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As a child you’re helping your grandparent bake. When you’re sent to the pantry to fetch an ingredient, you discover something odd.

Posted in Mystery on Oct 13, 2023

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✍️ 40 stories

The Damsel and Diztrez

Submitted to Contest #220

“Now, little Diz, I think we're set, but can you think of anything else your momma would like to sink her fangs into when she’s done giving birth?”Saying this, the elderly mouse spider, Gra’ma Occatoria, tip-tapped eight steps back on spindly legs, revealing the feast she’d laid out on a platform made of hundreds of layers of silk. In the banquet-hall, the lowermost chamber attached to the central shaft of the burrow, which was illuminated by fireflies and glowworms secured to the webbing on the walls, the young spiderling with the bright re...

50 likes 52 comments 52
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Cinnamon Cookie Cure All

Submitted to Contest #220

Cinnamon Cookie Cure All I remember Granny, my mom's mom, being about as round as she was tall. She was a fireball of energy carrying a big stick. Usually a yard stick she wasn't afraid to use on your backside if you didn't stick to the straight and narrow. She mostly aimed it at my younger brother, 'the Little Scheister'. He especially would get in trouble for hiding her yard stick. Granny lived with us on and off throughout my childhood. Most of the time she lived in our house where ever that was, in Texas when I was very young, or later...

44 likes 37 comments 37
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The Talk

Shortlisted for Contest #220 ⭐️

My parents’ anniversary was in the fall—the 13th of October. Every year, they left me at my grandmother’s house so that they could spend the weekend solely in one another’s company. I hated my grandmother’s house. It was creepy and it smelled of stale incense and mildew. Nothing made sense there. It was cluttered with bundles of wilted herbs in every corner. And she always made me help her with the baking. There were no videogames. This last time was no different. My parents hadn’t been gone for more than an hour when she had me help her m...

31 likes 23 comments 23
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Miserable Miss Hollydaye

Submitted to Contest #220

As we drive over the winding, bumpy road on the outskirts of a small village, named Linkon I think, I see my dad shift uncomfortably in the passenger seat as my mother carefully navigates the terrain. He looks over at her, and she meets his eyes for a moment, almost like they are having a telepathic talk. For a reason unknown to me, they look… worried? The rhythmic flashing of the varying shades of green through the window and the gentle rocking of the car over uneven ground draw my attention back outside. I stare lazily ...

25 likes 12 comments 12
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They call me naughty Nancy

Submitted to Contest #220

St Olaf’s Parish Church, St Agnes, Cornwall‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Alberta Joyce Nancy Ball, also known as ‘Nancy’ to her close friends.’Sound of gigglingHelen thought she heard a snigger coming from the back of the Church. Surely not?! As she was sat at the end of the front pew, she thought she could turn her head without being noticed. At the back of the Church, she saw four very dapper elderly gentlemen. They all wore a single brightly -coloured feather in their lapels. Why do the feathers look...

23 likes 4 comments 4
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Everyone Calls Me Granny

Submitted to Contest #220

I A hunter has become lost in the ancient forest on a cold autumn day. After wandering for hours, the sun has set, and the only light is the full moon streaming through leafless branches. He sees a faint glow shining in the distance and approaches it cautiously. Even from a distance of a few feet, he can smell the aroma of cinnamon and cloves. The bright moon emerges from behind a dark cloud to illuminate the ancient cottage before him. With narrowed eyes and short, quick breaths, a shiver runs up his spine, and he s...

22 likes 2 comments 2
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Baked into Memory

Submitted to Contest #220

“You ready to go to Grandma and Grandpa's today, sweetie?” “Yeah mommy!” ___________________________________________ Hannah has been going to Grandma and Grandpa’s at least twice a month every month she has been alive these last 5 years. The only exceptions were when Hannah got a pretty nasty stomach flu last year, and when Grandpa had major surgery a couple years ago and needed to recover in peace for a few weeks. These are her mom’s parents. Her dad’s parents are great too, but they live so many states away so she only sees them ma...

