to figure out how to make the contraption brew a consistent cup of joe, I still blame the damn thing. Why else would these people be so eager to get in here? Forget ambrosia; coffee is the true food of the gods.

I set the apples next to the register and my bag on one of the stools. The shadow of a tree—branches on one side, spirals on the other—covers the tables near the window. The Achewillow Café’s logo, stenciled onto the glass and projected on their surface.

The commotion at the front of the café settles a little, the people in line getting comfortable with the wait, hoping I open my doors to them. Little do they know I have no intention of doing anything of the sort.

It does allow me to notice, for the first time, the commotion in the back alley.

There’s no avoiding it. Whatever drew the crowd, the ambulance, and the police happened behind the Achewillow, and it must have happened last night.

Reluctant, then careful, I make my way to the back door. There’s a figure blocking the view out the window. Judging from the color of the uniform, it’s either a cop or a paramedic. Neither an omen of good things. As I put my hand on the handle and twist the lock open, I hope to find only those stupid raccoons.

“Whoa!” a voice exclaims as I push the door on its hinges.

“Hey! Didn’t anyone secure that?” another follows, angrier.

“Ma’am,” a third voice, closer and calmer, interrupts. “You can’t be here.”

The man, wearing a raincoat over a business suit, flashes a badge and gently pushes me back inside. He makes an effort to twist me around by pulling on my right shoulder with his free hand. He isn’t brusque or violent, but there’s something he doesn’t want me to see.

But I do see.

Probably a demon.

Definitely a demon. Maybe not one drawn from the depths of hell itself. Not a creature of cloven hoofs and leathered wings, but what I saw behind the café could only be the work of a demon. The human kind.

Sitting with her back to the dumpster, I saw a woman. If the officer had been faster, I’d have thought her asleep or unconscious. Her chin was resting on her chest, and her arms were lying next to her, limp and lifeless. If that was all I saw, everything would be fine.

But that wasn’t all.

Back when I was sixteen, soon after deciding that my life’s path would be that of a chef, I got it in my mind to work for a butcher.

As far as first jobs went, it wasn’t bad. The pay was as decent as a sixteen-year-old could expect, and the hours were great. My plan was, in my adolescent wisdom, to learn about meat. I figured knowing where my ingredients came from would be a great primer for cooking.

In theory, it wasn’t a bad plan. And I did learn a lot in the two months I was there. But on the first day, I almost turned in my apron and quit on the spot.

My boss, some guy called Tremblay, thought it would be wise to give me a firm baptism by fire. His approach has some merit. If the girl he employs is going to turn green every time a carcass comes in, she won’t be much use to him.

So, on my first day, my very first task was to assist in butchering a pig.

Now, the animal had been slaughtered and bled already, so I guess it could have been worse. But I love animals. If you think for a minute that dressing one for food is anything like the delicate clinical care of the autopsies shown on television, you’re sorely mistaken. Butchering is as brutal and messy as the name implies. It favors speed and efficiency, not protecting the sensibilities of a sixteen-year-old Miriam DuFour.

By far the worst part was removing the viscera. Tremblay had been explaining each cut, describing every part of what he was doing. However, his voice vanished when he started pulling stomach and intestines out of the animal. He was drowned out by the drumbeat of my heart and the soft moan at the back of my throat.

I’ve toughened up since then, but I wasn’t prepared for that woman in the back alley behind the Achewillow.

Like the pig, she too was missing her guts, and like the pig, she’d been bled. There was no pool of crimson gore around her, and I could see straight through the gaping hole in her abdomen to her spine.

The internet didn’t have much to say about the murder victims in Achewillow, and I now know why. The police want to keep this as quiet as possible and avoid a panic.

Who wants to be the first to admit there’s a demon in town?

“Coffee?”

The man in the raincoat is looking at me. Like Olivia’s husband, he has kind eyes set in hard features. His skin is pale like that of someone who doesn’t see much sun, and his hair is black, messy, and greasy. There’s a bit of something wise and something crazy in his blue eyes.

“Yeah,” I answer, collapsing onto a stool. “I could use a cup.”

“I meant for me and the boys, but yeah, you look like you need it, too.”

There’s a spark of indignation in my heart. This random guy thinks I’ll be ordered around and make coffee like some sort of housemaid? It’s a short-lived flame, though. He looks like he’s been up all night, and I have no reason to think he hasn’t.

His eyes follow me as I slide off the stool and walk around the counter to face my new enemy.

“Don’t mess with me now,” I murmur to the coffee machine.

“Mmh?” Raincoat Man asks.

“Nothing.”

My fingers tremble, and I almost drop the cup I’m rinsing out. I put some grounds in the ancient device and attempt to conjure coffee from the apparatus. There’s a hiss of protest and steam, but it cooperates, and I manage to summon an Americano.

“Detective Aaron Wilson,” Raincoat Man says as I slide the cup over to him. “Keep the change.”

He slides back a pair of wrinkled American dollars.

Fingers still shaking, I take them, not sure what I’m supposed to do. Wilson notices my tremor and frowns, but he doesn’t say a word.

The register is as old and overwhelming as the coffee machine, and it takes me a while to figure out how to get it open. The drawer pushes out, accompanied by the sound of a bell and the rattle of coins. Bills are arrayed in neat piles and separated between American and Canadian denominations. How did Doris manage to keep all this straight and make coffee and cakes for these people?

“Gonna want to figure that thing out quick. Customers are getting restless.”

Detective Wilson looks as much at a loss with what to do with me as I am with the register. He’s not wrong, though. Faces are pressed against the glass, and some people in line are even waving dollar bills to highlight their intentions.

I don’t get it. Aren’t there other coffee shops in Achewillow? The steampunk monstrosity doesn’t even brew that good a cup, so what’s with the fanatical fervor? I wonder if Doris was some sort of pastry wizard to elicit such fervor, but there’s nothing in the display. So, what do these people want?

The question doesn’t stop me. Like an automaton, I walk into the kitchen and look for some more cups or mugs. I find a whole tray, along with all the plates, bowls, and utensils. Everything is stashed next to the dishwasher, behind a towering stack of boxes Gulliver delivered over the previous weeks.

Still under the spell of trauma, busying myself to avoid thinking of the body behind the café, I take down the chairs from each table. I switch on the dining room lights. A voice in the back of my mind warns against opening for business. My font of inner strength is as empty as the pastry display. I don’t think I can do this, yet I am.

I do all this under the quiet, watchful eye of Detective Wilson. When I steal a glance in his direction, he nods in approval. Go on, he seems to say without a word. He’s doing this on purpose. Keeping the newcomer occupied and out of his people’s hair. That, or he’s keeping me busy so I don’t fall apart after what I’ve seen. It’s working so well that I don’t even think of calling him out on it.

I make a few quick trips to the kitchen. I rip through boxes and pull open drawers. My wits frayed to their limit, I fall back on what is most natural to me. I cook. Quick things, of course. Delights crafted from a limited supply of ingredients.

I turn butter, sugar, and the Fig’s Orchard apples into caramelized apple slices. Once layered over simple sugar biscuits, they should make for a satisfactory snack. For variety, I toss in some three-ingredient peanut butter cookies. Within twenty minutes, I’ve got an oven full of treats, and a café that smells of sugar and butter.

Detective Wilson has settled at the end of the counter, as close to the back door as he can be. I can tell by his eyes that half his attention is on me, and half is on the back alley.

“Shouldn’t you be helping?” I hear myself asking while I fire up the old steampunk monstrosity.

“My guys are on it,” he answers, stealing a glance at the back door. “Are you ready to open? You’re about to have a riot on your hands.”

He’s not wrong. Either Achewillow has an unhealthy relationship with coffee and pastries, or I underestimated the importance my great-grandaunt’s cuisine had on the community.

This is not how I would want to open up a business for the first time. My dreams are of a grandiose first night, me and my staff in uniform, presenting an exquisite menu of my very best recipes. I want to offer the finest ingredients for the finest palates, all in a well-rehearsed pageant.

That being said, I couldn’t ask for a more eager crowd of patrons.

With a loud, metallic click, I turn the lock on the front door, and I open the Achewillow for business.

Expecting a disorderly flood, I step back and out of the way. While the energy and anticipation remain, they don’t translate into a riot. Rather, the customers form a neat, orderly line in front of the register. They all give me smiles and most give curious glances, but everyone remains polite.

“I’ll have my usual,” a woman in a blue pantsuit demands while fishing in her wallet.

“I’m sorry,” I ask, wearing my best customer service smile. “And what would that be?”

The woman looks up. Brushing a strand of straight, blond hair from her face, she grins in apology.

“Oops. Force of habit.”

Her head tilts to one side and she offers me a fresh look. I estimate she’s in her mid-forties and works some sort of office job. Her scrutiny is a little annoying, like she’s hoping to find something in me that isn’t there.

“Four coffees,” she starts. “One with two creams, no sugar. One with two creams and sugar. The other two black. And whatever it is that smells like apples, I want two of those.”

I gather her order, take her payment, and move on to the next customer. All the while, over a dozen pairs of eyes follow my every move. Part of me is back in class, cooking under the discriminating gaze of Chef Gagnon as he measures my every move. Except these people aren’t looking for flaws in how I sear poultry or errors in how I make a reduction. Instead, they look at me like a crowd might a show pony. They’re inspecting my pedigree, and I don’t like it.

“I’ll have my usual,” the second customer, a man in jeans, a T-shirt, and a bomber jacket says. He looks young but has a receding hairline. He smells of burnt metal and smoke.

“Are you kidding?”

They don’t all ask for their usual, but a shocking number of them do. Some apologize, claiming it’s a force of habit. Others honestly thought I would know.

Going through the motions, I whittle down the line to the final customers. A few ask for food that I don’t have, like breakfast wraps, cupcakes, and muffins. Some demand beverages that I lack the supplies to make. Most are satisfied with what I have to offer. All have that same look in their eyes. All of them want to ask the question.

It’s in the way they look at me. I see occasional sparks of recognition followed by curiosity. To some, I’m nobody. To others, I look a little too much like the previous owner. But they all seem to want to know the same thing: Who is behind the counter of the Achewillow?

Curious conversation interrupted by door chimes and the smell of rich coffee has replaced the forbidding quiet and dusty aroma.

Maybe they’re worried about what’s happening in the alley behind the café, or they’re apprehensive about the stranger selling them coffee and hastily made cookies, but there are customers in the dining room. It has a strange rhythm, but it’s a heartbeat.

Like a necromancer, I’ve brought the Achewillow back to life, but much like a dark sorceress, I’m not sure it’s something I should have done. The people of Achewillow seem glad for it, though. And I have to admit that this act of resurrection did keep my mind occupied for a while.

But reality has a way of filtering back into conscious thought. Hands covered in flour and my shirt stained with egg, I look through the open kitchen door and beyond the counter at the front window. I can still see the yellow tape and the occasional flash of ambulance lights. Strands of conversations make their way to my ear, rumors of what’s happening behind the café, a murder scene a few meters from where I’m brushing bread with egg wash.

The unwelcome image of the body paints itself on the back of my eyelids, and I teeter on falling back into a fugue. My hand holding the brush shakes so much that I spill egg all over the countertop. I hear the bell near the register ring, announcing a customer who needs my attention, and I’ve never been so happy to make coffee.

Anything to banish the image of a woman without a lower abdomen from my mind.

Emerging from the kitchen, wiping my fingers with a dish towel to hide my trembling, I’m greeted by the sight of not one, but two customers.

They’re a strange pair.

A short but smiling man with a balding head and round face, accompanied by a tall, athletic woman with Caribbean-kissed skin and beautiful cornrow hair. They wear identical suits that could pass for businesswear if taken individually. Seen together like that, they look more like they’re part of a cult.

“Hello,” the diminutive man says, smiling with tiny but perfect teeth.

“Huh, hi. What can I get you?”

I can’t decide if I’m amused by these two or worried. In a way, they seem to have the same flavor of weird that the rest of Achewillow is seasoned with, but there’s something else about them. Like they’re also. . . from outside.

“Tea, for me. Green,” the woman says, with none of the warmth of her partner.

“I’ll have an espresso,” the short man says. “And, we’ll also have . . . this.”

The short man points at my display. It’s still anemic; only a few hastily baked cookies take up a single row. Basic chocolate chip that I barely remember scraping together an hour earlier.

I ring them up, and while Shorty pulls out his wallet, I grab a cookie and slip it into a small paper bag with a tree printed on it. Then it hits me: I fell into doing all this to escape thinking about the corpse. Between cooking and serving food and drinks, I find all the ingredients for comfort and security. It’s familiar and simple and easy and safe. I know how to do these things with my eyes closed. The cooking fills my heart, so I don’t have to feel for that poor, dead girl.

The tall woman takes the cookie. I spot crucifix-shaped cufflinks on her sleeves as she takes the treat from my fingers (without so much as a thank you, might I add). So, they are from a cult, I suppose, a much bigger one than those people in white robes.

Thankfully, the coffee machine maintains our current truce and doesn’t fight me too hard for an espresso. I wonder if I’ve tamed the beast, but I’m instantly punished for my hubris by a scalding, rogue jet of steam from the monster.

And that’s when I spot them doing it. As I’m waiting for water to boil so I can give the ruder of the pair her tea, I notice them slipping the cookie I sold them into a plastic bag. The kind you use for lunch sandwiches. Or for evidence.

I want to react, but I don’t even know where to begin. It’s their cookie now, I guess. They paid for it. Do they plan on eating it later? Are they investigating me? For what?

How to ask them what they’re doing is still taking shape in my head as I hand them their drinks. Again, no sign of gratitude. Plus, they pay me in an odd mix of Canadian and American money, which I now have to sort out and make sure I give the correct change. By the time I’ve got it figured out, they’ve wandered to one of the tables in the dining area.

“Who the hell do they think they are?” I ask aloud.

I don’t expect an answer. I don’t expect anyone to have heard me. But there’s a familiar shuffle of a raincoat and the pulling of a stool from across the pastry display.

“Them? They’re the Inquisition. Or at least that’s what their business cards say.”

“Detective Wilson, I...” Why is it so hard to say these things? “I want to thank you.”

“What for?”

He shakes an empty cup, the same one I gave him earlier, after he urged me to make him and his people coffee. I take it from him and raise it.

“For this. For distracting me.”

Again, I get no trouble from the coffee machine; our truce seems to be reestablished, though I give the steamer a wide berth.

“All I wanted was the coffee, Ms. DuFour.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Have I introduced myself?”

“You haven’t, but I’d be a poor detective if I didn’t figure it out myself. Welcome to Achewillow. I promise not every day is like this.”

“Yeah,” I say, handing him his cup, filled anew. “Thankfully, I don’t plan on staying. Can I ask you a question?”

He reaches for his pocket, intent on paying me for the drink, but I wave my hand at him—at least for now, his money is no good here.

“Only if I get to ask you one myself, Ms. DuFour.”

The practiced way he raises an eyebrow while offering the quid pro quo looks like part of his disguise.

“Absolutely. What do you mean by the Inquisition? Like, the Spanish Inquisition?”

Detective Wilson takes a thoughtful sip of his coffee, careful not to burn his tongue but also, perhaps, so he can put together his thoughts.

“That’s how they introduced themselves to me when I got transferred here. I don’t see them at church on Sunday, and I don’t know that there’s still such a thing as an Inquisition, but that’s what they say they are. The worst they do is hover around crime scenes, but otherwise, they never cause any trouble. Eccentric but harmless.”

This entire town is eccentric. A quick glance at the Achewillow’s half-full dining area serves as a solid reminder. They sit, drinking coffee and tea, eating baked treats, and gossiping, all within a few feet of a crime scene. There’s that butterfly wing salesman, chatting excitedly with a woman in a white robe. Some guy who showed up with two briefcases, like the final boss of businessmen, is sipping from a cup while listening to the chatter. It’s all just a little off.

“Now, if you’d be so kind, Ms. DuFour, my question.”

I nod, still unsure where this is going.

“Where were you last night?”

5

MISTAKES WERE MADE

I’ve made my share of mistakes in life.

A long time ago, when Mom set me loose in the kitchen for the first time—

Wait. No. I’m lying.

A long time ago, Mom left me with a babysitter, and, while she was asleep, I took control of the kitchen for the first time. We all have our origin story, and this is mine.

I may not have been bitten by a radioactive stand mixer, but I think that was the day I opened my senses to the greater possibilities cooking offered.

It all began with a video on the internet that I was determined to emulate. In the video, disembodied hands made in two minutes a whole assortment of delicious butter cookies. They looked like tiny unicorns, complete with rainbow glitter inside.

At four years old, I had no idea what I was doing, only that I had to mix butter, two types of white powder (I chose salt instead of flour, but I got the sugar right), and some number of eggs.

Fortunately, I was stopped before I could turn the oven on, but not before I started the mixer at maximum power. The walls and ceiling were painted with what would have been the most noxious cookies ever.

To become a great chef is my destiny, but my first steps were a disaster, and, as my stint in school proved, it wasn’t my last.

Detective Aaron Wilson asked me where I was on the night a woman was gruesomely murdered behind the Achewillow Café. Just like a child with a child’s understanding of baking cookies, I could not have handled it worse.

“I was right here,” I say, glad to answer questions but disappointed I won’t be much help.

“Right.” Detective Wilson nods, as if confirming what he already knew. “Was anyone here with you?”

“Oh! Yes! Olivia Fig was here. I slept at her place after we—”

I cut myself short as Wilson’s eyebrows shot up midway through my sentence.

A little panicked, I scan the dining area for Olivia. She didn’t follow me into the café, yet somehow, I expect to see her here.

Instead, I see the so-called Inquisition glaring at me from their table. Two well-dressed women sitting opposite one another at a table split with a red and blue line are also staring in my direction. There’s a trio of white-robed gentlemen who bought only tea, making a point that they avoid caffeine at all costs. Something about believing in purity of body and soul. I didn’t care to explain that tea still contains significant amounts of the offending chemical.

But Olivia is nowhere to be seen.

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Miriam?”

The detective wears his best “helpful keeper of the peace” face, and with all the strange eyes digging into me, I fall for it.

“There was a noise in the alley last night,” I whisper, forcing him to lean in. “Scared me half to death. That’s why I slept at the Fig place.”

“A noise?” he asks, his voice also dropping. “What kind of noise?”

“A scary noise.”

I look around again and stop when the back door opens just wide enough to let a uniformed officer in. He walks up to the counter to put down a couple of empty coffee cups. I look at Wilson, his curious blue eyes drilling into me, trying to paint a picture of last night’s events.

“There was someone out behind the café,” I continue. “I assumed it was just some homeless guy, probably drunk. He was messing with the door, trying to get in. . .”

I trail off.

“I’m going to need you to come down to the station to give a statement about what you heard.”

I shake my head, feeling the floor dropping from under me. Twenty-four hours prior, I was bored out of my skull listening to Helen Edna prattle on about succession and last wills and testaments. Now I’m neck deep in a murder investigation while operating a coffee shop alone in a strange place.

“I can’t close the coffee shop,” I mumble, unsure what I should do.

“Do you have a permit to run this place at all?” Wilson asks, like he’s springing a trap on me.

“No, but it’s fine. You’re the one who told me to open it up so I could make coffee for you and your people. That makes it okay . . . right?”

I hear the naivety in my voice as I speak, fully aware that I’ve been played.

“I don’t have that kind of authority.” He shrugs with a self-satisfied smile. “But if you close up now and come with me, answer a few questions, I can make sure you don’t get into trouble for it.”

He says all that in the open, out loud, and for the whole café to hear.

The Inquisitors are the first to empty their cups and file out of the Achewillow. Soon, the middle-aged women follow. Then, and without Detective Wilson having to say another word, the whole of the café drains itself of patrons and customers. I sit there, letting it happen until I’m left alone with the detective.

“Can’t I answer your questions here?”

I thought he was on my side. He cleverly tricked me into occupying my mind with coffee and cookies and figuring out the antique register. He’s a servant of the peace. Surely, he has my best interests in mind. But he wasn’t manipulating me for my own good. He was keeping me close at hand, easy to find and manageable. Then, he tricked me into this compromising position, maneuvered me into a place of vulnerability. Instead of fighting back, all I can do is fidget with my shirt sleeve and try to brush away the flour covering my blue jeans like spilled snow.

Detective Wilson, acting helpful, picks up a few plates and mugs left behind by the departing customers. He offers a crooked smile, as if giving the option serious consideration, but soon shakes his head.

“Don’t worry,” he reassures. “Think of it as a formality.”

And that’s it.

Half an hour later, I’m sitting in an interrogation room, in another country, across the cold stainless-steel table from the detective. I should have seen this coming. The body was found on the south side of the café and thus the village. Not to mention Wilson paid in U.S. currency. The whole situation has the veneer of a staged cliché, from the large mirror on the wall across from me and behind Wilson, to the overflowing file folder in front of Wilson. The claustrophobic room and low lighting further chips at my will, already eroded by trauma, trickery, and a cup of terrible machine coffee.

To their credit, everyone at the station on this side of the border has been very pleasant. While the coffee feels like torture, it’s the best they have, and they did offer me candy or chips from another machine.

“Don’t I get a phone call?”

It’s the first question that comes to mind as I begin to realize where I am, and how I got here.

“You’re not under arrest,” Wilson answers, sipping his own coffee while sitting backward on his chair.

Of course not. So, I guess I get as many phone calls as I want, but I request none.

“Am I a suspect?”

The question comes coated in disbelief, but he smiles and shakes his head.

“No. Like I said, I have a few questions, and I might need to take an official statement. Do you mind if we record this?”

I shake my head. What could I say that would have any weight on his investigation? There’s an uncomfortable silence as he fusses with the machine. It’s a genuine, old-style tape recorder. Detective Wilson might be older than I am, but even he seems baffled by the near-obsolete technology. I use that moment to sip at my oily black coffee. Better that than endure the awkward silence.

“All right,” he says, after pushing a button and setting the tape whirring.

It dawns on me that the entire station is like that tape recorder, a slice of time from the past. Security cameras in the corners are big and bulky with large red lights that blink every second. The desk computers have massive CRT monitors instead of sleek flat screens. Even Wilson’s Impala is at least two decades old. This isn’t a police station; it’s a museum.

“So! First, I want to apologize for my ruse. It wasn’t really intentional, y’know. You looked rattled, and I wanted to keep you busy while I did some digging.”

I want to think he’s genuinely apologetic, but he’s spent every last ounce of my trust.

Both my hands hold the Styrofoam cup to my lips, hiding the lower half of my face. I don’t want to drink the vile concoction, but I don’t know what else to do with myself.

“Digging about what?”

“About you, of course.”

He leans forward, eager and hungry, not for answers, not yet. No, he’s hungry to tell me what he’s found. I can’t imagine what sort of investigation he could have done. Did he call my parents or school? Maybe he contacted Trevor and Cindy. He looks like he thinks he’s found some secret I want to keep hidden.

If that’s the case, he’s in for some serious disappointment. The most sordid thing about me is the state of my life over the last few months. My worst crime is underage drinking, and that’s only because I’ve been cooking with rum and wine since I was twelve.

“See, I didn’t understand who you were at first. The Achewillow’s been empty for six months now. I half expected they’d be putting up boards in the window soon.”

The image strikes an unexpected chord. The Achewillow? Boarded up like some vulgar out-of-business fast-food joint? That didn’t seem right. I may not have known Doris, but she clearly cared about the place. It would have broken her heart to see it like that.

“But I saw the resemblance, and a few calls confirmed you were the previous owner’s great-grandniece?”

He ends in a question, but he already knows the answer. He probably got that information from Helen Edna. See? I can play detective, too.

“Why didn’t you ask? I’ve got nothing to hide.”

He sits back, still eager and still hungry, but no less excited about his “impressive” police work.

There’s a crack in Wilson’s tough detective façade. The whole costume and attitude look more like a mask to hide what I can only describe as playful incompetence. Maybe that’s too harsh, but there’s something less than serious to Aaron Wilson’s demeanor.

“Detective?” I ask. “What is this all about? You said you had questions.”

“You’re right. You’re right. I apologize. Let me get to the point,” he says, leaning back. “What do you know about Edward Gulliver Kemper?”

“Nothing.”

I hope and expect my answer to be a huge disappointment for the detective. After all the efforts he put into bringing me in and cornering me, he’ll have nothing to show for it. I don’t even have to stretch the truth.

“I barely know the guy,” I add for emphasis, seeing that my initial statement lacks the desired effect.

Instead of disappointment, it’s mischievous curiosity that stretches over Detective Wilson’s face. It does not suit him. It makes him look petty and mean.

His right hand extends over the table, and his fingers drum the cold, metallic surface, pretending to give my answer some thought. The way he fixes me with his blue eyes, however, I know he’s already got a solid idea of what comes next.

“Are you sure about that?” he asks, acting like this is my chance to come clean.

I don’t know what he wants. He’s a man expecting a vichyssoise at the soup kitchen, completely misjudging the source he’s drawing from.

“I’ve met him once—No. Twice. Both times yesterday. We didn’t really form a deep bond.”

“Right, but he does deliveries at your great-grandaunt’s café, correct?”

I offer only a nod, and even that I spike with as much vinegar as a simple gesture can convey.

There’s little mystery to what he’s insinuating. Gulliver did deliveries for Doris. I’m related to Doris; ergo, and therefore, I too have a relationship with Gulliver.

“Two days ago, I didn’t even know I had a relative in Achewillow. Hell,” I laugh, “I didn’t even know there was a place called Achewillow.”

He flips through a few more pages in his file, pulling out a printout of a chat window. He doesn’t do it with so much of a flourish as he does with slow deliberation. He slides the page over the brushed steel surface of the table, but before it’s even close to me, I can recognize the pixelated logo at the top. It’s a screenshot of my conversation with Gulliver from two days ago, when I was still looking for a ride to Achewillow.

“I don’t know why you’re showing me this. If anything, that proves I didn’t know Gulliver before then.”

Wilson’s smirk gains intensity, and he pushes the page almost into my lap.

“You’re not thinking like a detective,” he says. “Don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that the same man who’s been doing deliveries for Doris DuFour is the one that gave her great-grandniece a ride into Achewillow?”

“No, I don’t.” Outrage boils over, overtaking my fear and anxiety. He makes it sound like I’m in cahoots with Gulliver. It’s easy to be confident when all I have is the truth, and that forces more cracks in Wilson’s character. The more he digs, the more he looks desperate to find this connection between me and the murders. But desperation is a dangerous emotion. It makes people reckless and stupid, but also aggressive and unreasonable. If Wilson is desperate enough to cast me as a player in his theory, there’s little I can do to stop him.

I feel like I’m a million miles from Canada even though the border is only a few blocks away. I want to be out of here, but if I ask to leave, won’t that just confirm his suspicions? I don’t want to have Detective Wilson hovering over my shoulder and putting his nose into everything I do in this town.

“I’m pretty sure people doing the Montreal-Achewillow drive are few and far between,” I explain. Then I stab my finger at the logo at the top of the page. “And this is a very popular ride-sharing site. It was the top result in my search. So, assuming Gulliver wants to make a few extra bucks, it’s perfectly logical that he’d keep an eye on that site.”

Detective Wilson pulls the page back from across the table with one finger, sliding it into his file folder. He closes the file and places it at the corner of the table. I expect him to stand, open the door, apologize, and let me be on my way.

Instead, he leans back again.

“How much did the ride set you back?”

“Pardon?”

“How much did he charge you for the ride here?”

Nothing. I don’t say it, but the answer is obvious from my expression. With my lips slightly parted, I let the word hang on the tip of my tongue before swallowing it back.

“I assume you’ve heard about the string of murders happening in town?”

Again, I let my features do the talking. It’s amazing how much a blank, stunned stare can communicate.

“The first murder . . .” He goes through his file again, pulling out a photograph of a young woman, at best a few years my senior. It’s blown up from a candid family photo. The kind taken at a gathering or party. “Happened a little less than six months ago. Her name was Candice Emery. She was about to move down to Colorado to get a degree in engineering. Can you tell me what else happened about six months ago?”

I know the answer to that. After all this badgering, trickery, and deception, I finally see where he’s going, and I find myself relating to Wilson. I don’t like coincidences, either.

“Doris passed away,” I say.

He nods, but there’s no satisfaction in it. He’s taking me on a journey. Feeding me the ingredients so I can cook the story myself. I know he can’t get to the conclusion and accuse me of anything without making some stunning leap in logic, but until I’ve gone through the whole recipe, I won’t know what the dish is, either.

“It’s not something that’s made it to the papers, but it’s also not a very well-kept secret, so maybe you’ve heard; where did all the murders happen?”

I haven’t heard, but I can put it together myself. If we’re making a cake, I know we’ll use flour at some point.

“Near the Achewillow Café.”

“Within two blocks,” he confirms.

I swallow hard. What did I inherit from Doris? I can see why Detective Wilson is drawing links between the café and the murders and, by extension, everyone associated with it. Suddenly, Gulliver’s jokes about his name seem so much more sinister.

“Do you want to take a break, Ms. DuFour?”

My discomfort is obvious, but his offer is cold, and I can tell he doesn’t want me to accept. Part of me wants to say yes to spite him. Hell, didn’t he say I wasn’t a suspect? That I could walk out of here? Or will he officially arrest me the moment I try to exercise that right? It’s funny that even after watching so many American crime dramas, I know next to nothing about my rights within the U.S. judicial system.

I shake my head and set my jaw, intent on signaling that I’m not ready to waver.

“Good,” he says, satisfied. “I’ve only got one more question to ask, anyway: Do you know how Doris DuFour died?”

She had a stroke. She was old and had a stroke. It’s what the letter from Helen Edna said, and it’s what we always expect old people to die from: that or a heart attack. If that were true, however, I don’t think Detective Wilson would be asking me this question.

Was she another victim of whoever was killing people in Achewillow? Did Helen Edna lie to me? If Gulliver is indeed the one behind the murders, does that mean he killed Doris?

The questions tumble out of my mind and crowd themselves in my throat.

One manages to bully its way to the front of the pack. Strengthened by urgency and suspicion, and no small amount of paranoia, it finds its way to my tongue, spilling forth in a quivering mess.

“Am I...” I start, stop, swallow, then start again. “Are you saying Gulliver is stalking me?”

Detective Wilson’s face melts back to the expression I first saw him wear. It’s the weathered compassion of a man trying to comfort a girl who just saw her first dead body. This time, he’s looking for a way to tell me that I am, indeed, being stalked by a large, menacing stranger. A man who may very well have killed my great-grandaunt.

He tries to break the silence. He begins to lean forward and open his mouth when a knock on the door interrupts him.

There’s no time for Wilson to answer before it swings open. Bright lights from the corridor and bullpen outside flood into the interrogation room, reminding me of how dark it is in here. Cut from the bright neon glow, I recognize a familiar silhouette. Clad in a smart business skirt, with a clean and crisp jacket folded neatly over her arm, Helen Edna, notary public, walks into the room.

Even the officer escorting her looks intimidated.

“What do you think you’re doing, Aaron?”

Detective Wilson doesn’t seem so much surprised as exasperated. He doesn’t even bother to get up, but instead quickly gathers the photo of Candice Emery, clutching his file folder like a precious treasure.

“Questioning a person of interest,” he answers, all signs of compassion replaced by confidence and defiance.

“Questioning a Canadian citizen without cause or consent,” Helen retorts, taking my wrist and pulling me to my feet.

Helen Edna’s attention is on Detective Wilson. The notary public didn’t seem capable of much emotion when I first met her—apart from aloof contempt. Staring down at Wilson, she seems to drizzle hate on top of him. This is her interrogation room now, and by the way she pulls on my wrist, I know Helen Edna is intent on getting me out of it.

“You’re not a lawyer, Helen,” Wilson says, standing up in an attempt to reassert his authority.

“I am not, Aaron, but do you want me to call one? Not sending in a lawyer, or calling your district attorney for that matter, is a courtesy. You may want to consider enjoying it while it lasts.”

And with that, we’re on our way out, leaving a rather stunned and rattled Detective Wilson behind.

It turns out I was right; Helen Edna, notary public, does drive a boring, neutral-colored BMW.

Where I was wrong, however, was in assuming that she was some stereotypical, emotionless pencil pusher. Helen Edna is capable of feeling, and not only the frustrated annoyance she showed me and Gulliver. Under the right conditions, she can summon up a focused rage strong enough to broil even the resolve of a grown man.

“Seatbelt,” she says, stern and uncompromising. “What the hell were you thinking?”

I strap in before answering. I don’t have a good answer, and I certainly do not want her white-hot fury turned in my direction.

Fortunately, my silence seems to be answer enough, or she never really cared about my excuses. She just wanted a setup to lay into me.

“I gave you a key to the Achewillow as a courtesy, not so you could open for business. And following Aaron across the border? Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have gotten yourself into?”

Her tone is annoying and parental. She sounds like my mom when I mess up. I’m not mad; I’m disappointed seems to be the underlying theme of her thesis.

“I saw a dead body.”

The words spill forth, cold and sluggish. I look at my hands, resting atop my thighs. Fingers and denim are both caked with flour. There’s a spot of grease from melted butter near my right knee, and I wonder if it’ll come off in the wash. What was I thinking? I was thinking of anything that would keep me from seeing that body behind the Achewillow, missing guts and all.

“At the station?” Helen asks, her indignation flaring up anew.

“No, no. Behind the café. That’s why I started baking and serving coffee. A way to keep myself distracted from thinking about it.”

A moment bleeds in silence.

We pass from the U.S. side of town and into the Canadian side. There’s no checkpoint, no border patrol, no customs. It feels almost unnatural to have no authorities enforcing border security. I’ll have to ask how that works someday.

“I’m sorry you went through that,” Helen says, navigating the narrow streets of Achewillow, winding her way toward Rue Principale. “It must have been traumatic. I have some news that might cheer you up, though.”

The car stops about a block away from the Achewillow Café. I see it on the side of the street; the green wooden sign is already illuminated, though twilight remains half an hour away.

Ambulances, police cars, and the crowd of thirsty clients are all gone. A tiny man with a dog twice his size walks by the café and stops to look through the window, but the strange pair moves on after a few seconds.

Everything looks so normal. No one would suspect a woman was murdered only a few dozen feet from where we’re parked.

The doors to the BMW stay locked, and the engine keeps running as Helen Edna, notary public, pulls out her briefcase from the back. She fusses for a few seconds before taking out a file folder that reminds me of Detective Wilson’s precious papers.

Digging further into her bureaucratic Russian doll, Helen finally presents the fruits of her labor: more paper.

“Here you go,” she says, as close to triumphant as she can be.

“What are these?”

I leaf through the clean white sheets of paper, each a tapestry of letters and bullet points. None of which I feel intellectually or emotionally equipped to understand on my own.

Still, I frown and flip through the pile, doing my best impression of someone who gets it. It’s not enough.

“These,” Helen says, pulling out a thick stack of stapled documents, “are the permits to operate the Achewillow. I had them updated to your name.

“There you go, Miriam DuFour, daughter of Alain DuFour, son of Adolf DuFour, son of Xavier DuFour, brother of Doris DuFour. This makes it official: the Achewillow Café is yours.”

The file folder suddenly feels much heavier, like the trees that went into making the pulp of each page weigh in my hands.

Less than two days ago, I had less than nothing. My ambitions were crumbling to dust, and my dreams were fading like steam over a cooling soup. I flip the pages, sifting through permit numbers, renewal dates, stamps, and signatures, but making little sense of any of it.

“So, I could just open up shop now? For real?”

“Yes,” Helen confirms. “For real. Everything is in duplicate, giving you operational license to store, prepare, and sell food on either side of the border. The last page lists all the utilities and suppliers, so you know who to pay and when. You have my phone number, so if you have any questions on how to run the business, give me a call and I’ll help. And if Aaron—or anyone—gives you trouble over your right to operate the Achewillow, let me know. The only caveat is that you cannot sublet or sell the immovable properties. Not until I decide on a way out of her last will clause. You understand?”

I nod without looking back at her. Instead, I gaze out the window, at the Achewillow Café. A stenciled logo in the large front window obscures the interior, but I can imagine a large dining room and the two dozen tables that populate it. It feels hollow and slumbering, and I’m surprised by how much I miss seeing it bustling with customers. I long to go back in and savor the lingering smell of baking and coffee.

“Why?”

I finally turn to look at my benefactor. So far, despite seeming cold and methodical to me, Helen has been nothing but kind and generous. While I expect an invoice at some point, I can’t escape the feeling that this is more than business to her.

“Because,” Helen says, looking down the street ahead of us, “Doris was my friend and a pillar of a community that I hold dear. She helped me through some of the darkest times of my life, just as she did for so many others here. It’s no exaggeration when I say that when she died, part of this town’s soul went with her. Maybe my hopes are misplaced, but I think perhaps you can replace her a little. Be that missing pillar, before the roof comes down on us.”

There’s a pause, then I hear the doors click unlocked.

I was going to ask about selling the Achewillow, but after that show of vulnerability, I’ll wait to press that point. Having the whole line of family members connect me back to Doris, like links on a chain, also makes the inevitability of putting the café on the market feel gross.

“Thank you,” I say, clutching the file folder close to my chest and opening the passenger door.

She swallows hard before pulling the key from the ignition. We step out of her car, and a chill wind tussles our hair.

“I need to lock up the office for the night,” she says, holding her briefcase by her side. “Do you need anything else?”

I ponder her offer but can’t come up with anything. With these papers in my hand, I can open the Achewillow tomorrow morning to start serving cookies and lattes to the town residents. If nothing else, I can keep myself solvent until I figure out my next step.

Then it hits me.

“One thing: the key Doris gave Gulliver, does it also open up the apartment above?”

She frowns, and I see questions taking form behind her eyes. Her own dislike for Gulliver does nothing but fuel my own apprehensions.

“No. Just the café.”

I sigh in relief. Knowing his access is restricted makes me a little more comfortable. At least I have a safe place to sleep.

I hope.

The Achewillow is as I left it.

Dirty dishes are piled on the counter next to the register, and filthy mugs and cups crowd the sink, waiting to be put in the dishwasher. Flour covers the kitchen counter like a dusting of snow on a late November morning. The trash bins are full, and the floors are covered in dust tracked in from outside.

This isn’t the most glamorous part of owning and operating a food establishment, but it needs to get done. Besides, once everything is put away, the floors clean, the counters tidy, and the dishwasher humming, I can bake a few things for the morning.

Preparing a few batches of cinnamon rolls and scones will do me good. Cooking has a therapeutic effect on me that borders on magic.

I whistle a random tune as I busy myself, going back and forth between the dining area and the kitchen. I dance with the mop after I’ve put all the chairs on the tables and paint the counters clean with wet rags. By the time I’m done and ready to fire up the oven, night is teasing Achewillow with long shadows and darkening skies.

Then I notice it.

The back door, the gateway to where I saw my first dead body, is open. Only a crack, but twilight seems to spill in now that I’ve seen it.

Has it been open since I got here? Did someone sneak in while I was filling the dishwasher?

I walk up to close the door, fingers shaking. The memory of the dead body along with the forbidding darkness from behind the café makes me wary of stepping out. But curiosity is too strong.

My hand closes on the doorknob, and, where it could have pushed the door shut and twisted the lock, it instead pulls the door open. Light from the dining area illuminates the two green dumpsters out back.

The body is gone, leaving only a few strands of yellow tape as any clue of what was found this morning. My senses are on high alert as I scrutinize the alley. I look down both sides like a child crossing the street on their own for the first time, but instead of cars or motorcycles, I’m looking for killers and stalkers. Instead, lying flat on the ground next to the dumpster, I find a fresh, clean box of salt.

Each of my breaths is labored and deep as I walk the three concrete steps down to the alley to inspect the box. Leaving the comforting light of the Achewillow feels like swimming away from shore and into uncertain waters. In this case, like picking at a fresh wound, making it bleed anew before it even has time to scab over.

As expected, it’s one of the boxes from the kitchen, the top chewed open. Those stupid raccoons must have stolen it thinking it was food. The look on their faces when they found nothing but salt must have been hilarious, but I struggle to find the mirth in it.

“Hsssssss!”

I only jump a little at the sound from the closest dumpster. Speaking of stupid raccoons.

The large one from yesterday is sticking his big fat body out of the top of the metal container, standing atop a pile of rubbish. His back is arched, and his fur is on end. His fangs catch the light as he snarls with an angry, spitting sound.

“Hey, you’re the one stealing from me, buddy.”

He hisses again, but not at me.

Instead, his beady little eyes are fixed on the copse of trees beyond the alley.

Cold wind picks up my hair again and a chill runs up my spine.

I follow the fat raccoon’s gaze. The same shambling man from yesterday is stumbling between the trees, shuffling like a drunk toward the Achewillow Café.

6

THE COMFORT OF SACRED SPACES

At what point has your day been so horrible that you can no longer see the line between imagination and reality?

Because I’ve had one hell of a day, and at this point, no one could blame me if I started seeing things. Which is the only possible explanation for what’s happening.

Far in the distance, cloaked in the fading light of a dying day, I witness an apparition. It looks like the homeless man I saw last night, but it’s closer. Close enough that I can get a better look at it.

I say it because I’m not sure what I’m looking at. Is it a revenant, a ghost, or the symptoms of an exhausted mind? But it can’t be that last one. After all, the raccoon sees it, too.

Getting confirmation of my own sanity from vermin would be enough to make me chuckle, but the shape shambling between the shadows is nothing to laugh at.

For all intents and purposes, it looks like a man. Five-ten or five-eleven with thin limbs and a dark complexion. Not dark like what you get from a tan or generations in the sun. Dark like ash or the veins of moldy cheese.

Its chest looks sunken, and its abdomen compressed to next to nothing, yet its face and neck are fat, like a bloated corpse or a malformed pumpkin.

There’s something familiar about the thing dragging its feet toward us. I’ve seen this unique and revolting configuration of a body before, or something like it.

The wind whips up a strand of discarded yellow tape, bold, black lettering undulating along with the plastic strip. It brings back the woman whose corpse I saw this morning, lying bloodless and motionless where I stand right now. Whatever is shambling between the trees a little under fifty yards away shares a distinct lack of midsection with the poor girl.

Two more raccoons poke their heads out of the dumpster, one with a sun-faded red tag on its right ear. The big one growls at them, and they scamper back into their green refuge.

“I guess you’re the boss then, eh?”

Hearing my own voice reassures me a little. It grounds me, breaking the spell of silence, shadows, and fear.

When I turn back to the apparition in the trees, it’s nowhere to be seen. At first, I freak out a little. It’s like spotting a spider in your bed and losing sight of it. As much as I hate the idea of a bug on my pillow, it’s worse when I know it’s there but can’t see it.

“Where did it go?” I whip back to the dumpster, somehow hoping the trash vermin will answer, but he too has disappeared.

“Traitor,” I mumble, leaning down to pick up my box of salt.

Am I talking to raccoons about the hallucinations I’m suffering? I need some rest. Imagined or not, I make sure the back door is closed and locked once I’m in the café. Even when I’m done cleaning, before I walk out the front, I go back to double-check.

Metal whines and complains under my slow steps to the apartment above the Achewillow. I feel almost drunk stuffing the boring little silver key Helen Edna gave me into the lock. My aim is off, and it takes me a couple of tries before I figure out which direction to twist the knob.

Before I even look for a light switch, I turn the lock on the handle, listening to the heavy bolt slide into place. I take one final look through the narrow window in the door, though there’s little to see beyond the second-floor balcony.

Flicking the switch on the wall, the apartment is illuminated in a warm glow. The dim, incandescent lighting is toned down by old hanging fixtures of orange glass. The first thing underfoot is a faded rug with stylized raccoons woven into the design. Unvarnished moldings and doors give the place an authentic rustic texture. If nothing else, Doris’s home is welcoming.

I should have climbed up here earlier. This isn’t a hotel room, prepared in advance for my stay with freshly cleaned linens for my convenience and comfort. This is a dead woman’s home. The bed has been stripped. Closets are filled with mothballs, and sheets cover the furniture to protect it from dust.

Otherwise, everything is as Doris left it the day she died.

But this doesn’t look like an old woman’s apartment. At least, through my weary eyes, it looks like something much older. How did Helen Edna put it? Doris was my great-grandfather’s sister? No wonder her home looks like something that should only be seen in shades of sepia or behind velvet ropes in a museum.

It’s not the biggest place, covering less than half as much floor space as the café on the first floor. A long corridor stretches from the front door to a dining room at the back. There’s comfort and security in this place, and the smells of the café have followed me up, wrapping me in aromas of apples and butter.

Hardwood floors, partially hidden by colorful rugs, cover most of the apartment. A little like Olivia’s home, there seems to be knitted blankets on half of the furniture.

Framed photographs line the corridor like panels in a comic book, each telling a fragment of a continuous story.

You’d think Doris a narcissist, as so many of the photos feature her, but they aren’t of Doris. Instead, they represent important, emotional moments. Sure, she’s there, smiling from ear to ear, wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. But she’s never alone. In a way, Doris is only there to share in someone else’s joy.

In one of the older photos, she’s holding a tray of cookies in the middle of a crowd of graduating students. Each is wearing their gown along with raw pride on their faces. The cookies are iced in beautiful, complex patterns that resemble lace.

In another, more recent photo, Doris is next to a mind-
boggling three-tiered white cake. Men in fancy suits and women in beautiful dresses surround the breathtaking dessert. Her smiling eyes are full of tears while, next to her, a man in a tux passionately kisses a woman in a wedding gown. If I were to place a bet, I’d swear the man was Henry Fig.

Everything I look at feels like voyeurism. Everything I touch a sacrilege. This is a place separate from the rest of Achewillow, almost shielded from the weirdness.

For the second night in a row, I have to sleep in a strange bed. This one smells just as old, but a lot less musty, which, I guess, is the reward for having to put the sheets on myself.

Doris wasn’t the type to surround herself in creature comforts. The queen-sized bed is soft but modest, and the rest of her bedroom is small and cozy. The alarm clock on her doily-covered nightstand is analog, with big red numbers marking the time. There’s a television on the dresser across the room, but it’s a small CRT with a bulging screen barely ten inches across. Thin chrome antennae stick out of its back.

