It Started With Cookies

When it started for me, I didn’t even know the Fair Folk were real, and certainly didn’t know anything about Magic. The first plate full of cookies was just there when I got home from work at Twilight Treasures, the bookstore I manage. I could smell them from the front hall because they were still warm. I didn’t make them … and I hadn’t even met my neighbours yet. 

I’d just moved into my new apartment three days before. I’d been living in what the ad for it called a ‘studio apartment’ (Ha-ha! It was more of a largish walk-in closet) over a dry-cleaner’s, but it was all I could afford at the time, and I didn’t want to move back in with my parents.

Now I had a big, three-bedroom, two full bath apartment in a huge old converted Victorian mansion at the end of Cherry Blossom Lane. I had my own private entrance and a parking spot in the garage at the back of the property. I still live there now, along with Fiona (my girlfriend) and her cat.

The gardens are spectacular, centred on a little ring of rough stones in a patch of white gravel with a circle of big old oak trees around it. I thought it was simply a feature of the garden and had no idea it was a for-real Faerie Ring when I moved in.

The flower beds, hedges and lawn are always perfectly tended. There’s never a blade of grass or leaf out of place and no weeds in sight, even though I’ve never seen anybody working on them. The neighbours must be really private people, because the only person I’ve met in the house so far, for even a little while, is the old caretaker in the basement apartment.

It was my girlfriend who told me about the place. I’d never seen an ad for it and I’d been looking. The apartment takes up the whole second floor and it came with a ten-year lease for an unbelievably low rent —fully furnished and move-in ready, right down to dishes, pots and pans. 

The first few months around the time I got the apartment were a strange experience. It was almost as if something or someone was giving me free stuff all the time. 

Early in the autumn of 2032 — September 21st, in fact — the owner of Twilight Treasures tapped me on the shoulder while I was browsing the Fantasy section for new titles and asked if I’d like a job managing the place. I didn’t have to apply at all. He just hired me on the spot. I couldn’t say no — the salary and hours he was offering were great and my job at the hardware store wasn’t covering my bills.

Then the offer to publish my book arrived. Having my first book published (and even getting paid a huge advance!) was beyond beyond for me. I’d graduated from university with my Honours BFA in Creative Writing less than a year earlier and I was already published! Most of my friends from high school and university had bland, boring, entry-level office jobs, and my parents just never understood why I was studying Creative Writing in the first place. Only Fiona, my girlfriend, really understands what I do.

I’d met Fiona quite by chance a couple of months earlier. She was browsing the occult section of the bookstore and looking amused by the titles and back-copy (she was actually laughing aloud at some of the ones on witchcraft). When I asked her what was so funny, we struck up a conversation and I found out she knew a lot — I mean a lot — about the old myths and legends, especially the ones from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We met for coffee after work and my gawd but her store of knowledge and her attitude towards those old stories meshed so well with what I consider my actual job.

I’m a writer like her, you see — well, author now that I’ve been published, I suppose. I write fantasy novels and short stories. You know — Magic, Faeries, Elves, Witches (good and bad). That kind of stuff.

The funny thing was, I’d checked my files when I got the publishing offer, and I didn’t think I’d ever submitted the manuscript to that particular publisher. I’d never even contacted an agent ... still haven’t. I put it down to being just a misfile on my part. 

I’d never heard of ‘Through the Mists Publishing LLC’ either. The letter of acceptance and offer of advance just showed up in my email … followed by a registered letter addressed to me at the bookstore. I only keep my job managing Twilight Treasures because it’s usually quiet enough I can work on my stories. That and I love real paper books. I don’t really need the salary anymore.

After checking the apartment for intruders (the cookies had to have come from somewhere), I just shrugged and accepted them as part of my continued good fortune. They were my favourite kind, after all. Almost cookie chip chocolates instead of the other way ‘round if you know what I mean. I had four of them with a big glass of milk before I went to bed that night.

Things got just a little weirder the next morning. I woke up to the scent of frying bacon and baking blueberry muffins, as well as the siren aroma of really spectacular coffee. There were soft little noises coming from the apartment’s kitchen too, but they stopped as soon as I made my ‘morning wakeup sounds’.

Nobody was there when I looked into the kitchen — and there was nobody else in the place. The door to the apartment was locked, and the windows were all closed tight. Even weirder, when I got back to the kitchen after my half-awake ‘patrol’ of the place, the room was clean, the table was set for me and a mug of the coffee awaited my eager attention.

I’ve never been able to pass up on good coffee, and my first life-giving gulp tasted as good as it smelled. The still-warm muffins were perfect too — golden brown and fluffy, packed with blueberries, just how I like them. After I’d eaten two with the butter that was right there on the table (and finished three cups of coffee), I just decided to go with my ‘good fortune’. I left the dishes in the sink because I was due in the bookstore that morning and I didn’t want to be late so soon after I’d been hired.