22 likes 13 comments 13
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Macie and the Goose

Submitted to Contest #220

Macie and the Goose Macie was five years old and, of course, very smart for her age. Just ask her mother. On Saturdays Macie was scheduled, her mother always scheduled her time, to visit Nana’s house where for a brief spell Macie was gloriously allowed to be messy, bake cookies or such, or do puzzles on the kitchen table. She even had her own apron, a pinafore style made of natural linen with a row of hand embroidered goslings circling the lower edge. Macie could remember when she was learning to count that the number of baby geese seemed to...

19 likes 0 comments 0
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Adelaide and the Historian

Submitted to Contest #220

The pantry is home to a troll named Belto. This is something that my Nana seems to forget when she asks me to retrieve the flour. She’s been forgetful lately. So I remind her. “Addie, please,” Nana says. “Can you just get me the flour?” She doesn’t understand how trolls work. You can’t just get the flour. Trolls barter. And Belto is the best barterer of them all, always demanding rare and hard-to-find trinkalets, as he calls them, in exchange for his wares. He once sent me on a dangerous quest to get the Remote of Time Control, and that wa...

19 likes 9 comments 9
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Walter

Submitted to Contest #220

It was his favorite part, twisting the knob, the small rush of air bordering on a whistle as the gas began to escape. Then the anticipation of the flame. The scrape of the matchstick against the box, and the fire crackling to life, a whoosh when the stovetop burner caught. It reminded him of the beginning of Mission: Impossible. Except this was better because it was real. And he knew what was coming. “When do I get to light it?” Walter asked, settling into the kitchen stool. “When you’re a little bit bigger,” his grandmother Midge ...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Curiosity Killed the Cat and Chantey

Submitted to Contest #220

No secret is safe from twelve-year-old Chantey. It doesn’t matter if it’s a rumor at school or a Christmas gift stashed in the basement, if you have anything to hide, she’ll find out. The girl is relentless. She’ll stop at nothing to get to the truth. Chantey was Columbo, Matlock, and Sherlock Holmes all wrapped up into one. It wasn’t until the summer of 83 that she learned a lesson in sticking her nose where doesn’t belong. Well, sort of.               The Tatum’s arrived at t...

17 likes 0 comments 0
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I was a small child then

Submitted to Contest #220

I was in the kitchen with my grandma Agnes. She was making muffins for breakfast. She said they were her special recipe, with blueberries and walnuts and a hint of lemon. She said they were good for the brain and the soul. She asked me to fetch the sugar from the pantry. I was a small child then, maybe six or seven years old. I liked helping her in the kitchen. She always made me feel important and loved. I went to the pantry and opened the door. I looked for the sugar on the shelf where it usually was. But instead of the sugar, there wa...

17 likes 1 comment 1
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Pulse

Submitted to Contest #220

“Can you be a dear and check the pantry?” It was a regular request, innocent and naive to what she was sending him too. The kitchen was small, square thing. It’s counter top curved along the bottom of a dusty window that faced the front yard, it’s dirty glass producing only a few wayward strands of sunlight that, nevertheless, lit up the room and the little swirls of dust floating freely in the air. Facing that window, you would have the oven on your right side and the kitchen pantry on the left side. The sink was right below the window its...

17 likes 1 comment 1
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What is God to an Open Wound?

Submitted to Contest #220

There are breathing lungs in the pantry. This is, of course, abnormal. Not that you would know. You are eight and a half. You are roughly four feet tall. You are in a house that lacks your favourite dog, in the kitchen she once slept in, in a pantry with snacks that can’t tempt her back out from under the bed, as you watch bloody tissue expand.  “You’ll find, little one,” Grandmother says, “that it’s perhaps easier to not think about it. God isn’t always kind.” Her arm is stretching over your shoulder and past the lungs, grabbing the ...

17 likes 0 comments 0
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The Secrets I Associate with Baking

Submitted to Contest #220

I remember the day that altered everything. It feels like it was only yesterday, but in truth, it was decades ago. The kitchen air filled with cinnamon scented steam. Nana and I were having a baking marathon, filling another empty Saturday afternoon with our favourite pastime.  “Darling, would you get me the brown sugar from the pantry?” Nana asked. I loved baking with her. It had always been predictably fun. It was when I felt my most carefree. Nana had a knack for baking, and she loved involving me in it. She never seemed to m...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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