I’m overwhelmed with gratitude to find a washer and dryer, along with some detergent powder. I borrow a nightgown while my clothes wash, and I continue my visit through the apartment.

I can’t bring myself to walk into Doris’s personal kitchen; the place seems sacred. Every time I get close, I can almost feel her presence. The red metallic gleam of copper pots and the obvious shape of a classic gas stovetop are inviting, but it feels too much like a sanctum.

Instead, I spend my time waiting for my clothes, sitting on the couch in the living room. Phone in hand, I text people back in Montreal to let them know it might be a few more days before my return.

I ask Laura at work to give my hours to someone else until next week, and I let Trevor and Cindy know that I won’t be home until Monday. Trev doesn’t bother to answer, but Cindy drops half a novel to bring me up to speed on what’s going on in her life (they don’t need a part-timer at her workplace after all) and wishes me all the luck in the world with the estate.

God, I hate her.

I hesitate for a full ten minutes, but eventually I send a message to my mom. I sit on the razor’s edge of telling her about Great-Grandaunt Doris but chicken out, mentioning only that I’m out of Montreal for a little while. Hopefully, that won’t cause any follow-up questions.

By the time my phone warns me its battery is low, I’ve all but put the trials of the day behind me. I wouldn’t say I’ve processed, let alone forgotten, about the horrors and struggles, but as long as I’m in Doris’s domain, I can trick myself into thinking I’m safe.

The washer startles me with a loud, mechanical buzz, and I need a moment before I can drag myself to the laundry room. Everywhere my eye lands, I find another souvenir or trinket that further defines Doris.

I can see what Gulliver meant by Doris and me having a familiar look. He’s right about the crow’s feet, though mine are more like laugh lines, where hers are wrinkles. We have the same general height and build. And even though my hair is dark brown and hers is sunny blond, our curls have the same bounce, and in some photos, almost the same cut.

More importantly, in almost every photo of Doris, she wears her smile, and it looks so terribly familiar. It’s my smile, the one I had when I got accepted to cooking school or on my first day in my own apartment in Montreal. It’s a smile that’s almost omnipresent here but one I haven’t seen on myself in too many months.

Behind the door to the laundry room, I find the only obvious reminder of the Achewillow Café. An apron, white and thick, with an embroidered, stylized tree in shiny green thread.

I pick it up from its hook, carefully spreading the garment in front of me. It’s clean but used and stained. Of all the items in the apartment, even compared to the ancient register and incomprehensible coffee machine, this is the closest thing to an heirloom I’ve seen so far.

The fabric looks worn, and there are stubborn oil and tomato stains here and there. I imagine Doris had the apron around her neck most days for the years preceding her death.

Followed by the hum of the dryer, I wander back into the corridor, still clutching the white fabric in my hands. It’s here and there, adorning Doris’s body in half of the photos, a perfect complement to her joyous smile.

The soft mattress welcomes me as I sink into its embrace. Sleep is quick to join, wrapping me in comfortable warmth, even though I neglect to get under the comforter.

The apron is still close to my heart, my fingers refusing to let it go even as my eyelids abandon the fight to stay open.

Welcome home.

My eyes snap open again.

It takes a while, but I convince myself that I imagined the voice and finally try to get some well-deserved rest.

The night is fitful, and whatever sleep I find feels watered down. I wake up a half dozen times, and it’s a struggle to slip back into slumber.

The dryer is first to wake me, announcing it’s done its task with a loud, obnoxious buzz. Next, auditory hallucinations fueled by fear and paranoia stand between me and sleep.

It’s not so much the thought that Gulliver might be as terrifying as his full name implies, or the image of a walking corpse behind the café. It’s the ever-present feeling that I’m not alone in the apartment.

Floors creak and windows rattle, and at some point, I could swear the bedroom door closed itself before my very eyes.

Strangest of all, none of it feels aggressive. Voices on the edge of hearing startle me with words of comfort. The bedroom door closes to stop the cold draft that would have surely given me a nasty sore throat in the morning.

When the sun begins to filter through the lace curtains, warming up the room with a soft, golden glow, I give up on sleep entirely.

Bright red numbers tell me it’s only a few minutes after six in the morning. My joints ache, my eyes burn, and I’m still clutching Doris’s apron.

My clothes are clean and dry as I put them on. The daze of trauma and shock from yesterday is replaced by a drowsiness pulled over my brain like a thin, wet rag. All at once, it obscures my sight and hearing, and it suffocates me.

I get a better look at Doris’s kitchen, still too intimidated to set foot on the warm beige tiles that cover its hallowed ground. It’s enormous. Almost as big as the Achewillow’s, but much more welcoming and lived in. Why would someone who already owns a large, professional kitchen also need such a vast playground literally one floor above?

I know damn well why.

Doris must have loved cooking almost as much as I do.

Now there’s a resemblance I bet Gulliver never noticed, and one that draws a more solid connection to my deceased great-grandaunt. They say blood is thicker than water, but a good béchamel puts both to shame.

I make my way down to the Achewillow, where I’m greeted by a small lineup at the door.

“Morning, Ms. DuFour,” an old but muscular man says with a sort of familiarity that makes me a little uncomfortable. He’s dressed in dusty overalls covered in paint stains, his lips hidden behind a formidable gray moustache. The amount of food and drink that thing intercepts during a meal must be incredible.

Other would-be patrons nod as I pass, all with smiles the color of anticipation. I don’t get it, but right now, what else do I have to occupy my day? Besides, this time, I’m fully licensed and authorized to operate the café, so I might as well keep busy and make a few dollars.

Everyone waits politely as I unlock the door and slip into the café. My eyes sweep over the dining room, savoring the cleanliness left over from last night’s efforts. A little light catches the brass tubes of the coffee machine, and I hope I can remember its eccentric operation.

I stand on the threshold between the cash register and the kitchen, surrounded by darkness. The sun is only beginning to creep over the buildings across the street. It’ll be a few more hours before it can pour down through the front window. As my eyes adjust, I see part of the back door’s frame. My breath catches in my throat, but I will myself to calm. The faster I’m no longer alone in here, the sooner I can put the fear aside. A little.

My fist is still closed on Doris’s apron. I realize that not since plucking it up from the hook in the laundry room have I let go of it for more than a moment.

I steal a glance back at the window. The five or so patrons, patiently waiting for me to unlock the door and let them bask in warm, coffee-scented bliss, are all staring in my direction.

Their anticipation isn’t for the opening of the café. They’re waiting for something so much more momentous in their eye, but banal with a twist of sacrilege in mine.

I sigh and maybe even roll my eyes a little.

Biting the bullet, I pull the apron’s collar over my head and around my neck. The straps on each side are long enough to go around my waist twice and tie up in the front. Two large pockets contain scraps of paper, a fancy pen, and a simple little spiral notebook.

There’s a soft, rhythmic thump at the glass up front. The Moustache Man is gently tapping the window with the palm of his hand, smiling like an old friend who wants to chat. Every step I take wearing Doris’s shoes, someone in this town smiles and cheers.

They’ll all be very disappointed by the end of the week, but I let them have this.

Among my first clients is a contingent of white-robed, braided-hair cultists. They come in and demand their usual, which I have to ask them to describe.

My usual is a very common phrase at the Achewillow Café. I don’t know if the locals are too lazy to spell out their orders or too lazy to notice a change in administration.

The people in white robes’ usual is a box of the fluffiest croissants I can make. I don’t know if you’ve ever made croissants, but you don’t whip those out in a minute, and I make a point of letting them know. But they’re more than happy waiting for most of the day while I prepare a batch for them. Meanwhile, all six of them purchase tea and cookies and patiently wait at a corner table.

Moustache Man is in more of a hurry, getting some coffee and the first cinnamon roll of the first batch, before vanishing out the door.

The two middle-aged women who shared the split table yesterday take their coffee to go.

I spend the lion’s share of my morning juggling between making coffee and baking in the kitchen. I try to keep the counter display stocked and anticipate customer needs.

My relationship with the steam beast is almost peaceful, and it cooperates enough that I can whip up the first decent— no, delicious—cup of coffee from its brass guts so far.

While prepping croissants for the braided weirdos, I make a few extra batches. Some for the display, some in case they want more tomorrow morning, and some for myself, because I’m starving and even the average croissant is great.

Mine aren’t average. They’re amazing.

This isn’t fine dining. No food critic is going to walk through the front door and judge my breakfast pastries for a national newspaper or popular cooking vlog. In exchange, I get compliments from the townsfolk. They come in all flavors, from a sincere thank you, that was delicious, to a wave from departing customers. All are wearing satisfied smiles, and I catch myself with one of my own a few times throughout the morning.

“Thank god you’re open,” an older lady, dressed completely in black, says as she walks up to the register. “I’ll have my usual.”

The exasperated comment I’ve been brewing all morning doesn’t pass my lips, stopped just after a sharp intake of breath.

“I’m sorry,” I say instead. “What would that be?”

“The same thing I always take,” she insists.

I don’t want to do this dance. There’s a pile of dough that demands kneading on the kitchen counter; playing guessing games with the local color has zero appeal.

“I’m new here; you’ll have to tell me what that is.”

“Oh,” she seems disappointed by the news. “I thought you would have known. That maybe she would have told you. She’s the one who prescribed it, you see, and I’m not sure how to describe it.”

The lady, who I now notice has puffy eyes and a familiar strain to her features, is fiddling with her black knitted scarf. Like me, she doesn’t look like she’s had her recommended eight hours of sleep. In fact, she might not be as old as I thought, lack of rest having sucked years from her apparent age.

“It’s an orange poppy seed honey cake, but I don’t know how Doris made it.”

The pleading in her voice is like a child’s. In her words, the simple demand sounds dire. I used to be like that. Demanding that the crust on my sandwiches be cut just so, otherwise the whole meal might turn to vitriol.

Except I was four at the time.

“Orange poppy seed honey cake? Oh, I can make that.”

I can make that with a hand tied behind my back. Remember, I’m awesome at baking. Even Chef Gagnon says so.

“Are you sure?” she asks, as if her request were a grand task and not a relatively simple recipe.

I might as well have told her I could make a philosopher’s stone by the way she reacts, her tired eyes wide with hope that soon she’ll turn all that pesky lead into gold. Maybe she’s not that great of a cook herself. Maybe a humble honey cake is the one thing she can’t put together. Maybe Doris’s honey cakes were simply that good.

I bet I can make a better one.

I run back to the kitchen to make sure I have all the ingredients. Would you know it, it’s all there except for oranges, but those shouldn’t be too hard to get a hold of.

“I don’t have any now, but if you’re willing to come back later today, I’ll have some made just for you.”

Just for you.

Where did that come from?

I don’t mind being nice, but I don’t even know this lady, and she’s really more of an annoyance than anything else. She seems sweet enough, but a little demanding. The ghost of Doris must be rubbing off on me.

“Oh, thank you so much! You have no idea what this means to me!” She reaches across the counter and shakes my hand vigorously. Her fingers are cold and clammy, and I can feel every single one of her bones. “Oh, the rest. How we’ve missed the rest.”

She mumbles the last few words while pushing the front door open, setting the chimes to dance and sing on her way out.

“You and me both, crazy old lady. You and me both.”

A man comes in and orders a large coffee, a chocolate chip cookie, and asks for two plates. He pulls a sandwich from a bag, only to take it apart on one plate, reassemble it on the other, and eat it.

Morning bleeds into lunch, and lunch into afternoon. During lunch, the two middle-aged women come and sit at the split table again to argue over their meal and coffee. They look like twins from different mothers.

Toward the end of the day, the Achewillow is swarmed by half a dozen kids who just got out of school. In a way, they’re a breath of fresh air. Noisy, animated, and a little wild, they rampage through the display, ordering an amount of sugary pastries only young teens could consume.

“That’s a lot of food,” I mention, as I pile cookies into a box for them. “You sure you’ve got enough money for all that?”

“Mason’s buying ’cause he got his allowance,” a blond girl announces smugly.

“And he lost a bet,” another boy adds, nudging the presumed Mason in the ribs.

“Hey, Mason,” I say, leaning in. “I’ll give you half off if you run an errand for me.”

Question the ethics if you will, but kids between ten and thirteen are some of the cheapest labor and easy to bribe. I get Mason and his friends to fetch me fresh oranges along with a few other ingredients for the honey cake. The shadow of the Achewillow Café’s logo travels slowly across the tables as the day goes by. Somewhere in the late afternoon, it vanishes completely only to reappear once the streetlights on Rue Principale flicker on.

By that time, the people in white robes have left with their box of croissants. They part with an ominous “See you tomorrow.”

Olivia Fig drops by in the evening for a cup of coffee. It feels good to have someone say my usual and know what that means. Though I still have no biscotti to offer.

“So,” I start, putting a mug of coffee in front of her, one cream, two sugars. “Who are those two, and why do they get the table on the national divide?”

With the café winding down for the evening and the closest thing to a friend I have hanging out, I figure I’d get a better understanding of my clientele, starting with the two arguing women.

“They’re the mayors,” Olivia explains while stirring her coffee and appreciating the aroma.

“Mayors?”

“One on the Canadian side and one on the U.S. side.”

“Do you know if they come here often?”

Olivia stirs her coffee, the soft clicking of teaspoon on ceramic enamel like a metronome for her thoughts.

“Oh, once or twice a day. Peas in a pod, those two. You know they have their offices right across the hall from each other? The border runs through the corridor.”

The concept seems ridiculous, but then again, I suppose it makes sense that each national jurisdiction would have its own mayor. And of course they’d have to work closely together.

I pull at the crust of my croissant, satisfied with how it turned out. I’ve made better, but as far as a quick batch under pressure goes, these came out better than expected.

“And who are the people with the white robes?” I ask, inspired by my pastry. “Not Order of the Solar Temple types, I hope?”

The Solar Temple was a Quebec cult that committed mass suicide just before the turn of the millennium. They’re a bit of a provincial legend because it turned out many members were part of well-known organizations. Olivia looks amused at the comparison.

“The Pilvists?” she asks, as if the name should mean something. “They’re a little kooky but harmless. They worship clouds and love nature. And they’re obsessed with croissants. Their leader, Iain, claims it’s their goddess’s preferred food. If you ask me, it’s just his favorite snack.”

“What about an old lady dressed in black?”

My desperate customer never did come back for her orange poppy seed honey cake. It’s in the kitchen fridge, waiting for her to return and claim it. It’s strange considering how relieved she was that I could make the dessert.

“Old lady?”

“Yeah. Pale blond hair, held in a bun. Black skirt, black shirt, black woolen scarf—she has a hollowed-out look to her?”

“Old lady? Girl, that’s Julia Remington, and she’s at least five years younger than me.”

Oops. I could tell lack of sleep had added years to Julia, but I didn’t expect it to have made her look that old. Or that Olivia was this sensitive about her own age.

How old is Olivia, anyway? I assumed she was maybe in her fifties, but that would put Julia in her late forties, and that doesn’t make any sense. The woman looked a decade past retirement.

“Well, either you’re way older than you look, or Julia Remington isn’t doing well at all.”

A little flattery will hopefully go a long way.

Olivia smiles, sips her coffee, and reaches for a biscotti that’s not there. There’s a flash of disappointed annoyance, but she seems otherwise mollified.

I’ll have to make some biscotti when I get a moment.

“Saying Julia isn’t doing well would be an understatement. Poor woman lost her husband almost a year ago. Don’t know if you’ve ever had anyone that close to you yet, but I know if I lost my Henry, I’d be devastated.”

I have a fleeting thought for Trevor and stifle a laugh at the image of grieving for him. I don’t wish him dead, of course. I’ve yet to become that cold-hearted. But my wounds are fresh and the scars still raw, so if he could be dead for a month or stub his toe daily for a few weeks in a row, I wouldn’t shed any tears.

I settle for a shake of my head.

“That’s terrible. They must have been close.”

“Mmhmm! Ever see those obnoxious couples who can’t take their eyes or their hands off each other? That was them, even after years of dating and marriage.”

I get it. At my age, we’re exposed to so few relationships that it’s difficult to draw accurate expectations. There are our parents, but who wants to think of their parents as romantic role models? That leaves books and movies, which paint love in a thick, saccharine syrup. To some, every lover becomes a soulmate to gush over.

Not everyone acts that way, of course, but in every class and in every social group, there’s always at least one couple that makes you want to vomit.

Yet, projected over the course of a lifetime relationship—
through marriage and beyond the sudden death of a partner— the gooey sweetness circles back to heartfelt romanticism, and I feel a sharp pain for Julia’s loss.

“I don’t think I’ll be charging her for that cake then, assuming she ever comes back for it.”

This is something I say mostly for myself, but aloud, so that Olivia doesn’t think I’m ignoring her.

“I know you’re trying to do her a kindness,” Olivia explains. “But she’ll be insulted if you make her a charity case. Her grandfather owned two mills up north that he sold for a small fortune. She met Gary through the accountant who managed the family estate. Between his job and her family’s wealth, Julia can afford a cake. What kind of cake did she order, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Orange honey poppy seed cake. She was very specific about it.”

“And you made that cake?”

“Yeah, but she hasn’t come back for it.”

“Hmm,” Olivia mumbles. I can’t tell if she’s surprised by this or the exact opposite. “She will be. Don’t worry about it. She will be.”

That night, I get four consecutive text messages from my brother. From the time stamps, I can tell they were sent at regular intervals throughout the day. I wish I could blame Achewillow and how remote the village is for the spotty messaging service, but I know it’s my provider’s doing. Or rather, it’s because I’m using the absolutely cheapest cell provider money can buy, and I get the reliability that goes with it.

It’s easier to call him back to answer all his questions.

“Where?” he repeats, unsatisfied with my answer to his first question.

“Achewillow.”

“You made that up.”

Eric and I used to have the factory default sibling rivalry. We fought for toys, for attention, for treats, and for control of the television. It was a contest I was born to lose. Younger by over two years, smaller, and nowhere near as aggressive as my brother, I’d often surrender and play alone or come up with my own projects. For a while, he’d even steal my friends, being the more social of us.

Then, when he hit his teens, something changed. He couldn’t confide in his friends or our parents about certain things anymore. I went from annoying to convenient. A confidant he could trust. First with threats, but soon with genuine camaraderie. The dynamic shifted, and we turned toward a common enemy. Our parents.

“Look it up,” I encourage him. “It’s a real place. You’re just not as good at geography as you thought.”

I can hear him scratching his beard through the phone. Meanwhile, I’m lying on Doris’s bed, looking out the window at the moon. Closing the Achewillow just after the dinner crowd felt like the right move, but after preparing food for tomorrow, cleaning up, and closing down, I didn’t get out of there until after eight. How did an old woman like Doris do it? I should ask Helen or Olivia if she had any help or employees.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Eric relents. “And you inherited the place? Just like that? Shouldn’t it have gone to your older sibling first? Or Dad?”

“Jealous?”

“Yes. You’re not the only one with student loans to pay off. How long are you staying there?”

I’ve heard that question, or some variation of it, so often it feels like nagging. And if they’re not asking it outright, they’re assuming I’m staying despite everything I’ve said. My being here shouldn’t be that big a deal.

“Not long,” I sigh. “As soon as I get this place on the market, I’m heading back to Montreal.”

“Why? Didn’t you say the café is making money? Stick around until the place is sold. What do you have waiting for you here, anyway?”

It takes a moment to come up with the answer. It’s not like I’m close enough with any friends that I can’t go a few weeks without seeing them in person. We both know Mom and Dad aren’t a good reason to go home. I don’t want to admit that I miss cooking school.

Standing up, I go to the bedroom window and crack it open to let in a little fresh air. I’ve only bothered to turn on a small lamp on the nightstand, and it’s easy to look at the street below. Across the way, there’s a little hardware store, and if I crane my neck to look down Rue Principale, I can see Helen Edna’s office.

Streetlamps create little islands of orange glow that spill from the sidewalk to the street, and aside from the slow scudding of clouds across the sky, everything stands still.

“I don’t like it here,” I explain.

My voice has dropped to almost a whisper, as if Achewillow might hear me speak ill of it and punish me for it.

“People are weird and nosy. They’ve got that small-town strangeness going. I’m trying to keep my head down for once, but everyone acts like I’m a replacement for Doris. And I’m afraid.”

“Afraid?”

There’s a raccoon crossing the street, going from one shadow to the other. I can’t tell if it’s one from the alley, but the way it struts, it might as well own the whole town.

“There’s been a string of murders, and they even found a body behind the café.” I spare Eric the more gruesome details. “All young women. I’d be out for a walk right now, but I don’t want to get killed, you know?”

He answers with a sigh of his own, and I can imagine him rolling his eyes. From the sounds of it, he’s walking around his apartment, his way of getting his thoughts in order.

“Then why are you staying there at all? Come home, and we’ll figure out how to sell the café from here.”

It’s a tempting option, and one that has crossed my mind on one or two fleeting occasions. But that’s not the plan. I don’t want to just go home; I want to do so triumphantly. If not with the money from the property, at least with a better idea of how much I can expect from the sale, and how long it’ll take to find a buyer.

“Because I want to do this on my own,” I try to explain. “If I come home, then everyone gets involved. Dad gets involved. And this isn’t my thing anymore.”

“So, you’re afraid, but not too afraid to be pig-headed about it.”

He’s not wrong, but I’m not about to admit it.

“I’m being careful. Locking my door and staying in at night. Don’t worry. Can I ask a favor, though?”

There’s a bit of a commotion on his end, and I can hear a muffled voice in the background.

“Sure, but make it quick. Dante’s home, and it sounds like he’s hungry.”

“Can you ask Dad if he knows anything about Doris?”

He laughs, but it quickly dissolves into a no.

“This is your windfall,” he explains before hanging up. “You talk to the old man.”

The next few days go by without any significant incident. I had a few fights with the coffee machine, including a nasty scalding to the back of my left hand. Nothing compared to the many cuts and burns a chef accumulates over a career. I also get Cindy to overnight me a box of clothes so I don’t have to wear the same outfit every day for the next week.

I manage to go on a few walks to look around the neighborhood. I come away from each of these brief excursions with the same diagnosis. Achewillow has a terminal case of quaint with frequent flare-ups of strange.

There are a few amusing oddities, like the three small apartment towers named after the Greek fates down Main Street. And a road on the Canadian side where six houses all look identical, down to the cars in the driveway. But there’s also the less tangible feeling of hope and fear. I can’t find the word for it, but it’s like living in the moment before tasting a new dish. Balancing between potential and threat.

I see the same regulars every morning, including Moustache Man and the white-robed croissant lovers. The mayors come in for coffee in the morning, then again for lunch to argue.

Detective Wilson drops by a few times, but apart from ordering coffee and retreating to a table, he gives me a wide berth.

Enough time goes by before Julia Remington comes back for me to learn almost everyone’s usual.

Most of it is pretty easy. I remember everyone who orders coffee black. The ones who have special and interesting demands are also difficult to forget, and they are many.

Those with boring orders are harder to keep track of. If you come in demanding three cookies stacked together, like a cookie sandwich, I’ll have an easier time remembering that than how much cream and sugar you want in your boring old Americano.

“You made it!” Julia exclaims, incredulous as I set the small dish in front of her. Pale-gray eyes, the color of an overcast sky, bulge out of her skull, and her mouth teeters between a shocked O and a wide grin.

It’s an elegant cake, despite not having much decoration. A thin mascarpone topping with a spiral of candied orange peel keeps things simple but chic.

“Told you. And not to brag, but I bet it’s pretty damn good, too. Even if it is a few days old.”

My brag flies over her head without so much as an acknowledgment.

She came in late in the afternoon, right after lunch, as the rush was beginning to die down. I’m glad she’s here. Julia’s absence was worrying me, especially after what Olivia told me. I was beginning to think I should ask about the poor woman. But it felt like prying, and I already had other things on my plate. Helen Edna, notary public, still hasn’t returned a verdict on whether I could go against Doris’s final wishes. And none of the real estate agents I contacted had returned my calls.

“Thank you so much!” she says, reaching out for my hand again, which this time I’m glad to give her. “Can I have it to go? And how much do I owe you?”

“You owe me nothing,” I say, immediately worried she might get self-conscious about it. “Consider it a gift for making me feel so welcome in Achewillow.”

I smile, hoping to better sell the lie. She smiles in return, either deceived or participating in my deception.

She beams with warmth and gratitude, tossing her scarf over her shoulder before picking up the box in both hands. Julia Remington almost has a spring in her step as she makes her way to the door.

Who knew a simple cake could bring so much joy to someone suffering so badly? If anyone doubted the magic in cooking and baking, I wish I could show them a snapshot of this moment.

I wipe my hands on Doris’s apron, more as a gesture of a job well done than to remove anything from my fingers.

This small vignette of satisfaction, one that erases some of the frustration of dealing with Helen Edna’s attitude toward Doris’s demands, is short-lived.

Before I can savor my good deed and accomplishment, the ground beneath my feet begins to shake. A low, ponderous rumbling fills the street outside.

An enormous shadow blots out the sun on Rue Principale as an immense red cab pulls across the window. It only stops once the gray trailer it drags has settled in front of the Achewillow’s door.

My stomach drops to my heels. I’d been able to put aside my paranoia and Detective Wilson’s implications for almost a week now, but he’s back.

Gulliver walks into the café, making the chimes jingle noisily. In his arms are two boxes marked with a supplier’s black logo.

Unsuspecting of my mounting paranoia, he’s all smiles and bright demeanor.

“Well, look at you,” he says, looking me up and down with what might pass as pride or satisfaction. “The apron is a perfect fit.”

7

THE KILLER AT THE DOOR

The hair on the back of my neck raises and prickles with every ring of the door chimes.

There’s no reason for me to feel this way, afraid and nervous. There are still a handful of patrons in the café. And despite the enormous truck casting its forbidding shadow over the Achewillow, it’s still daytime.

Fear, however, isn’t the kind of emotion that bows to reason. It’s primal and raw, a fundamental building block of the human experience. What does it matter how safe I am when my paranoia sits atop an emotion that kept our entire species alive through the night? Wilson made his implications clear: Gulliver may be stalking me. It feels like paranoia, but if the detective’s story is to be believed, Gulliver might have been stalking me since before I even heard of Achewillow. Now he’s here, walking in and out of my café, pushing a trolley stacked high with boxes.

The labels list ingredients like eggs, flour, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon. So much cinnamon. There’s also almond milk, cow’s milk between 0 and 5 percent, soy milk, and crates of bottled water. There are meats and cheeses for sandwiches, as well as condiments, kale, spinach, lettuce, and tomatoes. The list goes on, including many of the perishables that were missing from my menu.

There’s also a never-ending variety of unground coffee beans.

I wish I could feel excitement at the possibilities on every trolley of food and ingredients, but instead I flinch at every chime at the door.

“Last one,” Gulliver announces, setting down the largest, heaviest-looking box.

He doesn’t put it in the kitchen with the others, leaving it instead on the counter.

This one is unmarked, apart from the appliance manufacturer’s logo.

“Does this need to go there?” I ask, trying to mask my worry with irritation.

“I’ll move it wherever you like once it’s open, but we can do that later. Right now, I’m famished!”

I want to protest and have him move that dumb box out of the way immediately. But he’s already leaning over the display, eyeing the muffins and croissants like an ogre at an orphanage.

“Your usual?” I venture, unsure what that’s going to be.

“What? Oh no.” Gulliver laughs, loud and guttural. “I don’t have a usual. Variety is the spice of life, you know! Give me three of these croissants, and are those oatmeal muffins?”

I ring up his order and watch the giant man settle in at a table next to the window. It doesn’t escape my attention that he’s positioned so he can keep an eye on his truck and on me.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen him eat. When we shared breakfast on our way to Achewillow, Gulliver positively annihilated a mountain of food. I expect him to do the same with the croissants and muffins, but it’s not so.

Instead, he savors each one with the kind of attention a literary critic gives a good book. I see him close his eyes like an audiophile trying to pick out a particular instrument in a symphony.

The honest joy in his face as he samples my wares anew with every bite isn’t quite enough to disarm my paranoia, but it does soften it a little. So far, Gulliver hasn’t done anything concrete to justify my worry. It’s all circumstantial.

During his lengthy stay, Gulliver’s truck remains in the street, drawing more than a few disapproving glances from patrons. On the one hand, I understand their frustration. The massive trailer blocks the sun and hides the view of Rue Principale. On the other hand, Gulliver orders mountains of food not once but twice, always giving a generous tip, so I can’t bring myself to ask him to move.

When I decide it’s time to close and lock up, Gulliver and I are the only ones left in the Achewillow, and the sharp edges of paranoia have begun to dull.

“So?” I ask, putting a hand on top of the mysterious box on the counter. “What is this thing?”

“That,” he says, standing proudly from his chair, “is a gift.”

“For me?”

I try to sound nonchalant, but I’ve never been comfortable with gifts. People don’t give things unless they expect something in return. Gulliver’s been paying, generously, for all his food, so what’s he after?

“Not exactly. This is something I bought for Doris earlier this year. But she passed before I could bring it over. I wasn’t sure her replacement would be worthy, so I waited.”

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out one of those big, yellow retractable knives. With a practiced twist of his thumb and a flick of his palm, he extends the blade and slices the top of the box open.

This is far from the shaky grasp on the filet knife I had while confronting him. He holds the knife with the confidence . . . well, with the confidence I have when I’m filleting a fish.

The item he pulls out looks like the coffee machine’s long-lost evil cousin. The same brass and copper cover every component, reflecting Gulliver’s eager grin a hundred times over. Where the coffee machine is all tubes and pipes, this one looks like a mean-spirited Victorian funnel atop a large wooden box.

Gulliver kneels down, bringing his face level with the brass handle of the device, watching himself in wonderment.

“It’s a coffee grinder,” he says, suddenly somber. “Doris had wanted one like this for ages, but she had a thing against getting fancy gifts for herself.”

I walk over to the machine. There’s no button, no power cord. A little less than a foot on each side, the bottom part is made of dark-stained wood, with reinforced corners and metal feet. A large drawer at the front collects the grounds from the funnel on top. The texture and wear speak of a history only antiques can boast of.

It’s beautiful, if a bit inconvenient. At the coffee shop in Montreal, we have a coffee grinder. It’s a large tub of brown plastic with an electric motor. Dump in the beans, press a button, and let the device do all the work.

The lever turns in my hand, offering no resistance, begging to be cranked. It would be tedious to use this contraption for every cup of coffee, but I also kind of want to.

“What’s the deal with you and Doris, anyway?”

His answer is slow to come. Instead, he walks into the kitchen and returns with one of the bags of coffee beans he carried in earlier.

Without effort, he pulls it open, emptying half the contents into the grinder. A rich aroma of roasted beans with hints of French vanilla fills the air, teasing at the delicious smell to come when the handle is turned.

“Everything I have, I owe to Doris,” he finally says, giving the handle a firm twist. A crushing sound escapes the wooden box, amplified by the copper bowl on top. “I was broken, and she fixed me.”

The good humor that usually permeates every word from Gulliver is gone. His attention is riveted on the machine as he turns the handle, grinding more and more coffee.

I want to press him on what he means by broken, and how Doris fixed him. I assume it’s a metaphor for a difficult life, maybe psychological or behavioral issues. Maybe Doris served as a mentor or gave him his first job. Could be she sponsored him for school or gave him money for a down payment on his truck. There’s a plethora of possibilities, but I presume further probing would be unwelcome. This kind of subject unfolds over time. Like you can’t rush a reduction, you can’t force sensitive topics into light too fast.

“Tell me about her.”

“About Doris?”

He looks up from his task; the joy returns to his eyes, and his bright, white teeth gleam through his lips anew.

Once he’s done and has stepped a safe distance from the grinder, I pull out the grounds and feed them to the coffee machine. The beast purrs gently, brewing each of us a cup of fresh vanilla coffee.

“Yeah. I’ve been wearing her apron, sleeping in her bed, and operating her business, but I don’t know the first thing about the woman. Customers walk in here asking for their usual, like Doris never left. No one’s had one bad thing to say about her. I get that it’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead, but she must have been formidable to garner this kind of respect, even beyond the grave.”

“Formidable,” Gulliver says, tasting the word and then the coffee. He nods approvingly of both. “She would have liked that.”

I walk around the counter to sit on his side, breaking the line that separates barista from customer. I keep a polite distance between us, but allow my guard to go down just a little.

“Doris,” he continues. “Doris was something special. The kind of woman you see maybe once in a generation. There’s hardly a person in Achewillow she didn’t help in some way, but she never asked for payment. Never demanded her support be reciprocated. She led a simple life, as far as most people knew. But I think you could say she carried the weight of Achewillow on her shoulders. Doris had her share of enemies, but none so stupid as to admit it out loud.”

Gulliver pauses, looking around the café as if looking for Doris’s approval of his description. There’s fondness that soon turns to satisfaction as his eyes rest on the apron I’m wearing.

“I mean it,” he says. “It does look good on you.”

“I’m not staying.”

My refrain sounds more like a dirty admission than the firm decision it’s meant to be. If Gulliver wanted to convince me to stay with his elevated description of my great-grandaunt, it backfired. The shoes he describes are much too big to fill.

If Doris had been a great chef or known for her unparalleled culinary delights, I might have fallen for it, attracted by the challenge. Or at least have been interested in hearing more. As it stands, Doris sounds more like a pillar of the community that’s been toppled, a role I don’t think I’m capable of filling.

“Then why haven’t you left yet?”

He winks at me, and I can’t help but smile.

“I’m waiting for some paperwork to go through. But as soon as it’s all taken care of, I’ll be putting the café on the market and moving back to Montreal.”

There’s no pitiful disappointment or rueful, sad puppy eyes. Instead, he shakes his head, like I’m the one who doesn’t get it.

“Say what you want; I don’t think you’re ever leaving.” He winks.

The way he says it leaves little room for any doubt. It’s like he’s already seen the future, and like those long roads he drives, the destination is predetermined. He means it to be welcoming, to say he’s convinced I’ll fall in love with Achewillow. I know that. But it comes off as if I have no other option. My smile wavers and melts away. My breath becomes just a little more shallow.

Gulliver senses that something’s changed, and the air in the café has lost its warmth. I don’t want to say he’s no longer welcome, but I also want him gone. He stares for a moment, hoping, perhaps, that a second or two will dissipate the discomfort.

“Well, I should get going then. It’s getting late, and I still have a thing or two to take care of tonight.”

He pushes himself back to his feet, stepping off the stool. His eyes don’t leave me, as if he’s still expecting me to try and stop him or say something to lighten the mood. But you don’t unbreak an egg.

“Can I have the keys to the café back?”

What I thought was a simple request seems to hit home a lot harder with Gulliver than I expected. A shadow falls over him. His entire body, which I’m reminded dwarfs mine by a significant margin, tenses up.

He steps forward, and I can feel the lights from the ceiling eclipsed by his bulk, the same way the Achewillow has been in his truck’s shadow all afternoon.

“I’ve had those keys for years,” he says, more terse than sad. “Doris trusts me with them.”

I don’t want to argue with him. What do I care if Doris trusted him? I don’t even know who Doris was. Or do I not want to have the discussion because I’m afraid I’ll relent and let him keep them?

Either way, all I can do is stand there, mulling over how to handle his reluctance to part with the keys to my café. Hoping he doesn’t get weird about it.

I wince as he steps close, closer than I want him to, and reaches behind me. His hand slaps on the counter with a metallic click.

“Here you go,” he says, cold resentment under his breath.

For a moment, he stares at me, brown eyes a few inches from mine. He’s frowning, but it seems as much from frustration as it does from an effort at reading me. It’s like he’s looking for the resemblance to Doris he saw a few days ago, unable to grasp it again.

Then, without another word, he walks away and out of the Achewillow Café, letting the chimes sing to me, as if in reproach.

Gah!

Why do I have to be like this? He was probably joking about me never leaving. Or he’s that confident that I’m so much like Doris that I’ll fall for Achewillow’s charms. Of all the people I could let into my head, it had to be Detective Wilson.

And why do I care, anyway? By the time I’m done with this place, I’ll never see Gulliver again. The whole point is to leave Achewillow. I’m not some pretty city girl to be charmed by the rugged ways of a small town only to uproot herself and move to the country.

Not for a boy in a romantic comedy, and not for a coffee shop in Achewillow.

In fact, forget Gulliver, and forget this entire town. Bunch of weirdos, anyway.

I lock the front door and kill the main dining room lights. The floor is swept and the tables cleaned. All I have to do is clear the cups from the coffee we shared and set some dough to rise for the morning. I also contemplate soaking some lentils for a lunch salad tomorrow. Something with balsamic vinegar and dried cranberries I’ve been dreaming up.

But that’s exactly what they want, isn’t it? For me to get comfortable and start having fun. Then Gulliver’s prediction will be correct, and I’ll end up living here until the day I die.

I’m still going to soak the lentils and make my stupid salad, but I’m onto you, Achewillow. I see your trap, and I’m not falling for it.

Annoyed, I snatch the cardboard remains of the grinder’s box, along with the foam that kept it protected.

I pause for a second, listening through the back door and peeking through the window, before I push it open with my elbow. It’s only once I’ve put all this cardboard in the recycling bin and tossed the rest of the garbage out that I spot it.

It’s a little hard to see in the evening darkness, with just the weak porch light over the back door, but it’s there.

“When? How?” I mumble, bending down to pick up a box of salt. Again.

The stupid thing is empty, with all the contents spilled around the two dumpsters in a circle. What the hell were these little vermin up to? Were they chasing each other while carrying the salt?

It’s not even about the salt. How much is a box of salt? Five dollars? Less? And I never paid for it; it’s all Doris’s salt. But I hate the idea that these little bastards keep getting into my kitchen without me noticing. Do I even have to mention what kind of health code violation that is?

I lift the top of the garbage bin, letting light flow in. There’s the trash I just threw out. A big plastic bag filled with all the uneaten food left behind by sated customers. I should be composting, but right now my mind is on the little furry jerks tearing at the black plastic to pick at the contents.

I count six of the little thieves. There’s the one with the red tag on his ear and a smaller one that looks almost like a cub. There’s one that looks like it’s been through hell and back, with patches of roughed-up fur and a piece of ear missing. Another has the looks of a thug, broad-shouldered and with a mean gleam in his eyes. Yet another is the opposite, soft and lazy, sitting on its ass, scratching at the bag with one paw.

Then, there’s the biggest one. The boss. He presides over the banquet, overseeing who gets food when, and what each of his group gets to eat. Except now, he’s looking up at me, snarling with his tiny, sharp teeth, yellow in the light.

“Oh, you shut your mouth!” I admonish. “How dare you steal stuff from my kitchen?”

I’m about to lay into him some more, to vent my frustration, when something stops me.

I can’t tell if I hear it, smell it, or feel it, but there’s a presence behind me.

Slowly, I turn, never moving my hands from the garbage bin lid.

It’s there, the thing from the other night, less than a dozen meters away.

It steps out of the shadows, lanky and shuffling.

The demon (because what else can it be?) is taller than I thought, about as tall as Gulliver. It’s bald and has the skin complexion of a corpse that spent a week in a lake. Its head is fat. Not simply overweight, but fat. The top of the skull is wrinkled by rolls of excess weight, and its mouth, round and suffering, is choked by thick jowls. Yet, its eyes are sunken so deep that they’re nothing but black caverns.

Below the neck, however, the demon’s body is emaciated and skeletal. Naked limbs are nothing but bones and joints with little muscle and no fat under the tight, gray skin. The fingers at the end of its lengthy arms are armed with black, claw-like nails.

Most disconcerting is the abdomen, or lack thereof. Everything under the breastbone is gone. Ripped out or melted off. I can see the bottom of struggling lungs in the cavity, and what could be the end of an esophagus. But there’s no stomach, no upper or lower intestine.

The image I’ve been dodging for days now comes back with blood-freezing clarity: the dead woman in this very alley. Her wounds were the same as the shambling horror moving toward me. I recognize her not for who she was, but as the threat of what I could become. My insides—all the pieces missing from the creature—ache at the sight. I have to run.

Each step it takes looks confused and hesitant. It seems so clumsy; I think I can make it to the café before it gets too close. Anything better than staying out here in the open.

I’m about to take my chance and make a break for it, but a sharp, tearing pain shoots through my left arm.

The raccoon! That fat little bastard bit me! Is biting me still. Tugging me back with his claws, keeping me close to the dumpster. It’s only through a tremendous effort of self-control that I don’t scream, but even that’s not enough. Between the stupid raccoon’s growling and my swallowed squeal of pain, the demon takes notice.

Black hollows turn in my direction, and the fat raccoon’s teeth freeze in place.

The creature shuffles toward me. Every step is an unhurried pull on its legs as it lurches forward. Its mouth, a slack opening filled with blunt teeth, chews at the air as rivulets of drool spill onto its chin. The pungent stench of decay and bile fills the air, stinging my eyes and turning my insides into wet sand. I can barely see the clawed fingers reach toward me through my burgeoning tears.

For a second, I think of my mom, whom I haven’t even told where I am, and I think of the career I wasted by being so impatient with my teachers. I think of that poor woman who died only a few feet from where I stand. How I haven’t bothered to look up her name or check on her family. What was I worrying about a week ago? The stupid boyfriend I lost? Getting kicked out of school? And now I’m going to get mauled to death in this backwater town.

But the demon’s touch never reaches me. Instead, the arm recoils as if in agony, and the creature lets out a pained gurgle, an attempted scream that failed.

It pulls away, does a poor impression of a menacing snarl, and turns, moving toward the door to the café.

For whatever dumb reason, I make to go after it, taking a step forward.

The big raccoon stops biting me but holds on tighter with tiny paws. He growls, soft and almost pleading. And I stay put.

Dragging its feet, the demon makes it to the Achewillow’s back door. It struggles for a moment but manages to get it open, stepping into my café. From here, I can see behind the counter and part of the dining room, thankful that both are empty.

My blood freezes and my muscles tense. Every part of me wants to either run away or chase the beast from my café. I watch in horror as it follows the length of the counter, shuffling until it’s standing in front of the display.

Leaning over the glass, it sniffs at the air, scratching at the surface for a moment before letting out a terrible and soul-tearing howl. Forming an awkward fist with its right arm, the demon strikes at the display once, twice, three times. Each attack makes me wince, waiting for the glass to shatter under the assault.

But the display holds strong, and the demon gives up. Another howl escapes its tortured mouth, followed by a wet and sharp growl.

I expect it to shuffle farther into the café, to go into the kitchen in search of food. At this point, I don’t care what it does. Take all the dough and lentils. Tear into the fridge and steal every last piece of chicken and sandwich meat. Just don’t make a meal out of me.

That’s not what happens.

With surprising speed and agility, in stark contrast to its previous clumsy behavior, the demon leaps back to the door in three bounding steps. It moves more like a panther than the shambling corpse it appears to be. It gives me another appraising look, and its tongue, bloated and black, licks its ample lips.

Trembling paws squeeze my arm, and I step back. I press my body against the dumpster, feeling the texture of rust and filth through the back of my shirt. I’d crawl inside and bury myself in trash if I thought it would keep me safe. Even the stench of decay from both the demon and the garbage doesn’t matter anymore, probably because I’ve been holding my breath out of fear all this time. What if the creature makes another attempt on my life, one that succeeds? Instead, it gives up, running down the alley and back into the open. I track its movement, unwilling to blink until it vanishes into the woods.

It takes a few minutes before the fat raccoon lets go of my arm. To be honest, I barely noticed he was still holding on, too busy scouting the pitch-black shadows in the woods in fear the demon would return.

After an eternity, the raccoon disappears back into the dumpster. Then, after a long moment, I hear the tearing of plastic and the chewing of thrown-away food.

My legs feel heavy and weary as the moon peeks over the horizon. The sky has turned from the deep blue of late evening into the pitch black of night. It’s only then that I feel safe enough to drag my shaking limbs back into the Achewillow, making sure to lock the door behind me.

I’ve never been afraid of the dark, but the thought of unlocking a door and stepping outside drops my heart into my stomach. Even the promised comfort and safety of the apartment above isn’t enough to lure me into the open night.

I busy myself in the kitchen. Opening and sorting through the latest of Gulliver’s shipments. I sort through the utensils and pantry, reorganizing everything to my preferences.

It’s not enough. No matter what lie I tell myself, I can’t pretend what I saw was a figment of my malicious imagination. Busy work doesn’t cut it, and I don’t think even baking a three-tier wedding cake would occupy my brain this time.

I put down a bag of flour and take out my phone. There it is, my low-battery lifeline to the rest of the world. All my friends and family at the tip of my fingers. But who do I call? I just saw a demon. I tap 9-1-1, but hesitate to press “call.” Would Wilson believe me?

Would my brother? My parents?

There’s only one person who would understand. I don’t know her number, but I can look up the number for Fig’s Orchard.

“It was a demon,” I say when the phone picks up.

Henry could have been the one to answer, or even an answering machine, but as luck would have it, it’s Olivia.

“Oh, dear,” she says, lacking the frantic confusion I expected. “Are you okay?”

To her credit, she doesn’t question my sincerity or sanity. I can imagine most people would have written me off as crazy, but Olivia Fig’s first worry is my well-being.

“I think so,” I answer, unsure exactly how true that is. “You said it was a figure of speech, though. I thought—”

“Shh,” she cuts me off, firmly but politely. “I’ll be right over. Are you at the café?”

“Yes, but it’s still out there,” I warn, imagining the creature lumbering through the alleys of Achewillow. “What if you run into it?”

“Oh, child,” Olivia reassures me, a little condescending, “I’ve lived here over five decades, and Achewillow hasn’t killed me yet. I’ll be damned if tonight’s the night. Just stay put and maybe brew a pot while you wait.”

Odd how knowing of Olivia’s eventual arrival opens the door to exhaustion. It’s not quite enough that I can fall asleep on the counter, but I indulge in a few minutes of resting my head. Ideally, I would have gone up to the apartment for a decent nap.

It feels like I only just blink before being startled awake by rapping on the door. Metal rings hitting panes of glass cut through my drowsiness like claws ripping into flesh. I can almost feel the tingling of adrenaline flowing through my veins as my heart pounds, and I snap to attention.

