Tricky Treat

Tamarak took the last vial off the distillation set and held the result to the light. Apart from a few tiniest sediment granules, it was perfect. Their alchemy wasn’t so much different to his chef’s duties after all. He poured the deflavoured, re-constituted, magicalised blood into the cupcake cream, stirred thoroughly and scooped a portion to decorate the bases. As a final touch he added a white chocolate skull on top of each one and sprinkled some edible gold. Let them have the worth for their money one last time.

A thud came on the window – a massive pumpkin, the size of a chest, was hovering outside. He let the levitating thing in, waited till it settled on an empty space between the tables and then lifted the cupcake tray to load the delivery. The Jack-o’-lantern’s eyes were simple triangle holes, and yet his hands trembled as Tamarak fitted the batch of cupcakes inside. Could the sorceresses see through them? Was there a special spell for it? After all, the pumpkin drone had to navigate somehow. They’ll think it’s just my set for molecular cooking, he resisted looking back at the distillation set. Everyone knows I dabble with it.

As the gigantic orange vegetable navigated out of his kitchens, Tamarak felt a pang of loneliness. That was the last store of Iraklidia’s blood he used for the cupcakes. He had nothing left of her anymore. The sorceresses had taken the rest. To think of it, he was lucky to procure even those two pints and a lot of it was lost in the first few experiments. Tamarak walked to the fridge and took out the bottle of champagne, the Dom Perignon he ordered for his one special customer. Well, if his plan worked – and he couldn’t think of the reason why it wouldn’t – he’d either be dead or start having a different sort of clientele (speciality – food assassinations, not bad for the CV). Either way, he wouldn’t have to bother with the champagne anymore.

Tamarak sat in the guest area, the restaurant would open later today, for the All-Saints’ Day. The cork slid into his palm after a moment of resistance, the bubbles foamed into the crystal glass. Tamarak closed his eyes. He didn’t need to be at the sorceresses’ celebration to see what would happen. He imagined the women in that old stronghold of theirs, high on the cliff, gathered in that chilly great hall Iraklidia always complained about – unless you magicked yourself warm, you were bound to freeze there. She was always chilled, his poor thing. In his mind’s eye, Tamarak saw the sorceresses going through his spider salad, the thinnest web filaments imbued with Iraklidia’s essence, then to the main course of pork roast, its apple glaze treacherous as poisonous frog skin, the small side dishes containing his beloved’s blood, if only a droplet in the vinaigrette, the oil they were topped with. The breads rose on his distillation. The desserts were sweeter because of it. The usually restrained sorceresses would gorge themselves on his food, craving more and more but the next morning… Tamarak smiled as he thought of all the brews they would try to make, the spells they would experiment with to get rid of the terrible necessity to purge themselves after every meal.

At least they would know – how Iraklidia felt when time and again she emptied herself of everything he cooked for her. He wished he could make them feel what he did – seeing her sitting opposite him, smiling with her lips only while fear swelled in her eyes with every bite and morsel. She knew he was going into extremes to cook for her. The molecular food – that wasn’t because his customers were any bit interested, but because he hoped that if the portions were tiny enough, she might hold them inside. Yet while he was cleaning the kitchens, she rushed to the toilets and then drank up her brews on the way home, just in case something stayed inside her.

Tamarak wished he knew who of those sorceresses told Iraklidia that you channelled better when your stomach was empty, when all your energy was focused on the magic and not some bodily functions. He wondered why none of them noticed, warned Iraklidia, stopped her, when there was a hollow under her ribs, when her spine was bruised from all the sit-ups she did to stay in shape and be light enough to perform the craziest of asanas for channelling, when her fingers turned skeletal. They could warn each other from now on, not that it would help them. The book he used to make the distillation and infuse it with his hatred said that this kind of magic, raw and untrue as it was, was impossible to erase. Well, soon there will be no magic. No other girl would suffer from this compulsion to destroy her body for the sake of channelling, of being a proper sorceress. Their ideals would die forever. He thought of the final of his creations, sent just before the cupcakes – a child-size statue-cake of a hunched skeleton covered with the thinnest of filo pastries instead of skin. Tamarak wondered if they would recognise Iraklidia’s face in the thin marzipan mask he overlaid the skull with. Perhaps, when they were all dead, he could go and dig out her bones and bury them outside that cursed grounds. Maybe, then her ghost would be able to visit him.