After a week, I finally realized something truly odd was going on. Even somebody as unobservant as me (Yeah, I’ll admit it. I live in my head a lot … Mom always called me a dreamer) notices when good things just show up with no effort on my part.

After the first time, a plate of cookies, always still warm, has been in the middle of the kitchen table when I get home from work. My bed is always made with fresh crisp sheets, too. The apartment is always sparkling clean; I haven’t had to wash a dish since the first plateful showed up. Delicious meals are just there whenever I’m ready to eat. It’s a good thing I won that lifetime gym membership (that I don’t remember entering the contest for) or I’d weigh 300 pounds by now.

When I tried to talk to Fiona about it the week before she moved in with me, she just gave me a mysterious smile and said, “Why fight it, Buille Croí? It’s always wiser to accept the gifts we’re given without too many questions.” 

She turned serious then. “Take my advice, though. Start putting out a saucer of milk … perhaps heavy cream would be better, on the table every night. I think it should come from your hands … the lease is in your name, after all. I know it sounds silly, but maybe you’ll want things to keep on like this, and whoever’s … helping you might want something in thanks.”

Fiona’s a wonder, and I don’t know what I’d do without her! She got a job as a cashier at Twilight Treasures and moved in with me a week after we met and the first batch of cookies showed up. Now it’s like she’s always been with me.

She didn’t bring anything with her the Saturday morning she moved in but Grimalkin, her cat, a big antique framed mirror she keeps on her vanity and a couple of antique silver candlesticks (she likes candlelight a lot). I don’t know how her clothes got in the closet; she didn’t even have a suitcase with her the day she moved in, but there they were the next morning.

I know Fiona’s a little strange. I love her; I have to say that, but she is … different from most people. She’s beautiful … sexier than anyone I’ve ever met, but strange. She seems to know things other people don’t, about things most people don’t even think about (or things you wouldn’t think she’d know).

My Mom and Dad like her a lot. Fiona made Mom her friend by talking knowledgeably about recipes and the restaurant business. Mom owns a restaurant, you see. Two of Fiona’s recipes are on the menu at Viv’s Place now.

She won my Dad — he’s a mechanic — over by agreeing with his opinions on the difference between belt, chain and shaft drives on motorcycles, of all things.

My older sister’s never been sure. Deirdre actually called her ‘otherworldly’ after meeting her. She said, “It’s almost like Fiona’s not really there, even when you know perfectly well she is. She seems to just … disappear if you’re not looking directly at her, even when she’s in the same room.”

Fiona’s almost as tall as me, and slim, with long, straight black hair like silk and big green eyes. She talks with a whisper of an accent … Irish, I think, though she’s never said that’s where she’s from. She never talks about her family, either. I think there might be something uncomfortable there she doesn’t like to think about, but I don’t really know.

There’s always a flower somewhere on her, usually in her hair, and she always wears something green. She moves as quietly and gracefully as Grimalkin. I’ll think she’s in her study or the kitchen, and she’ll be standing right behind me, reading what’s on my screen and making suggestions.

Her suggestions are always spot on, too. Damned if I haven’t written a series because of them. It was Fiona who said I should write the second book — and suggested how to tie it to the first one. The first book hit the bestseller lists a week after it was published, the second did even better and the other six in the series have all been on the lists.

It was tragic what happened to that reviewer from the local newspaper who said the first book was ‘tropish and predictable’. Apparently, some kind of animal attacked him in the park … nobody knows what kind but apparently it had claws. His replacement gave my second book a glowing review.

Somebody from a production company in Hollywood I’ve never heard of called ‘Place of Light Entertainment’ wants to make movies out of my stories now. I got the offer — I can’t remember when I’ve ever seen that many zeroes behind a dollar sign — last Monday. Of course I’m going to accept it. I’m not that much of a dreamer. I’m only halfway done writing the seventh book in the series, but my ideas and Fiona’s suggestions are making the words flow out of me like water.

I’m going to be a wealthy man at this rate. I’m already famous.

While we were curled together on the couch after dinner last night, I told Fiona I thought maybe it might be time to get married and find a house out of the city. She just laughed, gave me a kiss and said, “And why would we do that, Buille mo Chroí? I love you as things are. We don’t need all the paperwork. This house and the apartment suit the both of us just fine, too. It’s home now, and I don’t want to leave. Grimalkin likes it here too and, after all, he is my Fam- … well, never mind all that. It just wouldn’t be a good idea to uproot him … or me, for that matter.” She gave me a smoky look, another even longer kiss, and purred in my ear, “Now come to bed, my darlin’ … I’ve just had an idea or two you might like. I know I do.”