A few seconds of dozing off as I came down from the adrenaline rush had turned into an hours-long nap, and I open my eyes to the dawning of a fresh day.

Olivia is at the door, a humongous crate of apples under her arm, the knuckles on her free hand tapping on the glass.

Her round and eager face is framed by the stencil of the Achewillow’s opening hours. A set of rules I’ve been breaking ever since I decided to reopen the café. Today, my truancy is particularly pronounced, as evidenced by the brighter-than-usual light filtering through the front windows and the small group of customers waiting behind Olivia.

My neck is stiff like a days-old baguette, and I fear it’ll crack and fall to crumbs if I bend it too much. I can feel creases imprinted on my cheek from the apron I used as a pillow. What a sight I must be.

Joints creaking and bones weary, I feel every minute of missed sleep in my aching body. But it’s that very exhaustion that makes me understand the patrons gathered at my window. The call of food, a hot beverage, and copious amounts of caffeine are all that keep me from curling up in the kitchen and going back to sleep.

“All right, buddy,” I whisper, switching on the coffee machine. “Time to prove you love me.”

My dough’s overproofed, and I have nothing ready for opening, but I fool myself into thinking I owe the patrons something for waiting out there so long. Can I make some extra fluffy apple bread or something? Assuming that crate under Olivia’s arm is for me. It won’t be worthy of my talents, but I’m sure if I put in enough brown sugar, no one will care.

Joints crack and muscles protest as I make my way to the door. While my body treats this as a walk to the gallows, my soul aches for the company of others. Mostly, I long for the security of having friendly faces around. Even if most are here for the coffee and pastries.

“You look like wet cat food,” Olivia says as I let her, and only her, into the café.

Rude but not inaccurate, judging by a quick glance at myself in the window. Reflexively, I run my hand through my hair and attempt to tease out any random strands. Judging from the results, I think I’ll be better off with a ponytail.

“Weren’t you supposed to come over last night?” I ask, carrying the apples back to the counter.

I’m starting to doubt myself once again, wondering about the terrifying visions of the past evening. But no amount of rationalization will make the image go away. It all feels like a bad dream, but one with firm roots in reality.

“Honey, I did,” Olivia confirms, taking a seat at the counter. “But you were sleeping on the counter by the time I got here. I gave it a few minutes to make sure you were all right and let you rest.”

I pick up the crate and carry it over to the kitchen counter in the back, worried that she didn’t believe me after all. It sounds insane: a monster with missing organs. But the more I walk back and forth between dining room and kitchen, preparing the café to receive patrons, the surer I am of what I saw.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” I ask her as I put my bounty on the counter.

“Dear, you have no idea what I would and wouldn’t believe.” She steals a freshly baked apple tart from the tray. “What I worry about is what you believe.”

I want to unload my burden onto Olivia. Either have her confirm what I saw or give me a reasonable explanation for it. What I did not expect was for her to gaslight me. I understand that talk of demons and salt-stealing raccoons is extraordinary, but she started me down that path.

“I believe I saw a monster,” I say, my confidence wavering.

“Mmhmm,” Olivia says, tearing off a bite of her ill-acquired tart. “But what’s more likely? That the monster was an actual demon, or maybe someone dressed as one? Not that you should be any less rattled, mind you. For all we know, you might have had a run-in with whoever it is committing these murders.”

I lean down to start filling the display with croissants, chocolatines, and tarts. There, on the glass, I see a scratch. It’s not much, a long, thin line carved into the glass measuring about three inches. I’ve filled this display about a dozen times so far since coming to Achewillow, and I can say with certitude that the scratch wasn’t there before.

There was definitely a monster here last night.

Done with my task, I stand to look at Olivia. She seems so benevolent, chewing the last of the tart, going so far as to give me a thumbs-up. I can’t decide if she hides malice well or is sincere in her disbelief.

This dilemma needs coffee.

“Did Gulliver bring this?” Olivia asks as I pour beans into the grinder.

I nod, twisting the handle, unleashing the aroma of a rich Colombian blend. I wince at the effort, feeling an unfamiliar pain in my left arm as I strain against the handle. A few drops of blood gather at my elbow before falling to the counter.

“Goddammit,” I mumble, more annoyed than hurt.

“Oh my, he got you good, didn’t he?”

“He?”

“The Don. The big raccoon that lives out back. What did you do to him? You didn’t try to pick him up, did you?”

“No! Why would I want to pick up that fat disease farm? What if he’s got rabies?”

My god. What if he does have rabies? Or tetanus? Or whatever other disease or bacteria could be living in that thing’s mouth?

Olivia grabs my arm with far less care than I would have liked. Her finger pokes around the wound, two deep holes that dig all the way to the muscle, surrounded by smaller punctures and scratches. The adrenaline must have been flowing freely through my veins for me to ignore the damage so long.

“Nah, no rabies. The Don keeps clean. But he does eat trash, so you might want to get this looked at. Have it cleaned up, and a bandage wouldn’t hurt.”

I hiss as her finger hits too close to one of the punctures, making the pain flare up and the blood pour out again.

“I have to open the café,” I say, more despondent than I intend.

“Go,” Olivia says, waving me off before pulling herself to her feet. “People can get their coffee from the corner store for one day. I’ll close up for you. You’re dripping blood all over the counter. That’s gotta be against some code, doesn’t it?”

Oh, it is. Health Canada has some pretty strict rules on what to do in the event of a bleeding wound in a kitchen or cooking environment. I’ll have to thoroughly disinfect the area, including the coffee grinder, when I get back.

Like a captain with her ship, I hesitate to leave the Achewillow in someone else’s hands. But I trust Olivia to close up shop more than I do her opinion of raccoon health.

“Why do you call him the Don?” I ask, putting a towel to my arm.

“Have you seen him?” Olivia laughs. “He’s like Marlon Brando in The Godfather. Rules his family with an iron fist. Or an iron jaw, I suppose.”

It’s a stupid name, but not as stupid as the raccoon himself. What is it with Achewillow and their ring-tailed vermin? They’re nothing more than fat rats dressed as burglars.

“Yeah, well, as soon as I’m back, the Don and his family are getting evicted.”

I put the spare keys I got from Gulliver on the counter and make my way to the door.

“Mmhmm. Good luck with that.”

Walking out onto Rue Principale, I’m surrounded by nonchalance. After all, I’m the confused girl holding a blood-soaked kitchen rag to her arm, but no one gives me a second glance, as if this were a normal occurrence in Achewillow.

I dodge between other pedestrians on the sidewalk, mumbling apologies as I wonder about my wound. While I’m no stranger to mishaps in the kitchen, from burns to cuts, I’ve never had to worry about animal bites. Then, as much as I try to avoid thinking about it, there’s the overwhelming memory of the monster. Every indifferent stranger I pass, I wonder if they know.

My fears and doubts battle it out for a full three blocks until I realize I don’t have the vaguest idea where to find a hospital in Achewillow.

I pull out my phone and pray to the Wi-Fi gods for some sort of connection. Thankfully, the bank right next to me has a public network I can piggyback to get directions to the nearest hospital or clinic.

“There you go,” I murmur, committing the location to memory.

It’s not too far, around the corner and down two blocks. But according to the overhead map of the area, if I cut through the alley between the bank and the apartment building next door, I can halve that distance.

My fingers tighten around my arm, almost bruising my bicep through the towel. I can feel the wound reopening again from the pressure. Still ignored by the locals going about their business, I stand like an idiot next to the narrow gap between buildings. Arm in one hand, phone in the other, I let the fear wash over me. A car could barely fit between the concrete and redbrick walls, and the sun struggles to make it a few feet in. Am I in that much of a hurry to do this to myself?

It’s daytime, I think, stepping forward. It’s got to be safe. Right?

The cool shadows of the alley swallow me, and the sounds of mid-morning Rue Principale fade behind me. The alley isn’t that different from the one behind the Achewillow Café and, in fact, might even connect in some roundabout way.

The smell of exhaust and asphalt from the street disappears, replaced by the expected odor of garbage. There’s also the faint aroma of urine and feces that gets stronger the deeper I go. If this were Montreal, I’d expect to find the spot where a homeless man made the alley into his outhouse. The thought makes me gag, and I get self-conscious about the open wound on my arm.

The shortcut feels less and less worth the discomfort, but I’m too committed to turn back. I just have to turn two corners, and the hospital will be a few blocks away.

Turning the first corner, I find the source of the smell. A silhouette in the dim light of the alley, it sits with its back against the brick wall, chin resting on its chest. At first, I assume I’ve stumbled on some drunk that passed out for the night, voiding bowels and bladder in his slumber. But that’s not it.

It’s a body. One with no bowels left to void.

8

ENTER THE INQUISITION

Two dead bodies in less than a week

These are not statistics I’m comfortable living my life with. Nor is it a trend I want to see continuing.

A lot of people would be grossed out by the grisly appearance of a dead body. It’s unsettling. As humans, we’re hardwired to react to empty eyes. The empty abdominal cavity doesn’t help, either.

I don’t love the gory display of a dead body. It’s downright traumatizing. But as I look at the dead woman behind the bank, I realize that it’s not the missing organs or even the white, bloodless skin that gets me.

Whoever this woman was, she’s wearing a warm, red sweater, loose knit, over a T-shirt and some jeans. One of her sneakers is hanging off the tip of her toes. Her socks match her sweater.

The woman looks only a few years older than me. Her hair is longer than mine but the same color. She chose that outfit yesterday, picking red socks to match her sweater. Maybe she had planned a similar combination in a different color for today. Maybe she was meeting someone whose favorite color is red.

That’s what gets me. The waste of humanity. How a person can wake up one morning, set aside a red knit sweater, perhaps a gift from a family member or something she made herself, put on some whimsically matching socks, but then never make it home.

Her face is frozen in the expression of her last moments, and those final seconds were spent in terror. Her eyes are bulging, looking in horror at where her stomach used to be. My mind can too easily imagine what she went through.

My own blood is seeping through the towel on my arm, making my fingers sticky and reminding me of last night. The demon behind the Achewillow Café.

Do I believe what I saw? If not, I might as well not believe what’s in front of me right now because there’s no way in hell these two events aren’t connected.

“Miriam?” my phone asks in a scratchy electronic voice.

It took me a moment after finding the body to gather the wherewithal to call 9-1-1. My first thought was to run. Not from the alley but from Achewillow itself. Sprint back to the street, find a taxi, and pay whatever it costs to get me to Montreal. The big city might have a higher crime rate, but at least they’re committed by human beings, not gray-skinned demons.

“Yes?”

We’ve been on the phone for a few minutes now. The operator identified herself as Jacynthe in a thick French accent, and she’s been patient enough so far. She quizzed me on the basics: My name. The nature of the emergency. Am I sure the woman I found is dead? (Trust me, Jacynthe, she is super dead, and I hope to God she doesn’t get up to prove me otherwise.) She tolerated my screaming The demon got her! a few times before I got my wits about me and gave her my location.

“Someone should be coming up the alley from behind you. His name is Detective L’Amour, and he’ll take over for me. Is that okay?”

“I guess,” is the best I can do for an answer. The word detective still has a sour bite to it.

But I’ve heard of Detective L’Amour. His name was in the first article I read about the Achewillow murders. He’s the one in charge of the investigation on the Quebec side of the border. Which makes me wonder why he wasn’t behind the café a few days ago.

“Madame DuFour?”

His voice is old, tired, and rough, but polite. He too has a thick French accent. Or maybe he’s speaking to me in French?

“Yes? Oui?”

I hate it when I don’t know what language I should speak to people, and my French is a little rusty, unless I’m talking about food.

Despite his used voice, he looks like he could be in his prime. Unlike Wilson, who tries too hard to be like a Hollywood detective, L’Amour looks like a librarian with a badge and gun. He’s nearly bald and wears a cardigan instead of a raincoat. I’d put him in his late fifties to early sixties, but under his loose slacks, he seems to keep in shape. His walk is confident and quick, and before I know it, he’s holding my forearm and easing me to the ground.

“All right,” he says, his voice soft but uncomfortable speaking English. “I’ve got an ambulance coming; they’ll have a look at your arm.”

“The arm’s unrelated. I’m fine.”

Kneeling next to me, still holding my forearm, he arches his thick, gray eyebrows. He hasn’t even looked in the corpse’s direction.

“Mademoiselle,” he says, patting the back of my hand. “You are not fine. You’re pale as a sheet.”

“I haven’t slept much.”

He smiles in a fatherly way, like I said something very silly. And to be honest, haven’t I? I’ve been standing in the same spot for almost fifteen minutes, unable to move my eyes and barely blinking. What are the chances I’m in shock and not just a little sleep-deprived?

“What happened to your arm?” he asks, following my eyes for the first time and wincing at the sight.

“Raccoon bite,” I explain, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“The Don?”

Does everyone know that trash bandit?

“How did you know?”

Detective L’Amour’s smile broadens, showing old, cigarette-stained teeth, and he pulls up his sleeve. Near his elbow, he’s got what look like old scars, deep and bone white, where hair no longer grows.

“I’ve had my run-in with the fat bastard, too. Plus, with the name DuFour, I figured you were probably connected with the Achewillow Café, and that’s where the Don holds court.”

So far, he’s a better detective than Wilson and a nicer human being. Doesn’t hurt that we have a common enemy.

He pats my hand again and pulls himself to his feet, walking calmly toward the dead body. Each step is careful and measured. Not a pebble shifts with his approach, and he doesn’t so much as disturb the dust on the concrete.

From under his cardigan, he pulls a cheap ballpoint pen, which he uses to poke and prod at the dead woman. Nothing intrusive or that might spoil evidence. All of it as respectful as he can be.

“Why are they all women?” I ask from across the alley.

L’Amour doesn’t turn. Instead, he digs in his cardigan pocket and pulls out a pair of reading glasses, which he puts on his nose, closer to the tip than the bridge.

“Serial killers tend to have a type. Usually it’s a physical characteristic, like gender, hair length and color, age. Sometimes it’s an occupation, like nurses or cashiers. The number of criteria varies from one killer to the next, but it’s usually an indicator of their level of sophistication.”

But what if it’s not a serial killer? Why would a demon target women? What are demons after, anyway? Souls? Raccoons? Pastries?

“D-do you know what—or who—is killing these women?”

“I wish,” he says, sighing at the implications.

It’s a stupid question. If he knew, he’d make an arrest or at least keep a suspect under surveillance. There have been two murders this week. If the detective had a suspect, they’d be in custody, wouldn’t they?

“There is this one guy,” he muses after a moment. “Murders happen only when he’s in town, and he’s only ever around one or two days a week. But aside from a gut feeling and what could be just a coincidence . . .”

L’Amour sounds disappointed, as though he’s certain he could solve the case if he were just allowed to follow his instincts. It’s not a professional letdown, either. The way he looks at that woman on the ground, her back leaned against the concrete wall of the bank, he seems to take every life lost as a personal burden.

Red light bounces around the entrance to the alley, announcing the arrival of an ambulance and EMTs. Maybe I won’t need to go to the hospital if they can clean and dress my wound here. Then I can get back to the café. I’d love to go up to the apartment and get a nap, but there’s no hope of sleep after what I’ve seen.

“I think I know who you’re talking about, and it’s not him,” I say, surprising myself by defending Gulliver.

Then again, I know for a fact he didn’t do anything, now don’t I? I saw the demon with my own eyes.

“Oh, I expect you know of the man in question, but I doubt you know him enough.”

We’re talking about Gulliver, all right. Seems like he managed to land himself on the wrong side of the law on both sides of the border.

Wilson’s accusations made my paranoia flare up, but it’s L’Amour’s quiet assurance that cements the suspicions in my heart.

The demon is missing its lower abdomen, like its prey. Is it also a victim? If that’s the case, then what’s the link between Gulliver and the creature?

I contemplate telling L’Amour about the connection. Sure, he’ll think I’m a madwoman, delirious from shock or pain from my wounds. But he is from Achewillow. Maybe there is something to the weird things I’ve seen, and wouldn’t L’Amour be the perfect person to know?

I open my mouth to speak my mind, but a short, muscular woman squats in front of me, pulling on some blue latex gloves. The embroidered patch on her shoulder identifies her as a paramedic.

“Hey there, honey,” she says, offering an open hand for me to give her my arm. “Mind if I have a look at that?”

Detective L’Amour seems like a man I could talk to about what I’ve seen, but not in front of a bunch of strangers.

Say what you will about finding a dead body; it forces the medical professionals to come to you instead of having to wait at the hospital.

No stitches.

Thank God for small favors, I guess. I get some painful disinfectant on the bites and scratches, and then some serious bandaging.

I’m halfway back to the Achewillow when I realize no one said anything about a rabies shot. I stop in my tracks, intent on turning around and asking about that when I’m reminded of what Olivia said: The Don keeps clean.

Okay, so I don’t trust the raccoon, but I suppose I can trust Olivia. Or maybe I don’t want to deal with detectives and dead bodies anymore today.

I find the Achewillow very much the way I left it, except with fewer disappointed customers waiting for me. The lights are off, and the chairs are on the tables. The counter is clear and the display empty. It’s strange how wrong seeing the café like this in the middle of the day feels. I’m not usually a creature of habit, but I got used to the Achewillow being . . . alive.

Should I open for the evening?

Enough sunlight filters in from the streets that I don’t need to turn on the ceiling lights. Which is a good thing if I want to keep people from assuming I’ll be opening up again.

Then again, if they see me hanging around the dining room or behind the counter, they’re bound to start knocking on the window.

Olivia left her crate of apples on the counter, which I assume was meant for me. That cements it; I’ll take the apples and hide in the kitchen, baking and cooking away from prying eyes.

“After I lay my head down for five minutes,” I whisper to myself, pulling up a stool and sitting down.

My skull nestles between my folded arms as I lean forward, savoring the cool surface of the counter on my skin. I’m careful not to pull on my wounded arm and start it bleeding again. I wonder how such small bites and scratches can hemorrhage so much. Are the furry little bastard’s stupid little teeth and claws going to leave a scar? Not that I’m particular about nicks and scrapes. I’ve cut my hands often enough, and I have the discolored lines to prove it. There are constellations of dark specks on my forearms where burning oil has splashed me in the past. I once read that scars are like tattoos with better stories. I want to agree, but I also don’t want to take anything away from the ink I do have on my skin.

From where I’m sitting, I can see the sideways image of the back door, peeking from the threshold of the kitchen. The doorknob isn’t in line with the aesthetic of the Achewillow Café. It’s bulky and made of steel, equipped with a sturdy lock. To think that, just last week, it was the only thing that kept that demon at bay.

There’s grinding and clicking, and the handle slowly turns, but I know for a fact that I locked the door the previous night. The memory is etched into my mind, burned in by adrenaline. So, I expect that if someone is trying to get in from the back, they’ll be disappointed when they push the door.

I’m wrong.

Hinges squeak softly as the door to the alley opens a crack. Sun, bright and blinding, slices the door frame, blinding me for a moment. I ponder in mild amusement if this is how the raccoons keep breaking in and stealing my salt. It’s only amusing because I still don’t know how the garbage dwellers pull it off.

There’s no sound of tiny paws on ceramic tiles or the hissing of discontent vermin. Instead, the wedge of brilliant light is broken by a gangly silhouette.

Long fingers wrap around the frame on one side and the door on the other, pushing them apart and pulling in the owner of the limbs.

It’s familiar, yet so much more terrible when cut out from the light. The same demon that threatened me last night is back. Where it left in a hurry, bounding off into the night, it’s now creeping into the Achewillow with slow, purposeful steps.

Claws like knives slide over the metallic surface of the door, and I hear its feet dragging on the floor.

My brain demands that my limbs come to life, arms pushing against the counter and moving me to my feet. Legs propelling me to the front door and the safety of the street. No matter how much I will it, nothing moves.

The demon, so clear in the daylight, gets closer. It lacks eyes that I can see, but I feel it looking at me. I know, somehow, that it’s angry and resentful for the previous nights. Not only was it denied entrance on my first evening in Achewillow, but when it did find its way inside the café, there was nothing in the display for it to take.

Only a few inches separate us now. I see vengeance in the hollow of its eyes and smell anger on its breath. It drags its claws on the counter, leaving gouges in the varnish and wood. These are surgeon’s tools, sharp as chisels and as capable of gutting me as a filet knife.

I want to scream, to run, and to fight, but all I can do is lie there, arms folded on the counter, feeling the vibrations of the scratching claws.

The smell of rotting meat is inescapable as the demon leans in to take a bite. Blunt teeth, dripping with thick, putrefying saliva, push my hair aside and touch the crown of my skull. In a moment, it’ll crack the bones in my head and then sink itself into the soft tissue of my brain. The only saving grace being the speed at which it’ll all be over.

“Pardon me, ma’am?”

I jump out of my skin.

The touch is on my shoulder, not my scalp. It is gentle and hesitant, not ravenous and hungry.

The demon is gone, and the back door to the Achewillow remains closed. I can move again, and like a bolt of lightning shot through me, I’m standing on both feet, my stool toppling to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” comes the voice again, tired and apologetic. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I know the voice and I recognize its owner, but only barely. It’s Julia Remington, the woman who ordered the orange poppy seed honey cake. While I may want to complain about my own lack of sleep, I bet she envies how well rested I must look. Already gaunt and exhausted when I handed her the cake, she somehow looks even worse. The eyes are as sunken as the demon’s, and her fingers now have a palsy to them, shaking uncontrollably with every movement.

My head is still spinning, caught in a cloud of confusion baked into the nightmare I was woken from. I run my fingers over the counter, intact where it was scratched by unnatural claws a moment ago.

“How?” I murmur.

“The front door was unlocked,” Julia explains. “I normally wouldn’t have intruded, but . . . but . . .”

Crumbs of my dream linger at the back of my mind. An image of the back door left open just a crack, enough to let the demon in. It’s as if my subconscious was trying to warn me in sleep about the dangers of such careless behavior. Like leaving the front door unlocked.

Julia supports herself on the counter with shaky limbs, leveraging herself to sit on a stool. I do my best to help support her, holding her elbow until she no longer looks on the verge of fainting.

She starts to cry.

The last few crumbs of dream are swept away, a swell of worry replacing them. I must confess; I’m not great at comforting others. My language isn’t words or even physical touch. I speak in warm, cozy soups, and I write in pastries. My alphabet is made of sauces and gravies. When a friend or family member is going through hell, I lock myself in the kitchen and cook them a little piece of heaven.

Hugs and gentle pats on the hand are for others. I’m all about cookies and fancy hot chocolates.

But I’ve already made the cake this woman wanted. It seemed to give her so much hope and comfort. Rest, she’d said. She would finally find rest. Yet, she looks like she got anything but. So, I’m down to patting her hand and wondering if I should lean in for a hug.

“It didn’t work,” she says, swallowing a sob between her words. “The cake didn’t work. You did it wrong.”

The hit to my pride is point-blank and hurts. I suppress the instinct to tell her off. Like all good cooks, I taste my own cooking, and I can assure anyone who dares say otherwise: I did it right.

“What was wrong with it?” I ask, biting my lip to stay the words I really want to say.

“Doris made it different. He would eat her cake, and it would appease him. But something’s wrong with yours. He won’t touch it. It’s been a few days, and he won’t touch it. And . . . and . . . if he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t let me sleep.”

Oh my god. Is this woman being abused by her husband? She doesn’t need a baker; she needs the cops. But something about her story doesn’t sound right. How can a single cake keep a man appeased for a whole week?

“Why don’t you sleep when he sleeps?”

She looks at me like I told her snow is actually icing sugar and the moon is literally made of cheese.

“My Gary doesn’t sleep,” she explains patiently, as if to a child. “My Gary is dead.”

“Dead?”

Outrage and confusion mix in my voice, and the result is surprisingly neutral. I don’t mean to offend a client, but is she really complaining about my cake being unsuitable for her dead husband?

“Gary passed last fall,” she explains, pain washing over her features. “Orange poppy seed cakes were his favorite. He’d have one with a glass of warm milk to fight his insomnia.”

My brow knits into what I hope passes for compassion but is likely closer to worry. Is this how she grieves for her husband? By having some of his favorite foods? It’s a touching notion, and as a lover of food myself, I can’t think of a more beautiful way to remember someone. It’s the kind of heartfelt dedication that warrants pouring my heart into making the cake.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I always pour my heart into my cooking when I can. It’s why even for dumb assignments from my dumb teachers, I couldn’t let their dumb instructions slide by uncontested. I’ll half ass a tray of muffins that I bake for myself, but a cake for a paying customer? A special order? No way. I gave the grieving widow everything I had on that cake.

“What was wrong with it?” I ask. “Was the taste off? Something about the texture?”

“I don’t know,” she replies. “Gary simply didn’t want it. It didn’t work.”

Is this woman feeding my cake to her dead husband? How? I imagine for a moment that she keeps his remains in her home and tries to stuff the dessert into his dead mouth. It’s a morbid thought, baked from the ingredients of a morbid day. More likely, she brings the cake to his grave as an offering, like pouring one out, but with a little bit more class.

Either way, how would she know that Gary doesn’t like my painstakingly made cake?

“Are you sure it wasn’t a lemon poppy seed cake? Or something else that Gary liked?”

Julia scowls at me, breaking from her exhaustion and bereavement for the first time since we met.

“No, no, no,” she says, shaking her head. “Gary and I have known each other since high school. I know what he likes. Doris must have done it differently. She was something else. Don’t feel bad if you’re having trouble living up to her legacy.”

What. The. Hell?

What is it with Doris that people think she was so incomparable? With all due respect to the deceased, if she was that incredible, how did she never manage to break out of this backwater town?

“I really don’t think Doris did anything I couldn’t do.”

I stop short of saying do better.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to insult you,” she says, though I struggle to see the contrition. “It’s just that Doris had her ways, and . . . well, I thought that maybe you did, too.”

Why do people expect so much of me here? I hate to lean back on this fact, but even Chef Gagnon said I was a great baker. How are people here not awed by my prowess? I don’t want to seem arrogant, but I was studying to become a chef, and if it weren’t for my, ahem, behavioral problems, I’d still be in school at the top of my class. What did Doris have that I don’t?

You’d do best to remember everyone’s usual around here. There’s a ritual to it, and believe me, you do not want to mess with ritual.

Ritual.

It’s not about how well I bake and cook. It’s about people’s usual. Their habits and their rituals. Small town with a close-knit community, it’s no surprise that they’re a little stuck in their ways. Especially a slightly unhinged woman still teary-eyed about a great loss. And who knows, maybe there is a little magic in Doris’s cooking.

“Maybe,” I say, softening my voice. “I could see if Doris had a special recipe. I made you my best orange poppy seed honey cake, but it could be Doris had something special in hers. What if that’s what’s missing?”

With great effort, the widow stretches her lips into a hopeful smile. Again, her bony fingers grasp at my hand, pulling it to her. There’s a surprising amount of strength in Julia’s grip. It’s the strength of desperation. I can see that the rest she’s looking for isn’t just for Gary, but for herself as well.

“Doris was special,” she says. “And she did something special to her cakes. To everything she made. I can see it in your eyes. You’re special, too. You’ll figure it out. You have to.”

She lets go of my hand, a little shocked with herself that she even touched me. Her smile, however, doesn’t waver. One step at a time, she backs from the counter and, lips quivering, makes her way to the door.

Two potential clients are waiting for Julia to make her way out so they can slip in when she opens the door, ready to shower me with their culinary demands despite the café being locked and closed.

But the moment she steps outside, head down, two other patrons jump in front and slide into the café. To my worry, and in a way, relief, they close and lock the door behind them. The other would-be customers don’t seem amused at all, as evidenced by their muted cry of protest.

I know these two patrons.

A short, balding man and his tall, athletic partner, both wearing exotic and identical blue business suits.

Each is carrying a thin, brown leather briefcase. Also identical, these look brand new. Their surfaces shine like mirrors, and their brass clasps pick up the sun in glittering sparks.

The moment they make eye contact with me, they flash badges from their inner jacket pockets, but too quickly for me to read anything. I did notice a large, ornate cross next to their respective photos, similar to the crosses I see etched on their cufflinks.

The Inquisition.

“Ms. Miriam DuFour?” the man asks, a friendly smile on his face.

“I’m sorry,” I answer, knowing the futility of my next words. “We’re closed.”

“We know,” the woman answers, with none of her partner’s warmth. “That’s why we’re here.”

“Yes,” the man adds. “We wouldn’t want to be a bother during business hours. My name is Orléans, and this is my partner, Alessandria. Forgive the intrusion, but we have some important business to discuss.”

I stand from my stool, finally finding the last vestiges of energy and will from what I thought was a dry well. I’ve had quite a day already, and I don’t have time for a pair of religious zealots playing at being inquisitors.

“No,” I say. “I don’t have the time or patience for this. Please get out of my café before I call the police.”

I mean it, too. I take out my phone, putting it on the counter for emphasis.

“That won’t be necessary, Ms. DuFour,” Orléans says, his tone appeasing and calm. “We won’t be here very long. We just want to issue you a little . . . warning.”

I’m not sure if I’m grateful or annoyed. Whatever they’re here to warn me about, I bet I’ve already run into it. Potential serial killers, demons, dead bodies, and even a spirit hungry for poppy seed honey cake. Chances are, I’ve seen everything Achewillow has to offer. They’re showing up with appetizers when it’s time for dessert.

The annoyance must have bled through my features, judging by Alessandria’s growing impatience—if Alessandria is her real name.

“You’d be well served taking us seriously, Ms. DuFour,” she threatens. “You may be in much deeper trouble than you think.”

“Indeed,” Orléans adds, though with a softer tone. “If you don’t stay on the straight and narrow, we’ll be forced to take action. We’d rather not, of course, but we have to do our jobs, y’know.”

Incredible. They’re threatening me? What do they think I’m doing here? And even if they are the legitimate Inquisition, which—let’s face it—is unlikely, what do they want with a small-town coffee shop? I don’t even sell deviled eggs. Is this about serving meat on Fridays or something?

“What action?”

Alessandria sets her briefcase on the counter with a precise, dramatic gesture. She releases both clasps simultaneously to open the leather front, then pulls out a single sheet of paper.

It looks like legal jargon. After dealing with Helen Edna, notary public, I’ve had enough of that sort of thing for a decade.

She gives the paper a cursory look, then pulls out a fancy white pen that seems carved of ivory and signs the document.

“Here.” She twists the page to face me, offering me the pen. “Sign there to attest you have been warned against the use of witchcraft and sorcery, consorting or engaging in congress with the devil and demonic creatures, communicating, raising, or otherwise interacting with the dead, or practicing rituals of magic and wizardry. Feel free to consider this your only and final warning.”

There’s no way this isn’t a prank. It must be some sort of town hazing ritual to test my gullibility. Seems like a lot of effort put in for a cheap laugh.

Unless they have hidden cameras, the only audience to this tasteless joke would be the four customers lined up outside. But if I read their features right, they aren’t in on the joke. In fact, they seem genuinely troubled by what they’re seeing. The Moustache Man is at the front of the line, and when we lock eyes, he shakes his head, telling me that no, this isn’t a jest.

“I’m not signing this.”

This is outrageous. It’s harassment at the very least, threats at worst. There was a moment when I thought Achewillow was welcoming. I may have even idly entertained the notion of staying a while, charmed by the café and the quaint, slow-paced rural living. I didn’t even have time to get comfortable before the town turned on me.

“Please, Ms. DuFour, reconsider,” Orléans pleads. “You don’t want to be on the Inquisition’s bad side.”

“Doris DuFour was a witch,” Alessandria butts in, pushing her partner aside, towering over me in an attempt at intimidation. “Do you know what the Inquisition does to witches?”

I want to be stronger than this, and I want to stand up to this crazy bitch. I’ve gone through enough without having to endure two delusional idiots.

But there’s something in her stance that makes me take her seriously. I don’t know that I believe there is such a thing as the Inquisition. If there were, I don’t know that I’d believe in their authority.

That doesn’t matter, though. The ’80s had its satanic panic. Andrea Yates killed her children, spurred by her delusions and faith. There’s a precedent for crazy people turning homicidal based on religious fervor.

This tall woman is real, and I can see in her eyes that she believes her Inquisition is real. I’ve seen a demon, and that might be enough for her to label me a witch. And what does the Inquisition do to witches?

They hang, drown, or burn them.

9

THE NAME OF THE DEAD

I remember when I was a kid, thinking magic was real. We all go through that phase, don’t we? For some, it’s getting too much into vampires, while for others, it’s crystals.

For me, it was fairies. I’m not completely sure why fairies got me so excited. The whole thing started after I read an article about the Cottingley Fairies.

For those unfamiliar, in 1917, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths managed to get photographic proof that fairies exist. The images found their way into a magazine, attracting the attention of various believers and other media, including the illustrious Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The photographs were eventually debunked as a hoax, but I’m not sure I made it to that part of the article the first time I read it.

I was hooked.

The notorious relationship between fairies and food certainly played a part.

The idea of magical meals that could trap a mortal in the clutches of enchanted worlds had a charm all its own. After our first day of class at the Institute, a few of us got tattoos to commemorate this new stage of our lives and the cohort we assumed we’d become. We gave ourselves a rule that the tattoos should be personal and cooking-related. I got an image of a tiny fairy holding a whisk on my left calf.

As the years went by, the fairies went from an obsession to a passing fascination to an aesthetic interest, and eventually to nothing.

The passion for food remained, though.

So, you can imagine how I felt, as an adult woman, being accused of witchcraft. If I’d been in any other mood, I’d have thought the whole situation hilarious. As it stands, I’m like a deflated soufflé. My patience for frivolities is spent, and I have no intention to entertain any of these accusations.

To be fair, it’s not me that’s being accused, but my great grandaunt Doris. But the accusers, self-proclaimed Inquisitors, don’t seem to care or bother with that distinction. They look crazy enough to be dangerous.

“Do you know what the Inquisition does to witches?” Alessandria asked me, standing well within my personal space and towering over me.

Something tells me this isn’t her real name. In fact, the only thing that feels real about either of them is their zeal and conviction, which is what makes them dangerous.

I have some idea of what the real Inquisition used to do to suspected witches and heretics.

That’s the part that scares me. I’m no witch, but as far as I know, the Inquisition’s version of due process back in medieval times wasn’t stellar. I don’t see why their crazy modern descendants would be any more thorough.

“They . . . burn the witches?” I mumble.

My voice is weak from fear, lack of energy, or both. I’ve gone from annoyed to angry, but now I’m ready to accept whatever they say if it means they’ll leave the café and let me get some rest.

It doesn’t work.

“Oh my,” Orléans, the short, balding Inquisitor, protests. “Not at all. We’re not barbarians, Ms. DuFour. However—”

“However!” Alessandria cuts in, impatient. She digs farther into her briefcase, and I half expect her to pull out a gun to punctuate her threat. Instead, it’s a stack of papers, legal-sized, crushed in her closed fist.

“We are more than ready to, and capable of, applying crippling economic and legislative pressure on you and your business!”

The words crippling, economic, and legislative are spat out like venom, accompanied by the appropriate amount of spittle.

“If we so much as find an inch of proof that you cavort with demons and devils, we will make you wish you’d been burned at the stake.

“We will find creditors you didn’t even know you had and put insurmountable roadblocks between you and anything you try to accomplish. We will keep you on the razor’s edge between bankruptcy and poverty. Nothing in your life will be in your name again. Financial excommunication.”

The last two words are hissed slowly and with so much vitriol that I wonder if Alessandria is the one who’s actually the witch.

“All right,” I cut in. “Enough.”

I guess I should be afraid. Terrified even. After all, it wouldn’t take much digging to find my economic Achilles’s heel. It’s not so much buried as it is put on display atop a dais in an ornate mausoleum. Student debts, late fees, unpaid bills, and I’m sure there’s still a parking ticket lurking in the shadows, even though I haven’t driven my parents’ car in years.

Everyone, however, has their breaking point, and I’ve more than reached mine. If they’re not going to threaten me with anything more immediate, like a public hanging or tossing me in a river with a stone tied to my neck, then it can wait.

“Out.”

I point at the front door like a schoolteacher sending a student to the principal’s office. The white around her dark eyes grows huge in surprise. I don’t think she gets challenged very often.

“We’ll ruin you,” she threatens.

“You can’t make the ocean more wet,” I retort. “Bring it.”

“Ms. DuFour,” Orléans tries to placate me, his tiny hands holding his briefcase in front of him. “Please be reasonable.”

“Out. Before I cast a spell on you both.”

They don’t take the threat seriously, but they pick up their papers and drag their weird religious zealot act out of my café.

It’s a small victory and one that may or may not have consequences. Posturing aside, the last thing I need is new creditors knocking at my door.

The door to the Achewillow never makes it shut, held open a crack by the man with the moustache.

I want to tell him to go away, then rush to lock the door behind him. My muscles and bones beg for me to crawl upstairs to Doris’s apartment and collapse on her old bed and sleep away the fear and stress and exhaustion.

That’s what a normal person would do, but not what a DuFour does. At least, not Miriam DuFour.

The kitchen behind me whispers in my ears with a sweet, motherly voice, saying that it can offer me the succor I need. Why sleep when I can bake?

In fact, now that I’m flush with fresh ingredients and an inexhaustible amount of tension to work out, I might as well get some real cooking done. Not now, of course; I’ve got a few cookie batters ready for the oven, but later. Then, there’s a whole chicken that’s begging to be turned into something delicious. Didn’t I also see some figs and balsamic vinegar in the pantry? If it turns out well, and it will, I’ll see about taking some to Olivia. I owe her for the crate of apples, at the very least.

I wave in the moustache man. He’s got a splash of paint on his cheek, and his fingers are stained dark with whatever pigment he used during his work today. He’s followed by a few other patrons who quickly file behind the register to place their orders.

I serve them their coffee and teas and whatever they find in the display that strikes their fancy. The process isn’t as smooth as I want it to be. The coffee machine, sensing my weakness, is uncooperative again. I have to remake an espresso and two Americanos because whatever it is the beast spat up, no one would call drinkable.

A few of the patrons give me a sympathetic smile to acknowledge my ordeal, but nothing more. I ask the moustached man about this so-called Inquisition.

“I don’t think they ever bothered Doris,” he says, wiping his hand on paint-stained pants before picking up his coffee. “Real weirdos, those two.”

True relief is only found once the line for coffee is dealt with. Only then can I finally prepare my cookies for the oven and start readying my ingredients for a rum cake.

Hot, dry air spills out of the oven when I open the door. It burns my skin and parches my eyes every time, and yet I do not learn. There’s a weird pleasure and satisfaction in the pain and inconvenience. A sacrifice to the oven gods in gratitude for their blessings. Maybe that’s what I should do for the coffee machine? Say a little prayer? Burn some incense? I’m not religious, but I’ll totally subscribe to a caffeine-based faith.

A sheet full of carefully rolled dough balls, each packed with nuts and chocolate chips, like little sugary asteroids, slides into the welcoming inferno. There, they will heat and soften into discs both sweet and buttery. It’s not quite the chemical wizardry of rising bread or making a perfect sponge cake, but it’s enchanting enough, and no one would refuse one of my cookies. No one with a soul, anyway.

I twist the top half of a timer shaped like an egg, setting it to twelve minutes. It was white at some point, the egg, but now it’s yellowed and the numbers printed in black are half-erased, rubbed off by years of use. Some have even been written back in with a marker.

Satisfied, I go back toward the counter and dining room, replenished by the honest toil of making food.

The salve I put on my tired mind isn’t enough for what awaits me at the counter next to the register, though.

Reading casually from a notebook like a student cramming for a test, still clad in his raincoat, Detective Aaron Wilson is waiting for me.

I want to toss his butt off my property and out on the street. He’s been here a few times since I visited his interrogation room, but he’s had the decency to take his coffee to a table and stay out of my hair. Apart from annoyance, I don’t have much of an excuse to want him out, but the idea has a pleasant flavor.

I turn to the only means of defense in my current arsenal: civility.

“Detective Wilson,” I say, straightening Doris’s apron. “What can I get you?”

People underestimate the power of being polite in the right situation. It’s an especially efficient strategy when you’re expected to behave otherwise.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m usually not very good at it. I don’t suffer self-important fools like Chef Gagnon, and I certainly don’t forgive duplicitous jerks like Wilson. My go-to reaction is to capitulate for as long as I can stomach before lashing out. I cower until I bite.

That’s how I was with Gagnon my first semester. I surrendered to his whims and weathered his shouting fits and creative insults until, one day, I didn’t.

The assignment had been to make a roux, so the class could taste a variety of mother sauces. As Chef Gagnon walked around the classroom, systematically chewing out every student, one at a time, comparing their sauces to mud or worse.

“Are you trying to poison me?” he asked Teresa, the girl next to me. “Because this tastes like you’re trying to poison me. In case you’re too stupid to guess, velouté isn’t supposed to taste like poison.”

When he got to mine, taking a sip with his spoon, he asked if I’d followed his instructions.

Honest to a fault, I told him no. His way of making roux went well enough. Any idiot can make a roux. But when it came to the velouté, his recipe was all over the place. So, I used my own.

Because I didn’t fancy poisoning myself.

That day I made my first of many trips to the Dean’s office.

If only I’d known to be civil and polite, to lie and pretend it was his recipe I’d followed. I may have never gone down the slippery slope that led to my expulsion from cooking school.

But! Here we are, and I hope that now I know a little better. Which is a good thing, I suppose. If Chef Gagnon had the leverage to get me kicked out, Detective Wilson could very well be capable of worse.

Where he might have expected the same confused and traumatized girl he dragged into an interrogation room less than a week ago, I gave him a hearty helping of professional courtesy.

And it rattled him.

It was an interesting reaction. I wish I’d gotten that out of Gagnon instead of his constant fuming anger.

Wilson cocks his head to the side, his smile faltering, like he forgot what he wanted to order. For a second, he opens his mouth, as if he’d finally found his words but couldn’t manage to put them in order.

I give him another moment to compose himself, but when he fails to do so, I offer a polite wink and say, “Let me get you your usual.”

I’ve only served Wilson a few times at the Achewillow, but he always took the same coffee. Maybe it’s not his usual. Maybe when he’s not cleaning up after a crime scene in an alley, he enjoys a nice tall latte or some tea.

But Detective Wilson goes around with a raincoat and a notebook, trying too hard to play dress-up as a private investigator. Drinking black coffee is part of the accoutrement.

It must be his usual, and as Olivia Fig told me, there’s a ritual to people’s usuals.

And there’s power in rituals.

Power enough to put a detective off his guard.

“Yes,” he finally says, long after I’ve started negotiating with the coffee machine. “And a cookie?”

He’s reasserting power in the conversation. If the coffee is my way of getting ahead of him, adding a cookie is his way of showing he’s still making his own decisions.

Fine, we can be on the same footing. I don’t mind, but I’m not letting my strings be pulled again.

“Funny how you always show up when I stumble on dead bodies,” I say, anticipating his line of questioning.

“Oh? You’re the one who called 9-1-1?”

“Detective Wilson,” I answer, handing him a mug and a bag with his cookie in it. “If you don’t communicate with your peers on this side of the border, I’m not surprised you haven’t caught your killer.”

He flinches.

Civility, Miriam! I chide myself. Remember civility.

“I’m sorry,” I catch myself. “That’s not fair. I’m sure both you and Detective L’Amour keep in touch. Who cares who finds the victim? The important thing is you collect fingerprints and evidence and . . . whatever else you need. Right?”

He gives me an uneven glower at the mention of L’Amour. There’s a comment hidden behind those crooked lips, one that he manages to swallow.

Wilson takes his food, but he doesn’t venture far. Looking at me like he would a rather exotic dish, or a suspect, I guess, he takes a seat at the counter.

“You know,” he says, pausing to sip his coffee. “I am only trying to help.”

It doesn’t look like he’s about to leave anytime soon. If, for the sake of civility, I’m going to entertain this conversation, I should make my own cup of coffee. A strong one.

“I’m sure you are, Detective, but I don’t appreciate how you go about it.”

“Yes, well, Helen also made that clear.”

He rolls his eyes then hisses, burning the roof of his mouth on scalding coffee. I hope the theatrics of gulping it to punctuate his statement were worth it.

Helen Edna, notary public. My surprise savior.

Thinking back on the thick manila envelope that carried news of Achewillow to my doorstep, I wasn’t the only one Helen Edna lied to. The cover letter addressed to each of the recipients in the line of succession claimed a stroke took Doris.

“Detective?” I ask, as he recuperates from his boiled mouth. “How did you say Doris died again?”

I pour a glass of cold water while he finishes collecting himself, planning to hold on to it until he answers. The cool solution to his burning problem is only a foot away; he reaches out for the glass, but I don’t offer it to him.

“How did my great-grandaunt die, Detective?”

“She died of a stroke,” he coughs out almost immediately.

He’s lying, but I let him have the water anyway. He’d clearly insinuated that Doris had died of something far worse than natural causes.

I could press him, throw his words back at him, and push for the truth, but what good would that do? I suspect Helen got to him and got him in on her lie. She seemed to have that level of sway over the detective.

Why would she do that? Why would she hide the truth from everyone in the DuFour family tree? The answer, after a moment to think about it, is obvious. Helen needs someone to take over the café, and whatever took Doris is liable to scare people away. I think of the various cousins, aunts, and uncles who refused the Achewillow Café before me.

My eyes wander around the dining room, roaming between the chairs and tables, covering the walls and windows, and painting the entire establishment in a wide arc. It’s a beautiful place, cozy and wonderful. It feels a little stripped down, like it used to be more cluttered and more lived-in, but comfort radiates from every corner. The smell of baking cookies helps, but the welcoming atmosphere of the Achewillow breathes from its very pores.

I end my visual tour with the row of wooden spoons hanging behind the counter. Five in total, with plenty of room for more. Under each, a brass plaque with a name.

Melodie is inscribed underneath the oldest spoon. Gnarled and gray with age, it’s the largest of the spoons, measuring a solid foot and a half, with a thick handle. Madelaine is next; her spoon is also long, but the handle is thin, and the end is small. It looks dainty and precious compared to Melodie’s. Elaine’s spoon has normal proportions, but the handle is an elegant spiral pattern, and the wood looks richer. Amelia’s is the smallest spoon on the display, and in a way, the most normal-looking one. Except it’s very worn, the handle splintered and put back together, the tip burnt. That leaves Philomene, whose spoon is thick but smooth, despite looking hand carved.

There’s no plaque or spoon for Doris yet.

Still, five generations of women had operated the Achewillow before my great-grandaunt. None are recognized with surnames. As if that were an unimportant detail in the line of women who ran the café. Regardless, if this is a trace of family lineage, it means the Achewillow’s been in operation for at least two centuries. Perhaps more, considering how long Doris lived.

I can feel the depths of my family extending from my feet, like roots digging into the soil underneath the building. I’d thought Achewillow was the home of one eccentric and distant relative, like the female lead in some romantic comedy. Instead, I find I have a history here dating back to the colonies.

“Detective?” I ask, finally giving Wilson my attention again. “How much danger am I in staying here?”

Detective Wilson did not want to answer the question.

He tried every tactic to avoid it. From vague generalities like, “We’re all in danger to some degree,” to trying to change the subject with an insincere apology regarding his behavior the week prior.

He even tries to call it a day, but against my better judgment, I convince him to stay.

“You owe me,” I say, after he puts money on the counter, attempting to settle his tab. While he hesitates, I refresh his coffee and put a fresh cookie in front of him.

Raincoat under his arm, ready to walk out the door, Wilson looks around the café. He’s desperate for an excuse to refuse my hospitality and escape accountability. But while we were talking, the evening wore on, and eventually the dining room emptied, leaving only the two of us.

“I have a right to know, Detective,” I insist. “You implied Gulliver intentionally sought me out and brought me to Achewillow, and you suspect him of the murders that have been happening here. Bodies are being found close to the café, and now I run into the latest victim. You say you don’t consider me a suspect; fine, but is my life in danger?”

Detective Wilson stares into his cup of coffee, as if the answer is in his reflection. He finds only disappointment. The cup returns to the counter, where he spins it slowly by the handle.

“Clara,” he finally says, eyes still riveted by the coffee.

“Pardon?”

“Her name was Clara, the girl you found today. Clara Payne. The woman we found behind your café was Anaïs Duchesne. Candice, Nicoletta, and Hannah were the other three victims. All of them died close to this establishment. All of them in the same condition you found Clara.”

Talking about the victims seems to take a lot out of Wilson, but it also offers relief. I don’t dare ask if he knew these women. I expect he did, at least a little. In a town this small, if you didn’t know each other, they’d at least heard of each other. If he didn’t know them before, he certainly does now. The haunted look in his eyes as he recites their names says a lot about how much he’s investigated them. I assume he’s met their grieving families, talked to their employers and coworkers, and questioned their significant others and friends. To solve the mystery of their deaths, he’s made himself part of their lives.

“I don’t think you’re in any immediate danger,” he finally says, looking up from the cup.

“How can you be sure?”

“I think whoever is killing women in Achewillow has already had plenty of chances to kill you. I don’t know what connects Clara, Anaïs, Candice, Hannah, and Nicoletta, but you don’t fit the profile. Maybe it’s because you’re from out of town or too young or whatever.”

“So, the only reason you think I’m not going to get killed is because I haven’t died yet? That’s reassuring!”

The detective goes back to his coffee, lips curling in a smile without losing their haunted quality. He sticks a finger in the drink, disturbing his reflection.

“I think,” he continues, “that you’re too close to the killer. Either he’s someone you know or someone who knows you. Someone who’s had access to you before and still has access to you. Until the pattern changes, I don’t think you’re at risk.”

Without taking another sip of the coffee or a bite from the cookie, Wilson pushes himself from his stool. Calm and deliberate, he picks up his raincoat, folding it over his arm. He fishes through his pocket, finding a random assortment of bills that he drops next to his cup. Neither of us bothers to check how much.

“If it makes you feel better,” he adds, walking to the door, “my Canadian colleagues and I have our eye on you and the Achewillow. If anyone had any plans to harm you, they’ll probably think twice about it now. Have a good day, Ms. DuFour.”

The door chimes bid him good night on his way across the street.

It’s the first time I see him without wearing his raincoat, and the first time I see the streets of Achewillow wet with rain.

I take an absentminded bite of the cookie before deciding I’m not really hungry. I toss it back on the plate and go to lock the door behind the detective. I switch off the dining room lights and start my evening ritual of cleaning tables and sweeping the floor. I’m stacking the last few chairs on a table when I hear the clatter of ceramic getting knocked over behind me.

Regret fills my throat like emotional vomit, threatening to spill from my mouth in a scream. Alone in a dark and empty café after the conversation I’ve just had? After the week I’ve just endured?

Detective Wilson’s neglected coffee cup rolls on the counter, its contents dripping to the tiled floor.

The cookie is missing, and through the threshold to the kitchen, I see the back door is open again. A back door I know for a fact I’ve closed and locked.

My breathing comes in heavy with fear, and my hands close on my broom handle, ready to brandish it as the least efficient blunt weapon ever.

There’s no way I can leave the door open. But after what I saw last night in the alley? I’m not sure I want to get near enough to close it, either.

I inch toward the door, making my way from the back of the dining room, between tables with chairs stacked on top. There’s a skittering sound. It’s the song of sneaking vermin rather than shadow-skulking demons.

A raccoon. It’s nothing but a silhouette, but I clearly see the cookie in the animal’s mouth as it makes its escape. Fear gives way to anger as I realize I have to mop up the coffee pooling on the floor.

“Why, you little . . .”

I don’t care about the food. I have more, and I was probably going to throw it out, anyway. It’s the invasion of my place of business and the cavalier attitude these garbage bears have toward coming in and out and taking my things.

Bursting through the back door, I see a ringed tail waving in the air before vanishing between the dumpsters.

The rain has stopped, and it washed away the salt circle around the dumpster. But there’s a fresh one piled so high, it hasn’t dissolved on the wet asphalt.

So, I guess they also stole another box of salt.

Furious now, I walk over and kick at the circle, giving it a good swipe with the broom. Grunting my rage, I flip the top of the bin open.

As expected, all six raccoons, including the small one who stole the cookie, are huddled at the bottom, surrounded by their treasure trove of garbage.

The light of the back porch illuminates them, gray fur and black masks, all looking up at me like I’m an uninvited guest. Somehow, their eyes catch the light and reflect an eerie blue.

The Don hisses at me, insulted by my presence. Soon, the one with the red tag on its ear joins in. The metallic echo from the bin turns their frustrated hisses into a cacophony of angry noise, but I am undeterred.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

I take a couple of swipes at them with my broom. I don’t exactly want to hit them; I’m not a monster, but if I could scare them into finding a new home, that would be pretty great.

My assault doesn’t have the desired effect, and the citizens of Trash only grow more agitated. Now they’re hissing and swiping their paws in my direction. All of us are making impotent strikes at one another, making noise but achieving nothing in the process.

Their agitation wears out before mine. After a minute of our stalemate, all six of them lie flat on their stomachs, looking up with their mouths closed and their paws tucked in.

But the hissing hasn’t stopped. It’s only moved. From inside the metal bin to behind me.

Broom in hand, I spin around and feel the breath get stolen from my lungs. I hope that what I see is another nightmare. Terrifying and almost real, but ultimately a figment of my imagination. I can forget a nightmare.

Instead, the vision from last night is back.

Still over fifty meters away, it shambles out of the woods and into the moonlight. Even in the dark, I can see something different about the creature. I can’t put my finger on it from this distance, but it seems less thin. The shape of its midsection is thicker, almost to the point of being unrecognizable. If it weren’t for the struggling gait and shuffling steps, I might have thought it a drunkard again.

One of the raccoons climbs out of the bin, dropping to the asphalt and almost giving me a heart attack in the process.

It’s the little guy with the red tag. Hissing at the apparition, it scrambles, pawing at the salt on the ground. Small, clumsy hands do a poor job of redistributing the mounds of white, spreading it more than repairing the circle, as I suspect it’s trying to do.

The circle.

Frantic, I shoo away Red Tag with my broom, pushing him back toward the bin. He hisses and claws at the broom, unwilling to give up without a fight.

“Not now!” I hiss back at him.

When he seems to give up, I sweep salt from the rest of the circle and repair the gap I’ve made with the broom. Or at least I try to, but the more I spread the salt, the more it dissolves on the wet ground. I don’t want to look up, afraid the creature will be much closer than I want it to be. A shadow moves across the porch light; it’s near.

I manage to finish repairing the circle. It’s not a great job, and the water is already eating at the thin line of salt.

When I look up, the demon is right there, a few feet in front of me. I hope my guess is correct: that this salt is what kept it away last night and will keep it away again tonight.

And that the salt will last long enough for the demon to leave.

The creature is as gruesome tonight as it was yesterday, except this time, it reeks. The stench of day-old meat left in the sun to rot. It’s the smell of blood left on the butcher’s floor for too long.

I gag but manage to swallow my retching. The taste of vomit hovers at the back of my throat, and gastric acids scorch the bottom of my trachea.

As if hungry for the sounds, the demon turns toward me. Its lower abdomen is no longer empty. Organs, fresh and glistening, are crudely packed into the cavity, hiding the spine and lower ribs of the monster. Their vivid, living colors contrast with those of the demon’s own remaining organs. The viscera aren’t its own.

“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Clara . . .”

10

SANCTUMS

That’s it.

This is the last straw.

In fact, the last straw should have been after they found Anaïs Duchesne’s body behind the Achewillow Café. Or after I was tricked by a detective desperate to solve his case. Or after members of the so-called Inquisition leveled threats against me.

There’ve been more than enough red flags for me to pack up and leave Achewillow. Top of the list: seeing a bona fide demon shambling around the neighborhood.

It’s a compliment to the power of denial that I’ve been able to walk out into the alley again and again, despite repeated encounters with this monster.

The only possible explanation for why I’m here once again is that I must be losing my mind.

With any luck, the delusions extend to the monster before my eyes, and it too is nothing but a hallucination, an extension of the dream I had earlier in the day. Maybe I’ll get bitten by a raccoon again and be woken from this nightmare, too, safe in the alley behind the café.

I doubt it, though.

There is too much engaging my senses for this to be a figment of a broken, overstressed mind.

From the smell of decomposing flesh to the wet dragging of inhuman limbs through puddles, I can sense the realness of it all. The demon is there, in front of me, as terrifying now as it’s been every other time we’ve crossed paths. Even more so tonight. For where it once had nothing but a hollowed-out abdomen, the monster boasts fresh digestive organs. I can think of only one origin for these glistening viscera: Clara.

And now I think I know why the demon kills.

It’s trying to rebuild itself.

Although all the spare parts seem to have been acquired and installed, that doesn’t make me safe. Now that the demon has a stomach and intestines and all the bits and pieces required to digest, it could very well be looking for a snack. In my dream, it went for my head and for my brain, and I’ve no reason to believe that reality wouldn’t reflect my flights of fancy.

I’ve eaten brains before. It’s not my cup of tea. But if I had a brand-new digestive tract I wanted to take for a spin, I wouldn’t discriminate against it.

The demon—gray, decayed skin and pink, fleshy organs—shambles to the back door. It shoulders its way in, pushing the unlatched door open to bang on its hinges. There’s a little more purpose to its step, and far less hesitation. It twists its neck, sniffing the air. Thick drops of slobber fall to my freshly cleaned floor as the beast investigates.

With all the food available this time, the demon has to find something that will sate its hunger. In my mind, I beg it to tear the kitchen apart and eat its fill. There are cookies still on the counter. If meat is more to its taste, I have chicken in the refrigerator. Have it sate its hunger on those but leave my flesh alone.

My prayer goes unanswered. The demon looks at the pastry display, paying close attention to that same spot near the bottom tray, before turning its attention back at me. Fat folds of gray flesh on its forehead twist into a frown, as if it were blaming me for not replenishing the display with its favorite treat.

My eyes move back and forth between the monster and the circle of salt. If this is all that’s keeping the beast away from me, it has to hold. But part of it is dissolving in a rain puddle. I have very little time left.

The demon shambles out of the café, negotiating the stairs with more dexterity than its awkward steps would suggest. It moves around the edge of the salt circle, never taking its black, hollow eyes off me. The creature, its breath like a downtown sewer drain, leans in toward me, held back by invisible forces. Its claw-tipped hands reach for my face, but they too stop short.

So very little of the salt remains dry.

Legs too deformed to be so agile, the monster takes a few steps back and then propels itself at me. Obvious is the hope that brute force can prevail over metaphysical barriers.

But the salt circle is a wall that the demon bounces off, like a rag doll thrown at a window.

Another prayer takes shape at the back of my mind: maybe this will be its last attempt. A quick look confirms that the salt in the puddle is all but gone. I don’t know the rules about raccoon-made protective wards, but I don’t favor my odds if the demon launches itself at me again.

Thankfully, this last attempt has loosened the fresh organs in its abdomen. Black claws grasp at a length of intestine that’s come free, tucking it back in place.

The damage seems enough to dissuade the monster from any further assaults. Holding its organs—Clara’s organs—from falling out, the demon shuffles away and back to the woods, having all but forgotten about me.

Minutes tick by again without my noticing. I’ve been through this, and it’s no easier this time. The demon is gone, and so is the salt circle, no longer providing me with any protection. Only the Achewillow Café can do that now.

My shaking legs struggle to carry me up the few steps and over the threshold, and my head keeps snapping back to the woods. I expect to see the shambling horror with fresh organs leaping toward me.

The only thing I see is the Don, that fat bastard of a raccoon, looking like he’s giving me two thumbs up.

That’s it. I’m done with this town.

“Take the bus,” Gulliver answers.

Because that’s how desperate and scared I got. At this point, unless Edmund Gulliver Kemper transforms into a demon himself, stalking Achewillow to steal young girls’ organs, I’m confident he’s not the killer.

Getting his number wasn’t too hard: not many people with his name are working as independent truck drivers. So, I called him. Gulliver brought me here; he can take me out. Except he doesn’t want to.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I apologize, pleading a little harder than I want to admit. “I shouldn’t have asked for the keys to the café back. Obviously, Doris trusted you, and I guess I should, too. But I never knew Doris. I don’t know you, and I don’t know this town. And now . . .”

“And now, you want out,” he finishes for me. “It’s not about the keys, Miriam. Well, maybe a little. It stings, but I have to accept it: Doris is gone, and the Achewillow is under new management. Things are going to change, and I have to adapt. But see, here’s the thing: I don’t hate the new management. Doris would be heartbroken if the café ended up in some stranger’s hands.

“You’re not Doris, but you cook like Doris. You wear her apron like she did. I’m positive she would have wanted you to stay, and if that’s what she would have wanted, then it’s what I want.”

I don’t care what you want, Gulliver. I want out. That’s not what I say, of course. Instead, I mumble something about looking at the bus schedule before hanging up.

I made my way back to the apartment above the café to make the call. My bag is already packed, not that there was much in there to begin with. Never was it my plan to stay this long in the first place.

I thought about going to Olivia’s place or giving her a call. To tell her the whole story, but I suspect she’d try to convince me to stay. I thought Gulliver would be glad to see me gone, but I miscalculated on that front.

I try to switch on my computer and go online to look up whatever convoluted series of buses I would need to take to get back to civilization, but I get nothing.

“Oh, come on!”

After years of coughing up blood and falling into periodic comas, my poor laptop seems to have finally succumbed. I’m no expert, but by the aborted whirl of the fan and lack of any sign of life after that, I suspect general organ failure is to blame. Power supply, CPU, and hard drive, all giving up the ghost at once. Or one of them dying, the rest unable to come to life on their own. It wouldn’t matter. My noble assistant has perished. Perhaps, once back in the city, I can get someone to perform necromantic rituals and bring it back to life.

My phone, its battery bleeding its final drop, gives me just enough life to discover that the journey home from Achewillow on public transport is, at best, a solid four hours long. It implies a costly taxi ride to the closest bus depot, and from there, not one, but two buses before I can set foot in my hometown.

I don’t know if there are taxis at this hour in Achewillow, and even if there are, the first bus on my route doesn’t depart until early morning. This isn’t a journey I can even contemplate tonight.

It takes a heaping tablespoon of restraint not to toss the phone at the wall in frustration.

It’s late, and I’m alone in a strange place. Even after a week living in Doris’s apartment, I still don’t think of it as home. Though it feels like it wants me to. I don’t feel alone, but also, I don’t feel unsafe.

It’s like being trapped, but not by the apartment. It’s the whole town of Achewillow that has me walled in. Gulliver is only a symptom of something bigger and stronger than I want to admit.

At this time, with all I’ve been through, I should go to bed. That’s how reasonable people deal with things. Sleep it off. It’s the commonsense remedy. But it’s not what Miriam DuFour does.

No, the way I deal with my rage, anger, jealousy, anxiety, stress, and fear . . . is cooking.

But I can’t go down to the café kitchen tonight. It’s too close to the alley, to the raccoons who give thumbs up, and to the demon that steals organs.

That only leaves one option.

I step up to the line where hardwood floors end and beige ceramic tiles begin. In the night, I can barely see inside Doris’s vast kitchen. Not without reaching in and flipping the switches on.

Old, incandescent bulbs flicker once touched by electricity, as if hesitating after going so long without use.

The kitchen seems so much smaller at night, with only the warm light to brighten it. Not that it looks cramped or stuffy, but rather cozy and welcoming. The forbidding shadows now banished, I can see all the personal touches that make Doris’s kitchen her own.

None of the myriad photos from the rest of her apartment make it to the kitchen. This is a sanctum. It’s a place of purpose that smells of spices, butter, and soul.

You’d be amazed at how much you can tell about a person just by the smell of their kitchen.

Doris must have had a penchant for Indian food, as the smell of cardamom lingers in the air, hovering near her stove even to this day. Her pantry, however, smells of vanilla sugar, and as I carefully pull the doors open, I see a tub of it, white grains with a stick of vanilla bean still inside. There are odors of butter and cream and baked wheat. Like me, she enjoyed French cuisine.

Her equipment is well-maintained and hidden behind cupboard doors. They vary in age and style. Her mortar and pestle are carved from white granite and look as old as Achewillow itself, while her blender is the latest model. I know because I’ve been eyeing the same, dreaming of a windfall to get my own.

I guess I got my wish.

There’s a layer of dust on her otherwise impeccable countertop. It’s nothing more elaborate than Formica, but it’s well-maintained. The same can’t be said for the three thick wooden cutting boards leaning against the ceramic splash guard. Each is etched with a forest of knife scores. Only one has the telltale stains of blood from cutting fresh meat.

If the apartment is a museum, the kitchen is a shrine. This is where, for lack of a better term, Doris crafted her magic.

I finish opening and closing each door, assessing and evaluating what is behind them all. It should feel like desecration, a violation of the dead’s most precious place. Except it doesn’t. Not because I own the place, down to the last grain of vanilla-fragranced sugar, but because I feel welcome here.

The floor feels warm through my socks, and the gas stove hums at my touch. If the appliances and dishes start to sing, I would be more amused than afraid.

And there, on the counter, a lone piece of clutter in an otherwise immaculate setting: a wooden spoon.

It looks store-bought but well used. No. Well loved. It’s worn and bleached by many hours of stirring things in boiling water and being scrubbed of tomato sauce stains. The handle has a hairline fissure along its length, which has been glued and bound tight with string.

My hand trembles a little as I reach for it. Thousands of meals must have been prepared by my great-grandaunt using this spoon.

Back in school, we used to joke around when someone got a good grade on a particular project. We’d say they cheated and used love as their secret ingredient. Like the cliché. But if Doris ever did such a thing, then it was through this spoon that she applied it.

It’s not a utensil. It’s an artifact.

My fingers stop shy by less than an inch. Like a masterpiece in a museum, I long to feel its texture under my fingers. Part of it is the sacred nature of the item, part of it a desire to commune with the artist to whom it once belonged. I dare to let my skin feel the grain of the wood. It’s a featherlight touch, but I can feel the warmth of the previous owner through the brief contact. Curious for more, I dare the unthinkable. I pick up the spoon.

There’s no lightning or visions of profound knowledge, just the overwhelming feeling that Doris left that spoon on the counter for me. It’s delusional, I know, but there’s something reassuring in that little lie I tell myself. I savor this symbolic communion with my great-grandaunt, but there is nothing to learn from it.

Her cookbooks, however, are another story.

Those aren’t what I expected. I assumed Doris would have had most of the classics. Paul Martin and Jeanne Benoit. But instead, she has scrapbook after scrapbook of accumulated magazine clippings. Recipes from everyone under the sun. Celebrity chefs and readers’ mailed-in recipes share the pages of her accumulated treasures.

Among the three-ring binders and ledgers, there is a tome closer to what I imagined Doris might keep around.

The book is thick and old, with yellowed pages that smell of flour and cooking oils. The cover is bound in beige leather and would be more at home in a library archive. Faded golden cursive script spells out Recipes, and there are bookmarks every ten pages or so. Each calls out a different era and must have belonged to Doris and her predecessors. My predecessors.

It’s a grimoire for conjuring food.

My fingers dance between the myriad bookmarks. Curiosity guides me toward some older-looking ones made of pressed flowers, but before I can flip to their pages, something stays my hand. I’m compelled to pick one of the newer ones. The bookmark has vibrant powder blue tassels attached to a length of cardboard with raccoons printed on it.

Again, raccoons.

The page feels frail under my fingers, threatening to turn to dust should I breathe too hard.

Orange Poppy Seed Honey Cakes, the top of the page reads.

“Well, look at you,” I murmur, as if some high priest might be listening, threatening to chastise me for breaking the silence of this holy place.

I can finally see what Doris does with her honey cakes, making hers somehow better than mine.

You’d think the differences would jump off the page. It’s not that complicated a recipe. The ingredients can’t change all that much, and apart from the proportions of the key ingredients, like orange zest or poppy seeds, it should all be the same.

But it isn’t.

Doris’s recipe looks like it’s been rewritten half a dozen times. It’s not unusual for a cook—especially an experienced one with imagination and ambition—to put notes in the margins of a cookbook. This looks like it’s been reimagined over and over again.

Yet, when all is said and done, the recipe circles back on itself. Whatever the end result is, after ingredients are scratched out and rewritten, it’s almost the same as when it started. Certainly, it’s not different enough from mine to matter. Is it?

But ingredients and cook times and preparations aren’t the only things scribbled into these margins.

There are symbols and sigils and sketches. Inscriptions of a more arcane nature than what the average baker usually needs.

“What the hell were you up to, Doris?”

My voice is louder this time, as if I expect her to answer the question.

And, in a way, she does.

Or rather, she already has. And if I wanted to make an orange poppy seed honey cake exactly like the ones Doris used to, I’ve been missing a key ingredient.

“Doris knew Gary, didn’t she?”

It’s the crack of dawn, and I’m sitting at the counter of the Achewillow Café. The cafe is closed, plunged in darkness save for the light trickling in from the kitchen.

Arrayed before me on the counter are all the ingredients I need to bake some of the best orange poppy seed honey cakes the world has ever seen. It’s my recipe, of course, but that doesn’t matter. It never did.

Gary Remington is all that ever mattered.

“She did,” Julia answers, curious what I’m on about.

She’s sitting across from me, looking as tired and haggard as she always does. I didn’t wake her up to ask that she come down to the café. I didn’t have to because Julia doesn’t sleep. She hasn’t slept much since Doris’s passing. Olivia, though, I had to wake up to get Julia’s number.

The only important thing is that Julia’s here now, and, with her help, I can do what only Doris could.

At least, I hope I can.

“I need you to write this.” I slide a piece of paper with a sigil drawn onto it, one I took from Doris’s recipe, across the counter. “On this.” With my other hand, I slide a square of rice paper, tiny enough to fit at the bottom of a small cake mold.

“And do it while thinking of Gary,” I add.

Julia, who looks older every time I see her, shakes her head. Confused, she looks at the sigil, turning the paper in her hands and trying to decide which side is up and which is down.

“Why? How?”

“Think of what he meant to you, of your relationship. Picture one of your fondest memories of him, of you together, and draw the sigil.”

Weak and desperate, she shakes her head. Her eyes, unblinking and sad, struggle to focus on my face.

“How is that going to help?”

“It’s what Doris did,” I try to explain. “But she knew Gary. She knew you. I don’t have that. I can’t make a cake that’ll soothe your Gary. I can make the cake, but you have to supply the intent.”

I uncap an edible-ink marker and put it on top of the rice paper for emphasis.

“If we’re going to get him his rest, it has to be through your will and memories. It sounds as ridiculous to me as it does to you.”

Her pale fingers find the pen and pick it up. They tremble and drop it, then pick it up again.

Julia does her best to draw the sigil onto the rice paper, sliding it back to me across the counter.

“Thank you—” I stop myself.

The sigil looks good. It’s not perfect, but it’s clean enough for someone with such shaky hands. Clean and fast, how could I ask for more?

But grief isn’t fast, and it certainly isn’t clean.

When Trevor dumped me for that bitch Cindy, I cried and beat the crap out of my pillow for weeks. And let’s face it: I didn’t even love Trevor at that point. We’d already drifted apart, and I was mourning the time and emotional investment I’d wasted on him. I was grieving for my ego and self-esteem, not for a beloved husband of many years.

“What memory did you think of while drawing it?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Our wedding? I thought of our vows and how stressful that day was and . . .”

She trails off, or I stop listening. I go back to my kitchen and bring back another sheet of rice paper. I don’t bother cutting it before handing it to Julia.

“Do it again,” I demand. “But don’t think of your wedding or engagement. Think of the little moments. Think of the bad times that were better because he was there. Focus on those moments after a fight when you forgave each other. Think of the bonds that brought you and kept you together. Think of why you can’t rest unless he gets his honey cake.”

Julia puts two fingers on the fresh sheet of rice paper and pulls it toward herself. This time, she contemplates it for a long minute before even picking up the marker. At last, she pulls off the cap, but she doesn’t draw the sigil.

It takes so long before the felt tip of the pen touches paper that I worry the ink might have dried out. This is no longer the dismissive hand that drew the first sigil. The fingers that move the pen across the paper are heavy with the weight of memory. They’re trembling and slow as they drag emotion behind them like a ball and chain.

When she finally pushes her work back toward me, it’s with reluctance. It’s as if giving up the new sigil is giving up whatever she was remembering when she drew it.

“Thank you,” I say, though I doubt she heard me, still lost in the memory I demanded she conjure.

Julia Remington must have been something else before she lost her husband.

If I knew anything about cars, I might have suspected that Julia is very well off. Instead, it’s her home that tells the story of her elevated economic status. The two-story colonial mansion is a sprawling giant with an immense, white-fenced porch that spreads across the entire frontage, welcoming guests like a hug.

Deep in the northern outskirts of Achewillow, her property seems to be the last before a long string of fields and farms that stretch into Quebec. Lush grass, pine-needle green in the twilight, extends for a solid twenty yards, flanking a wide cobblestone path that winds slightly from the edge of the road, all the way to the front steps.

Behind the house, towering evergreens, draped in shadow, cut their silhouette from the sky, leaning in to see what the Remington house is up to this night.

No lights are on when we pull into the driveway.

I had to postpone my departure so Julia could pick up her cake. I suppose I could have left it with Olivia on the way out of town, or maybe delivered it directly. If I’m honest, curiosity also played a role in my decision. Not that the threat of demons and murderers is dulled by it, but I have to know what the deal with Julia’s husband is. Besides, after I closed the café and Julia arrived to pick me up, she insisted I accompany her and meet Gary.

I assumed Julia to be a little eccentric and that her way of remembering her husband might be unusual. Seeing the old house and the opulent setting in which the widow lives, some of my wildest fears are starting to feel a whole lot more plausible. Movies and books have taught me a lot, including that rich people can get pretty crazy when they lose loved ones.

Like a dutiful servant, I carry the box with the cake in it.

Baking always feels like magic, but it’s everyday magic. The miraculous result of chemistry and doing something I love. Making this cake felt no different.

There was the whole sigil thing, but there didn’t seem to be anything mystical about it. True, it’s not something I’m used to doing. Usually, if there’s art on my cakes, the point is for everyone to see. In this case, the rice paper is burnt into the bottom of the cake, invisible unless flipped.

No children or house staff come out to greet us. We make our way up the stone stairs, passing between tall, Greco-Roman-inspired columns that pick up the moonlight in almost spectral fashion. I don’t frequent this kind of opulence very often. My family has always had its feet planted solidly in the lower middle class, interacting with wealth only rarely. I should be awed by the grandeur and scale of this lonely symbol of abundance tucked into the edges of Achewillow. Instead, I’m struck by how lonely the place feels.

Julia doesn’t fish out house keys, opening the front door without pause. I imagine she must have rushed out of the house when I called, but there’s something about her demeanor that tells me this is an everyday thing for her. She either doesn’t care or is too tired and bereaved to care.

My frayed nerves are tested again as we walk into the empty entrance to the Remington house. A large dog—no, I mean a large dog, a Great Dane—greets us with a deep bark that echoes through the mostly empty foyer. The animal is so huge that it begs for a more adequate qualifier. Like Gigantic Dane or Titanic Dane. Even on all four paws, it barely needs to lift its head to look me straight in the eyes.

“Oswald, sit,” Julia commands. And the giant obeys.

His fur is a velvet-smooth gray, and his eyes are a sorrowful black. He sniffs at the air around me and tilts his ears.

“He’s magnificent,” I say, while Julia scratches Oswald behind the neck.

“He’s a giant teddy bear. Gary got him for me so I would feel safe taking walks at night, but the big oaf would rather play with a mugger than chase him away.”

Maybe that’s what the Achewillow Café needs. A giant dog that looks like it would be at home among the dinosaurs. But I can barely afford to feed myself, and I can’t imagine how much food it must take to keep this beast from going hungry.

Halogen bulbs explode to life as Julia flips the switches near the door. The interior of the Remington house is far more modern than the outside suggests, but no less lavish.

A massive brass-finished pendant lamp hangs where a chandelier could have been, bathing the room in warm light. An enormous framed mirror dominates the far wall of the entrance, hung over a narrow table with ornate legs finished to reflect the light fixture’s finish. Immaculate white walls with intricate crown moldings surround us, punctuated by paintings ranging from classical to post-modern, each with its own small light, like a gallery.

Apart from Oswald’s collar jingling as he shakes himself, only the echoes of our voices and footsteps can be heard from the rest of the house.

“Do you live alone?” I ask as Julia gestures me toward a corridor on the left.

“Well, I have Oswald,” she answers. “On Mondays, someone from town does some housekeeping while I’m out shopping. Wednesdays, Loïc and his wife do the yard work. And then there’s Gary, of course.”

Of course. The mention of her dead husband brings to mind what condition I’ll find him in. I hope and expect that he’s in a tasteful urn, set lovingly atop a mantel in a sitting room. Or perhaps there’s a huge oil portrait of him hanging in their bedroom. A larger-than-life reminder of the man she loved.

Julia shows me room after room, from a powder room near the foyer to a decadent guest bedroom off the stairs to the second floor. Everything is clean, large, and meticulously maintained. It’s all very sterile and calculated, and I imagine a small army of professional decorators helped pick paint colors, wallpapers, rugs, and furniture for every room.

My thoughts turn morbid as Julia guides me toward the far end of a dark corridor. Blame it on my recent experiences, but I wonder if Gary is still here. Dead, of course, but not cremated or in effigy—present in body, if not in soul. Against my will, my brain paints an image of a desiccated corpse, lying on the mattress of a four-poster bed, waiting for a piece of delicious orange poppy seed honey cake.

“This,” Julia pauses at the threshold of one final door, “was Gary’s reading room.”

It’s not what I expected. Considering the rest of the house, clean and lavishly appointed, the modest reading room seems like an oddity.

For one, it’s rather small, about the size of my bedroom in Montreal. It also lacks all the ornaments that decorate the rest of the Remington house. There are no oil paintings with brass plaques or polished marble floors. Even the carved wooden furniture I expected is missing.

Instead, a series of laminated-pressed-wood bookshelves line the walls. Each is overflowing with paperbacks and loose pages. There’s no desk, but rather a ratty old couch with a mahogany end table next to it, the only sign of luxury. Handwritten notes still sit on the table, underneath a dusty, empty coffee mug with a faded logo of the Achewillow Café.

“Gary was a customer,” I say, more as a matter of fact than a question.

“Coffee and honey cakes. It’s what fuels my Gary. Well, just the honey cakes now.”

There’s trepidation as Julia takes a step inside the room. Even within her own home, she treats this room like a sanctum. She’s left it undisturbed, it seems, since her husband’s passing, and remains reluctant to break the order in which he left things.

“He usually won’t show himself when there are others around, but I hope he makes an exception to meet the new owner of the café.”

With dainty, careful steps, Julia walks up to the table and motions for me to follow. I try to be as reverent as she is, walking like the floor is frosting, and I’m trying not to leave any footsteps on its surface.

Julia takes the box from me, opening it with a fingernail and setting it on the table, careful not to move anything else on its surface.

The subtle smell of sugar and oranges starts to fill the room, and Julia sits down on the couch. Her features, usually taut and strained, relax for the first time since I’ve met her. The lines on her face seem to melt away, and a smile stretches slowly over her lips. For a moment, Julia has the kind of rested expression that I can’t even remember seeing in myself.

“Turn off the lights, please,” she whispers.

I step back and do as she demands, leaving her and the cake alone in her husband’s sanctuary. I watch from the threshold as Julia tucks her feet under her legs on the couch and leans down to put her head on the armrest.

I too smile, prepared to leave the widow to sleep with the smell of my cake to comfort her. For a split second, I think I get it, and a wave of sympathy runs through me. All she needed was to re-create a familiar scene in her life with Gary. A sweet, if heartbreaking, mourning ritual.

Taking one last look into the darkened room, I decide it’s time to take my leave. My job here is done, I think.

But I’m wrong.

Well, not wrong. Whatever I had to do is done, but I haven’t seen everything the Remington house has to show me yet.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, colored spots left over by the light fade away. The shadows recede, leaving a nighttime portrait of the room behind. Bookshelves are still full of books, but with titles too dark to be legible. The window in the back, flanked by thick curtains, is lit from outside instead of the dark mirror it was a moment ago.

Julia is still on the couch, still lying with her head on the armrest, but she’s no longer alone.

A man is sitting at her feet, leaning forward to take my cake out of its open box.

He’s thin, with equally thinning hair, but not old. He looks in his forties and wears a cardigan and wire-framed glasses, like a college professor.

I watch as he sits back, crossing his legs and taking a bite of cake. His free hand finds Julia’s knee and squeezes it as he smiles, still chewing the dessert I made. It’s such a sweet, tender moment, and it breaks my heart to know that it’s not really happening. Or that it is, but Gary Remington isn’t actually here.

Though he is eating that cake.

I should be haunted by the sight, but instead, I find great comfort in it. I don’t know if what I’m seeing is Gary visiting from beyond the grave or simply an echo of his memory, but there’s nothing natural about what’s going on here. Contrary to the demon that stalks behind the Achewillow, the scene doesn’t fill me with dread. In fact, my heart is warm, and I step back to let the couple enjoy this impossible moment.

On my way back to the foyer, I ponder what I’ve seen and how I’ll make it back to the café and Doris’s apartment. Judging by the look of naked relief and contentment on Julia’s face as her ghostly husband ate cake, I doubt she’s leaving that office any time soon. Remington Manor is a little ways out of town, but it can’t be more than a half-hour walk. The length of the trek isn’t what intimidates me. It doesn’t matter that Gary appears to be a benign apparition, the goosebumps on my arms remind me that there are impossible and dangerous things lurking in Achewillow. I can’t imagine making that trek alone at night.

Hopefully, Olivia won’t mind my calling for a ride, but just as I take out my phone, I hear the deep and, let’s face it, terrifying bark of Oswald. It’s enough to send my heart rocketing up my throat and my phone falling from my hand onto the marble tiles. Already scratched and dented from years of use, the poor device lets out a discouraging crack upon impact. I hesitate, afraid the enormous dog might think me an intruder now that I’m no longer accompanied by Julia.

“Great,” I murmur, picking up my phone to discover the screen is cracked in a spiderweb pattern. Pawing at my device, hoping it still has some life in it, I walk into the entranceway at the same time as the front door swings open. A cool wind from outside bursts in, ushering the two invaders who sparked Oswald’s barking.

One is short and squat, outlined by the moonlight from outside; the other is tall and intimidating, blocking more night than she lets in.

They step into the house, their features hidden in the dark. The tall figure stares at Oswald for a second, browbeating him into quiet, then into sitting down.

Orléans and Alessandria. The goddamn Inquisition.

“Ms. DuFour,” Orléans starts, his voice like a disappointed father. “I so hoped you’d heed our warning.”

11

CAVALRY ON A DARK HORSE

Would it be disingenuous of me to wish for the demon again?

Of course, I’m not serious. I finally got my first real win since coming to this town (and I really needed that win), but then these two idiots show up to ruin everything.

When Detective Wilson told me about them, my first reaction was, of course, to laugh. The Inquisition? In this day and age? No one else seemed to take them seriously, either.

Then, they threatened to ruin me if I so much as dabbled in witchcraft. Not the pyres and hangings of yore, but the audacity to try and intimidate me like that . . .

Now, after seeing what I believe to be my first ghost, after I’ve tried my hand at a little cooking magic, they show up. I can’t take them so lightly anymore. Because between demons and ghosts, Achewillow has made a point of telling me that I’m either mad or there is such a thing as the supernatural.

“I thought we gave you a fair warning, Ms. DuFour,” Orléans says, stepping closer to me.

Briefcase in one hand, he scratches Oswald behind the ears as he passes. The enormous dog might as well be a horse next to the Inquisitor’s diminutive stature. I’m surprised that the massive canine doesn’t offer more resistance to his home being invaded so brazenly. Julia wasn’t exaggerating; Oswald is a pushover and worthless as a guard dog.

Then again, why would a monster dog feel threatened by this tiny man? Surely, when Alessandria gets closer . . .

Nope. In fact, that oaf rolls over for a belly rub, which I’m surprised to see the taciturn woman indulge.

“Useless,” I mutter.

“Pardon?” Alessandria asks, standing tall and puffing out her chest. I swear, it’s like the woman is looking for something to punch every minute of every day.

“You can’t come in here!”

My voice booms with more anger than authority. Then again, isn’t that always the case when I decide to stand up to the arrogant? This is how I talked to Chef Gagnon. This is how I talk to whomever I feel is overstepping boundaries. I suppose from someone older, it might come off as commanding, but from a girl barely stepping into adulthood? It sounds petulant. At least, that’s what I guess, judging by Orléans’s condescending expression.

“My dear girl,” he says, voice fit to comfort the grieving. “The Inquisition goes where it pleases.”

And I guess they do.

I’m not going to be the one to stop them. I can call the police, I suppose, but by the time they get here, who knows what will have transpired? Last time I crossed paths with them, they threatened all sorts of bureaucratic punishment for some occult crime I didn’t even know I could commit.

I want to disbelieve the very possibility of their accusation. Me? A witch? Ridiculous.

But I’ve done it, haven’t I? I’ve cast an actual spell. Okay, so Julia is the one who supplied the intent, the emotional connection needed to reach out to her husband, but I’m the one who took the magic from Doris’s grimoire of recipes and made it real.

Tradition dictates that I deny the evidence as long as possible, clinging to my skeptical beliefs. But all things considered? The truth is both more terrifying and exhilarating than I could have imagined.

“Oh, come on,” I plead, stepping back from the Inquisitor. “I didn’t do anything! Helping a grieving widow? That’s hardly congress with the devil, is it?”

“Wrong!” Alessandria yells, her finger extended in my direction. Even Oswald jumps at her words. “You’ve meddled with the dead, branding yourself a necromancer and a diabolist.”

She walks toward me. They both do, and I back away from the entrance. I’m ready to trace my steps back to the widow Remington and ask for her assistance. This is her house after all. With her wealth, she must hold some clout in this town. And perhaps she can even coax some threat out of her dog.

Even if there’s nothing she can do to chase these two idiots away, at least there would be two of us. Maybe then we could reason with them or stall them long enough to get the police to intervene.

My thoughts drift back to Julia, her head resting on the arm of her husband’s ratty old couch. His ghostly hand on her knee while he ate orange poppy seed honey cake.

Magic orange poppy seed honey cake.

That’s right. It is magic!

Julia and I poured her will into the baking of that cake and, with it, conjured Gary Remington’s spirit.

More than anything, my cake brought rest to the grieving and reunited the loving. It may not be as impressive as throwing fireballs or cutting some scantily dressed stage assistant in half, but damn if it’s not magic of the purest form.

And I’d rather die than let those two zealots in fancy suits disturb that rest.

I step forward.

“Fine,” I say, chin high and with a hint of tremor to my voice. “I did it.”

It’s hard to tell what I expect to happen. The threats against me were purely bureaucratic and financial. Gone is the Inquisition of old, with its stoning and burning at the stake. Hangings and drownings, they said, are a thing of the past, replaced by more modern means of punishment. It would be the equivalent of being exiled to the edge of the village. Except that I wouldn’t need to move to a house in the forest to be cast to the fringes of society.

Assuming they have the power to bring such consequences to bear.

The clicking of hard heels on marble floor echoes through the room in time with Alessandria’s feet meeting their shadow. She towers over me. She’s like a redwood looking down on a fern, blocking the moonlight from the door and promising to suffocate me with her presence.

“Are you sure?” she asks, and Oswald whimpers at her words.

Am I?

All I did was bake a cake. But through that cake, the dead manifested. It is tempting to point the finger at Julia. She looks the part so much better than I do. I dress like a lazy barista, while I’ve yet to see her wear anything but black. It’s her ghost and her giant, empty house. If anyone stands out as a witch . . .

I set my jaw and straighten my spine. I try to find Alessandria’s eyes in the silhouette of her face so I can stare her down. I want to project defiance into her before I get struck down by the wrath of the Inquisition.

“Positive,” I respond.

“Perfect.”

The word is forced out of Alessandria’s mouth like she’s evicting it against its will. The fists at her side flex and tighten before releasing with reluctance. She was hoping for a fight, and I denied her the pleasure. Whatever rage is mixed with this woman’s blood will have to wait another day.

I hope in the meantime that it burns her.

“Perfect!” Orléans clamors from behind his partner.

Stepping around the useless dog, the short Inquisitor jogs over to join us, his precious leather briefcase held in front of him like a favored toy.

“I am so glad you’ve decided to come clean, Ms. DuFour,” he says, releasing the brass clips to access his documents. “Inquisitorial interrogations can get quite messy.”

My eyes roll so far to the back of my head that I think I see myself in the mirror behind me.

“I’m sure it’s as much torture as doing taxes.”

They look at each other, a wordless conversation exchanged with their eyes, and Orléans’s smile falters.

“Oh. Oh no,” he says. “Punishments may have evolved with the times, but interrogations . . . Well, much like the human spirit has changed little, so have interrogation techniques. Don’t worry; now that you’ve admitted your wrongs, we can skip all those unpleasant questioning methods and focus on your confession.”

A wad of saliva gets stuck in my throat as I try to swallow. Is he implying that they still torture people to get answers? What kind of maniacs are they?

“And, here we go!”

Orléans, like a stage magician, produces yet another stack of legal papers and pulls out a fancy ivory pen. The writing implement has a soft glow in the trickling moonlight, as if it were emitting its own light in harmony with the moon.

I’ve so far been much too cavalier in my reaction to these two, treating them like a joke.

That was a mistake.

In Achewillow, nightmares are real. Ghosts and demons and their more terrifying human counterparts are all real.

“Here are some release forms for you to go over. We wouldn’t need to go through all this had you signed the warning we issued earlier, but here we are. Then, once you’ve familiarized yourself with the formalities, you’ll have to come with us.”

Orléans’s voice fades away as my patience wanes.

I don’t care about his stupid paper, and I’m certainly not going anywhere with them. I’ve made that mistake before, and it took Helen Edna, notary public, to pull me out of the situation. I doubt she’ll show up on a white horse to save me this time.

For a fleeting moment, I think of using civility again. There’s nothing to gain by screaming and kicking. No insult in my arsenal is so cutting that it would incapacitate a pair of zealots. But maybe following the path of least resistance wouldn’t be so bad. I’m definitely not going anywhere with them, but if I humor them, I could get a stay of execution. So to speak.

All I need is for them to get off my case long enough to leave town. Once I get back to Montreal, I can put Achewillow, demons, ghosts, and magic cakes behind me forever.

But I’m not sure I want to put magic cakes behind me.

“The only place I’m going is home.”

I hear the loud crack of knuckles and the shuffling of heels on hard floor. Alessandria’s white teeth gleam like gems in the moonlight; her wish is becoming reality.

“This is no longer optional, Ms. DuFour,” Orléans says, uneasy at his partner’s hunger for violence. “We’ve given you enough warning and leeway. You are, after all, new to Achewillow, and we owe somewhat of a debt to your great-grandaunt. But at the end of the day, heresy is heresy.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say, as firmly as my wavering resolve can manage.

Orléans shifts from one foot to the other, clutching his papers like he does his hope that I’ll cooperate. Meanwhile, Alessandria looks eager to punch that written confession out of me. Some traditions do die hard.

“Please, Ms. Dufour,” Orléans insists, with more of an edge to his words. “The harder on us you make this, the harder on you we have to be. You were so cooperative a moment ago.”

If my life were a movie, this is where you’d expect my good deeds to pay off somehow.

I look toward Oswald as the shadow of Alessandria hides more and more of the moonlight. So far, her attitude hasn’t ranged far beyond the limits of taciturn and hostile, but as she’s moving in, I register an almost childlike joy in her dark eyes.

This would be a perfect time for the huge dog to notice that I helped his master and jump to my defense. Alas, he’s far more preoccupied by some of the papers Orléans spills on the marble tiles. The short Inquisitor is startled by one of Oswald’s barks of delight, watching the sheets flitter to the ground. That’s about all the support I can hope for from that corner, though.

I can imagine Gary Remington himself manifesting, his glowing wraith floating forth from the dark corridor behind me. How poetic that the ghost I fed would pay back the favor by scaring off those who oppose all things magical.

I’d even settle for Julia herself coming down that corridor, phone in hand with the police on the line. I’m about to pull out my phone and call them myself, but life is hardly ever so tidy, and my salvation arrives on its own.

“Now, why am I not surprised to find you two jokers here?”

Detective Wilson walks through the threshold, stinking of self-awareness. His pace is slow, as if a camera is tracking his steps. Both hands are dug deep into the pockets of his raincoat, and his head hangs low, letting his dark brown hair obscure his features. He only looks up once he’s done with his entrance, punctuating his question with a raised eyebrow.

If I weren’t so angry at and afraid of the two Inquisitors, I’d have laughed at how much the detective was basking in his aura of noir. Even his voice has an artificial slur to it, and a toothpick hangs from his lip in lieu of a cigarette.

“Detective Wilson,” Orléans answers, with an uncharacteristic bite to his tone. “A bit outside your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”

Wilson doesn’t answer immediately. Still playing his character, he smiles and plucks the toothpick from his mouth. After considering it for a second, he tosses it to the granite floor.

He thinks he looks cool, but I’m annoyed that is going to have to pick that up.

“At least I have a jurisdiction somewhere, Orléans.”

“Our jurisdiction is wherever sin can be found,” Alessandria cuts in, her words blunt where she would rather be using her fists. “That, in case you didn’t know, extends to all of Creation.”

“I’m a good Christian,” Wilson counters. “I go to church on Sunday; I eat fish on Friday. The whole nine yards. But I know where the law of men starts, and the rule of God begins. Nowhere do I see any room for the rule of clowns.”

The last word is spat out with a thick coat of contempt. I sense history here that Wilson hadn’t confessed to when we first discussed the Inquisition. Hell, I didn’t picture the detective as being so devout. I wonder if I failed to notice because of his character or because it’s all part of the act.

“Souls, Detective.” Orléans steps between his partner and Wilson, preventing a physical altercation, I’m sure. “We are concerned with saving souls. That of Ms. DuFour’s at this moment. As a fellow member of the faith, surely you share our concern?”

The good detective takes his hands out of his pockets and makes a show of pushing his raincoat aside, revealing his sidearm. I’m not sure what authority he has to use the weapon this side of the border, but I don’t care. I’ve had enough.

“Well,” I say, stepping forward. “I’m not part of your faith. And I’m not a witch or cavorting with devils or whatever it is you’re so worried about. So, if you don’t mind . . .”

Chin high and with as much spinal fortitude as I can pretend to have, I start walking toward the door. I’m loath to leave the Inquisitors, and Detective Wilson for that matter, behind in Julia’s home. The poor widow deserves to be left alone, but as long as I stay, I expect so will the lot of them.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Powerful fingers close around my wrist as I pass by Alessandria. Her grip isn’t hard enough to hurt, but it feels inescapable. A fist of marble sculpted around my arm.

I want to say away or home, but the word gets stuck in my throat like badly swallowed food. It won’t go down, nor will it come back up. Instead, it sticks there, choking me.

I wish I were a real witch. I’m not sure if that’s how any of this works, but casting a spell to escape or to turn Alessandria into a frog or whatever would sure come in handy.

Instead, I settle for an impotent pull at my wrist.

The tension in the air is as thick as pancake batter, and even Oswald seems to pick up on it. Alessandria is a human pressure cooker ready to blow, and Wilson has his hand on his gun. Both are looking for an excuse to escalate this further, and I can’t imagine anyone capable of disarming the situation.

“Perhaps,” Orléans says, putting his hand over his partner’s. “Perhaps we can come to a different solution.”

Our eyes cross for a moment as he pulls Alessandria’s fingers off my arm one at a time. There’s a sincere apology somewhere deep inside, and I can almost believe that he indeed wants to save my soul.

“Orléans . . .” Alessandria complains, more like an annoyed child than a full-grown woman.

“The detective is right, Aless. We are trespassing. Maybe we have overstepped our authority.”

Tense seconds pass, like we’re all watching water, waiting for it to boil. Oswald is the first to break the silence, whimpering and licking his chops, but it’s Alessandria who breaks the tension.

With a grunt, she sets her shoulders and looks down at me. Orléans’s hand still holds on to her fingers, as much to restrain her as to comfort her.

Without further incident, they leave, neither bothering to look back at Detective Wilson or me.

I walk over to Oswald and scratch him behind the ears. The big guy is quivering a little, either from all the excitement or from joy at the attention.

My hands wrap around my arms as I step out into the night, a cold wind greeting me on the porch. I half expect Oswald to join me there, eager for more scratches, but he stays inside his home. I hope he goes to join Julia, sitting at Gary’s feet as he licks his ghostly fingers for the last crumb of my honey cake.

I don’t cherish the thought of walking back to the Achewillow alone in the dark. The Remington house is on the outskirts of the village, not too far from Fig’s Orchard. Maybe I should go knock on Olivia’s door and take refuge at her place. But the Figs have been good to me, and I’ve already imposed on them so much.

I hear myself chuckle when I see Detective Wilson’s car in the driveway. The beige Chevy Impala that’s twice as old as I am. It’s exactly the sort of vehicle I would have imagined the detective to drive; completely on brand for his character.

“Need a lift?”

Instead of the harmless giant of a dog, it’s the good detective who walks up behind me. As soon as I turn toward him, he leans on the white railing that embraces the Remington house. He looks tired, but a thin smile is stretched over his lower lip. A smile of calm satisfaction.

“Promise you’re not taking me out of the country this time?”

His chuckle has a heartwarming sincerity, and I can almost forgive his previous offense.

Almost.

“I’d rather not have Helen flay me alive and make a new purse out of my skin.”

He laughs again, but it’s cut short. The humor of repurposed body parts falls flat on me.

“Yeah. I don’t think it’s funny, either,” he catches himself, responding to my obvious unease.

I look back at the front door of the Remington house. Wilson must have closed the door behind him, shutting Oswald inside and sealing Julia in with her dead husband. Without a single light on, the whole place looks haunted. And, for the first time, I believe that’s a good thing.

Miriam, I think, you did good. Don’t let any of these people tell you otherwise.

I walk over to the passenger side of the Impala. The chrome on the door handle picks up the moon in a gleaming aura. My face is distorted in the reflection, and I can see white teeth on my silhouetted features.

I’m smiling.

“Why were you here, Detective?”

The doors unlock, and I sit in the car. It smells of mint chewing gum and stale fast food. The vehicle has none of the creature comforts I’m used to in modern cars. No tactile display or electric, adjustable mirrors. No digital odometer or heated seats. The Impala is like everything at Wilson’s precinct, a vestige of another time.

“I told you we were keeping an eye on you,” he says, putting the key in the ignition and starting the engine. It’s a loud machine, and I’m surprised I didn’t hear it arrive when I was in the house. “Didn’t think it’d be against the Inquisition, though.”

The car pulls out of the driveway, and I can see a grin of amused disbelief as Wilson leans over to look behind us.

“Are they dangerous?”

The question had been bothering me ever since I tossed Orléans and Alessandria out of the café. The tall Inquisitor is certainly threatening, but would she hurt me? Orléans seemed to think so.

“That’s the thing,” Wilson says, eyes straying from the road a little too often for my taste. “I don’t know. No one knows. Aside from Doris, no one who ran afoul of them stayed in Achewillow.”

“They leave?”

“No idea. Everyone the Inquisition sets its sights on vanishes from Achewillow. When we track them down, we find new addresses and Social Security details and everything. But any attempt to actually contact any of them fails.”

The car suddenly feels cramped, like the air has been sucked out. The smell of sugar and peppermint, mingling with old grease and salt, pulls the bile up from my stomach. I roll down the window, hoping the air outside is of some help, but I only trade the odor of gum and food for that of manure from a nearby farm.

Detective Wilson isn’t as invested in his private investigator persona anymore. The description of vanishing residents does fit into his brand, though.

“So, it’s intimidation?”

“Intimidation, murder, or maybe nothing. We’ve got zilch to go on, and no actual crimes are committed, and we can only investigate so much before we’re told to pack it up.”

Wilson rattles off the grim possibilities like they’re nothing, but he can’t hide a subtle tremor in his voice. I think I’m seeing the cracks in his façade, and I wonder how much of his character is built to hide his insecurities. Upon reflection, how many murders has the detective seen in a place like Achewillow?

We turn up the same road Olivia took to bring me back to town on my second day, going up a hill that allows a brief view of Achewillow’s hub. Where it looked picturesque in the morning light, there’s something eerie yet welcoming about the dimly lit streets and structures.

They say that New York is the city that never sleeps, and it does feel that way. Montreal isn’t too different, except it changes personality with each passing hour. Obviously, it’s much more alive in the evenings and on weekends, but it never completely slumbers. There’s always a heartbeat, and if you put your ear to the pavement, even at the coldest time of night, you’ll hear it thumping.

Montreal shops during the day, eats in the evening, and dances at night. After that, it takes you into its boudoir for a drink and intimate conversation.

That’s how Achewillow feels all the time. The strangeness of the citizens is like the small town has nothing to hide. All its quirks and peculiarities are laid bare for the world to see. Achewillow is always leaning in and telling you secrets.

But all those secrets hide more secrets.

The old LCD clock on the faux-wood paneling of the dashboard claims it’s one thirty-five in the morning. Yet, despite the lack of any nightlife to speak of, a few people are still wandering about. Cloud worshipers, who look dressed as ghosts, wander at the edge of town in a group. They smile and nod as the car passes them, and Wilson answers by rolling his eyes.

A group of kids two or three years my junior loiters in front of a convenience store, gathering snacks and drinks for whatever night they have planned. I say kids, like they’re from a different generation. So much has changed since coming to Achewillow. So many responsibilities have crept onto my shoulders. So much of the world’s clothing has been pulled back, revealing a naked skin I never knew was there.

I envy those kids. I wonder if I can be one of them again one day. Walking that tightrope between adolescence and adulthood, where freedom is granted but responsibilities have yet to pile on.

“They’re right though,” I say, unable to stand the silence any longer.

“Who’s right?”

“The Inquisition. They’re right about me being a heretic. Or whatever.”

Wilson chuckles. I can’t tell if he’s making fun of me or the way I went about my confession. My words came out so matter-of-factly, my arm leaning on the car door without any hand-wringing. No fidgeting or pulling at strands of my hair. I might as well have told him I took a piece of gum from the otherwise empty ashtray.

Wilson pulls into the convenience store parking lot. Red and blue neon lights spill down on us through the windshield, promising cases of beer at unbeatable prices.

One of the kids walks by and yells, “Nice car, pig,” through the windshield. He and his buddies wear branded hoodies with distressed prints on the front and torn black jeans. The only distinguishing features between them are their hairstyles and the unique combination of face piercings. It reminds me that I used to have a lip ring, but it fell off, and I never bothered putting it back on.

“Isn’t this a school night, Jordan?” Wilson admonishes.

“Maybe that’d matter if I were still in school, Aaron.”

Jordan gives Wilson a broad smile, more sincere than their conversation suggests. I guess they know each other.

Small towns, I suppose.

The kids walk off, their purchases in a gray plastic bag.

“What did you do?” Wilson finally asks.

For the first time, I wonder exactly how much Detective Aaron Wilson knows about the demons and ghosts of his city. Am I about to come off as a woman who stumbled onto the deep mysteries of his hometown? Or will I sound like some delusional girl spouting off nonsense?

My eyes close, and I take a deep breath. It feels like the first time I jumped off the high board at the pool when I was six.

“I helped Julia Remington bring back her husband, Gary.”

It’s out, and I’m falling. Chlorine-smelling air rushes by me, and my heart races. There’s no going back, but also, there’s nothing more to lose.

“Not bring back completely,” I add. “Just his ghost. Or his spirit or revenant. And not, like, with a Ouija board or something. I did it with a cake. A cake and a sigil. And I’m not making any sense to you, am I?”

Wilson turns his head, tilting it to the left in the process, and lifts one eyebrow in apparent confusion.

“You what?”

I hit the water.

“Conjured a ghost.”

“With a cake?”

“Orange poppy seed honey cake.”

He laughs. Not the cynical laugh of the grizzled private detective in a black-and-white film from the forties. It’s an honest, guttural laugh, where Wilson goes so far as to throw his head back, like Gulliver does.

I can’t tell if he’s laughing with or at me. I can’t tell if I’m swimming to the surface or farther down to the bottom.

Detective Wilson wipes a tear from his eye and looks at me again, as if discovering me for the first time.

“Yeah,” he says. “I see the resemblance now. Not the physical one, but the way you act and speak. I couldn’t see it at first, but now it’s clear.”

“Doris?”

Of course it’s Doris. She’s the benchmark by which everyone has been measuring me since I got to Achewillow. She’s why Gulliver and Helen Edna, notary public, don’t want me to leave. She’s why the Inquisition got on my back in the first place. From the painter with the moustache to the white-robed cloud cultists, everyone here expects me to be Doris. Julia only came to me because she thought I would know how to do what my great-grandaunt used to do.

But she was right.

“Yeah. Doris,” Wilson answers. “I’ve never seen it for myself. It took me a while, and some very convincing testimony, before I took it seriously, but I’ve always heard there was something about her. About her cooking. So, you’ve got the gift, too?”

I look down at my feet. I’m still wearing the sneakers I had on when I first came to Achewillow. They’re my comfortable shoes. The ones I wear when I know I’ll be walking a lot or standing for a long time. They’re my travel sneakers, with the laces tied loose so I don’t have to untie them to take them off.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I followed some instructions she left behind. That’s all. Nothing that justifies harassing me over, anyway.”

“Ah, well,” Wilson starts, his eyes moving back to the bright neon sign, his hand drawing circles in the air in a dismissive fashion. “You know the drill; it’s a slippery slope from conjuring ghosts to summoning demons. Once you’ve got a taste for witchcraft and heresy, it’s hard to go back.”

He’s joking, but it’s true. The pleasure of baking Julia’s cake and the satisfaction of cracking the code for making it were intoxicating. But it’s not the power itself or even the wonder of participating in something bigger and stranger than myself that felt like feeding an addiction. It was the pleasure of seeing Julia get her rest. When Gary Remington’s ghostly hand reached out to squeeze her knee, I felt a warmth and comfort I hadn’t experienced since before I fell in love with Trevor. I was a new me, reaching out to drink from an older version of myself.

Thinking of that, I can imagine wanting to do more. If this is what Doris brought to the community, if this is what she experienced while offering her services to people like Julia, then I understand my great-grandaunt a little better.

“Detective Wilson?” I ask. He’s still smiling, the aftershock of honest laughter, but his smile fades when he notices my expression. My brow furrowed, and my lips thinned. He sees what I’m about to ask him.

“Do you know what killed Clara Payne and the other women around the Achewillow Café?”

The detective sighs and focuses on the road as if he’ll find his answer crossing the street in front of us. With a practiced hand, he pulls open the car’s ashtray to reveal a handful of individually packaged pieces of gum. The smell of mint is overwhelming. He tosses one between his teeth and rips off the paper, dropping it out his window. The wet rhythm of chewing prefaces his words as he works the gum between his teeth.

“L’Amour still thinks it’s just a garden-variety serial killer,” he answers at last. “But I’ve lived here long enough to know better. Now, I can’t tell you what it is, but my instincts don’t lie, and I can tell you this much. Whoever killed those women was no mortal man.”

I watch him masticate, as if chewing helped him concentrate on both the conversation and his driving. There’s a strange duality to Wilson, a tug of war between playful detective work and the weight of responsibility. I wonder how much one is meant to offset the other.

“I have to ask,” I say, sudden doubt taking form in my mind. “If Doris was going toe-to-toe with demons and playing around with ghosts, did she really die of natural causes?”

Wilson stops chewing and his eyes narrow.

“No,” he says after a long pause, long enough that I was starting to doubt he’d answer at all. “And I don’t think you want to know how she died.”

But I did.

12

THE PENDULUM OF BROKEN CHOICES

“Mmhmm . . .”

Olivia sits in front of me, stirring her coffee with cream and sugar. The spoon’s gentle ticking on the ceramic interior of the mug is barely perceivable in the din of the busy Achewillow Café.

Twenty-four hours ago, I was ready to leave this little town of murders, horrors, and a generous helping of harassment. Like a pendulum, I keep swinging back and forth between making my exit and staying one more day.

One more day turned into seven, and now I’m well into the second week. I had to stay because of the estate. Swing. But I stumble onto a body in a back alley. Swing. Then there are the loyal customers and paperwork to wait for. Swing. But now there’s a demon who steals organs. Swing.

Back and forth. Back and forth. I was convinced that this was it. This was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Swing.

I helped Julia Remington reconnect with her dead husband.

Swing.

The Inquisition wants to make me vanish, or whatever else they had in mind.

Swing.

And now I confessed to Detective Wilson what I saw behind the café.

While his answer and reaction were not what I expected, it did what all good questions do. Reveal another question. One I hope can be answered by the closest thing to an expert on Achewillow I can think of. Olivia Fig.

“I gotta say, I’m impressed,” she says, picking her mug up from the table.

A napkin sticks to the bottom, attached with a stray drop of coffee. Olivia removes it adroitly before taking a long sip.

“It’s no big deal,” I explain. “Doris left all the instructions I could have wanted. Besides, it’s not that complicated a cake.”

I could have said more. Explain the slight differences in how Doris and I make our orange poppy seed honey cakes. I put less orange zest, for example, because I find it bitter. I compensate with more orange juice. It makes the cake sweeter and moist. But Olivia stares at me, and I know she doesn’t buy a word of it.

“Girl, I’ve seen Doris scribbling in that recipe book of hers dozens of times. I can bake a pretty decent loaf of bread or mix some pancakes that’ll have you swear off other foods, but I could never, in a million years, do what you did.”

I think back to the previous night, as I feverishly stirred ingredients together using Doris’s wooden spoon. I prepared every ingredient with meticulous care. Chef Gagnon would have killed to see me stick to instructions with such devotion to the recipe. But Chef Gagnon isn’t fit to hold Doris’s apron.

In the end, I thought, the recipe had little to do with it. It was Julia’s intent, and anyone could have coaxed that out of her. Couldn’t they?

Is it the spoon?

A birthright?

Fortunately, without being asked, Olivia provides the answer.

“Y’see, Doris was special. She had a way with people. I don’t know how much of it is her cooking or those little squiggles she puts into some things, but I know she had a knack for figuring out how to fix the broken.”

Olivia smiles and looks deep into the bottom of her mug. She’s holding it with both hands, and I promise you, at that moment, she forgot I was even there. Because she wasn’t here. For those few breaths between sentences, Olivia Fig was wherever her memories were taking her.

“What about you?” I ask in half a whisper, afraid to intrude on something private and precious. “Did she fix you?”

Olivia’s plump cheeks raise into a smile, and she lifts her eyes above the rim of her mug, looking at me with a sly squint.

“You implying I’m broken?”

“No,” I start, but I see she’s teasing. Yet, I continue. “Yes. I think everyone’s broken at least a little. I don’t know that everyone can be fixed. Or maybe it takes something special, someone special, like Doris, to fix them.”

She nods, closing her eyes in the process. It looks like she’s enjoying music that I can’t hear, a soft melody that comforts her, like an echo from the memory I took her from.

“My, aren’t you the wise child? I guess I am a little broken, but I like my cracks and my bumps, and woe be to whoever tries to smooth those out. Doris wouldn’t have even tried.

“It’s my Henry she put back together. He’d likely be dead if it weren’t for Doris.”

Memory’s echoes become louder, and whatever melody animates Olivia becomes a storm. I can see the turmoil in her as she looks around and then down. Her mug is empty of both coffee and comfort.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t think I was stirring the pot. Bad times?”

“Mmhmm. Henry wasn’t always an apple farmer. We weren’t always in the cider trade. But his other job was killing him, and, well, Doris helped him through that.”

Curiosity gnaws at me like a rodent on a piece of cheese. Small, voracious bites tear at my brain, but I have to endure every tooth that sinks into me. Because there’s no way Olivia wants to continue this line of conversation.

Words of apology and awkward excuses crowd my mouth, threatening to spill out in a further faux pas. Lucky for me, I’m saved by the soft ringing of chimes that herald a fresh customer.

I’m glad to recognize Moustache Man, now with a streak of red paint sticking to his silver hair. At this point, I should know his name. However, it’s too late to ask, so I have to keep thinking of him as Moustache Man until I figure out some graceful way to get his identity.

When I get back to Olivia, the discomfort seems to have passed. She’s all smiles again and shaking her mug at me for a refill.

“Your usual?” I confirm.

“Mmhmm! But just the coffee, unless you have biscotti somewhere.”

I shake my head with a grin but kick myself inside for forgetting to make some. I make a mental note to check if Doris has a specific recipe I could copy. There are dozens of ways to make biscotti, and they’re all pretty good, but if Olivia is used to a specific kind, the least I could do is indulge her.

The conversation keeps circling around the one subject I need to dig into. It’s like cough syrup. The damn thing is going to taste like hell, and every inch it goes down my throat will bring more regret. Not taking it isn’t an option, though, so I might as well open wide and swallow.

“Remember the first night we met?” I start, keeping my voice down so only Olivia can hear. “Remember what you said about the noise in the alley?”

The words slide out with much less resistance than I expected. I don’t choke on every syllable, nor does the café grow quiet, interrupted by a record scratch. They’re still uncomfortable to say, and I wish I could go back to discussing biscotti or apples instead.

“Mmhmm. That was something scary back there, I believe. A monster?”

“A demon,” I clarify. “You said it was a figure of speech. That it was probably just someone pranking us. But Olivia, it was a demon. Or maybe some kind of zombie or other creature. It was grotesque and, without a doubt, supernatural. And I must be sounding like a fool right now, but that’s why I got a second opinion.”

Olivia’s gaze slips from mine. Again, I’m causing her discomfort, but this time, I’m far less preoccupied over it. Her fingers flex over the sides of her mug, a silent suggestion that my revelation comes as no surprise.

“You knew,” I add, keeping my frustration in check. “You knew, and you still allowed me to come back here.”

She bites her upper lip and looks up at the spoon display above the register. The sound of her rings vibrating against the ceramic mug is just loud enough to testify to her shaking hands. Everyone has their own symptoms when experiencing guilt, and I suspect this is what I’m witnessing. It’s what I hope Olivia is going through. Not because I’m glad of her unease, but because it’s a sign she made a mistake.

“Miriam, honey,” she starts, putting her mug down on the counter. “Would you have believed me if I told you it was a demon?”

“You could have lied to me,” I insist, letting my anger slip a little. “Told me it was the serial killer from the papers or anything to send me packing back to Montreal. Instead, I’ve been risking my life every time I take out the trash. I could have died.”

That last statement hits harder than intended. Olivia pulls at her ring, still refusing to meet my gaze. She would rather be anywhere but here, having this conversation. Guilt keeps her in place; my words are her penance.

I’m tempted to let her off the hook. Surely, she didn’t mean to feed me to the wolves. If she had really expected me to die, she would have done something, right?

“I’m sorry, Ms. DuFour?”

A familiar voice interrupts my thoughts. Straightening, I turn and see the Sandwich Man (I really need to learn these people’s names) waiting at the register with an empty cup.

One sugar, one cream. I remember his usual.

“Want more cookies with that?” I ask, taking the cup and hiding my annoyance. “I’ve got some butter pecan sandies. They’re selling pretty fast, so I assume they’re good?”

“Just the coffee is fine,” he says, counting a few coins. I notice they’re American, so he’s from south of the border, and that he’s got long, elegant fingers. At this rate, I’ll have a complete file on this patron, with everything except his name. I’m the worst small-town café owner in the world.

A little swearing at the coffee machine later, I hand him back his cup, filled with hot coffee and a butter pecan sandie on the side.

“On the house,” I tell him. “I want your opinion.”

His head pulls back as if I’d struck him with the surprise. I guess Doris wasn’t one for giving out free samples. Or maybe it’s being asked for his opinion? Whatever the case, Sandwich Man blesses me with a shy smile before nodding and taking off with his prize.

Another satisfied customer.

“I’m sorry,” Olivia says, calling me back to our conversation.

Sitting straight again, she took advantage of my being busy to compose herself. Her mug has returned to her hands. Most of all, she holds my gaze with renewed confidence. Her apology, while sincere in tone, isn’t offered from a point of contrition. Rather, it’s a statement of fact. Honest and undeniable, it leaves little room for contradiction.

“I should have given more thought to how much risk I was putting you in,” she continues, taking a sip. “I was being selfish.”

“Selfish?” I ask, uncertain what she means.

“Mmhmm.”

She pushes her mug, empty again, in my direction. I indulge the silent request as I listen to her explanation.

“I don’t know what’s lurking around the Achewillow,” she admits. “I call it a demon because that’s what Doris called it, and Doris knew about these things. She never mentioned where the thing came from, or what it wanted, but she kept it at bay.”

I pour sugar and cream into her coffee, then set it in front of her.

She looks into the mug, slowly wrapping her fingers around its circumference, without picking it up.

“I thought,” Olivia continues, “if you stayed, you could figure it out. Do what Doris did.”

Looking over the dining room, I watch the citizens of Achewillow. How many of them know about the demons and ghosts in their small town? How many would call me insane for bringing it up? Like buttercream on a cake, the whole village is covered with a layer of weird. But how thick is that frosting spread?

“And what was that?” I ask, still watching over the dining room. “What did Doris do?”

“Oh, more of the same you did for Julia, I assume. Tap into that DuFour legacy.”

Her answer does little to satisfy me. In fact, it touches a pet peeve of mine.

“Cooking isn’t a birthright,” I explain, struggling to keep my tone from being too caustic. “It’s a skill. There’s no DuFour legacy. I never knew the woman. And I promise you that whatever competence I bring to the art is well earned and not passed down. You just have to taste my mom’s cooking to figure that out.”

I expect the dining room to fall silent after my rant, all eyes turning toward the newcomer, grinding her teeth at the local apple farmer. Instead, no one seems to notice, except for Olivia.

She raises an eyebrow and twists the corner of her lips a little. She doesn’t look hurt or angry, just disappointed.

“You’re right,” she admits, looking at the bottom of her mug. “It was a lot to expect from a stranger. I’m sorry.”

Olivia looks like she’s about to leave, finishing her last few sips of coffee and rummaging through her massive purse for a wallet. All the while, she avoids eye contact and keeps her lips tight, like someone struggling to keep words from escaping.

Before she can fish out the payment for her coffee, I grab her mug and fill it again, hoping it’ll be an anchor, keeping her here to answer more questions.

“I asked Wilson about it,” I say, eager to nudge the topic in a different direction.

“Oh? Aaron Wilson? Our very own Humphrey Bogart?”

It takes me a moment to get the reference, but once I see it, it seems obvious.

“The same.”

“What did he think?”

“He very politely, and very kindly, told me I was crazy.”

This gets a smile out of Olivia. She leans back to give the pastry display an appraising look. I expect her to place an order for one of my delicious sandies, or perhaps a maple tart, but alas.

“Doesn’t believe in demons?” she asks.

“Oh, he had no problem with the demon,” I correct her, pulling an empty mug from under the counter. “In fact, he seemed comfortable with everything from ghosts to magic cakes. No. His issue was that if it was indeed a demon, he should have figured it out on his own.”

Olivia’s hand covers her mouth as she laughs. It’s an honest laugh, and like all honest laughs, it’s loud and attracts attention. Patrons turn their heads toward us, raising eyebrows and tilting heads. It lasts just long enough for everyone to accept this is a joke they weren’t privy to.

“He probably knows there’s nothing he could do against a demon.” Olivia looks over her shoulder, giving her own appraisal of the customers. “Not many in Achewillow who could. I bet it’s easier for him to believe it’s a serial killer, or a bear. Something tangible that he can solve.”

I listen while pulling levers and twisting knobs on the coffee machine. The beast picks that moment of distraction to break our truce, scalding me with a stray jet of vapor.

“Ouch!” I cry, pulling my hand away and nearly dropping my mug.

“Are you okay?” Olivia asks, leaning in to take a better look.

After putting the mug down, I let her have a look at the back of my hand. She holds me by the wrist, taking a good look at the reddening skin, like a concerned mother.

“It’s fine,” I reassure her. “Not my first kitchen burn, I assure you.”

Examining the wound myself, I can feel the throbbing of the burn go up my entire arm. It’ll feel raw for a day or two, but I don’t expect any welts or peeling skin. It won’t even leave a scar.

The painful heat on my skin does remind me of something else that came up from my conversation with Wilson.

“Olivia? How did Doris die?”

The question draws a scowl from Olivia.

I don’t yet know her well enough to read into it the way I’d like. People, like food, demand experience before you can pick up on their subtleties. Olivia could be curious, worried, or hiding something behind that scowl.

“A stroke,” she says, echoing Helen Edna’s words. “That’s what her obituary said. It’s what the doctor told us.”

Although she’s repeating the official story, reinforcing it with sources, the scowl doesn’t leave her face.

“But you doubt?” I ask, suspecting as much.

Her ill-tempered frown shifts a little, softening into something akin to concern or maybe grief. She dodges the question a moment longer by drinking deep from her mug before swirling its contents around.

“Girl, I don’t know,” she explains, hints of exasperation feathered into her answer. “Doris was the dearest, oldest friend I had. I want to believe that one day she blinked and was gone before realizing anything was wrong. That woman deserved a peaceful death more than anyone, but this is Achewillow.”

Distraught now, Olivia is guarded. There’s a truth she suspects and dreads, and it is tempting to keep it from her to preserve her peace. Like a perfect plating, it’s tempting to leave everything undisturbed. But a dish is not decoration, and the true art is in the tasting. There’s no truth to leaving Olivia in the dark.

I lean my elbows on the counter, narrowing the gap between us. The café’s dining room is busy enough to swallow our conversation, the blessings of a busy lunch hour. But there’s a weight to what I’m about to say that demands proximity and intimacy.

“Wilson told me that Doris was burned from the inside,” I whisper.

She recoils at the information. I worry for a moment that her reaction might attract attention. I give a quick glance over Olivia’s head, my eyes stopping at each table in the dining room to look for curious glances. Either through conversation, the delicious coffee, or my impeccable cooking, no one bothers to look at the counter.

Olivia pushes her unfinished mug of coffee across to me. In my short time here, I’ve yet to see the woman leave an empty cup behind. The way she balls her fists, pulling them back to her chest, I can tell that’s not what she expected. Or perhaps it’s exactly what she feared.

“Assuming Wilson is telling the truth,” I say. “Do you know what we’re dealing with? Did the demon get to her?”

When Detective Wilson told me about Doris’s real cause of death, I had my own version of Olivia’s reaction. While mine was perhaps a few parts less grief and more fear, the amount of shock remained the same. I’ve only had a little taste of the supernatural. I’m not ready to contemplate even darker forces at work in Achewillow. All I want is to cook expensive meals for rich people. This is above my pay grade.

“I don’t know,” she answers, positively outraged. “Did he say anything about investigating any of this?”

For a second, I’m worried that her tone and volume could attract attention to our conversation. With the evening I had last night, I’m less than eager to broadcast that our topic is magic and murder.

“He said he couldn’t.”

My own tone sounds like an apology. As if I were the one who’d opted to bury the truth. Or that I, at least, agree with it.

I’m not sure what side of that fence I fall on, but I can’t pretend that I don’t understand Wilson and Helen Edna on this one. What are they supposed to do? I somehow doubt that the cops in Achewillow have a witchcraft and sorcery division.

I suppose the Inquisition would be the ones to call in such a case, and I do have Orléans’s card. But I could die before seeing those two again, and it would be too soon.

I can also imagine the community’s reaction if it were announced that Doris’s death was foul play. Even leaving out the strange and gruesome details, I doubt the news would be well-received.

And if Olivia doesn’t cool down her outrage, the café is going to become ground zero for that reaction.

My hands go flat, and I mime patting down something invisible in front of me, the universal sign for Would you keep it down? to which Olivia obliges.

She leans in, a question on her lips. She, like so many others in Achewillow, assumes that I’ve taken the place of Doris by now. I operate her café, and I wear her apron, and yesterday, I stirred ingredients with her spoon. If she’s going to ask for my help playing Sherlock Holmes with demons and murder victims, she’s about to be sorely disappointed.

I’m thinking of how I can gently break the news when a shadow falls over the front of the café.

I don’t need an oracle to know what the shadow and the ominous rumbling of an engine too big for the small street means. The stenciled letters on the side of a red cab outside my window confirm my suspicion: Eddie G. is here.

I know it’s my imagination, but it feels like the truck’s shadow is so much darker than on Gulliver’s previous visits. The sudden lack of sun also makes the café feel colder. At least he’s not pulling a huge trailer behind him today.

“I thought he only did deliveries at the end of the week?” I ask.

“Mmhmm. I think he’s here for a pickup, actually.”

My first thought is that Olivia means that Gulliver made the detour from his usual delivery route to savor some cookies and a mug of hot coffee.

I’d be flattered by the gesture, except I’m still a little irritated with him for leaving me stranded when I needed a ride out.

It’s strange to see him enter the café without a trolley full of goods in front of him or a heavy box in his arms.

He’s wearing the same sort of clothes as usual: dark blue jeans, a red T-shirt that matches his truck, and a dirty gray padded vest. What he isn’t wearing is the calm, self-assured smile I’ve come to expect from him.

“Your usual?” I ask, ready to pile half my inventory onto a plate for him.

After all our covert talk of death and sorcery, it’s Gulliver’s appearance that quiets the café. There’s still the murmur of everyone trying to appear to mind their own business, but the sudden hush is hard to ignore.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he says, stepping up to the register.

His hands are at his side, fingers flexing from fists to being spread like wings.

“About your usual?”

What a stupid question. There is no usual. Gulliver just eats whatever is put in front of him in a random array of flavors. Something about variety and the spice of life. He shakes his head.

“You want out of Achewillow?” he starts, drawing even more hushed comments from the patrons. “Well, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll drive you out if you want.”

Tall and wide, Gulliver stands in front of the register, not taking a seat at the counter as usual. He gives off the impression he doesn’t want to be here.

“Gulliver,” I start, grabbing a plate from the pile next to the pastry display. “I also changed my mind. I’m not leaving.”

I picture Julia’s restful face and Gary’s loving hand on her knee. I think of cooking in the kitchen upstairs and of leafing through Doris’s recipes.

Achewillow isn’t where I belong. It’s not the grandiose life of an internationally renowned chef. I’m not going to revolutionize modern cuisine and carve my name into gastronomic history from this town.

But I think of Doris and try to imagine how she died.

“I want to go home,” I say, picking a few random pastries from the display and stacking them on the plate.

He looks at his feet for a moment, nodding his disappointment. I’ve tried to tease out why Doris is so important to this man, but I have had to satisfy myself with a vague answer. I’ve struggled to understand my own place in Gulliver’s portrait of the Achewillow and why it’s so important that I fill in Doris’s image.

“But,” I place the plate at the counter over a napkin, “I’m not ready to go quite yet.”

Relief doesn’t flood his features, or even confusion or irritation. Rather, he looks over my shoulder at the little feast I’ve prepared. Gulliver’s eyes move back and forth between me and the food before I gesture for him to have a seat. This is a language I expect him to understand, one that I am most eloquent in.

“Are you sure?" he asks, pulling up a stool next to Olivia.

“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head, hoping that doing so will stir the pieces back into place. Instead, my mind acts like a snow globe, becoming more obscure and chaotic in the process. “Achewillow isn’t home. But neither is Montreal. Not anymore.”

Gulliver’s features soften a little, and his head tilts to the side.

“Then, where is home?”

I don’t know.

Less than a dozen days in town, and despite everything that scares me about this handful of roads and oddities forgotten by the world, I can’t just leave. The Achewillow tree has its roots in me.

Even though, I’m told, there is no such thing as an Achewillow tree.

But it’s not home. Nothing is right now, and I’m suddenly crushed by the realization. It’s the worst of places and the worst of times, surrounded by customers and other assorted strangers, but here and now is when I feel the world vanish from underneath me. I’m a kite without a string, or a boat whose anchor snaps.

“Miriam?” Olivia’s gentle hand reaches over to take my forearm. I can feel myself quiver at her touch. She is my string and my anchor renewed. And I wouldn’t have survived the next few minutes if it had not been for that touch.

It’s a classic kitchen pitfall.

When working on a complex meal, far too often does the novice cook lose track of everything happening. Concentrating too hard on getting the perfect consistency for a pepper sauce might mean leaving a gratin too long in the oven.

It’s all about spinning a dozen plates, metaphorical and literal, without ever missing a beat.

Where cooking focuses me, allowing me to manage the complex choreography of tasks on the road to the perfect meal, complex emotional issues are like navigating in a fog. Or baking blindfolded. Or worse, without a sense of smell. I can’t ever keep track of all the information I need and make it through unscathed. Inevitably, something important slips my notice.

Today, it’s three officers from the local police, accompanied by Detective L’Amour, who quietly walk into my café.

Gulliver must have missed them, too, because he’s positively startled when L’Amour walks up behind him and pulls out a pair of handcuffs.

“Edward Gulliver Kemper,” he says, strict and uncompromising, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Clara Payne. Please put your hands behind your back.”

“Can’t I at least finish my meal?” Gulliver asks, as if the importance of the situation had yet to register.

“I’m afraid not, son,” L’Amour replies, all business.

I want to intervene, to stop L’Amour and tell him he’s got the wrong guy. The cliché never plays out, and I can’t even step forward or speak out.

It’s Olivia’s hand, going from a soothing touch to a pincer-like grip that prevents me from doing anything. The pain of her fingers clenching on my raccoon wounds certainly makes focusing difficult. The last time I felt that kind of pain was when I tried to boil a lobster a few years prior. I was struggling to put the little chitinous bastard in the pot when he slipped a claw out of its rubber band and clenched on to my wrist. His attempt to take me down with him failed, but it hurt so bad I all but gave up cooking live shellfish. I guess it’s more humane, anyway.

I turn, outraged, on Olivia. How dare she prevent me from interfering with this arrest?

As the thought of my objection coalesces, I realize she’s right. Like calling out Chef Gagnon on his poor cooking practices in class, putting myself between Detective L’Amour and his Moriarty, so to speak, would have consequences.

Olivia shakes her head slowly, drilling into my skull with her eyes, looking for any sign of my understanding. It’s only when I nod that her grip lessens, trusting me not to do anything foolish.

I’m relieved to see Gulliver does nothing to provoke the cops who frisk and cuff him. His eyes are wide with fear, and his head snaps around, looking for an answer to what’s happening.

“Gulliver?” I ask, but my voice is too weak to break through the commotion, and he’s too busy getting arrested to hear me.

The whole thing lasts less than five minutes. While Olivia keeps me from getting mixed up with what’s going on, the rest of the patrons and customers react in their own way.

Moustache Man looks concerned, like he might have expected deliveries that won’t make it now that the truck driver will be behind bars.

The cloud worshippers, clad in pristine white, all share a mixture of shock and dismay. I wonder if they have any relationship with Gulliver.

The two mayors stand up in unison, abandoning their meal for a moment. They stare down Detective L’Amour until he gives them a knowing nod. Just doing my job, he seems to say.

Once Gulliver is out of the café, being locked into the back of an awaiting police car, Detective L’Amour makes his way back inside. He walks with the same care I saw him display when I discovered Clara’s body. He’s old but precise of movement; a trait that likely bleeds into his personality. Useful for a detective.

His graying eyebrows are arched, as if he were sorry to have made what is possibly the biggest arrest in his career. Detective Wilson had said that their work was about the people, the victims. I suspect it’s no different for Detective L’Amour.

My customers, however, show less restraint.

It starts with a woman sitting at the back. She’s not one of my regulars, but I have seen her a few times. She has short, bright red hair, and her dress is professional. When I first saw her, I thought she might be a real estate agent.

Her palms meet, breaking the silence left behind by the door chimes, clapping once. Then a second time, but accompanied by the Sandwich Man doing the same. Then a few more follow until the entire Achewillow Café is caught in applause. Everyone but Detective L’Amour, Olivia, and me.

It stops short of a standing ovation, the cheer brought to a halt by L’Amour giving his admirers a shy wave of acknowledgment.

I get it. An arrest has been made for the series of murders that have taken the lives of five women in Achewillow. The horror can finally stop. People no longer have to fear for their daughters, wives, and sisters as they venture outside after dark.

Except they should. L’Amour has the wrong guy. Hell, he shouldn’t even be looking for a guy. He should be looking for a demon lacking digestive organs.

Shouting all this over the din of the applause would do nothing, but damn if I don’t want to indulge.

“Ms. DuFour,” L’Amour starts. “I wanted to apologize for—”

“You have the wrong guy,” I cut in, keeping my voice low enough that my words stay between the detective and me.

“Pardon?”

“Gulliver didn’t kill Clara.”

L’Amour doesn’t lose an inch of his countenance. I wouldn’t say he reacts like he expected my outburst, but he’s not taken aback by it. Instead, he nods slowly and pulls out his pen, the same one he used to poke and prod at Clara’s body, and a small spiral notepad.

“What makes you so sure that Mr. Kemper isn’t our man? We feel we have sufficient evidence for an arrest, but if you’ve got something to add that could change our mind . . .”

He trails off, waving his pen between himself and the door, including his colleagues in his notion of we.

A demon. I’m tempted to say.

And why not? I can show him a ghost, if Julia would be so kind as to help out. We could probably even wait outside in the alley behind the café, and the real culprit would eventually show up.

The supernatural isn’t very discreet here in Achewillow.

“Ask Detective Wilson,” I blurt out. “He. . . he’s got some new evidence. I’m sure it’ll help exonerate Gulliver and point you toward the actual culprit.”

Olivia sighs, and I know I’ve gone too far.

L’Amour takes a step closer and takes out his glasses, which he carefully places on his nose. The detective proceeds to give me a more thorough evaluation. It’s a shift from our interaction in the alley. Back then, I was a hapless witness who stumbled upon a victim. Now, it seems I’ve been promoted to being a person of interest. One worth a closer look.

“Interesting,” he says, once satisfied. “I spoke to Aaron this morning, and he made no mention of fresh evidence. Not that I would put it past him to forget or neglect this kind of information. The boy can be spotty at times.”

Careful and slow, L’Amour takes his glasses off again, slipping them back into his shirt pocket. He scribbles a few words in his notepad.

“I’ll bring it up to him as soon as possible,” he adds.

“Wait!” I call out to him from behind the counter. “What about Gulliver?”

L’Amour smiles and puts away his pen and notebook. He looks around for a few seconds, scratching his cheek like a man who’s been a stranger to sleep for a while.

“I’m sorry, Ms. DuFour,” he explains. “You can’t expect me to release him on your word. But don’t worry. If whatever Aaron learned exonerates Mr. Kemper, we’ll be more than happy to release him. Before I leave, though, may I ask for one last thing?”

My mind races to get ahead of his question. Is it going to be something about my own whereabouts? Perhaps he’s curious about my relationship with Gulliver? I’m suddenly under a microscope, and I feel like I thrust myself into that position.

I nod.

“Can I bother you for a cup before I go?”

By the time Detective L’Amour is gone, his coffee and a croissant in hand, the café has gone back to some version of normal. Everyone has returned to their drinks and food, but there’s a fresh background static of murmurs and whispers.

Meanwhile, Olivia’s impatience has almost manifested into a physical presence. I can feel it radiating from where she sits, watching the proceedings. In fact, her restlessness takes up so much room, I half expect it to order its own cup of coffee.

“What do you think you’re doing, Miriam?”

“He didn’t do it!”

“I know that, child,” she says. “But you just put yourself in that man’s crosshairs. L’Amour isn’t like Aaron. He’s efficient, no nonsense, and isn’t one to let go when he closes his teeth on something. Most of all, he’s not the open-minded type.”

The implication is clear. I like to think that I’m open to new ideas. But if two weeks ago, someone had come to me with tales of demons and magic, I would have assumed they were mad.

“You don’t think he’ll believe Wilson?”

“Mmhmm,” Olivia confirms, looking over her shoulder at the dining room. “I could be wrong. I’ve been living here my whole life, and I couldn’t tell you everyone who believes in ghosts. I’m sure it’s a higher number than average, but if I were a betting woman, my money would be that Julien L’Amour is not one of them.”

I pick at Gulliver’s abandoned plate. I can’t, in good conscience, put any of it back in the display. I’m sure the raccoons will shed no tears at this blatant waste of food.

“So, Gulliver’s not getting out of jail anytime soon?” I ask, hoping Olivia will come up with something to contradict me.

She delivers, but not in a way that offers reassurance.

“Oh, they’ll have to let him go at some point,” she says, without an ounce of joy or comfort. “When they have another victim on their hands.”

I can’t let that happen.

I’ve always been good at tasking myself with reasonable challenges. Become a world-renowned chef. Revolutionize modern cuisine. Slay a demon. No problem, right?

But how does one kill a demon, anyway? Wooden stake for the vampire and silver for the werewolf, but so far, all I’ve seen that has an effect on the monster is the ring of salt. Should I try seasoning the demon? At least that’s something I’m good at.

Olivia said Doris knew how to handle this sort of thing, but without her, it’s on me to figure out a solution.

I wish I could count on Wilson. Wouldn’t it be nice if the good detective was in fact a secret monster hunter who’d swoop in like the cavalry and take care of everything?

Unlikely at best. But I do know of other self-proclaimed hunters of the supernatural. A couple of zealots who pride themselves on their holy mission.

“What are your thoughts on Orléans and Alessandria?” I ask, hoping Olivia will have arguments to dissuade me.

“The Inquisition? Oh, not much,” she says, swirling the coffee in her mug. “They’re a little off, but they leave Iain and his Pilvists alone. I don’t think there is such a thing as a harmless zealot, but Doris seemed to get along with them. Why? Have they been giving you trouble?”

“A little, but I’m wondering if I should ask them for help.”

13

THE HUNGERING NIGHT

How do you prepare for the Inquisition?

Hell, how do you send an invitation to the Inquisition?

Because that’s not a phone call I ever pictured myself making. But it’s one that went better than I could have expected.

Not to say it went well. Not by any normal definition. When Orléans answered, he had all the pomp and efficiency of someone who wears a three-piece suit and brand-appropriate cufflinks every day.

“Deacon Orléans speaking.”

That’s how he answered his phone. In a perfect world, he would have followed up my confused request for help with something like, A demon that steals guts? Of course we can help. The Inquisition has the exact answer to deal with such a thing. And for helping us in this matter, we’ll get off your back forever and never bother you again. It’s the least we can do.

We don’t live in a perfect world, and Orléans made no such promises. Instead, he cut me off and said, “We’re on our way.”

Which answers my question about how to invite the Inquisition.

As for how to expect them, since I’m asking for their help, I suppose it should be with some sort of peace offering. And I only know one way to communicate peace.

Snacks.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider using some more of Doris’s magic while baking the cookies. Apart from coffee and tea, a cookie is the only thing that Orléans and Alessandria ever ordered at the Achewillow Café. So, that’s what I make them. Chocolate chip because it’s a classic. Some butter pecan sandies, since they had been rather popular during the day. And some macadamia nuts for variety. It would have easy to come up with a sigil for the recipe, something I could infuse with my desperate need for help. Maybe add a touch of my sadness for Clara and the others.

It could have been useful—a little extra leverage to get the Inquisition on my side, but it could have exploded in my face. Thumbing my nose at Orléans and Alessandria, literally using the same magic they warned me against on them, is one thing. But I recognized something while making Julia’s orange poppy seed honey cake.

It’s no coincidence that Doris’s notes on crafting sigils are written in her recipe book. Julia’s love, grief, and loss are like ingredients. The order and ratio in which to put them together are like a recipe. Too much of this, too little of that, and the cake would have been another failure. Will isn’t enough. Will is the oven in which these ingredients bake.

What would happen if I put too much of my fear or despair into those cookies? Even if my little bit of witchcraft slipped under the nose of the Inquisition? What happens then?

No. The best course of action is to use that other piece of magic. The one I dislike so much for the effort it demands and how mundane it is: freaking civility.

Which circles right back to the cookies, coffee, and tea, all laid out on the biggest table of the dining room, waiting for my guests in the middle of the night.

My right hand shakes as I put down the cream and sugar while my left hand clutches the handle of Doris’s spoon. I’m also still wearing her apron, surrounding myself with every vestige of my great-grandaunt I can. Perhaps if I disguise myself enough, some of the goodwill she earned from Orléans and Alessandria will bleed off. If I have enough of these relics on my person, would Doris herself watch over me?

The doors chime, and I catch myself hoping that it’s anyone but the Inquisition. Helen Edna, notary public, would be an unlikely but welcome sight. It’s always good to see Olivia, but right this minute, her presence would be a godsend. Even Detective Wilson would be a ray of sunshine in these dark times.

“Good evening, Ms. DuFour,” Orléans sings in his ever-calm voice. “Is this all for us? You shouldn’t have.”

“It’s the least I can do. Thank you for coming in so late and, hopefully, helping me out.”

Both are dressed as they usually are, in blue suits with white shirts and polished gold cufflinks. They each have their leather briefcases. It’s a strange trick of proportions that Orléans’s briefcase appears huge while Alessandria’s might as well be an evening purse.

Orléans takes a seat at the table and pulls a cup of coffee to himself. Alessandria is more hesitant. She stands behind a chair, glaring at me. Her animosity toward me, which has been evident since we first met, has taken a new, brighter incandescence. That woman decided I was a witch the moment she laid eyes on me, and she takes her job of eliminating witches very seriously.

“Well, I can’t promise any help,” Orléans starts, while stirring cream and sugar into his coffee. “I think it’s only fair to warn you that—”

“The Inquisition does not ally itself with sinners,” Alessandria finishes, ever so helpful.

“A blunt way to put things, but not inaccurate,” Orléans picks back up, sipping from his cup.

I immediately want to argue. To stomp my foot on the ground and scream one more time that I’m not a witch. So, I used some of Doris’s magic, as hard as that is to accept, but if anyone was a witch, it was her. And as far as I know, the Inquisition left her alone. How hard is it to extend me the same courtesy?

Apparently impossible, judging by Alessandria’s set jaw and . . . did I hear her growl?

Instead of a loud claim to innocence, however, I pull up a chair and sit down opposite Orléans. He may not be offering an open hand of cooperation, but at least he’s sitting at my table, drinking my drink, and, I’m sure, in time, eating my food. If I’m negotiating with anyone right now, it’s him.

So, I smile and nod my understanding, take a cup of coffee, and pick out a chocolate chip cookie to nibble on.

“Isn’t a homicidal demon a higher priority for the Inquisition than, well, whatever I am?”

I expect Alessandria to hiss the word witch through her teeth, doubling down on her accusation. Instead, she looks back and forth between her partner and me. Or, to be more specific, between my chocolate chip cookie and the butter pecan sandy he picked out.

Orléans’s nod of satisfaction after his first bite is the final blow to her failing stoicism, and she begrudgingly pulls a chair and sits down. Every one of her movements is brusque, as if she’s hoping something will break at her touch. But the furniture here is sturdy, and once sitting, her resolve softens.

There’s even a look of what one might mistake for joy when she notices I brewed her some green tea instead of the coffee her partner and I are enjoying.

Score one for civility.

“What you may think of as a demon could be any number of other things,” Orléans explains, taking small bites as he does so. “The possessed or the damned can often take forms that would seem demonic to the inexperienced. It could also be a manifestation of your own dabbling in the dark arts. A homunculus or tulpa of sorts. Assuming we take your word that there is something supernatural behind those killings to begin with. There has already been some amount of work involved in identifying the true nature of this evil.”

“What would it take for me to convince you?”

Through a mouthful of chocolate chip, Alessandria obliges with her own explanation.

“We’d have to start with a full description of the demon, which we would then submit to the Vatican for revision. Fortunately, Orléans is a class three certified demonologist, so he’s well equipped to identify a demon himself, saving us that step.”

Orléans beams with pride, as if I should know what a class three demonologist is and be impressed by it.

“If it’s a possession, though,” she continues. “Neither of us is licensed for exorcism. All of that is moot as long as you’re under suspicion of witchcraft, though.”

It always comes back to that for these two, but for Alessandria in particular. Miriam the witch. I can’t tell if she has a nostalgic longing for a simpler age. A time when an eager Inquisitor could roll up to the town weirdo, tie her up, and turn her into a bonfire. Or if she’s got some kind of personal grudge against DuFour women.

“The demon is real!” I struggle to contain my outrage. “And it’s killed five girls so far. All I’ve done is bake a cake. You can’t tell me that my so-called crimes outweigh actual, factual murder. That’s insane.”

“Or,” Alessandria counters, the veins in her neck bulging slightly, “this is all misdirection on your part to avoid taking responsibility for your actions!”

“My actions? I helped a grieving widow find peace! And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Julia Remington wanted to see her husband again. That’s an act of love. You’d have to be completely heartless to stand against that!”

Alessandria slams the rest of her cookie down on the table, pulverizing it in the process. Cups rattle and spoons shake with the violence, and for the first time, I fear for the furniture.

“You only think that’s Gary Remington you summoned forth! It could be any number of evil spirits. But people like you don’t care. You’d do it again in a heartbeat, you so proudly claim, and that’s the problem. You’re so drunk on the power that you don’t think about what you’re doing. With every inch, you put your soul in more peril, and you think us the villains for trying to save you from yourself.”

Civility be damned. I tried. Whatever grudge this woman bears against me, I don’t have to endure it. I can only have the olive branch I extend be snapped so many times before hitting her over the head with it.

“How much of a hypocrite do you have to be?” I ask, standing from my chair like I’m about to flip the whole table over. “I’m telling you there’s a monster out there, whatever you want to call it, killing women, and you say you worry about my soul? I bet if I were Doris, you wouldn’t be giving me so much crap!”

Alessandria’s jaw tightens so hard she looks about to crack a molar. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much bottled-up wrath in one person. She’s the outrage of an entire cheated crowd, crammed into one woman.

“You wear Doris’s apron, and you hold on to her utensils. You even bake her food and sell it in her café, but you are no Doris DuFour.”

The words come as an unexpected blow.

So many have told me that I fit right into the hole left behind by my great-grandaunt. I’ve received nothing but compliments about wearing her apron. It seems that everyone in Achewillow has been waiting for me to take Doris’s place.

I didn’t notice until hearing otherwise, but I found comfort being told there was a place for me in the world, even one I didn’t want. To have that suddenly taken from me . . .

I’m not sure how I would have responded, but before I could decide, Orléans cut in.

“Ahem,” he clears his throat to get our attention. “I don’t want this to escalate any further than it has to. Ms. DuFour might have a point. While I resent the name-calling, it would be hypocritical of us to put our suspicions before the lives of any more victims.”

“But Orléans!” Alessandria protests, her tone like a child’s whose parent won’t take her side.

I expect Orléans to admonish her some more, but instead, he gently puts a hand over hers. It’s a comforting gesture, and Alessandria softens at her partner’s touch. It’s not a romantic thing. It’s empathy, pure and simple. An understanding so opaque between them that I can’t see through it to decipher the details.

“I know, Aless,” he says, with more than his usual softness. He then turns to me. “Ms. DuFour? I think we can give you the benefit of the doubt. When and where do you say the demon usually appears?”

“Here,” I say, sitting back down. “Behind the Achewillow, in the alley. And I’ve seen it on several nights around midnight, maybe a little after.”

“Well.” Orléans pats his leather briefcase. “We don’t have the proper things to deal with a demon, but we’ll bring the appropriate tools tomorrow night, if that works for you.”

I nod my assent, wondering what good a bunch of paperwork is going to be against a demon, yet glad I won’t be facing it alone.

This time, I don’t bake any cookies.

Which doesn’t feel right, if I’m being honest.

Not specifically the baking of cookies, but rather the lack of hospitality. Usually, the way you hear it, hospitality is something that’s passed down from mother to daughter. Whenever we had company, people would say, Mom would always make a plate of fresh-baked cookies. Or biscuits. Or tea cakes. In my house, we didn’t have that tradition. Mom was a good enough cook, but not one passionate enough to chain herself to the stove whenever she had friends over.

The second I moved into my own apartment, though, I couldn’t wait to have people over. For Trevor, it was about sharing a beer on the couch with his buddy, even though we were technically underage at the time. For me, it was about finally making a whole meal for the guests. It didn’t even matter who they were. We wanted to play adult, and for me, that meant hospitality.

The behavior stuck. I can’t tell you the first names of the people we had over, but I can recite the menu for the evening. It wasn’t even anything that special. Some roast beef with mashed potatoes and chopped veggies, onion canapés for appetizers, and black forest cake for dessert.

Having people over, even detestable people, has always meant putting something out. The day after meeting with Orléans and Alessandria—near the two-week anniversary of my coming to Achewillow—I made the conscious decision not to prepare anything.

A decision I quickly regretted. Not that the aftertaste of spite had completely washed from the back of my throat, but these people are coming to help. Even if they’ve otherwise been an annoyance so far. It’s too late to put together anything fresh, but I have leftovers from the day. Some freshly brewed coffee and a pot of hot water for tea, and I’m sure hospitality will be satisfied.

It’s almost one in the morning when shadows pass in front of the café, and the door chimes announce their arrival. My eyes close, and I take a deep breath, steeling myself before confronting them again. Or am I more afraid of the demon we’re planning to face?

“Ms. DuFour,” Orléans announces, with the enthusiasm of a kid having his first piece of cotton candy.

“Orléans,” I answer, appraising my saviors for the evening.

I can’t say exactly what I expected of them. Skin-tight black bodysuits, like two covert operatives about to undertake a daring assassination? Full military gear, including fatigues and night-vision goggles? Or perhaps to show up in priest robes, with long rosaries that end in enormous wooden crosses? Orléans had introduced himself as a deacon on the phone, after all.

But no, they wear their usual blue suits and white shirts. The only discernible difference from every other instance I’ve met with them is that they’re not carrying little leather briefcases.

Instead, they both have huge leather briefcases. Caramel brown with brass buckles. Unlike the thin, light ones they usually carry, these are showing some age. The leather is scratched and worn. The metal hinges, corners, and buckles have lost their luster. They remind me of the spoons that decorate the wall behind the counter near the register. These aren’t mere professional tools, but heirlooms, ancient but also massive.

How much paperwork does it take to slay a demon?

“Huh, hi,” I say, struggling to decide how to welcome them. “The demon usually shows up near the dumpster in the back.”

As if I’m trying to show animal control where I last saw the rat I expect them to remove, I stroll to the back door, and I crack it open.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m no longer alone or if it’s because I trust the Inquisition, but I don’t hesitate to look outside to the back porch.

The back light spills a weak orange glow on the stairs that lead to the pavement where the two green dumpsters are located. I don’t see any raccoons. In fact, they’ve been a little quiet the last couple of days, and I catch myself feeling some hints of worry for their welfare.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, but I eventually turn them toward the tree line. It was at about this time, two weeks ago, when Olivia and I had met for the first time, that the creature first made its presence felt. It had scratched at the windows and almost ripped the door off its hinges. Almost every encounter I’ve had with the demon started with seeing it shambling among the trees.

Tonight is no different.

Like a drunkard looking for his way home, the demon shuffles at the edge of the forest, outlined by the filtered light of Achewillow south of the border.

“It’s coming,” I whisper, afraid that if I speak aloud, the demon will come that much quicker.

“Marvelous!” Orléans exclaims.

Even Alessandria smiles at the prospect of dealing with a demon. A rare facial configuration for her, indeed. The nervous energy between them is almost enough to infect me.

We’re demon hunting.

“How many times have you done this before?” I ask.

The Inquisitors sit at one of the small tables in the back. They settle in the deepest corner of the U.S. side of the café, their huge briefcases at their sides.

I bring them my hastily prepared culinary offering: cheese scones with spiced whipped butter, a cup of coffee for Orléans, and green tea for Alessandria. I then recoil to the relative safety of the front, close enough to the door that I’m standing underneath the chimes.

“Killing a demon?” Orléans returns the question. “This will be my first time encountering one of the foul creatures in the flesh.”

The temperature in the Achewillow drops by several degrees as the blood flees my veins. A thin sheet of sweat manifests on my skin, coalescing into a drop that slides down my spine. My feeling of safety was as short-lived as ice cream in the summer sun.

“You’ve never done this?”

“Don’t worry.” Alessandria chuckles. “There’s nothing we can’t handle.”

She pats her stupid oversized briefcase like it’s enough to reassure me. They haven’t seen what I’ve seen. They think they can bury this thing in bureaucracy. But they can’t. The creature is going to come through the back door that I left open. It’s going to tear through Orléans and his partner while they wave forms in its face. It’s going to steal their guts, and if that’s not enough to satisfy it, it’ll come after me.

My brain is in overdrive, composing every possible escape scenario. I’m ready to make a run for it if the beast bursts in through the back and decides to ignore the Inquisition and go directly for me.

The front window of the Achewillow shatters.

Large sheets of broken glass fall from the frame, disintegrating as they hit the tables and floor. The vinyl decal of the Achewillow logo makes a valiant effort to hold the pieces together, but it tears and flutters to the ground in tatters.

I shield my eyes as a million shards fly through the air. I can’t see the object breaking through, but the smell of rotting meat is enough to identify the intruder with equal efficiency.

The demon.

It didn’t come from the back. It circled through the empty streets, tossing itself through the front window to get in.

With its signature hybrid of agility and clumsiness, the monster lands on one of the front tables. Its claws tear long gashes into the surface, like chisels carving the wood.

The gaping, hungry hole of its mouth stretches open as if it were trying to swallow the whole room. It looks like it wants to wail and scream, but only a low moan escapes the stinking maw.

Empty eyes scan the Achewillow Café. They ignore the Inquisitors, the coffee machine, and the coffee grinder, stopping only on the closest, most vulnerable target. Me.

In a motion reminiscent of a frog, hopping from lily pad to lily pad, the demon bounces from table to table. There’s a fresh ferocity to the monster that I either missed or haven’t witnessed before. Hunger fed only by rage, fueling its every action with terrible vigor.

First, it moves away from me, but then it circles back to where I stand, paralyzed. It’s only at the very last moment, as the monster pounces at me, arms extended so as to spear me with its claws, that I leap out of the way.

The demon crashes with a wet clatter of rotting limbs into the wall, taking down the door chimes in the process.

As I scramble off the floor, sneakers slipping on the clean tiles, I notice the demon no longer carries Clara’s organs. There’s no time to wonder where they went or why they’re gone. The only thing on my mind is that the demon needs a replacement, and I can feel my own bowels move with fear.

Inhuman twisting and turning allows the demon to get back on its haunches in record time, and it pounces again toward me. A slip and a fall take me to the ground, but I manage, through some kind of divine intervention, to topple a table in the demon’s path.

“Do something!” I yell, begging for the Inquisition to spring into action.

But what are they supposed to do? This can’t be what they expected. They were probably told in their class three demonology training that they could reason with demons. I’d like to see them try to have that beast sign a confession or a warning.

Now may not be the best time for such fantasies, though.

“Come this way,” Orléans says with some amount of urgency but no panic.

I obey, but not because I have much of a choice. Any other direction would bring me closer to the demon and its black, razor-sharp claws. My feet kick at the floor while my hands pull at chairs and tables. I’m forced over the red and blue line that bisects the dining room and toward the back of the Achewillow Café.

The demon follows and crosses the colored lines.

“Here we go,” Orléans says, standing with a fluidity I didn’t think his body capable of.

Alessandria, like the biggest gazelle you’ve ever seen, gets to her own feet while swinging her briefcase to the table, all in one graceful movement.

Brass clips snap open, and leather flaps are flipped.

Alessandria reaches into her leather briefcase. Instead of the copious amounts of paperwork I expect, she pulls out the two biggest handguns I’ve ever seen.

Orléans leans into his own briefcase on the floor, and when he stands, he’s holding a massive machine gun, short but heavy and brutal looking.

The weapons are ornate and lavish. Their handles are decorated with golden filigree. Their barrels are carved with delicate etchings. These are not simple instruments of violence but pieces of the witch hunters’ vestments.

Keep in mind, I’m little more than some Canadian girl from Montreal. I can tell you the difference between a standard saucepan and a Windsor, but I don’t know the first thing about guns. The only firearms I’ve seen were holstered on the belt of cops or in movies. I haven’t even been to a shooting range or hunting.

So, let me tell you, when the Inquisition opens fire on the demon, it scares me almost as much as having the monster on my heels.

Flashes of light accompany the cacophony of gunfire. Orléans’s weapon is a rapid-fire drumbeat of violence, tearing through the furniture and walls like a hungry worm. The muzzle flashes like a stroboscope, spitting bullets like rain.

Alessandria fires her handguns with calm efficiency. Alternating between right and left, each pull of the trigger causing a clamor like a cannon firing. The blasts explode everything they hit, tossing splinters of wood and shards of glass through the air.

When one of her guns is empty, she hands it to Orléans, who replaces the clip with a fresh one from her bag. Meanwhile, she borrows his machine gun and continues the savage destruction of the Achewillow.

All the while, the demon bounces from table to chair, then back to the floor or clinging to the ceiling. Whenever there’s a pause in the violence, it stops to give the Inquisitors a low snarl. If it tries to lunge at the small table where Orléans and Alessandria make their stand, bullets punch it back and away. But they do no discernible damage otherwise.

This back and forth of destruction seems to last for hours, with each minute taking another bite out of Doris’s café. Framed pictures shatter and fall to the floor. Drywall fills the air in clouds of dust. A pang of sympathy hits me as my nemesis, the coffee machine, takes a direct hit from one of Alessandria’s guns.

As relentless as the Inquisition is, the demon seems equally unstoppable. Except it will never run out of bullets. While I’m sure Orléans and Alessandria have complete faith in their God, I doubt He’s supplying them with infinite ammo.

This can’t last forever, and, when it ends, I doubt it will be in our favor.

As was inevitable, the food display gets hit. It’s a salvo from Orléans’s machine gun that punches a series of holes through the glass, sending cracks spidering at the top of the case.

Of all the carnage, this shouldn’t register any more than the other hundred things that are destroyed by the demon and the Inquisition. And, to me, it doesn’t. And the Inquisition doesn’t care.

But the demon does.

Orléans and Alessandria, both giddy at the violence they get to inflict, seem to vanish from the creature’s perception. I, the original prey, mean nothing to it. For all its intent on killing the three of us, all the fight vanishes from the creature when the display gets damaged.

Bullets tear through the demon’s flesh, embedding themselves into its rotting, dead meat. But the demon doesn’t care. It barely flinches at wounds that would have taken someone the size of Gulliver down.

None of it matters. Shuffling through the ruined furniture and a hail of gunfire, the demon walks back to the display. It looks down at the cracked glass and paws impotently at the surface.

At first, it looks almost disappointed, but that turns to impatience as the hits to the glass increase in strength and intensity. Finally, consumed by rage, the demon strikes at the display, shattering it once and for all.

But still, there’s no prize for the demon to take. Black claws rip at one barren spot, hoping against hope that it can find a stray crumb or hidden pastry. But that part of the display is as empty as the demon’s abdomen.

Probably more lead than flesh at this point, the creature screams. Not in pain but in frustration. Things are playing out as they have before, and, if I’m lucky, will follow the same script.

Whatever the demon is looking for isn’t here. Unable to get to either me or the Inquisition, the monster gives up. It first leaps to the back door, but something stops it at the threshold.

It only hesitates for a second, enduring occasional hits from the Inquisitors’ guns all the while, but before long, the demon leaps and sprints for the hole it made in the front window.

There is a moment of hesitation, where the demon turns to give one last look with its empty eyes toward the broken display. Then, as suddenly as it crashed in, the demon is gone.

Gunfire ceases, and the last few pieces of glass fall to the floor before the Achewillow is engulfed in silence.

Sitting on the ground, still shielded by a fallen table, I pull my knees to my chest and do the only thing left.

I sob.

14

THE NEXT RECIPE

What happened?

I thought everything would be made right this night, but here I sit, collapsed on the floor with my face covered in tears. I’m bruised and shaking, and judging by the wet itch on my forearms, cut and bleeding. My ears are ringing from the interminable firefight in which I was caught.

But the worst of all is the Achewillow. Ostensibly, the only good thing to have happened to me in the last few months, the quaint little café lies in absolute ruins. Through blurry eyes, I look around and can’t find a single piece of glass that hasn’t been cracked or shattered. Large portions of furniture have been broken down to splinters, either smashed by the demon or blasted by the Inquisition.

The Inquisition.

I wipe the tears away with my wrists, only resorting to the apron when that proves ineffective. Then, I turn to look at those who were meant to be my benefactors. I put myself at their mercy, and they, in turn, destroyed one of the only things I’d come to cherish in Achewillow.

Orléans stands over the table at which they sat before the carnage, smoke still floating from the barrel of his weapon. He’s smiling from ear to ear with what might pass for serenity in his eyes. The short Inquisitor had always struck me as a kind man. Of the two, he was the one with the level head and the pleasant demeanor. I can’t say that’s changed. In fact, he looks even more at peace with the world, but only after eating a full plate of violence.

Alessandria is a surprise of a different kind.

The tall Inquisitor has lost the color in her face, leaving it an ashen gray. Never peaceful or even a little friendly, she has not lacked for life until now. Her eyes, round and unblinking, survey the destruction as if she’d woken up to a nightmare. She participated in the demolition of Doris’s café with the same joyful abandon as Orléans, feasting on the same buffet of destruction. But it looks like she may not be digesting her meal very well.

There’s an audible grinding of Alessandria’s teeth as her jaw sets. The tendons in her neck are visible from the tension she’s experiencing. Part of me wants to sympathize with what she seems to be going through, a natural inclination of mine to share in other people’s pain. The other part of me wants to blow her head off with her own gun.

“Why?”

I ask the question loud and angry. Aside from the rubbing of teeth and the clicking of mags being removed from pistols, it’s the only sound in the café. It might as well be the only sound in all Achewillow.

“We thought it’d be coming from the back,” Orléans explains, running his fingers through his thin hairline. “And when it crashed through the front, we had to wait until it crossed over to the U.S. side of the border. Different laws and all that.”

I pull myself to my feet, frustration obscuring the pain of strained and battered limbs.

“No!” I wave my hand in a large, all-encompassing arc, covering the whole of the Achewillow Café behind me. “Why?”

Orléans follows my meaning, and his smile softens; the squint in his eyes vanishes, replaced by an arching of his eyebrows. I don’t know if I believe the apparent contrition. I don’t know if I want to believe it anymore.

“A necessary evil, I’m afraid,” he says. “That’s a hunger demon. We weren’t going to be able to kill it. It can’t die, cursed to suffer insatiable starvation for eternity; hungry but never able to eat anything that satisfies. It was important to damage it enough that it would need a day or two to mend before seeking to satisfy its urges again. Otherwise, it would have gone for another victim.”

Equal parts anger and fascination fight for control of my senses. On the one hand, this explains so much. The need for new organs to hijack so the creature can eat and digest, along with the desperate cries of the monster. On the other hand, why did the Achewillow have to suffer so badly?

Glass crunches under my feet as I turn on my heels to look at the destruction anew. I want to think that it’s not so bad. After all, there are perhaps three tables still standing and with only superficial damage. The walls and ceiling have been torn apart by bullets and claws, littering the floors with drywall. Wooden beams and electric wiring lay exposed, like the bones and organs of a murder victim. The front window is the most dramatic-looking part of the carnage. A gaping wound at the front of the Achewillow, allowing the mid-fall air to cool my sweating skin.

The display case, register, and the evil coffee machine are damaged or destroyed. Every frame and picture on the walls has been taken down by gunfire or demonic violence. Like a miracle, the only thing that remains intact is the row of wooden spoons above the register.

My predecessors’ names seem to be looking down on me from their brass plaques, each more disappointed than the last. Only Doris’s spoon is missing from the lineup, nestled into the large pocket of her apron. My left hand reaches down, touching the grain of its handle for comfort. Or perhaps to ask her forgiveness for what’s happened to the café.

“Ms. DuFour?” Alessandria’s voice hesitates as she calls out. “Miriam?”

I only now realize that I’ve been walking toward the counter, one slow step at a time, picking my way through the ruins of the Achewillow. My limbs freeze at the mention of my name. Not because it’s being called out, but because of who’s using it. There’s an odd pain in my belly when I think of Alessandria’s face in the wake of the carnage she helped perpetrate. It feels like my stomach is filled with boiling tears, equal parts shared sadness and incandescent anger. Then again, doesn’t everyone in town have some connection to this place? Under normal circumstances, I would want nothing more than to hear that history. These are not normal circumstances, and right now, all I want to tell her is to take whatever she’s going to say and shove it.

My entire body stiffens as her large hand falls on my shoulder. It’s as much from being startled at her touch as it is bristling at the unwelcome familiarity. But her palm is heavy and her fingers gentle, and I’m not sure if I want to punch her or reach over and put my own hand over hers.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice almost a whisper.

It’s tempting to snap at her, and a half-formed protest rises in my throat, stopped only when I realize Alessandria’s apology isn’t meant for me.

It’s for the Achewillow. It’s for Doris.

So, I go against my instinct. My hand squeezes the wooden spoon, and I press my eyelids tight together. Then, I reach up with my right hand and put it over Alessandria’s.

Not because it’s what I want to do. God knows I hate doing it. But I believe it’s what Doris would have done, and right now, that seems more important than whatever petty comeback I had baking inside.

It takes an interminable amount of time, but her hand eventually slips from under mine and off my shoulder. My eyes crack open, taking in the nightmare reality once again.

My sneakers crush more broken glass as I resume my stride toward the counter. With care, I slide my fingers across the wooden surface, pushing debris and dust aside. For two weeks, this is where I hid from the rest of Achewillow. From behind that line, I kept my distance from the townsfolk, defining myself as an alien in their culture.

That line blurred day after day until I no longer recognized it. And now, it’s gone, in more ways than one.

“Hey, buddy,” I speak softly to the coffee machine. It answers my touch with a soft hiss. Should I be reassured it still has breath or be worried that that breath may have been its last?

I finally stand in front of the display case. Bullet-sized holes pepper the glass, each with a spiderweb of cracks spreading around it. Minuscule shards powder the metal baskets, usually filled with chocolate croissants, cinnamon brioches, and rows of cookies.

One familiar spot got the brunt of the monster’s attention. While everything else in the Achewillow suffered random collateral damage, the bottom row of the display received a targeted attack from the demon’s claws. The glass is broken, a jagged hole with sharp teeth punched through with ferocious anger.

The green and white checkered wax paper is shredded to pieces. Even the metal basket is twisted and broken. A testimony to the deadly potential of the creature’s claws.

I’ve never used the bottom row of the display. Even as I baked and cooked for customers of the Achewillow, getting absorbed into the community, I always had it in the back of my head that this was a temporary arrangement. That, in time, I’d be on my way. So, I never fully invested myself in the café. Never completely committed to filling the pantries and building a full menu of snacks, meals, and baked goods.

My knees bend, and I lower myself to my haunches. It hurts, but it’s not worth registering. Instead, I focus on the mangled basket and the torn paper. I pick up a piece of the latter, rubbing it between my fingers, trying to get a sense of what might have been there once.

Lights, blue and red, flash from the street, and I hear a commotion of car doors and footsteps, but again, that’s not where my attention is.

“What’s your usual?” I ask no one present.

There’s no deus ex machina that prevents the cops from cuffing and arresting the Inquisition.

They don’t flash badges that force the police to back off. There is no quick phone call that allows them to walk away.

Orléans and Alessandria show their weapon permits but otherwise relinquish their guns without protest. Alessandria is more passive than I’ve ever seen, every ounce of fight drained out of her. An officer pats her down, but she’s too busy looking around the ravaged café to notice.

There is a bit of a debate between the cops from Quebec and those from Vermont over which jurisdiction this falls under, but Orléans was right to be careful. Having discharged their weapons only on the U.S. side seems to work in their favor. While they are being taken away, there’s something in the Inquisitor’s smile that tells me they won’t be behind bars for long.

“What happened here?”

It’s Detective Wilson, and for the second time in three days, I’m glad to see him do his noir detective bit. He tiptoes through the rubble, ignoring his colleagues, walking a careful line toward me. He’s almost as conscientious to not disturb the scene as L’Amour was when I found Clara. When he gets close enough, he reaches out to pull my hands from the display case.

“I’ve made a terrible mistake.” My words fall out in a whisper, like heavy smoke that I’ve been holding in.

Wilson shrugs and puts his hands in the pockets of his raincoat. He very nearly leans on the counter before catching himself.

“I could have guessed that part. I hope you have a few more details to fill in the blanks.”

“Remember when I said your killer was a demon? Well, they tried to kill it. With very loud guns.”

A succinct explanation, but one that should give him the gist of what kind of story it’s attached to.

“Wait.” Wilson crouches and lowers his voice. “You went to them for help?”

“Who else was I supposed to turn to? It’s not like you volunteered when I mentioned it.”

He sighs and looks around at the dining room, drinking in the destruction. The detached detective does a poor job of hiding the distraught man underneath.

“I’m sure you’ve met Iain and his cloud-worshipping weirdos?”

“Pilvists,” I correct him. “Olivia Fig told me they’re called Pilvists.”

“Sure. Well, they think the cloud is the physical manifestation of some dead woman who they’re all in love with. Very complicated and nuttier than a granola bar.”

On a better day, I’d chuckle. It does sound crazy. Not that the actual situation isn’t just as crazy.

“Do you believe them?”

His lips stretch into a thin smile as he furrows his brow.

“I believe that they believe,” he explains, fishing through the pockets of his raincoat, pulling out a small box of toothpicks and sticking one between his teeth. “That’s the thing about Achewillow. Sure, we’ve all seen a ghost or two, maybe some odd lights in the forest, but we’d rather focus on our apple festival and the art jamboree in spring. We have our weirdos and our strange happenings, but we’ve never had anything like this. Whatever this is, it only started happening after Doris passed. Either it’s something new, or it’s always been there and your great-grandaunt took care of it.”

“And what? You thought I would, too?”

“No.” He runs a finger along a claw mark on the side of the counter, a worried look on his face. “Not anymore. But I don’t know where we’re supposed to turn for help, either. Believe it or not, demons aren’t covered in my training.”

Hard to admit, but he’s got a point. The Miriam DuFour that’s bleeding from cuts on her forearms and kneeling on bruised legs is far more open to the supernatural than the Miriam DuFour who arrived in Achewillow two weeks ago. But even knowing what I know now and armed with a fresh perspective on ghosts and demons, I had to turn to the Inquisition for help.

“Let me get someone to have a look at that.” Wilson nods toward my arms. “Then I’ll need you to give a statement.”

“A statement? What am I supposed to say? Two religious zealots had it out with a demon in my dining room?”

Wilson gives that some thought, theatrically rubbing his chin and scratching his hair for emphasis.

“Y’know what?” he says. “You’re in shock and talking nonsense right now. Let’s get those wounds cleaned and bandaged, and I’ll take you somewhere safe for the night. How does that sound?”

“Nonsense?”

“Demons and nonsense.” He winks.

I get it. This is my get out of an uncomfortable situation free card. And I take it.

“Yeah. It was demons. And I’ll call Olivia Fig to see if she doesn’t mind taking me in again.”

The guest room is the same as I remember, except a little less dusty this time. Everything creaks and groans at my touch and under my feet. It’s annoying but also comforting. Each sound is a reminder of a more innocent time and that I’m somewhere safe.

“I’m so sorry for being a bother again,” I say, putting my bag on the bed. “I really owe you.”

“Mmhmm,” Olivia answers, unclear if she agrees I’m indebted or acknowledging that she’s listening. “I’ll brew us a cup, and we can talk about it if you want.”

“I don’t want to impose.”

There’s no answer or further comment, but I know Olivia hasn’t left the room she guided me to. I turn and see exactly what I expected: my first and best friend in Achewillow, standing in the door with a pitying look in her eyes, appraising me. Looking for how best to offer support.

“What’s your usual, Miriam?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What do you take in your coffee?”

After a few minutes, we’re both sitting in her living room, hot mugs in our hands and some microwaved apple strudels between us. I could do a better job, of course, but there’s a certain delight in savoring the imperfection in Olivia’s cooking. There’s too much sugar, and the apples are a little overcooked, but they taste honest. Like the woman who made them, they embrace their flaws and are the better for it.

“Aren’t we going to wake him up?” I ask, pointing my mug toward Henry. Like the first time I met him, Olivia’s husband is asleep in his armchair, snoring softly while the television tells him stories he ignores.

“Him? He’d have slept through everything you endured at the Achewillow. Hank!”

Henry grumbles something unintelligible but otherwise doesn’t stir.

“See? Like a corpse.”

I giggle, still trying to keep my voice low. It’s hard to admit, but I feel good and safe. It’s only when my mind strays back to the Achewillow Café and its ravaged interior that my cheer and comfort falter.

“Girl?” Olivia reaches out, seeing that my thoughts are wandering again. “It’s just a coffee shop.”

The statement comes as a surprise. The Achewillow isn’t just a coffee shop! She, along with so many others, has said so with their words and actions. They’ve all worked so hard to convince me that it is anything but a simple café.

“Doris went through the trouble of putting a clause in her inheritance,” I explain. “That the Achewillow Café should only be operated by a relative or descendant. Helen Edna still won’t allow me to ignore that clause. If it was that important to Doris, then it’s not just a coffee shop.”

Olivia nods and takes a sip of coffee. Her kind eyes stay on me, but she doesn’t acknowledge my statement, either. Instead, she picks up a strudel and takes a large bite, allowing flaking crust to cover the front of her sweatshirt.

“Well then, what’s your plan?”

My plan? I don’t have a plan. I was much too busy surviving a shootout between two maniacs and a demon to have thought of a plan. Enjoying what security I can find and the creature comfort of a cozy house is as much of a plan as I care to make at this juncture in time.

Except, can’t I do more than that?

“I’ll talk to Helen tomorrow. I’m sure the Achewillow had insurance. If that’s not enough, I’ll see about mortgaging repairs on the sale value of the property. I can’t imagine selling it in its current state, so I’m hoping the bank will be on my side. If that fails, maybe Julia Remington will be kind enough to loan me the money, and . . .”

My voice trails off. Olivia is smiling in that sort of self-satisfied way people do when they feel they’re right.

“Mmhmm,” she says, as if she’s making a point. “That’s what Doris would have done. The Achewillow’s not about the walls and the furniture. Sure, the place has a certain cachet, but its soul was Doris. This is why people are so glad to see you in the kitchen and wearing that apron.”

Olivia gestures to the white apron around my neck, pointing specifically at the embroidered Achewillow tree on the front.

“You bring a soul back to the café,” she continues. “You’ll rebuild and repair, and it’ll be different and smell too new for a little while. But you’ll be there. There’ll be a DuFour in the kitchen, and that’s all that the Achewillow needs.”

It’s such a heartwarming idea and a lovely compliment. But it also comes with a side dish of responsibility that I’m not sure I want to shoulder.

“I’ve told you before; I’m not staying. Maybe I’ll see those repairs through, but after I sell the Achewillow, I’m going back to Montreal.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Right, I admit that I was hesitating for a while, but Olivia? That was a genuine demon in there, and those two Inquisitors almost ended me. If this is the sort of thing Doris was dealing with on the regular, I want no part of it.”

“But you handled it.”

It’s not Olivia who answers me, but Henry. He must have been listening for a while, lying quietly on his chair while I laid my heart out. But he’s leaning over now, and his eyes have none of the kindness Olivia usually showers me with. Instead, they’re all intensity, nearly black in the dark living room.

“I know what you’re going to say,” I reply. “I handled it like Doris would have.”

“Nah, girl.” He shakes his head, but there’s still no smile or comfort woven with what he’s saying. “Doris would have known better what to do. She was an old hand at this sort of thing. You handled it like Miriam DuFour handled it. I don’t know what you did, but you’re here now, alive and making plans to repair your great-grandaunt’s legacy. If this is as bad as things are going to get for you in Achewillow, you’ll do fine. Better than fine. You’ll thrive.”

Have you ever had something so horrible happen that, when you wake up the next day, you immediately assume it was a nightmare?

That’s how my brain interpreted the night’s events for half a second: nothing more than a bad dream. A twisted figment of imagination gone rogue while I slept.

Waking up in an unfamiliar bed, even less familiar than Doris’s, and the scant few hours of restless slumber are enough to confirm my worst fears. The nightmare is real, and I have to go back and confront it.

The bright side is I’m not going alone, and this time, the ally I’m bringing is one I can trust. Or I should say, she’s bringing me.

Olivia parks a block from the Achewillow, around the same spot as she always does. Even from this distance, I can see that not all is well. There’s still a cop car in front of the café, and the glitter of shattered glass litters the sidewalk. As we approach, yellow tape catches the sun. The weather has no business being this cheerful. Clear blue skies with a warm wind and only a single, thick cloud to stare down on us.

The cop, a young officer who can’t be more than five years older than me, lets us in. The place is even more of a mess in the daylight. Nothing has been taken or moved. Bits of colored tape indicate where bullets hit a wall or furniture. Otherwise, the internal organs of the Achewillow remain untouched.

Olivia takes it all in with me. How many memories are being replayed behind her eyes, remembering the café as it was? Her shoulders slump a little before she opens the back door.

“Mph! There’s your problem,” she says, swinging the door open all the way.

There’s a salt circle right in front of the threshold and another one around the dumpsters.

“Those little bastards!” I kick at the salt, sending white powder flying in the wind. “They’re trying to get me killed!”

“Now, now,” Olivia says, reaching for my arm. “I’m sure they meant well. They were probably trying to keep the demon out of the café, for your sake.”

“They messed up the plan!”

“Would it have played out any differently if they hadn’t?”

It wouldn’t. Orléans and Alessandria would have been faster to draw their guns. I may not have had to run around so much to stay alive. But the Achewillow would be as riddled with bullets as it is right now. Nothing would have changed. Nothing important.

“They’re just raccoons,” I protest, despondent.

“You’ve got to know better than that by now.”

Looking at the green metal containers, streaks of rust on the outside, and possibly a nursery of sleeping raccoons inside, I lean down and pick up an empty box of salt. They’re only trying to protect themselves and me.

“I suppose I do.”

It feels odd not being able to offer Olivia a cup of coffee. Push comes to shove, I could go upstairs and use Doris’s machine, but it would feel like a betrayal of the steampunk contraption on the counter.

Olivia reaches into her purse and pulls out a small spiral notebook and a cheap little pen, the kind of thing you get at the dollar store in packs of twelve. She puts the cap in her mouth and starts looking around the dining room anew. She’s no longer seeing the events I recounted for her. She’s appraising the current state of the place, jotting down everything she sees.

“Well, they sure did a number on the walls, didn’t they? And the furniture! Oh my. What kind of guns did they have?”

I watch her pacing the room, taking notes. I don’t think Olivia is much of a contractor, and I doubt she’s giving the Achewillow a proper diagnosis. But she is the kind of woman who knows everyone in town.

“They didn’t go into the kitchen, did they?” she asks with concern.

I hadn’t thought about that, but a cursory glance confirms that, apart from a few stray bullets, the kitchen remains untouched. A blessing in disguise. The kitchen is where the expensive equipment is. I can only imagine how bad things could have gotten if the Inquisition had riddled the refrigerator with bullet holes. Or if the demon had torn the stove apart. Or caught me when it attacked.

“No,” I answer. “They stayed here and destroyed the coffee machine, register, and display case instead.”

My words are bitter, but I hope Olivia knows someone who can resurrect the coffee machine. It’s too bad about the register, but it’s the coffee machine that has me worried. We’d only just started to find common ground. Despite our tempestuous relationship, I can’t imagine the Achewillow without it.

I take a quick survey of the kitchen, and to my relief, there doesn’t seem to be much damage. The backsplash over the sink is broken, and a jar of pickled jalapeños was shattered in the commotion, but everything of value remains intact.

The wall separating both rooms hasn’t fared quite as well, however. The punch of bullets from the other side has cracked the old, heavy plaster and tiles. But that’s superficial stuff. It shouldn’t be too expensive to repair. I hope.

“The kitchen isn’t bad,” I say, walking back to Olivia with my good news. “The walls are—”

I stop short. Olivia is gone. I scan the dining room, and there’s no trace of her. No sound to indicate where she might have gone, or a reply to acknowledge she heard me. Just the steady wind blowing from the back door, across the dining room, and out the gaping hole in the front window.

“Olivia?”

She pops up from behind the counter with a curious look on her face; one eyebrow arches while the other frowns. In her hand, she presents the twisted remains of a metal basket with shredded, checkered paper.

“Did you underestimate the demand for pistachio cakes?” she asks, following the question with a large smile.

It’s a joke. I know that. But it doesn’t register that way. The humor passes through me, leaving only the relevant fact.

“The demand for what?”

“Pistachio-marzipan cakes,” she explains, pointing to the most damaged part of the pastry display “Or petits fours, as Doris called them, because she was fancy like that. That’s what she put in that basket all the time.”

Pistachio-marzipan petits fours? That is a little fancy for a coffee shop to have on the menu. I can understand slaving over croissants, but those are a staple of cafés from Paris to Montreal. Pistachio-marzipan petits fours? That’s an oddly specific snack, and more complex than cookies and muffins.

Why would Doris stock such a peculiar dessert if not for an equally peculiar customer?

A very peculiar customer, indeed.

“Miriam?” Olivia calls as I bolt out of the Achewillow’s front door. “Where are you going?”

My feet slip from under me as I climb the stairs to Doris’s apartment, and my fingers tremble as I struggle with the keys. I drop the keychain just as Olivia catches up to me, her breath still a few steps behind.

“Miriam, what is it?”

The words to answer her won’t come. My mind is too cluttered to compose the sentence that would satisfy her curiosity and ease her worry. To do so would be like trying to pick the flour out of pancake batter.

The bolt clicks and the door swings open. There’s dust in the air, and I see a few pieces of blown-out hardwood where the floor was blasted by shots from below. This should worry me. How much damage was done to the apartment? What important artifacts and irreplaceable souvenirs were destroyed by stray bullets? What about the appliances in the kitchen?

But I don’t care. The broken floor and single shattered picture frame barely register. Instead, I race to the kitchen. All traces of reverence are forgotten. There’s no hesitation. Urgency supersedes deference and respect.

I must know.

The cupboard door flies open, and I pull out Doris’s recipe book. There’s no time to set it on the counter or the kitchen table, so I drop to my ass on the kitchen floor. My fingers, still nervous but nimble and hurried now, flip through pages.

And there it is. The recipe for pistachio-marzipan petits fours. Doris’s recipe.

“Miriam!” Olivia shouts after me. “Miriam? What is it? What’s wrong?”

She looks over my shoulder at the book, recognizing the recipe, but as I look up, all I see is concern and confusion. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t get it.

“There’s nothing wrong.” I smile, taking note of the page and slamming the book shut.

“You’re worrying me, girl. Are you sure everything’s okay?”

I hate not giving her answers, but I’ve never been so manic in my life. I struggle to my feet, eyes darting around the kitchen. I struggle to remember what ingredients are already here, what I’ll need from downstairs, and what I might need to purchase.

Olivia still holds her little notebook with a list of repairs the Achewillow will be needing, but all of that has slipped from my mind. I snatch the notebook and pen from her hands and wink at her.

“Nothing a little baking won’t fix.”

15

NOT WITHOUT BREAKING A FEW EGGS

My brother has this scar.

It looks like a discolored jagged line at the bottom of his chin, but when he was a kid, it was this deep pink, nasty mark.

He got it when he was about nine or ten, so I would have been around six. The front wheel of his bike got caught in a sewer grate, throwing him onto the curb. Knocked out three teeth, which wasn’t a big deal since they were his baby teeth, but he got this gross laceration on his chin.

That would have been the end of the story. Young skin and good care would have made short work of the wound. A few weeks with a scab, then some tenderness for a couple of months, and all that’d be left of the accident would be a cool story. And a broken bike wheel.

But Eric, my brother, wouldn’t leave it alone.

He picked at his chin until it got infected. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad. Mom cleaned it for him, which was a painful, messy experience, but it was fine. You’d think having a wound reopened, drained of pus, and cleaned would have been enough of a lesson for him to stop. Not for Eric. That scenario played out two more times before he let the thing heal completely.

That’s why Eric always grows his beard.

That’s one thing my brother and I share: a propensity to pick at things, even if it causes damage. That’s why I kept poking the bear when dealing with Chef Gagnon.

Being here, in the lobby of the Achewillow Police Department on the U.S. side, feels like the beginning of the same kind of habit.

My only experience here has been anything but good. I’ve since mended things with Detective Wilson, but the place still gives me the creeps.

You can feel it walking through the parking lot, the unmistakable aura of a place out of time.

The cars are stolen from the eighties. Models I couldn’t name because I’ve only seen them in movies, with antiquated gyrating lights on top and sun-washed colors. The lobby could be a set piece in a museum. When was the last time I’ve even seen wallpaper? Let alone wallpaper with burnt orange accents and geometric patterns? The reception desk is behind a glass barrier with only a small, round speaker for communications.

“I’m here to see Detective Wilson.”

The officer at the desk looks about as bored as you’d expect a small-town cop on desk duty to be. I almost expect him to be lazily chewing gum while filling out a crossword puzzle. Instead, going against the anachronism of his environment, he’s playing some sort of colorful game on his phone.

“Let me get him for you,” the officer says, putting his game on pause with more reluctance than the situation warrants. His cell phone looks a hundred years removed from the desk phone he uses to call Wilson’s office. Either way, a short conversation later, and I’m asked to wait.

The grimoire of recipes sits on my lap as I wait for Wilson to show up. I carried the massive book with me all the way from the Achewillow. Even as the weather became more overcast, threatening rain in the afternoon, I clung to the volume, holding it against me.

There’s no practical use to carrying the book with me. I’m not going to whip up some cakes in Wilson’s office or point at a recipe to convince him that I’ve got the solution to all his problems. Like Doris’s spoon and apron, her recipes, the recipes of all my predecessors, are more a source of comfort.

“Ms. DuFour,” Wilson welcomes me. “I didn’t expect you to come down here. We could have done this somewhere more comfortable for you.”

I’m not here to give my statement, but I can’t let him know that yet. I follow him to his office, which is a lot less intimidating than the interrogation room.

Wilson’s office is even more of an anachronism than the rest of the station. One could even say it’s ground zero for the nostalgia bomb that went off here. Where every other part of the station, like the reception area and bullpen, looks like they’re from a movie set in the eighties, Wilson’s small corner office is an old black-and-white photo from the forties.

There’s an actual rotary phone on his desk, the only piece of technology surrounded by a sea of papers and open file folders. Horizontal blinds filter the light from outside, casting shadows over cluttered bookshelves. There’s an empty crystal decanter with a matching glass that should contain whiskey. Though I suppose even Wilson’s image can’t stand up to regulations and a code of conduct.

“Have a seat,” he says, closing the door behind me. We can see the bullpen outside, but it’s obscured by frosted glass with stenciled letters spelling out the name, Detective Aaron Wilson.

I obey, setting the grimoire on my knees. Wilson grabs a pen and paper. I half expect a Moleskine and a fountain pen, but he settles for a spiral notebook and a cheap, disposable ballpoint. He indulges and lean back in his chair, swinging his feet onto his desk.

“So,” he starts. “Demons?”

My lips tighten into a forced smile. Wilson shared his particular brand of belief in the supernatural. While I’m sure he doesn’t doubt my story completely, I don’t think he can include most of it in his report. The deposition of a mad woman does nothing to further his case.

“Don’t worry, Detective, I’m not here for fairy tales. I’m here to make a deal.”

This declaration doesn’t shake the good detective. He nods as if he expected my exact words, tapping his pen on the page of his notebook.

“Remember how you said my great-grandaunt took care of all the weird stuff in Achewillow?” I continue.

“Don’t worry,” he reassures me with a warm smile. “I still don’t expect you to have a solution.”

I lean forward, a little excited with what I have to say, but also lowering my voice as if I were about to share a confidence.

“But what if did?”

I pause, and Wilson lets the silence play itself out for a while before resuming the rhythmic tapping of his pen.

“I thought you said you weren’t here for fairy tales, Ms. DuFour.”

“I’m not,” I reassure him, a little too satisfied with my theatrics. “I’ve figured it out. I can stop the demon. I will stop the demon. But I was hoping I could get a little something in return.”

Wilson takes his feet off the desk, and with an awful creaking of his chair, he leans over his desk. Frowning, he puts his pen and notepad down, weaving his fingers together while staring me down.

“You’re not bargaining with the lives of future victims, are you?”

To my shame, the idea had crossed my mind on the way over. The thought didn’t linger long before my brain rejected it. I’m not exactly a keen negotiator, nor do I have a convincing poker face. If I have a solution to the demon problem in Achewillow, and I think I do, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t attempt it. To try and convince Wilson of the contrary would be impossible.

“Not at all, Detective. But if I get rid of the demon, I need you to release Gulliver.”

I might as well have asked for all the cheese in France, judging from Wilson’s reaction. His eyes grow wide, and he lets out a low whistle. All while pulling himself back into his chair.

“Mr. Kemper is not in our custody. There’s nothing I can do for him.”

“I figured out how to rid us of the demon,” I insist, holding tight to my recipe book. “You have to figure out how to exonerate Gulliver. Otherwise, the murders will have stopped just after Detective L’Amour arrested him, adding that much more credibility to his case. Whatever comes after that, you’ll know it’s happening to an innocent man.”

The conflict plays out on Detective Wilson’s face. His eyes are a dueling ground between his duty toward his career and his trust in my abilities. Or rather, his trust in how well I can emulate my great-grandaunt.

“How do I know if it worked?”

“You won’t,” I admit. “But you’ll know if it doesn’t.”

I give him a nervous grin, knowing the joke won’t land. It’s a weak attempt to trick myself into feeling brave, but it falls flat on both ends.

Wilson pushes himself to his feet. His beige slacks look a little loose on him, and I notice he’s wearing black sleeve garters with his white shirt. He turns his back to me, adjusting the blinds on the window behind his desk.

“Let me come with you,” he says, putting a hand on his holster. “If things go south, at least you’ll have some backup.”

Oh, what a tempting offer that is. I work a lot better under pressure, and if there’s an audience to taste my cooking, I know I’ll put in the extra effort. Even knowing how useless it would be to have him.

“We both saw the results of trying to shoot that thing,” I remind him. “Trust me. You would have trusted Doris, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re not Doris.”

“But,” I insist, ignoring the implication,“what if I were?”

I run my fingers on the spine of the DuFour recipe book, as much to comfort myself as to show Wilson that Doris is with me.

“I’ll talk to Julien,” he capitulates. “But I can’t make any promises.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Turns out, Chef Gagnon was very much like a demon.

This isn’t my loathing of the man speaking. As much as I dislike Gagnon, I’m not just calling him names.

See, Chef Gagnon had this knack for being impossible to please. He’d teach us recipes that didn’t work and then blame us for failing. Meanwhile, any attempt at straying from the instructions was met with pushback that bordered on bullying.

The hunger demon isn’t that much different. Much like Gagnon, he cannot be satiated. To get the chef on your side, you had to improve on his guidance but somehow give him credit for the results. An impossible balance to strike. To get the demon pacified, I don’t have to feed it; I have to trick it into thinking it was fed. No number of pastries, cakes, and stew will fill a stomach that isn’t there. I need to satisfy it without feeding it.

And that is what Doris did. Pistachio-marzipan petits fours. I don’t claim to understand Doris’s magic. I get the sigils imbued with will and intent. And according to her notes, the pistachio is used to break curses, cumin provides the gift of retention, and almond eases addiction. That’s all well and good, but how does she come up with these combinations? There’s more to doing this DuFour thing than the cooking, and I don’t have a teacher to guide me.

Hopefully, I have enough right here on the counter to make things work.

When learning to cook, you start with boiling an egg and move up from there. To learn this odd brand of magic, it looks like I have to start with a soufflé. First, summon a ghost, then feed the unfeedable. There’s no learning curve; only a learning cliff. Climb up or fall off.

Adding to the pressure, I must succeed on my first try, and I only have an afternoon to perfect it. It doesn’t leave much room for experimentation and self-expression. I don’t have time to test out theories or chase down wild ideas. Unlike Julia’s poppy seed honey cake, I have no idea if Doris left margin for error in her recipe, and I don’t have the luxury of doing it wrong the first time.

If this doesn’t work, someone will die, and that someone might very well be me.

Standing in Doris’s kitchen, my kitchen, ingredients laid out like surgeon’s tools before a life-saving operation, I endure the weight of responsibility a girl my age should never have to endure.

Writing down the sigil, a complex symbol that I will one day learn to decipher, I struggle to push the pressure aside and focus on my intent. It’s easy, in a way. To satisfy or impress with food is an intent I’ve carried with me since that first day. When I painted the ceiling of my mother’s kitchen with bad cookie dough. Hearing I couldn’t take another bite is the ultimate compliment. A client, well-fed and satisfied, is the finish line.

But it’s only when I start spreading pistachios on a baking pan to toast, smelling the food I’m preparing and touching the ingredients I’m about to transform, like an alchemist, that I find my peace.

Focus floods my senses. Buttering pans, mixing ingredients, and measuring flour or milk are all second nature to me. Muscle memory at this point.

The only struggle is sticking to the instructions.

Doris’s recipe is elegant and beautiful. Like a musician who can see how well a melody will turn out from reading the sheet music, I can tell that Doris’s petits fours are going to turn out amazing. They’ll be Doris’s petits fours, not mine. I look at the instructions in the book and can’t help but imagine variations I want to implement and experiment with. But then they’ll become Miriam’s petits fours, and I don’t know that those will work.

To appease one demon, I have to do what would have appeased another. I’d find the symmetry beautiful if I didn’t first find it annoying.

The recipe makes a dozen small cakes, and I have to hand it to Doris; they smell amazing. The whole apartment is filled with the pleasant aroma of roasted nuts and cooked sugar. I pack most of the small cakes into plastic containers that I squirrel away in the refrigerator, setting only a single petit four on a plate.

I make it with plenty of time to spare. This would have been a perfect time to call on some help. I don’t know if I would have wanted to drag Olivia and her husband into this, or Helen Edna. And Gulliver is still behind bars along with the Inquisitors, though I doubt I’ll be asking for their help again.

That would leave Detective Wilson. Part of me wishes I’d taken him up on his offer. I’m almost warming up to the guy, despite his theatrics. But unless he’s got some magic of his own, I doubt he’d be anything more than a liability. I’ve seen what impact guns have on the demon, and I don’t care to repeat the experience.

It doesn’t mean I have to do this entirely alone.

I take my tiny dessert plate with my tiny cake down to the ruins of the Achewillow. My heart still aches at the sight. I’m a little surprised that no one’s come in to pick at the ruins and steal furniture or equipment. Then again, what is there to steal? Food maybe?

Whoever wants to walk through the broken front window and take some salad out of the fridge is welcome to it. It’s not like I’m not used to having food vanish from under my nose.

My foot kicks around at the ruined glass on the floor. A piece of adhesive vinyl sticks to my sneakers, the green of the Achewillow tree pale under all the dust.

As I bend down to remove the offending debris, I notice another artifact of the Achewillow. Near the front door, buried in glass and splintered wood, the door chime lies on the floor. The thin metal tubes look like the remains of a tiny pipe organ, tangled up in strings. I bend over and pick it up. It makes a wounded version of its normal song, which used to announce customers but now sounds like it’s begging to live.

I set it and the cake on the dusty counter. I should worry about contaminating the food, but it isn’t meant for human consumption.

Neither is what I’m retrieving from the kitchen.

From there, I stuff a plastic bag with all manner of baked goods. Leftovers from the previous day and things I’d prepared for today. It looks like I’m throwing out good food, and in a way, I am, but I’ve got my reasons.

Grabbing a box of salt, I take my bag of desserts and pastries to the back of the Achewillow.

Already, the sun is lowering toward the horizon. It’s too early for the demon’s traditional appearance at the edge of the woods, but late enough that my time is running out.

With a grunt of effort, I flip open the lid to the closest dumpster. There’s a sound of scurrying claws as the waning sunlight floods inside.

To outside eyes, this is the stupidest part of my plan, and on the surface, it seems that way to me, too.

In truth, all I’m doing is acknowledging an established pattern and encouraging it by supplying the usual variables.

The angry offspring of a hiss and a growl greets me as I look inside the dumpster. It’s the fat raccoon, the one they call the Don. He’s hissing his frustration at my invading his domain. I’m an uninvited guest to his castle, and he makes sure I know it.

“Calm down,” I say, not even trying to sound friendly. “I come bearing gifts.”

The bag of pastries dangles above the huge raccoon. He pushes himself on his hind legs, stretching his fat neck so he can sniff around the bottom of the bag. His growling is quickly replaced by a sort of cooing purr, accompanied by copious drooling.

“That’s right,” I say. “It’s all yours, but you’ve got to do me a favor first.”

I don’t know how I managed to fall asleep. Or how nobody saw me slumped over the counter of the Achewillow.

When my eyes open to darkness. Night has fallen, but also, the usual light from streetlamps and neighboring businesses is missing. It’s almost as if Achewillow was removed from around the café. Or the coffee shop has sunken into the ground or been swallowed by some cosmic horror. It takes a moment to realize what’s actually happened.

Someone, probably at Oliva’s or Helen Edna’s behest, put up plywood boards over the broken windows in front of the shop. Whoever did it probably even saw me sleeping. They may even have taken extra care not to wake poor Miriam DuFour. She’s been through so much already.

With the best of intentions, I ended up entombed in my coffee shop. A fitting metaphor for how the Achewillow has snuck up on me and chained me to this town.

Only the appliances in the kitchen supply what little light allows me to navigate the cluttered remains of chairs and tables. Even then, I almost trip and fall flat on my face on a floor littered with broken glass at least twice.

The boarded-up windows not only mask the light from outside but also swallow up most of the sound. Achewillow is already a quiet little town, but now, the café might as well be lost in the middle of the woods.

Bang!

The perfect silence is obliterated by the loud, metallic sound of a dumpster lid being dropped. Blurry memories tell me that it’s that very same sound that woke me up in the first place.

Still draped in darkness, I rub my eyes with the palms of my hands, hoping to massage more coherent thoughts into my brain. It works a little. I remember cooking petits fours. I remember coming down here and giving salt and pastries to the raccoons in the back.

I remember my plan.

Frantic, I make my way back to where I fell asleep. Careful not to toss it to the ground in my panic, I feel around for the dessert dish with a single pistachio-marzipan petit four.

The sigh I release when I find it is loud and desperate. The cake is intact, coated in a blue hue from the kitchen. It’s my weapon, and the time for battle has come.

Here’s hoping I put my trust in the right vermin.

With one hand holding the plate and the other tracing the side of the counter for guidance, I make my way to the back door. Feeling around, I take the handle and, with one final deep breath, push the door open.

The porch light greets me with a warm, welcoming orange glow. Sounds of crickets and distant cars fill the air. I can smell the dumpster, but the stench isn’t so aggressive as to make me gag. Everything seems so normal that it feels like I should be throwing out a bag of garbage before going back to an intact Achewillow and continuing my shift.

What if that’s it? What if all the unnatural horrors and bizarre tragedies I’ve experienced so far are all a little story I told myself while taking out the trash? What if everything is fine?

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Better a flash of insanity in my brain than a world of insanity all around.

Tiny claws over rusted metal pull me back from the indulgent optimism. The world is a nightmare, and death is everywhere. There was death two blocks from here next to the bank. There was death at the foot of the green dumpster in this alley. When I turn my head to look toward the edge of the wood, there’s death shambling around.

“Like clockwork,” I whisper.

My fingers tighten around the edges of the dessert plate, as if it were the last few crumbs of my courage.

My heart skips a beat when I get close to the two green bins that serve as the raccoon’s palace. I trusted the Don to do what he and his subjects always do: take my salt and draw a circle around their home. They were doing it before I got to Achewillow, and they’ve kept doing it ever since I arrived. I even bribed them into doing the work this time.

But the box of salt I generously donated is still where I left it.

I could draw the circle myself, but I don’t know if it’s that simple. What if there’s more ritual to it? It sounds stupid to think the raccoons know more about tracing a ward against demons than me, but they do. I’m not going to question their expertise.

“You lazy, traitorous, little . . .”

I stop short.

A timid kick at the box reveals it’s empty. The salt circle is there. I don’t know how I missed it. It seems a little larger, maybe, and it is the time of night where everything feels gray, but it is there, and I somehow didn’t see.

Relief is short-lived, however.

Events of previous evenings repeat themselves, and the hunger demon announces its presence with a hollow moan and wet growl. It’s closer than I expected, and it sounds more desperate than I feel safe hearing.

I damn near leap beyond the threshold of salt on the ground, hopping into the protective shelter of the circle. It does very little to alleviate the terror. Especially seeing how close the hunger demon got this time.

When it’s about twenty feet away, entering the alley proper, I get a better look at the damage. The plethora of wounds inflicted on the creature have not mended, not in any human sense. Every hole punched in by one of the Inquisition’s bullets is still there, seeping thick, black blood. The damage appears to slow down the monster. It’s a little more timid and clumsy than before. Each of its steps is half-tripping, half-stumbling, but with none of the unnatural agility it showed in the past.

I’m tempted to leave the plate there or throw it at the monster and run back to the relative safety of the café. Then again, how safe would the café be? Even a glance through the door is enough of a reminder that the demon nearly killed me in there. I have to see this through, and perhaps a raccoon-made protection circle is the safest place to do it.

Large mouth opened wide, it gurgles while it smells the air around the café. To my relief, its abdominal cavity is empty of fresh organs.

“That’s right,” I mumble, “Look what I made you.”

I expect the demon to turn toward me and notice the cake. I brace myself for it to lunge at me, trying to get at the petit four on my plate. I’ve seen the thing throw itself at the salt circle before. I’ve heard the desperate howl when it couldn’t find the pastry of its choice. I’ve had the monster chase me in a frenzied hunger to get my organs.

I do not look forward to seeing all three behaviors combined.

Hiss!

The Don pokes his head out of the dumpster, pulling his rotund body up with his tiny paws. It’s not the monster he’s hissing at but rather the petit four on the plate I’m so desperately holding on to.

“That’s not for you,” I growl, my eyes shifting between the raccoon and the demon.

To my relieved disappointment, the creature seems hesitant to approach. Even the little cake I’m holding does nothing to attract its attention. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume it’s intimidated.

My hand shaking, I crouch down to sit on the balls of my feet. Every muscle in my body aches as I concentrate to keep my limbs within the bounds of the salt circle. The ceramic makes a barely audible click as I put it on the asphalt beyond the salt line, followed by a light scraping noise as I slide it ahead of me. Eyes riveted on the demon, I push the cake as far out of the circle as I dare. Only when the demon looks down on me, hollow eyes as empty as its chest cavity, do I pull my arm back to safety.

I stand, and the creature follows my movements with its gaze. It’s maybe three or four human steps away, a single bound if it decides to attack. Still, it ignores my offering.

“Come on,” my voice shakes. “I haven’t got all night.”

The only reaction I get is a tilt of its head and a half-hearted sniffing. Otherwise, the hunger demon is completely uninterested.

I watch helplessly as the hunger demon drags itself to the back door of the Achewillow, pulling it open. If the scenario repeats, it will stalk up to the display case, where it will discover there’s nothing it wants. It’ll scream its displeasure at the uncaring universe before bounding out in search of fresh organs to hijack.

And I can’t let that last part happen again.

“Hey!” I call out, stepping outside of the salt circle. “I slaved all afternoon over a hot stove to make this!”

I don’t know if the salt circle has kept it from noticing the petit four, or if our violent encounter left the hunger demon wary of me, but either it can smell the cake now, or I’ve finally got its attention.

The fat, gray, moist head of the demon snaps toward me. Deep and hollow eyes, as hungry for light as the beast is for food, lock on with an alacrity I thought the beast had lost. I swallow hard. Maybe the wounds didn’t do as much to slow it down as I thought.

My heart beats so fast, I can hear it in my ears, and I can feel the blood pressing against my veins.

We stare at each other, immobile, each trying to decide what to do next. It feels like swimming with a great white shark, and I left the diving cage. I should step back and return to the protection of the salt circle. But what if it ignores me again? I have to keep the demon’s attention and feed it the petit four. So, I keep staring.

It’s only when I start, for the length of a breath, to think that we might have some kind of truce that the monster pounces.

It closes the few feet between me and the back door where it stands before I can think to react.

The world vanishes, replaced by pain that shoots through my entire body.

First, it’s the impact of the demon, crashing into me like a freight train, punching the air out of my lungs and tossing me back.

Then, there’s a stabbing pain in my gut. I can’t tell for sure, but I think the beast stabbed me. I’ve never been stabbed before, so I don’t have a point of reference, but I’ve cut my fingers a fair amount of times, and this is something very similar.

Finally, my back is smashed against the dumpster with such force that the heavy metal container is pushed back half a foot.

My body crumples to the ground, my face coming to rest inches from a line of undisturbed table salt.

I’m both reassured that I can still feel my arms and legs and terrified at the amount of pain my body is in. I can only guess at the damage that’s been done to me, and I know there’s blood (I can feel it pooling under me), but at least I suppose my spine is okay.

I want the agony to end, and I’m almost thankful that the demon seems intent on putting me out of this misery. Except it shoved me back into the confines of the salt circle. The shark pushed me back into my cage.

Yet, that’s not what stops the monster from finishing me off. Instead, it’s the pistachio-marzipan petit four.

In the attack, the demon shattered my plate and smashed the cake. Released from the sponge, the smell of sweet pistachios and marzipan wafts through the air, overtaking the stench of garbage and waste. Of course, no self-respecting person would eat it now that it’s been on the ground, especially so close to the trash.

But self-respecting people aren’t eternally cursed with insatiable and infinite hunger.

Clumsy and with much difficulty, the demon manages to pick the remains of my petit four between its razor-sharp claws. In one awkward gulp, it stuffs the cake into its long-waiting maw. Like a child given candy, the demon barely chews, swallowing the cake whole.

The food does what I feared it would. Instead of coming to a rest in the creature’s stomach, the half-chewed and undigested cake drips out of the dangling esophagus in its open abdomen.

It looks like my plan is a failure. I’m wounded and broken, maybe dying. Some other girl will also be killed tonight, so the monster can have her organs. All of it for nothing.

Except one thing doesn’t seem to want to fall out of the demon’s gut. The small piece of rice paper, the one on which I drew Doris’s sigil, dangles in the abdominal cavity, wet and sticky.

In an odd display of light, the rice paper seems to self-combust, consumed in green fire. There’s no smoke, and the flames linger for too long, eventually reshaping themselves into the sigil. The image hovers, burning, where the demon’s stomach and guts should be.

Then, the weirdest thing happens.

The demon, a creature of tortured hunger, its mouth always open in the blind hope of being filled, looks happy.

No, not happy. Satisfied.

Long arms stretch akimbo to its side, and its face turns to the darkening heavens above. Its chin shakes, and the muscles in its neck tremble as it reshapes its mouth into a smile.

I watch the creature walk, not stumble or leap, but walk back toward the woods. The flame in its belly burns all the while as my consciousness slips away. My last thoughts before I completely pass out are: “I’ll be damned. It worked.”

Helen Edna, notary public, is the one who picks me up from the hospital.

It’s been a few weeks now, nearly a month. The weather in Achewillow has cooled down, and the threat of winter can be smelled in the air.

The damage to my body turned out to be not as bad as I feared.

I did get stabbed in the gut by the demon. But the claw didn’t hit anything important on the way through, scraping a little against my lower intestine but failing to puncture it. I’m told I’d be dead otherwise.

A few of my ribs were cracked, and my spine didn’t get off completely unscathed. One of my vertebrae got chipped. The doctor said it’s going to be fine, but I did end up in observation and bedridden for weeks.

I was amazed at the number of people who came to visit. Olivia and Henry, of course. They brought my nurses and me a copious amount of apples, but they also snuck in a few bottles of cider. Seeing I’d be spending a week or two confined to a bed, I told Olivia of the extra petits fours in Doris’s refrigerator. She knew Doris best, and after hearing my story, I’m confident she’ll know how to handle things. If not, I’m sure she can get Henry to do it.

My family dropped by, too, though my brother was there for me most. It was great to talk to someone about mundane things. His boyfriends and his job and whatever European trip he’s planning for the winter. Mom demanded I move back home, at least until I healed and put a rudder on the aimless boat that is my life. Her words, not mine. Dad did his best, as always, plying me with tips and tricks on how to navigate the real estate market, a topic he knows little about. The visit felt like home and was a stark reminder of why I don’t want to move back there. Not even to mend bones.

The Moustache Man, whose name is Michael I learn, brought me a painting of the stump from Achewillow Border Park. It’s small, eight by eight inches, on a canvas board, but the details are intricate and the textures exquisite. At least, I think so. I’m familiar with a little bit of art history, but otherwise, I know little of technique. Still, the gesture is appreciated, and it’s interesting to know he paints more than just walls.

The man who deconstructs and rebuilds his sandwiches made an appearance, though it was a quiet, awkward affair. He introduced himself as Pat and spent most of his ten minutes sitting in silence at the foot of my bed. He looks like a shy man, deep in his thirties. I learned he sells appliances, and we discussed the technicalities of the oven in the Achewillow’s kitchen before he had to leave.

Trevor and Cindy also visited once. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t in our apartment, surrounded by the evidence of my failed relationship, but it wasn’t that unpleasant to see them. A little awkward, sure, but I could remember what had attracted me to Trevor in the first place and, I have to admit, recognize a little of what he sees in Cindy.

Even the cloud worshippers, led by their leader Iain, visited twice. Each time in a group of six, both times performing a strange ritual of chants and hand motions, followed by a long five minutes of complete silence. The nurses offered to remove them, but I was both curious and reluctant to insult some of my best customers.

Gulliver visited at the tail end of visiting hours on my third night in the hospital. His relief was near unbearable, and he seemed positively offended when the nurses said he couldn’t hug me.

“They let you out?” I asked as he sat in one of the tiny visitor chairs. “What happened? Did you crash their food budget?”

“Ha!” he said, putting a hand to his mouth after realizing how loud he was being. “No risk of that happening. Have you ever tasted jail food? It’s no DuFour cuisine, I’ll tell you that much. So? What was it? What was it really?”

Olivia’s the one who came up with the cover story. Though under the circumstances, it wrote itself. I was, of course, attacked by the serial killer stalking Achewillow. I was the lucky one. The girl who escaped without her intestines being removed. Conveniently, I didn’t get a good look at my assailant.

“Hunger demon,” I offer, hoping the explanation isn’t too outlandish for him. “I managed to cook up one of Doris’s tricks to keep it under control.”

“That’s under control?”

“There are kinks to iron out, I’ll admit, but it worked. Wilson’s the one who found me after the facts, I’m told.”

“So, we both owe him,” Gulliver looks less than pleased at the prospect.

A nurse poked her head in to tell Gulliver he had another five minutes.

“Before you leave,” I whisper, “I have a favor to ask.”

He raises an eyebrow and pulls himself out of the chair. Gulliver looks like a grown adult playing in a children’s classroom.

“Promise you won’t freak out,” I demand before making my request.

All in all, there’s something awfully liberating about having all your responsibilities put on hold. School, inheritances, and even relationships take a backseat to mending your body.

It’s with a bit of regret that I leave the hospital. I’m a little shocked that they managed to treat my injuries in such a small establishment, but I can’t argue with the results. It’ll remain a struggle for a little while longer, but I can walk unassisted and even carry my own bag down to the parking lot.

It comes as a little bit of a surprise when Helen Edna, notary public, is the one who arrives to pick me up. It’s not that far to the Achewillow Café, but I’m glad I don’t have to do the journey on foot.

I sit in the tan leather seats of the beige BMW. Helen is wearing a sand-colored pantsuit with a matching jacket. She has a cream-colored cashmere scarf, and when she notices my less-than-warm clothing, she turns on the heated seat on my side.

But she doesn’t take the car out of park.

“That was a stupid thing to do,” she says, though her tone sounds as much of a confession as it does an accusation.

“I knew the risks,” I counter, only half lying. “Besides, I thought you wanted me to take Doris’s place.”

Helen weaves her slender fingers together, resting her chin on the tip of her thumbs. She looks ahead at the small parking lot, pondering what to say next.

“I did,” she answers at last. “I still do. We all still do. Aaron had me lie to Julien L’Amour and corroborate a false alibi he concocted for Edward Kemper. That’s how much you matter to us. To Achewillow.”

While I may not know her as intimately as I’ve grown to know Olivia, Helen doesn’t strike me as someone for whom lying comes naturally. Which brings me to my next question.

“Enough to tell me how Doris really died?”

To my surprise, the request makes her smile. It isn’t a very warm smile, but there’s some amusement in it. I think she expected the question perhaps sooner, along with a larger serving of recrimination.

“I think Aaron told you all we know,” she says, resigned. “Not that it matters in the end. Have a look in my attaché.”

She puts the car in drive and starts to navigate out of the parking lot and onto the streets. The weather is a little overcast, threatening either rain or sunshine, depending on the whim of the winds. Some of my new local friends want to celebrate my release from the hospital, and I’m eager to see them, but it’s hard to know what to expect considering the state of the café.

“What’s this?” I ask, pulling out a file with my name written in impeccable cursive on the cover.

“That’s your loophole,” she says, with a little touch of pride. “Or rather, a notarized permission for you to ignore Doris’s last wish.”

“Not just operate it as a business?” I ask, not as eagerly as I assumed I would. “I can sell the Achewillow?”

“Indeed, you can. The truth is, I’ve run out of relatives immediate enough. You’re not exactly the end of the line of succession, but you’re the only reasonably viable inheritor on her list. The case can be made that if the Achewillow Café doesn’t end up in your hands, it won’t be owned by a qualified descendant anyway.”

“Oh.”

It’s almost hurtful that I was so far down the list. Then again, I didn’t know Doris, and it was unlikely she knew me. That I’m a last resort isn’t that big a deal, and it wouldn’t have mattered five weeks ago. But now, I feel like I know Doris, like I’ve walked in her shoes. I hope that, in the end, she would have been happy with how I turned out as an operator of her café.

“Here we go,” Helen interrupts my musing. “I hope you like it.”

“Hope I like what?”

My question becomes meaningless as I look up from the paper.

We’re parked right in front of the Achewillow.

Mouth agape and fingers barely holding on to the papers, I step out of her car.

“What happened?” I mutter.

The wooden boards that covered the windows are gone. In their stead is fresh, clean glass, etched with the Achewillow tree that’s both the city and the café’s logo.

Beyond the glass, I see a dozen people waiting, looking at me. Olivia stands closest to the counter, and when she sees me looking at her, she grins and points at the shiny copper and brass monster of a coffee machine.

“How did . . .”

“Look in your file.”

I flip a few pages of Helen Edna’s legal jargon before I find an envelope, the same kind you buy with greeting cards.

“Open it,” Helen instructs.

I was right. It is a greeting card. It depicts the silhouette of a cross at the top of a church steeple, silhouetted over a bright, setting sun. There are no words printed up front, but inside, in gentle block letters, the following is written: “After talking to your representative, it turns out your coffee shop has terrible insurance. Thankfully, the Inquisition has deep pockets. With our apologies and our thanks, Orléans.”

“Surprise.” A small, rare smile appears on Helen Edna, notary public’s face. “It should sell pretty well now.”

Emotions start to well up, and tears threaten as I’m overwhelmed by what I see. The Achewillow, resurrected.

“It’s a little under-decorated, but Olivia Fig said you’d be happier taking care of that yourself. The damage to the apartment upstairs has also been repaired.”

I wipe my nose with my sleeve and see a handful of people in the café clap, which makes matters even worse.

When I’m on the verge of breaking down, I’m saved. The low growl of a heavy vehicle announces a truck too big for the street. He’s a little late, but we knew there was no way to coordinate down to the minute.

Gulliver’s red cab and gray trailer stop inches behind Helen’s BMW. He gets out and notices my wet face and goofy smile, which in turn, makes him laugh his unique laugh, his face pointed to the sky. He grabs a box from the passenger seat; it looks light in his hands, but I know there’s close to forty pounds of books in there.

Big letters scribbled in black marker on the front spell kitchen.

“I’ll bring this and the other boxes upstairs?” he asks, still smiling at my discomfort.

“You don’t have to do it now. There are people waiting inside.”

“They’re waiting for you. Don’t worry about it. Won’t take long. Go in, see what they’ve done with the place.”

I toss him the apartment keys, and Gulliver makes his way to Doris’s home with my box of recipe books.

When I turn back to Helen Edna, wiping another tear from my cheek, her look is one of complete shock.

“Are you?” she asks, a little incredulous. “Are you moving into the apartment?”

I smile and walk toward the entrance to the Achewillow Café, already admiring the repairs they’ve made. I see Henry looking at me and notice him mouth the word thrive as I step to the door.

“Surprise,” I say, looking back at Helen.

I push the door open, and fresh chimes welcome me into my coffee shop.

The End

Bonus Story

A MOST CANADIAN HAUNTING

Achewillow is not where I expected to fall in love.

But it holds the promise of so many holiday movies. The young, ambitious city girl, now trapped in a small town, gets charmed by the village trappings and simple ways and, through the magic of Christmas, opts to stay.

This should be my story. I’m a city girl at heart, and through an unlikely set of circumstances, I’m stuck in a small town. I suppose you could say that I’ve been enchanted by the local flavor. I even own the prerequisite coffee shop where I bake fancy city cakes and prepare sophisticated city meals.

I’ve grown to be part of the community now. Not the same way my great-grandaunt was, of course. She was a pillar here. A local celebrity. Everyone knew and loved Doris DuFour, and I count myself fortunate to have inherited her loyal clientele. But I wasn’t born here. I didn’t grow up in Achewillow. If my favorite grocery store ever closes, I’m liable to get lost finding the other one. I still don’t understand how the line that divides the city between Canada and the United States works. There’s no border patrol or customs agents, but when I tried to buy Grand Marnier (for some crêpes Suzette) on the wrong side of the border, I got into all sorts of trouble.

And that’s just one mundane peculiarity in a long line of peculiarities in Achewillow.

While I meet all the prerequisites for my Hallmark movie ending—heart melting like butter in a pan as I finally find the one person who matches me like port wine does dark chocolate—my expectations were low.

In fact, the holidays weren’t shaping up to be what I wanted at all.

The original plan, as drawn up through a complex web of emails, phone calls, and obtuse exchanges on social media, was that I should attend a family dinner in Montreal for Christmas.

To say I have a rocky relationship with my immediate family is like describing honey as sweet. It is obviously sweet, but it’s so much more than that. My mother mixes worry and disappointment like I whisk butter and flour to make a roux. Meanwhile, my father loves to remind me that the only reason I have the Achewillow Café is luck. Occasionally, he’ll add something about me wasting the opportunity the same way I got kicked out of cooking school. All the while, my brother will roll his eyes and ignore the lot of us, as we inevitably sink into a yelling match.

Still, I was looking forward to going back to the city. To walk between familiar skyscrapers and visit the Christmas Village near Place des Arts. To get coffee with some of my old classmates. Maybe they’d have good news, like Chef Gagnon getting hit by a bus? A girl can dream of a Christmas miracle, can’t she?

Besides, Achewillow would have even less for me during the holiday period. Even Olivia would be out of town, dragging her husband, Henry, on a seven-day Caribbean cruise.

“It’s the perfect trip,” she explained, having her last cup before leaving. “I can visit my family in Kingston, but then use the departing boat as an excuse to leave once I’m sick of their nonsense.”

The idea of seeing family in short, controlled bursts certainly appeals. If her parents and cousins are anything like mine, I completely understand.

Thankfully, she left me with a bottle of her best cider to give to my parents. I considered using it to cook something special, but in the end, I put a green-and-blue plaid fleece ribbon around the neck of the bottle, like a little scarf, to decorate it. An elegant substitute for Christmas wrapping.

Achewillow, however, had no intention of letting me go. Maybe, like a jealous lover, it was afraid that if I had a taste of the city again, I wouldn’t come back. So, with less than a week before Christmas, the village sent someone to stop me.

“Doctor Ilias Payne,” the man introduced himself, a hand extended over the counter of my café.

Now, I don’t know how often you get coffee, but it isn’t customary to introduce yourself to the barista. You might drop a name, but the formal handshake isn’t necessary to buy a bagel and tea.

But Doctor Ilias Payne wasn’t there for a bagel and tea. Or croissants and coffee, or even a complex magical cake.

No. Doctor Payne came in on a crisp, snowy evening with diabolical purpose in his heart. He came to ruin my holidays and cancel Christmas.

“We’re having our first Annual Solstice Celebration, and I want you to do the catering,” he says, his cold hand wrapped around mine. “After all, I’m told the best food in Achewillow can be found at the Achewillow.”

It’s a lame enough attempt at a joke; he doesn’t have to highlight it with a wink, but he does.

Ilias is friendly in that arrogant way that makes it sound like he’s owed kindness. He’s a tall man, with what I guess you could call British features: a long face with strong eyebrows and bright, kind, gray eyes.

After our handshake, which left my fingers cold and my palm clammy, he brushes his hair and looks around the café, as if appraising it for resale.

“It’s a huge group. I’ve invited just about everyone in town. In fact, I had to rent out the school’s arena. I thought I had taken everything into consideration, but I forgot the food! Can you believe it?”

I’m about to politely turn him down, uncomfortable just thinking about how annoyed Mom will be if I cancel on her a few days before Christmas. But the name Payne is nagging at me. I know that name from somewhere, but my damn memory is keeping the source a secret.

“I’m sorry,” I say, wringing my apron as if I could squeeze the awkwardness from it. “We’re going to be closed over the holidays. Didn’t you see the notice on the door?”

His face, jovial and eager when he entered, breaks down into worry and helplessness. Like a child who’s been told his birthday was cancelled.

“But,” he says, the word blowing on his hopes, trying to rekindle them. “I’m willing and capable of making it worth your while. Ask anyone, Ilias Payne never balks at a steep price.”

Apparently, Ilias Payne is fine talking about himself in the third person.

I could really use the money. My student loans aren’t going to pay themselves.

Then, it hits me. I know who Doctor Ilias Payne is. His name was all over the papers last fall. Or rather, his daughter’s name was.

Clara Payne was found dead behind the bank two blocks from the Achewillow Café, in an alley, by me. She was the fifth victim of the Achewillow Killer, a moniker that has not been great for tourism, let me assure you.

I can skip a paycheck for the sake of family, and I can say no to a windfall if it means preserving my mental health with a well-deserved break. But what kind of person would I be to turn down a man who so recently lost a daughter?

Resigned, I let a sad, exasperated sigh pass my lips. Thankfully, Ilias doesn’t catch it. I don’t want him to know how much of an imposition this is for me. The whole point is to avoid adding to his burden. This will be his first Christmas since Clara’s passing; he should be allowed to celebrate it any way he wants and with whom he chooses.

Secretly, I hope that by catering the event, I might weasel an invitation for myself. If this is going to be the event of the holidays, and I’m going to give up my own family gathering, it’d be nice to be included.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll be happy to cater your . . . Solstice Celebration? How many people do you expect?”

He beamed so brightly, it was like the lights in the Achewillow’s dining area had turned up. His hands, warmer now for having been inside a few minutes, reached out and grabbed mine for another hearty handshake.

“Oh, thank you so much, Ms. DuFour! You have no idea how much this means to me. So, so much! Let me assure you. This means everything.”

His exuberance is a little unsettling, the same way a lot of people’s emotions in Achewillow tended to be a little extra, like a sauce that’s been allowed to reduce for too long.

After a few seconds, Ilias manages to rein in his enthusiasm, but not completely. Grin plastered on his face and aborted tears of joy still hanging at the corner of his eyes, he finally answers my question.

“Don’t worry about how many people will be there,” he says, still holding on to my hand. “Make everything. Empty your refrigerator and cupboards. You were going to close for the week anyway, right? Well, don’t worry about it; nothing will go to waste.”

We discuss a few details over coffee, and I inspect my inventory to see exactly what I can do and how much it might set the good doctor back. The Achewillow isn’t really a restaurant, so I don’t have enough to make the kind of extravagant buffet Ilias wants, but I can manage some magic of my own.

By the time he walks out into the thick December snow and the cold Achewillow night, Doctor Ilias Payne has a satisfied smile on his lips, a handwritten menu in hand, and a spring in his step.

It’s almost enough to make me forget that I still don’t have an invitation to this shindig.

Fine! I admit it: I feel a little rejected and jealous of everyone going to this party.

Everyone spent weeks convincing me to be part of this community, but then I’m not good enough for their Solstice Celebration? People have been walking into the café with fancy envelopes for days now: silver-painted letters with bright red, honest-to-god wax seals. At first, I thought it was an exclusive affair; both mayors had invitations, after all. As the day draws closer, it looks like everyone has a shiny piece of paper inviting them to the arena on Christmas Eve.

Everyone except me.

Oh, I tried to convince myself that I didn’t want to go. Why would I want to be invited to the biggest social event since making Achewillow my home? Even if I knew the food would be amazing.

Amazing and beautiful.

Because I certainly wasn’t going to simply bake a few cakes, make a charcuterie board, and call it a day. Doctor Ilias Payne told me to use everything, and if I stock up on anything in massive quantities during the holidays, it’s ginger spice.

It took me a while to decide on the specifics. I knew what it would be made of: gingerbread. But if you expect me to just slap together some random house, you do not know Miriam DuFour.

If I were to make any kind of gingerbread structure, it had to be magical. I thought of a fairy castle or maybe an arctic elven village. But those are all made-up magical places.

Alone after closing, I was still debating what to make when I heard something.

After what I’ve experienced here, sounds from the back of the Achewillow conjure one of two very specific emotions. Abject terror or molten irritation. It all depends on what I expect to find there: demons or raccoons.

Well, judging from the skittering of claws on ceramic tiles and the sudden draft of cold air from the back door, I’m leaning toward the latter.

This is my first holiday in Achewillow, and my relationship with the critters remains, shall we say, fraught.

The pastry display door bangs, followed by the pitter-patter of thieving paws, telling a clear story: A raccoon is stealing food.

They’d been doing it for months. More often since the first snow. I’m far from heartless, and I still owe the Don, the pack’s leader, a bit of a favor, so I’ve been more liberal with throwing out food. Y’know, maybe I’ll make too much stew for the day, and instead of keeping the leftovers, they end up in the bin. It’s not waste if I know they’ll end up in furry stomachs, right?

Yet, despite my unbridled generosity, these little vermin still break in and steal from the display. Or the kitchen. Or the pantry. There’s no place in the Achewillow Café that’s safe from them. I’ve tried changing the locks. They just have a knack for getting into places. My places.

I’m ashamed to admit that, as is often the case, frustration gets the better of me, and I run out to see what they’ve stolen. It’s not difficult to figure out. The only things left in the display were four brioches. Well, three now.

More annoyed than reasonable, I storm to the dumpster to confront the thieves. Ankle-deep snow, freezing wind, and billowing gusts be damned, tonight the Don and his furry cabal are in for a reckoning.

“That’s it!” I scream, lifting the lid, heavy with snow, to the dumpster. “You are this close to eviction!”

I expected to see all the ring-tailed burglars huddled around, feasting on my food. That was the usual scenario when I confronted the raccoons. They’d stare at me from their stolen meal, hiss for effect, and I’d shower them with invectives. That was that. What was I supposed to do? Take back the cookies, croissants, and rolls?

This time, I caught them faster, I guess. That or the thief was slowed by the snow. Whatever the reason, I’m suddenly privy to part of the scenario I’d never seen before.

The thief is the smallest of the raccoons. I don’t have a name for them all. Most people call the big one the Don, and I’ve heard the one with a tag on its ear called Crimson. I’d always called the small one the runt, because she’s so much scrawnier than the rest.

I’d never given much thought to why, though. She steals food like the rest of them, so I assumed she just doesn’t eat as much.

What I witness in the dumpster, though, goes some ways to explain things. And to be fair, it also breaks my heart a little.

The runt has the stolen brioche, a baked good almost half her tiny size, in her jaws. She’s the thief, but she drops her ill-gained meal in front of the Don, almost as an offering. A gift to her round-bellied monarch, which he takes, tearing just a corner for the runt to eat while sharing the rest with the others.

I’m so taken aback by the display that I forget to keep yelling. I expect the little raccoon to strike back, to fight for her brioche. She had the guts to sneak into my kitchen, outsmarting the lock, and take the treat from my display. You’d think she’d be feisty enough to at least snarl back, maybe swipe a claw or something.

Nothing.

I’m not one to anthropomorphize critters too much, but I’d have said the runt didn’t even look angry or scared, just . . . defeated.

I feel a pang of sympathy for the runt. Poor little girl not being invited to the party. The party to which she brought the food.

I realize it’s really me I’m pitying. Not the raccoon. The politics of the trash kingdom behind the café are none of my business. They’d been going on before I arrived and will be the same long after I’ve gone.

I walk back into the warmth of the Achewillow. I try to shake off the snow stuck to my boots, but it’s a losing battle. I’m better off doing the rest of my cooking wearing socks instead of tracking water and ice all over the floor.

The burning oven radiates heat onto the floor, making my cotton-clad toes toasty and comfortable. Raccoons, snow, and stolen goods be damned, I’m happy. I can almost forget being snubbed by the community during the most festive time of the year.

Screw them. I get to cook in the most magical place I know.

That’s when it dawns on me.

The most magical place.

I’m going to make a massive gingerbread replica of the Achewillow Café! Not only will it be challenging and beautiful, it’ll be too big for anyone at the Solstice Celebration to forget where their feast came from.

Just like the meal stolen and shared by the raccoons, it will come from the Achewillow.

Now that I’ve got it in my head to make a gingerbread version of the Achewillow Café, everything about the project has taken a completely different hue.

What was to be a lucrative and ambitious catering contract is now colored by how this will be a celebration of my skills.

Sure, I have some basic sandwiches with meats and cheeses, but I baked the bread myself. Not only do I have garden-variety baguettes, but I also have Belgian loaves with roasted garlic and French onion butter, thin slices of stiff pumpernickel with smoked salmon and chives, as well as sourdough rolls stuffed with melted camembert and cranberries.

I turned two jars of olives into tapenade and fried some pickles to eat with a spinach dip spiked with a hint of hot peppers. Not enough to burn, but the right amount to give a kick.

The kitchen is awash with the smell of simmering stroganoff, destined to be served in with crusted bread bowls and topped with aged cheddar. Bowls full of marinated and breaded lemon-pepper chicken wings are ready for baking, to be enjoyed with any of the six sauces I’ve lovingly prepared. Two plastic tubs in the refrigerator are filled with salads: one a ready-to-mix Caesar with sliced anchovies and generous amounts of grated parmesan, the other a pasta salad with baked prosciutto flakes, a touch of balsamic vinegar, three kinds of bell peppers, and a mix of herbs and spices I’ve been perfecting for months.

All this and more, plus the desserts. I have it all. I made butterscotch candies that I crushed and used in chocolate brownies to give them some crunch. I made three different ice creams—chocolate, pistachio, and salted caramel—then rolled them into loonie-sized balls, and covered each in a thin layer of solid dark chocolate. I slapped together a cake in the shape of a snowman, which I decorated with a buttercream of the purest white with a breath of mint to give it a cool aftertaste (try that with gross fondant). I have bowls of sucre-à-la-crème, chocolate mousse, fruit tarts, and candied orange peels.

As impressive as this might sound, it was just window dressing for the actual pièce de résistance: the gingerbread Achewillow Café.

You might expect a gingerbread rendition of the café to be superficial or lacking detail, but after hours of painstaking work spread over three days, I think I’ve captured the very essence of the place.

It isn’t that I managed to create a mathematically exact replica. Anyone can do that. It’s about infusing the model with the soul of the Achewillow. Putting together the walls of gingerbread and piping icing to draw on the details, I experienced a level of comfort and cheer I’ve seldom enjoyed. It was like sitting in front of a roaring fire, cocoa in hand, wearing thick flannel pajamas and the coziest wool socks in the world.

But cooking can be lonely work, felt all the more when cooking for a party you haven’t been invited to. Without a kitchen brigade or assistant, every hour put into the gingerbread café is an hour reminding me of my isolation. It’s fertile ground for obsession, and before long, I was adding candy patrons to the replica. Marzipan dolls with licorice eyes and jelly blush. I populated my creation with everyone I knew and could think of. The mayors argued in the middle of the dining room while cloud worshippers clad in meringue robes waited near the register. I even added Orléans and Alessandria, against my better judgment.

Now that it’s done, I light a few tea candles to illuminate the interior of the gingerbread café and marvel at my handiwork. In the darkened kitchen of the Achewillow, the diminutive display looks like it’s but a breath away from coming to life. The flickering flames move shadows inside the sweet structure, tricking the eye into seeing the sugar patrons waver and dance.

Such a crowded little café, in such a lonely, empty, larger version of itself.

I sit alone in that kitchen for longer than I care to admit, staring at the end result of my labor in complete silence. Proud, but with no one to share the pride . . . it tastes a little of narcissism.

You know what they say: If you ever feel lonely, just sit in the dark long enough and you won’t feel so alone anymore. It’s a joke, of course, about how being alone in the dark makes people imagine things going bump in the night.

As I snuff out the tea lights so they don’t damage the gingerbread café or melt the sugar customers, I almost wish something would stir in the shadows. A little fear is preferable to loneliness.

There’s still a lot to do. Breads are still baking, and the stroganoff is simmering. If I can’t share the presence of a fellow human being, at least I have the company of a busy kitchen.

I pull myself to my feet, taking one last look at the darkened shadow of my masterpiece before flipping the lights back on.

But just as I’m about to flip the switch, I hear a familiar noise.

Not the knock of a mittened hand at the door or the ring of a phone, promising to connect me to a loved one. Instead, it’s the familiar sound of the back door creaking open.

Quiet to not startle the intruder, I tiptoe out of the kitchen and behind the counter to get a better look at the back door without being noticed. A gentle gust of cold wind and a pillar of artificial light flood from the outside.

At the foot of the door, where the light meets the floor, there’s a shadow of a puny little raccoon.

I allow the runt to sneak into the dining room. She probably assumes I’m not there, with all the lights turned off and my prolonged period of silence, but boy, is she in for a surprise.

She makes a straight line to the display, and I grit my teeth as she pilfers through the leftover baked goods. She takes what she wants and begins to paw her way back to the door. Little does she know, I’m already there, waiting, broom in hand.

The look on her face and the shock in her beady little eyes is worth it. After months of this nonsense, I’ve finally caught one of them.

The Don has a specific brand of defiance whenever I’ve confronted him. Whether in his garbage domain or anywhere else we’ve crossed paths, never has the fat raccoon backed down. From hissing to rude gestures, he stands up to me—to everyone—no matter what.

The runt has none of that spinal fortitude. When she sees me, towering over her, brioche held hungrily in her mouth, she shows none of the bravado her patriarch’s known for.

Instead, she clutches her prize close to her chest before tearing a generous bite out of the dessert. Then, she scampers back into the shadows of the café.

I’m a conscientious business owner, and while I know these are not ordinary vermin, they live the bulk of their lives in trash. I’m not happy with her wandering my kitchen and dining room. Bad enough that she keeps getting into the food display, I don’t want to worry about finding raccoon fur in the coffee grounds.

But as soon as I flip the lights on, hoping to find the runt cowering in a corner so I can show her the door, the timer on the oven goes off.

What horrendous timing. I can’t exactly leave the bread in the oven, and that’s just one of a dozen things I still need to do in what little time I have left.

So, I made the decision. What did it matter if the runt was left alone in the café? All the important food has already been cooked, mixed, baked, fried, or blended into the feast for the Solstice Celebration.

I empty the rest of the display and secure the coffee and sugar before locking up the dining room.

Let the runt have her sad little brioche on the floor. Merry Christmas.

It takes three trips in Doctor Ilias Payne’s minivan to move all the food from the Achewillow to the Anthony Gillard Memorial Arena.

Most places inherit their name from historical figures and individuals of significance. It’s an honor. Generous patrons or heroic members of the community give their names to streets and landmarks. Saints are particularly popular namesakes in Quebec.

Achewillow does things differently.

Anthony Gillard was no hero. In fact, one could say he was an embarrassment to the village. A fatal embarrassment.

Long before I moved to town, long before I was born even, perhaps when my great-grandaunt Doris was still a child, a great tragedy occurred at the arena.

Gillard, the custodian at the time, was derelict in his duties. Some suspect that, instead of using the city council funds provided to him for his work, he was pocketing the money. Others believe he was simply incompetent. Either way, the electrical systems at the arena were ill-maintained.

It was inevitable that, at some point, this would backfire spectacularly.

On a day marked by particularly high temperatures, the refrigeration system in the arena failed. Frayed wires or a faulty transformer allowed the ice in the rink to be covered by a thick layer of meltwater.

The kids playing hockey at the time were amused skating through the cold water, splashing each other as they went around the rink.

That would have been the end of that, if not for one further accident that turned the day into tragedy.

The scoreboard, a huge, primitive electronic abomination, came loose from its anchors in the ceiling. It fell onto the ice.

Those in the bleachers said that, miraculously, none of the soaked hockey players were hit. They all stood in stunned silence after the scoreboard came crashing down. Disaster seemed to have been averted. Until the electric components of the scoreboard hit the water, electrocuting all the soaked players on the ice.

Horrified bystanders tried to help, but many just ended up sharing the players’ fate.

Anthony Gillard was nowhere near the arena that day and escaped prosecution. But Achewillow would not let his neglect be forgotten. The arena was named the Anthony Gillard Memorial Arena, not in memory of the man, but of his incompetence. A reminder he had to live with until the day he died and beyond.

“There are tables set up in the middle of the rink, and there should be extension cords running up to them if you need to plug in anything,” Ilias Payne explained.

The arena is nothing like it used to be. It’s now a fully modern building. The ice can be easily covered for community events, like weddings, union meetings, and the Apple Festival. The scoreboard is a gigantic LCD screen securely attached to the rafters in the ceiling. All the electronics are surge-protected by modern breakers to avoid a repeat of the Anthony Gillard incident.

“What’s under the sheet?” he asks, helping me carry the covered gingerbread Achewillow Café.

“That is a surprise,” I say, trying to be mischievous. Even with my masterpiece only hours from being revealed, the sense of alienation is too strong to let me savor the anticipation.

“Oh! I like surprises,” Payne says, pretending to sneak a peek under the sheet.

We laid down the spread, with the still-covered gingerbread Achewillow Café at the center of the feast, like a ghostly castle surrounded by its fiefdoms. Neighborhoods of food and victuals lie in the shadows of the manor of sweets, soon joined by towers of wine and soft-drink bottles and a pyramid of plastic cups.

“This looks fantastic, Ms. DuFour. Helen was right; you’re a miracle worker. This is going to be the most memorable Solstice Celebration in Achewillow’s history.”

His emphasis on memorable and the hunger in his eyes are touching. In the wrong context, one might think them weird, but this is a man trying to build new memories after the loss of a child.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” I say, putting the final touches on the bread bowls, ready to be filled with stroganoff. “Wasn’t the solstice two days ago?”

“Was it?” Payne answers, poking a finger at the fabric draped over my masterpiece. “I guess it was. Probably no big deal.”

I didn’t know that Doctor Ilias Payne was such a hands-on party planner. His wife, Madelaine, along with a few other close friends, is busying herself setting up for the evening.

Chairs by the dozen are brought out, unfolded, and set up in the rink, all facing eastward. There, they cover a tall table with a dark cloth and what appears to be religious paraphernalia. It looks more Halloween than holidays, but that’s none of my business, I suppose.

Candles are set upon the ground in long, elaborate lines, bordering the chairs. These aren’t cheap dollar store tea lights or emergency candles for a power outage. These are thick pillars, two inches in diameter, all a rich ivory that projects warm light four to six feet around them. There are easily a hundred, enough to light the floor of the arena. It must have cost a fortune. The doctor really did spare no expense.

With the rest of my display installed and absurd quantities of delicious food of a quality I’m sure Achewillow has seldom seen, I give a few final instructions to Madelaine Payne, the good doctor’s wife, on how to serve the desserts. Then, I get ready to show off why I was worth every penny the doctor invested in my work.

“Finally,” I say, with no small amount of pride in my voice. “What would a Christmas party be without some good, old-fashioned gingerbread?”

With a dramatic flourish, I pull the cloth from over the gingerbread representation of the Achewillow Café. My showmanship comes close to sending a few bread bowls falling to the ground, and I nearly spill the spinach dip all over the table, but the effect is worth it.

Madelaine lets out an ego-satisfying gasp, followed by a stream of compliments as she pores over the details of the roof, the little pretzel staircase leading to the upstairs apartment, and the texture of the exterior walls.

I’m about to point out the detailed interior when I see her.

How in the world did she even manage to sneak into the replica without breaking down a wall? It doesn’t matter; there she is, curled up in the miniature sugary dining room of my scaled Achewillow Café. The runt of the raccoons has already eaten one of the marzipan mayors (the one from the Canadian side, which I hope isn’t an omen of anything) and fallen asleep, cuddling the brioche she’d stolen earlier.

Silently, I fume at the damage to my masterpiece. The interior is a mess and no longer even worth lighting up. Hours spent and then wasted on the baked sugar tables and jelly decorations. More importantly, I now have a small member of the kingdom of garbage sleeping right in the middle of my very expensive food spread. The only saving grace is that, in the darkened arena, without the tea lights, and with some rearrangement of the other dishes, the raccoon’s presence isn’t too difficult to hide.

Thank the stars for Ilias Payne’s pedantic annoyance.

“This isn’t a Christmas party, Ms. DuFour,” he interrupts, polite but clearly irritated at my misstep. “The Solstice Celebration is so much more than a commercial interpretation of a pagan holiday.”

This from the guy who celebrates the winter solstice on the twenty-fourth of December. It’s tempting to meet pedantry with pedantry, saying that having his celebration on Christmas Eve was simply begging for people to make mistakes. But I’m a professional, and I keep my mouth shut.

“Do we have everything we need now, Miriam?” Madelaine asks.

Unlike her husband, she seems more nervous. There’s an electric level of anticipation behind her strained smile. If Ilias Payne can struggle on from his daughter’s death, Madelaine requires a bigger effort to put on a brave face. I consider going back to the Achewillow to brew her a special cup of tea to help tame her grief, but I think better of it.

“You should be good, but if there’s anything, I’ll be at the café. It’s a five-minute walk, so don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

The good doctor shakes my hand, assuring me all my equipment, plates, and utensils will be fine and ready for collection in the morning. Madelaine gives me a hug and whispers, “Merry Christmas,” into my ear, as if it’s our little secret.

I take one last look at my display, and what a glorious accomplishment it is, put on my coat, and turn to leave.

But I’m not going anywhere.

Whatever this celebration is about, there’s still a raccoon sleeping dead in the center of my food display. Not only that, but it’s taking a nap in an actual representation of my café. What’s meant to be an advertising masterstroke is going to be a disaster when the sleeping trash rat is discovered.

Guests start streaming in while I hide in the washroom.

Peeking through a crack in the door, I witness a procession of familiar faces parading from the entrance and onto the covered ice of the arena.

The mayors arrive together, and I sigh in relief that having a marzipan effigy devoured had no apparent effect. You laugh, but this is Achewillow.

Helen Edna, notary public, walks past my hiding spot. For a second, it looks like she’s stealing a glance in my direction. I can tell that no part of her wants to be here. Then again, when does Helen want to be anywhere?

More of my patrons make their arrival. The moustache man and the sandwich man. Julia Remington, still clad in black, and Detective Wilson and Inspector L’Amour are in attendance.

The only people missing are members of the Cloud worshipers and the two Inquisitors. Neither surprise me with their absence.

Cocktails are had, hands are shaken, and greetings are exchanged. Meanwhile, I sneak around to hide in the penalty box, observing this event I wasn’t invited to. From this vantage, I feel confident no one will notice me, and I can keep an eye on the giant gingerbread building in the middle of the catering table.

I can’t suppress my pride seeing so many people stare, astounded, at my masterpiece. I may not be a guest at this Solstice Celebration, but Miriam DuFour’s presence will be felt and remembered, I can tell you that much.

Hopefully, none of them are so impressed that they sneak a peek inside.

A gentle tap on the microphone hanging from the scoreboard signals the guests that they should be seated.

As much organization as Doctor Ilias Payne has put into the Solstice Celebration, no one but him and Madelaine seems to have any idea what the event is really about.

Guests wander around the aisles, some with their coats and others having left them at a coat check. There’s clear doubt about whether there is a seating arrangement, and it takes several minutes for everyone to settle into the creaky folding chairs.

Then, whatever few electric lights still illuminate the rink are shut off. A shiver goes down my spine, and a brief gust of wind sends ripples along the rows of candles.

A rustling of clothes comes over the microphone, and the silhouette of Doctor Ilias Payne appears behind the table in front of the crowd.

Clad in shadows for dramatic effect, Ilias’s voice comes in low but loud over the speakers. In a place meant to be filled with the cheers of rabid fans and supporting parents, his ominous words feel out of place.

“Friends,” he begins, letting the word echo through the rows of empty seats, looking down on the assembled audience. “Thank you so much for being here tonight.

“Traditionally, the holidays are about family and spending time with our loved ones, and I know what a sacrifice it is to ask that you spend this time with neighbors, coworkers, employers, clients, and acquaintances. But in a way, we, the citizens of Achewillow, are family. Over the last year, we’ve suffered important, traumatizing losses. Pillars of our community as well as several of the most vulnerable among us were lost.

“To a few of us, that means our own families are lessened. That the holidays will be that much emptier for the sudden absence of loved ones.

“The last time so many of us were assembled, we were burying the bodies of Anaïs, Candice, Nicoletta, Hannah, and my beloved Clara.”

A sniffle echoes through the arena. It could have been someone nursing a cold, but it might also have been Madelaine or another guest.

I was the one who found Clara behind the bank. Hearing her father mention her name summons memories of her body and all the damage that had been done to her. My own complicated cocktail of emotions wells up as I listen to Ilias speak of his daughter.

“The good news, in these dark times, is that with your presence, with your support, our family doesn’t need to be so broken. For the span of a night, the void left by Clara can be filled once more. If you lend me your hearts, the hole in our lives can be filled, if only for the span of one evening.”

I get it now. This explains it all. This man has invested so much in this evening so he would not have to spend it at home, alone with the vestiges of his broken family. I felt a little guilty for mocking Ilias’s Solstice Celebration now that I knew the purpose behind it. This event is, in fact, a touching display of love and community.

At least, that was my thought before the good doctor lit the candles on the table.

“We’ve prepared an amazing evening for everyone here. We have food and games, and later there will be music and dance, but first, let’s welcome our guest of honor.”

The hairs on the back of my neck rise, like when I step out to drop trash in the bins behind the Achewillow after an hour in the hot kitchen. Gooseflesh prickles my arms, and I feel the uncomfortable anticipation of the crowd.

Guest of honor? A wave of whispers ripples through the seated guests, all various flavors of the same question: Who?

I know who.

If this was anywhere but Achewillow, I’d have been incredulous at best, terrified at worst, but here?

Ilias Payne finishes lighting the candles on the table, casting an ominous glow over his and Madelaine’s features. Using one of the candles, he lights what looks like a stick of incense; a thick but narrow wisp of white smoke swirls and spirals before his face.

From the back of the table, Madelaine pulls out a large, fancy box. The kind you might use to store a precious heirloom. From that box, she removes a sweater.

Red wool but stained with maroon, the color of dried blood. I recognize the garment. The last time I saw it, it was on the body of Clara Payne.

“On this night,” Ilias goes on. “When the veil between worlds is thin and we can almost reach out and touch our—”

Ilias is cut off as he explains his ritual.

“That’s the equinox!” someone shouts from among the guests.

The interruption does little to stop Ilias. Though his monologue is abridged, he busies himself with the rest of his ritual.

His actions have a naive, childish air. Not so much the motions and procedures of a practiced sorcerer, but the improvised and cocksure mannerisms of a boy playing a game. His fingers are nimble as he cuts a piece of the bloody sweater, not because of experience, but because of practice as a surgeon and utmost confidence in what he’s doing.

But this so-called ritual is nothing short of nonsense. Or it should be.

Yet, as he burns a piece of his daughter’s bloody sweater over the candle, then tosses seemingly random powders into the flame, a sort of electricity ripples through the air. The effect is universal, and it becomes undeniable that the atmosphere feels somehow charged.

A few more protests rise from the attendees, my own words echoed in pointing out that this is Christmas Eve, not the actual solstice, and that whatever he’s doing is either theater or could have dangerous consequences.

Ilias ignores all of it. Most of the residents assembled can’t appreciate what the Paynes are going through and underestimate what they might be willing to risk for one more Christmas with their daughter.

However, those of us warning Ilias are right. Whatever spell he thinks he’s conjuring doesn’t work.

But there must have been something to his waving of arms and mumbling chant. Magic, as I’m learning, is a lot about intent, and few people can summon more intent than a mourning parent.

Clara doesn’t manifest in the Anthony Gillard Memorial Arena, and it’s probably best that way. The grieving believe they want to see their loved ones step forth from beyond the grave, but when has that ever turned out to be a good thing?

While Ilias Payne whispers the words of his ritual into the microphone, encouraging his guests to join in, to add their will and intent to his own, I notice the other uninvited guest poking her head out of her hiding spot.

The raccoon who’d stowed away in my gingerbread café has awoken and chewed a sizeable hole into the side of my creation. Anger burns at the sight of her, and I’m about to rush the table and nab the little thief while everyone’s attention is occupied. Something about her expression and the way she looks around—terrified but knowing—makes me hesitate. Her furry little head swivels around like a windsock in a hurricane, pointing this way and that, never settling on anything in particular.

Her beady eyes glint a strange blue as she tracks invisible figures around the arena. Her paws flex around her still uneaten brioche, as if grasping for security. I’d never seen the raccoons afraid of anything but the hunger demon and each other. They’ve certainly never been afraid of me. But this one’s terrified.

So, instead of rushing the table to catch the raccoon, I run over to see if she’s okay. Months of adversarial relationships with these vermin evaporates as I watch her, scared and confused, trapped in my kingdom of food.

Ignoring discretion, I sprint over the rink toward the table. I feel things brushing against me and hear the sound of metal on ice, even though the actual ice is hidden two inches under thick planks of plywood. A few feet from the feast, a powerful force runs into and then through me, sending me sprawling on the ground.

I blink the shock away, trying to get back to my feet. The wooden floor feels slippery, and the ground cold. Shimmers of green and blue light flicker and float around me, like ephemeral aurora borealis.

Then, I see them. We all do.

Thirteen apparitions glowing with unearthly purpose zoom and speed around the arena. Ghostly players clad in full hockey gear, along with a lone referee, swarm around the assembled guests.

At first, it all seems rather harmless. A hallucinatory game being played as a vision from beyond the grave. Whatever Doctor Ilias Payne has done with his conjuring, it indeed reached beyond the veil to pull forth the dead. But Clara didn’t die at the Anthony Gillard Memorial Arena. She was killed near a bank on Rue Principale. The restless spirits of the arena are the teens who died here, along with their coaches and friends.

We look on in bewilderment, watching as players pass, shoot, and steal the puck from one another. They seem unaware of me, Ilias, his family, or his guests. We stare in awe as the game plays itself around us, a window into a competition that was abruptly stopped by a tragic accident.

All we hear, apart from the cold slicing of skates on ice and the occasional grunt of a player getting cross-checked, is the voice of Ilias Payne, repeating no over and over again, raging against his failure.

But his complaint is soon cut short by a ghostly player running him over, knocking his table down and the wind right out of the good doctor. The impact has the force that only the dead can bring to bear, and Ilias goes sliding all the way to the side wall. The crack of bones can be heard echoing all through the arena.

The reality that the spectral players can not only touch but also hurt the living sweeps through the crowd in a tsunami of panic. Soon, another guest is sent somersaulting through the air, landing on the floor in a pile.

The whole crowd spreads into a dangerous game of dodging violent, unstoppable ghosts, trying desperately to make it to the player boxes through which they’d entered.

Meanwhile, I stand next to my painstakingly prepared food, waiting for a dead hockey player to plow through the whole thing like a freight train. Or I’ll be sent to the ground again, perhaps breaking a few important bones in the process.

Sharp, pinprick jabs grab at my arm, gently pulling me closer to the table. The raccoon, brioche still held firmly in her jaw, pulls me close with a desperate embrace of my arm.

Then I notice why.

Folded chairs are sent flying by the apparitions, and guests are rammed or tripped by the ghosts, but the table with the food remains untouched. In fact, on more than one occasion, a player will stop, look at the food, and skate away.

One goes so far as to pick up a slice of pumpernickel with smoked salmon, smell it, and toss it back on the table in disgust.

“How dare you?” I snarl. “You wouldn’t know good food if it bit you in the ass!”

More of the dead players make their stop at the table. Some nibble at the tapenade, others take a bite of the stroganoff, but always they toss the food away, making that grossed-out face only teenagers seem capable of.

The dead have such unsophisticated taste.

They’re clearly hungry, skating up to the table again and again, but always rejecting the delicious food they find.

Stupid kids, I think; if it’s not pizza, burgers, or hot dogs, it’s not food to their ignorant taste buds.

That’s it, isn’t it? I can’t tell you what Ilias has done or how we can get rid of the ghosts, but I think I know how to get them off the rink and away from the crowd.

The little raccoon holding on to my arm seems to have the same idea. Reluctantly, she drops her brioche. Then, looking like she’s trapped between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea, she jumps.

I wouldn’t have made it two steps without the help of that brioche-stealing raccoon. Her senses, sharp enough to see the ghosts before anyone else, guide us toward safety. More than once, she stops us a second before our path is cut by a speeding apparition.

Once in the safety of the player box, I’m struck with a dilemma. We could simply run away. It’s what I expect the raccoon to do and what every fiber of my being demands. We could both go back to the Achewillow, wishing everyone else the best of luck. But I have friends among the guests, and judging from the cries of fear and occasional moans of pain, there will be many more injuries before everyone makes it out.

In the end, neither the raccoon nor I picked the cowardly way out. Instead, united in purpose, we run toward the most disgusting part of the arena. No, not the locker rooms, where the stench of sweat and abundantly used body spray sticks to the air itself. I’m a tough girl; I can handle a bit of body odor.

The place I have in mind is far more vile to my particular sensibilities. It pains me to admit it, but one must know her audience. Hungry specters of teenage boys from decades ago don’t want olive tapenade and pumpernickel bread. They hunger for pizza, fries, and terrible concession hot dogs. The bounty that will get them off the ice and away from Ilias Payne’s guests is stashed in the arena’s snack bar.

My accomplice’s refined senses lead us toward the kitchens in record time. A small blessing, as I cringe hearing the bone-shattering sound of another impact followed by terrified cries.

Already, my mind’s racing, preparing my plan of attack. Thirteen people, even hungry dead teenagers, won’t take that much to feed. I can get hot dogs and pizza going pretty quickly, but getting the oil up for fries will take longer. That the apparitions will know to come and get the food is also a bold gamble on my part.

Not as bold as assuming I’ll have easy access to the snack bar, though.

“Of course!” I whine to my furry companion, as if expecting her to understand.

The door’s locked, and behind it any stores of food and all the implements to cook it. My fists close on the cold, polished steel of the handle, shaking it in pointless rage. I yell at the obstacle and give it a swift kick for good measure. Then I start to formulate a fresh plan. How long would it take for me to find a sledgehammer or crowbar, and would they be enough to pry the door open?

As I pace and spit fury in equal measure, the little raccoon finally demonstrates something I’ve been wanting to understand since my very first week in Achewillow: how she, and her irritating family, keep getting inside my kitchen whenever the mood strikes them.

I knew the Achewillow raccoons to be smart and resourceful. The Don, their fat leader, has often exhibited communication skills far more advanced and rude than his kind should possess. What I didn’t expect was just how smart and clever these little burglars could be.

Sharp claws and nimble fingers act as natural lockpicks, and what appears to be a futile attempt to chew off the handle soon results in a soft click and the slow opening of the door.

Had I witnessed such a display on the doors of the Achewillow, I would have gone into a rage of broom-waving proportions. Considering the situation, I instead sweep the raccoon from the handle where she still hangs and twirl her into a hug.

Let me be clear. I do not recommend picking up a raccoon or other wild animal by surprise. Especially not ones with sharp claws and pointy teeth. There are scars on my arms from where the Don bit and clawed at me in the past. Crushing this little raccoon to my face in a tight embrace could have easily cost me an eye.

Thankfully, the raccoon claims no such toll, though the runt does push away from my sudden burst of celebratory affection.

“Right, right,” I say, putting her down on the floor. “There’s still work to do.”

I may have mentioned before that kitchens, no matter what kind or where, have no secrets from me. If it’s got a stove, an oven, and a counter on which to chop things and knead dough, I’ll figure it out and have control over it in no time.

Food preparation areas, especially the commercial kind, have a built-in logic to them, but this goes beyond ergonomic common sense. Running a kitchen is pretty much my birthright.

Switches are flipped to turn on the lights, and the prepackaged monstrosities they call meals are pulled out of the freezer. Oil is set to heat, and the sorry excuse for a grill is fired up.

The raccoon, a creature I would otherwise have never tolerated in my kitchen, busies herself ripping open packages of sausages and bags of bread. I expect she wanted the questionable food inside, but she doesn’t bother with any of it, scampering from one thing to another until all the ingredients are open.

When the first batch of sausages hit the hot plate, sizzling with a greasy hiss, we both noticed the change. Her black ears perk toward the rink, and her beady eyes stare at the counter of the snack bar. There, a mesh metal curtain still separates us from potential customers.

“They’re coming,” I whisper.

All sounds of skating and carnage have stopped, leaving behind only the occasional whimper or moan of pain. Even that is soon drowned out by the hard stomping of ghostly metal blades on concrete stairs and floors.

The raccoon unlocks and pulls open the mesh while I gather up condiments and start setting out paper plate after paper plate of hot dogs, pizza slices, and as soon as the oil permits, flavorless, machine-cut fries.

There’s no point in trying to take orders, and I’m certainly not worrying about allergies or other intolerances. I just throw as much food as I can on the counter and hope for the best.

Soon—too soon for my comfort—the sounds get so close that I know I should be seeing the apparitions, but as they did on the ice, the ghosts of the dead hockey players only allow themselves to be seen after they’d been heard.

Glowing, greenish-blue forms materialize, coalescing from absent smoke into a throng of visions from beyond the grave. They seem normal at first, if lacking in a bit of opacity, but as they pull off their helmets and gloves, I’m shown a much more vivid portrait of the victims of Anthony Gillard’s neglect.

Flesh burnt to the bone with nothing but empty sockets for eyes speaks of agonizing deaths. Fingers with missing skin and swollen joints grab at paper plates, slathering hot dogs with mustard, drowning fries in ketchup, or stuffing slices of pizza down deformed mouths with missing teeth and cracked lips.

Soon, the players are joined by the other unfortunates who’d perished in the tragedy. Coaches, family members, and friends who’d come to see their loved ones play. All are ravenous, as if carrying with them a hunger from the day they died.

The ordeal lasts almost an hour, and I ponder for a moment if I’ll be preparing terrible food for the damned until I too die here. My own personal version of hell.

After too long, the apparitions start to vanish. As if sated with sodium, nitrates, and empty carbohydrates, each dissipates, blown into nothingness by an impossible wind.

Midnight has come and gone by the time I get back to the Achewillow Café. By then, the little runt of a raccoon is content to let me carry her, and I’m too exhausted to care if she scratches at my skin. Besides, we’ve gone through a unique bonding experience. It’s one thing to form the ties of camaraderie in the trenches of a busy kitchen, but one assailed by the starving dead?

“Here,” I say, sitting on a stool across the counter and reaching into the bakery display. “You deserve it.”

I hand my new friend a brioche, which seems to be her favorite. I expect her to sit on the counter and devour the treat, satisfied that she’s worked for the privilege. Instead, she puts it in her mouth and runs to the back door.

“You can’t be serious,” I mutter.

But she is. Even when handed a pastry, her first thought isn’t to eat it herself, but rather to bring it to her ungrateful brethren. From past experience, I suspect they’ll take the brioche and share it among themselves, leaving precious little for the runt.

“Wait,” I tell her as she claws at the door, pastry in her jaw.

By the time I open the door for her, I have a bag filled with all the leftovers from the pastry display.

“Merry Christmas, jerks.”

I push up the top of the garbage bin and shower the assembled nursery of raccoons with my baked goods, hoping this will be enough that they allow my little friend to finally enjoy her brioche.

“Merry Christmas,” I repeat to myself once back inside, alone in my café.

It isn’t all bad. Lonely, maybe, but I’ve done better than the half dozen people sent to the hospital tonight. Certainly better than Doctor Ilias Payne, who’s broken more than his fair share of bones.

An ephemeral pang of sympathy swells my heart. He was careless, but he didn’t deserve this kind of suffering. All he wanted was to throw a party and have his daughter with him one last time for Christmas.

“Miriam?”

My name comes on the tail of door chimes ringing, spoken in the voice of Helen Edna, notary public.

When I raise my head to acknowledge her, I’m shocked to see that she’s not alone. Far from it. Cold wind, snow, and over two dozen people flood inside the Achewillow. Some carry plates, dishes, and serving trays, while others have crutches and bandaged limbs.

It takes a moment, but I soon recognize the smell. The unmistakable, intimate, and unique aroma of my own cooking. Though cold by this point, the odor is like a fingerprint or seeing my own face in the mirror.

They brought my feast back. Or at least what they could salvage.

Already, people are serving what can be eaten cold to each other; meanwhile, others are asking to use the kitchen to warm up the rest.

No one is going to set foot in my kitchen, but I’m glad to heat the stroganoff and put a few things in the oven so they’ll be palatable again.

Making food for others brings a smile to my face under any circumstance. Well, almost any circumstances, but as I busy myself resurrecting my aborted feast, I can feel the width of the counter that separates me from the guests. Every inch of it feels like a mile, watching from a distance as they talk and eat and celebrate together. I wonder if Doris ever felt like this, part of the community but not quite a member of it.

A fresh cup of hot coffee warms my hands just as a cool breeze intrudes on my pity party. I don’t make much of it. With all the comings and goings of the refugees from Ilias Payne’s Solstice Celebration, it’s just one more thing in the chaos of an ongoing social event.

Then, a cold, clawed paw scratches gently at my arm.

Sitting on the counter, brioche between her teeth, my little friend looks at me for a moment, a glint of blue light behind her black, liquid eyes.

“You too, eh?” I ask, expecting no answer.

She leans her furry head on my arm and calmly, finally, nibbles on her prized treat.

We watch the festivities with detached amusement. She eats baked goods, and I scratch her behind the ears until the very last guest walks out the door. Then we sit together in silence for another hour, comrades in arms who’d survived two parties and a haunting together.

Just as I start dozing off, she stands, giving me one final look before scampering to the back door to be let out. A gust of freezing air rushes in as I crack the door open. My little friend shivers as her fur bristles in the cold wind.

Going back behind the counter, I grab the bottle of cider Olivia gave me. It’ll never make it to Montreal, but that doesn’t matter. More likely I’ll use it to make donuts or something.

I take off the fleece ribbon and, bending to one knee, tie it around the raccoon’s neck. I don’t think it’ll do much to keep her warm, and I assume she’ll tear it off the moment she gets a chance, but as she hops out into the snow, she looks like an adorable cartoon animal.

I let her go, knowing she’ll return behind my back to steal more food for her weird little garbage family. We’ll see each other again, but it won’t be as irritated neighbors.

“Good night, Brioche,” I say, trying the name for the first time.

She stops, turns around, and, after giving me a curious look, waves back before disappearing between the garbage bins.

Recipes

ORANGE POPPY SEED HONEY Cake

Ingredients

1 ¼ cup (150g) all-purpose flour

1/2 cup (1 stick, 115g) unsalted butter, melted

¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp orange zest

Juice of one orange

1 Tbsp poppy seeds

1 ½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Line a 9-inch round cake pan with baking parchment and grease well with butter.

Combine flour, salt, and baking powder. Sift.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until just combined.

Add orange juice, zest, and honey. Whisk thoroughly, but don’t overmix as the eggs can break down.

Fold in the flour in three batches. Stir in poppy seeds.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35–37 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Coffee Cake Muffins

Ingredients

Crumb Topping

¾ cup (150g) light or dark brown sugar

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup (1 stick, 115g) unsalted butter, melted

1 ½ cups (188g) all-purpose flour

Muffins

1 ¾ cups (210g) all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp salt

½ cup (115g) unsalted butter, softened

¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

¾ cup (180g) full-fat sour cream, at room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 Tbsp milk (any kind)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C. Line two muffin tins with a total of 15 cupcake liners.

Crumb Topping

Mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter together in a small bowl until combined. Add the flour and use a fork to gently mix until crumbs form. Don’t overmix. Place the crumb topping mixture in the refrigerator while you make the muffin batter.

Muffins

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and granulated sugar together on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and beat on medium speed until incorporated. Add the sour cream and vanilla, and beat until the mixture is combined and mostly creamy.

With the mixer running on low speed, add the dry ingredients, followed by the milk.

Spoon the batter into each of the 15 prepared muffin cups, filling them about 2/3 full. Spoon the crumb topping on each, gently pressing down so it adheres to the batter.

Bake for 22–24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the muffin pan(s), then transfer to a cooling rack to continue cooling.

Butter Pecan Sandies

Ingredients

1 cup (227g) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 cup (125g) chopped pecans

¾ cup (55g) powdered sugar

¼ cup (50g) packed brown sugar

4 Tbsp half-and-half or cream

2 tsp vanilla

½ tsp salt

2 cups (240g) all-purpose flour

⅓ cup (75g) sanding sugar

36 pecan halves

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Pecan Brown Butter

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, stirring constantly. Continue to cook the butter over medium heat, simmering, stirring often. As soon as the butter starts to turn brown, add chopped pecans. Continue cooking the butter with chopped pecans, stirring constantly, for no more than 1 minute on low heat. Make sure to watch closely as to not to burn the chopped pecans.

Remove from heat and immediately pour butter-pecan mixture into a separate, cool heatproof bowl. Cool for about 20–30 minutes.

Butter Pecan Sandies

Add powdered sugar, brown sugar, 3 Tbsp half-and-half, vanilla, and salt into the cooled butter-pecan mixture and stir until sugars are smoothly incorporated.

Mix in the flour until dough forms. If mixture is too crumbly and doesn’t hold together, add small amounts of additional half-and-half, and continue to work the mixture.

Divide dough into 4 equal portions. Divide each portion of dough into 9 equal balls. Roll each ball in coarse sanding sugar. Space balls evenly on parchment-lined baking sheets; press a pecan half firmly into each ball.

Bake one baking sheet at a time for 11–13 minutes until cookies start to brown. Let cool 10 minutes until cookies firm slightly. Gently transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Miriam’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

2 ½ cups (300g) all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks, 227g) butter, softened

¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar

¾ cup (160g) packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 to 1 ½ cup (170g–250g) dark chocolate chips

¾ cup (85g) chopped walnuts, optional

Instructions

If adding walnuts, toast lightly in a dry pan until fragrant. Allow to cool completely.

Preheat oven to 375°F/190°C.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in a large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Chill the dough for a minimum of 15 minutes. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes; transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Pistachio-Marzipan PetitS Fours

Ingredients

Pistachio Cake

1 1/4 cup shelled pistachios, plus more for decoration

6 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup (200g) granulated sugar

1 . tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2. tsp ground cardamom

1 cup (120g) all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

Marzipan

8 ounces (225g) almond paste

1 ½ cups (170g) confectioners’ sugar

¼ cup (80g) light corn syrup

Dark Chocolate Ganache Glaze

1 cup (238g) heavy cream

2 Tbsp (28g) butter

1 cup (170g) dark chocolate chips

2 Tbsp brewed coffee

Pinch kosher salt

½ cup (170g) apricot preserves

Instructions

Pistachio Cake

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Spray the sides of a large, 13×18-inch jelly roll pan with baking spray, then line the bottom with parchment paper.

Place the shelled pistachios into a food processor, pulse the nuts until they are coarsely ground. Set aside.

Place the eggs, sugar, and vanilla into a stand mixer bowl and whisk on high speed for 7–9 minutes, until the eggs are thick, fluffy, and voluminous. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cardamom, and baking powder.

Sift the flour into the whisked eggs in 3 batches, folding gently but thoroughly after each addition. Measure out 1 cup of the ground pistachios and fold in gently.

Spread the cake batter into the prepared sheet pan, leveling the batter gently with an offset spatula.

Bake for 18–21 minutes, until the top is lightly browned and the cake is set. Allow to cool.

Marzipan

Crumble the almond paste into a large mixing bowl. Use an electric mixer on low speed to soften the almond paste. Add the confectioners’ sugar and corn syrup and beat until smooth. Wrap well in plastic so it doesn’t dry out, and allow to rest at room temperature for 1–2 hours before rolling out.

Dark Chocolate Ganache Glaze

Put dark chocolate chips and butter into a heatproof bowl. Bring the cream to a bare simmer. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let stand for 5 minutes. Add coffee and salt. Whisk until smooth and use immediately.

Assembly

Roll out the marzipan into a thin sheet the same size as the cake. Place the cake onto a cutting board. Spread the apricot jam on top of the cake, then place the sheet of marzipan on top.

Cut the marzipan cake sheet in half to make two smaller rectangles. On one half, spread a generous layer of the dark chocolate ganache glaze.

Layer the unglazed cake half on top of the ganache. Cut into bite-sized squares. (Note: you can skip this step and serve as a cake instead of petits fours)

Place the petits fours on a wire cooling rack over a baking pan. Pour the remaining ganache glaze over them, spreading to coat the top and sides. Allow the ganache to set. Garnish each with a single whole pistachio.

Acknowledgments

There’s a lot of ingredients required to bake a story like Achewillow. So, I apologize to anyone not mentioned here. If you’ve touched Achewillow in any way, from humble listener to cheerleader and patron, know that your contribution is appreciated. But here are the standouts.

First I need to thank my father. My dad’s usually more a man of action, gladly signing a check to print posters for an ill-fated comic book venture in my teens, or slaving away to build the technical elements of some of my most ambitious painting projects. That he breaks from character to voice, repeatedly, his admiration for the story of Achewillow has more of an impact than I think he realizes.

My mom doesn’t even listen to Achewillow, and I doubt she’ll read the novel. However, if you ever wonder where Miriam gets her gift for culinary figures of speech, Mom’s the source. After I got hit by a car in my early twenties (shattering, not breaking, both my legs), my mom stepped up and took care of me. She supported me while I learned to walk again, took me to doctor’s appointments, and all the while taught me to cook. My mom’s a quiet one who doesn’t always get the credit she deserves, but Achewillow wouldn’t be the same without her influence.

I can’t forget to give a special thanks to Daphnée for tolerating all my eccentricities during the creation and production of not only this book but every season of Achewillow.

Above all however, I have to thank Amy, my best friend of over a decade and a half. More than a narrator, Amy is part collaborator, part editor, and the ultimate sounding board for all things Achewillow. She’s more important to the story than butter is to croissants. Her reading fleshes out the character beyond the page, which echoes through each subsequent episode and season, and now book. Achewillow is the loudest incarnation of our shenanigans, but certainly not the last.

—J-F Dubeau

None of this would have been possible without my best friend, my partner in crime, and my favorite collaborator, J-F. I’m so glad you chose to bring me on this ride. Thank you for creating such a wonderful and weird place where we can spend time together.

I would also like to extend my most heartfelt thanks, a warm drink, and a pastry to all of the listeners of the Achewillow podcast. Thank you so much for loving this strange little town as much as J-F and I do.

—Amy Frost

Achewillow Citizens

Adam Gomolin

Alex Erickson

Alexia Estabrook

Alison M. Glass

Amber Elstad

Amy R. Robinson

Andrea Maupin (Smiles Sneaksalot)

Andrew Mayne

Angela W. Barnhart

Annaliese Martin

Beau Sisson

Bill Rudder

Brea Zagurny

Brian Guthrie

C. Christian Scott

Caitlin Carlton

Callie Mathis

Camie Chaos

Chiana Crawford

Chiara Rodriguez

Crystal Pope

Dan Ziniti

David Laroche

David Likens

Devrim Turak

Di Buja

Diogo M. Santos

Douglas T. Williams

Emily Johnstone

Eric Bernier

Erica Lengvarsky

Gerry L. Tolbert

Hannelore Le

Ingrid Veldcamp

Jacinthe Aussant

Jared W. Thorpe

Jen Pruitt

Jennifer Ferris

Jennifer Worth

Jessica Bobrowski

John Buja

John K. Howell

John Lengvarsky

Julia Meixner

Kacie Fitzhugh

Kammi D. Davis

Katherine Piscitelli

Kathleen Whittaker

Katie Bell

Kelly McSorley

Kelly Walters

Kristin Rua

Kristy Bell

Lawrence Link

Lesley Victorine

Lindasgove

Luhoo2007

Lydia M. O’Leary

Mario Dionne Raymond

Mark D. Earle

Mary-Catherine Mellon

Melanie Gallagher

Misty Benson

Odin Gilbertson

Phil Rood

Philippe Dubeau

Pierrette Guay

Rebecca Fessey

Robert Pratt

Robin Jensen

Samantha Jane

Sarah Soule

Shannon M. Tucker

Steven Michael Strader

Thomas Charron

Tieu Thuy Nguyen

Timothy Adams

Travis Crawford

Vickery Pentz

Also by J-F. Dubeau

The Saint-Ferdinand Chronicles

A God in the Shed

Song of the Sandman

(forthcoming third installment)

The Life Engineered

Inkshares

INKSHARES is a community, publisher, and producer for debut writers. Our books are selected not just by a group of editors, but also by readers worldwide. Our aim is to find and develop the most captivating and intelligent new voices in fiction. We have no genre—our genre is debut.

Previously unknown Inkshares authors have received starred reviews in every trade publication. They have been featured in every major review, including on the front page of the New York Times. Their books are on the front tables of booksellers worldwide, topping bestseller lists. They have been translated in major markets by the world’s biggest publishers. And they are being adapted at the biggest studios and networks.

Interested in making your own story a reality? Visit Inkshares.com to start your own project, connect with other writers, and find other great books.

Table of Contents

- GRAVESTONES TO MILESTONES
- THE ROAD TO ACHEWILLOW
- STEAMPUNK MONSTROSITY
- OPEN FOR BUSINESS . . . SORT OF
- MISTAKES WERE MADE
- THE COMFORT OF SACRED SPACES
- THE KILLER AT THE DOOR
- ENTER THE INQUISITION
- THE NAME OF THE DEAD
- SANCTUMS
- CAVALRY ON A DARK HORSE
- THE PENDULUM OF BROKEN CHOICES
- THE HUNGERING NIGHT
- THE NEXT RECIPE
- NOT WITHOUT BREAKING A FEW EGGS
- Bonus Story
- A MOST CANADIAN HAUNTING
- Recipes
- ORANGE POPPY SEED HONEY Cake
- Coffee Cake Muffins
- Butter Pecan Sandies
- Miriam’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Pistachio-Marzipan PetitS Fours
- Acknowledgments
- Achewillow Citizens
- Also by J-F. Dubeau
- Inkshares