Cake for the Spectre

“The chocolate cake is sold out,” says Daniel to the middle-aged woman in front of him, gesturing aggressively with his hands to the kitchen behind him, “And we are not making any more, so please leave.”

Diana sighs in exasperation. Daniel’s attitude towards their customers has worsened recently. This was most likely related to the increased demand for her chocolate cake, resulting in belligerent customers making absurd demands and throwing rude accusations at her staff. If one more customer says anything about the chef making an extra cake specially for them, Daniel was going to snap and Diana would not be able to blame him. In all her years since opening the ‘Rose Cottage,’ there had never been a higher demand for any other item on the menu.

“Maybe we can take everything else off the menu and just make chocolate cake,” says Sophy with a wide grin. Daniel rolls his eyes so forcefully in her direction that Diana worries they will permanently face the back of his head. Sophy’s optimistic and snarky outlook is not everyone’s cup of tea.

“Or maybe Diana can share the recipe and have someone else help in the kitchen,” says Daniel, throwing her a significant look. Diana deliberately ignores this not so subtle hint, choosing to smile at Sophy’s quip instead.

‘Rose cottage’ is a café where Diana shares confections from her grandmother’s precious recipe book with the rest of the world. In this case, the rest of the world was the small town of Gatake, and the recipes were more often than not altered by Diana through vigorous trial and error. Secret family recipe notwithstanding, Diana jealously guards the things she enjoys or is good at, be it anything from an excellent book she has read to her exceptional chocolate cake recipe. She wants them to be her little secrets, she enjoys without the rest of the world.

“I don’t think just chocolate cake is an option,” says Diana calmly, “We wouldn’t be much of a café then.”

Dusting flour off her dark green skirt, Diana wrinkles her nose in consternation, thinking of how she could increase the amount of chocolate cake she bakes in a day without compromising on the other confections they offer. It is an insult to her pride as a baker that only one item she makes is selling so well. She wants her café to be famous, not just the chocolate cake.

“For now let’s close up and head home,” she sighs. She’s been doing a lot of sighing lately. Wiping down tables, counters and windows, cleaning the floors, putting away the chairs and clearing up the displays took some time. Diana ushers Daniel and Sophy out saying the she will lock up, but all three of them already know that she’s going to spend another thirty minutes scrubbing everything again.

The sun is already disappearing at the horizon when Diana finally locks up, painting the sky in warm hues of orange and red, tinged with a deep purple. Surrounding the picturesque town of thatched roofs and crawling vines, is a sea of grass in every shade of green rippling with the slightest of breezes, as though some unseen creatures run among the blades.

When she first moved to Gatake, Diana used to traverse the elegant stone streets, picturing herself as a part of some fairy tale. Now, as her brown boots clack against the path she just feels tired. There was no fairy tale, and small towns were far more terrifying than she thought possible.

No ghost, nor monster was as terrifying as a town of people who knew all of each others names and secrets. As a new comer trying to make a name for herself and open a café, Diana had struggled, possibly more than she would have at the Capital. Even now, after she had finally become popular, and familiar enough not to be ostracized, she still had at least ten different Marys and Janets walking in and preaching about her obligations to share her recipes as if they were not the source of her livelihood.

Diana continues her long walk to her house, situated at the very border of the town, which though small, is still a tiring walk for a woman whose knee joints are grinding with every step. At the young age of twenty three, aching joints and a sore back were hardly the complaints Diana expected to have, but this was the hazard of standing in a kitchen all day hunched over pots and pans. One of the advantages of this walk is the cool air blowing though her air and filling her flour dusted lungs. 

An annoyingly loud rooster crows over the town, as Diana unlocks the varnished door to her café. The bells tinkle loudly in the empty dining room. The early morning grey sky poorly illuminates the stacked up chairs and tables. Diana winds her way past them to the kitchen. The wooden counters, large ovens and ceramic jars provide Diana with a safe haven to bake to her hearts content.

Diana decides to start with her popular chocolate cake. She lovingly mixes the ingredients together, measuring precisely everything from the flour and sugar, to the pinch of salt. Finally, after glancing around the room furtively, she procures from her pocket a small tin with pastel pink past, of which she mixes two teaspoons into the batter. The batter is poured into large baking tins and put into the industrial ovens.

As the scent of chocolate baking in the oven fills the kitchen, Diana mixes some frosting primarily consisting of fresh cream, powdered sugar and chocolate, to which she adds a mysterious syrup.

The cakes are allowed to cool down on wooden stands, while Diana gets started on the rest of her confections. After a few hours of rushing around the kitchen mixing this and pouring that, Diana hears the tinkling of the front door. In come Daniel and Sophy, arguing amongst themselves.

“Morning Cap’n,” says Sophy thickly, her voice still heavy with sleep. Daniel nods stoically at her, already tying a pale blue apron over his white button up. Sophy, drops her stuff at the entry way, earning her a glare from Daniel (which she easily ignores), and stumbles on to the back of the kitchen to grab a cup and some of the coffee Diana has set out for her.

Before Sophy could even put her lips to the cup, a loud tinkling sounds from the front of the shop, eliciting unanimous groans from all three. Today would be another busy day for all of them.

After a long day of arguing about the chocolate cake and lack thereof with multiple customers, Diana finally starts home. She is out of ingredients for the chocolate cake, so she stops at the general store on her way home and picks up some delicately wrapped bars of chocolate, tins of freshly churned cream and chocolate powder. That left the final ingredient.

Diana makes her way past her house, to the very edge of the town. There, she finds the one place that makes putting up with Gatake tolerable.

Outside the border of the town, further away than Diana’s house is a large manor. Surrounded by a patch of trees is a towering wall, allowing entry only through a formidable wrought iron black gate with lions head sculptures on each side. Although heavily padlocked, the gates were scalable even with Diana’s level of athleticism. Despite her aching knees, she scrambles over and slowly slides down to the ground on the other side, with nothing worse than a couple of scrapes on her palms and a small tear in her ivory blouse, which she was certain she could fix.

Contained within those walls and gate is what Diana can only describe as paradise. With an unkempt garden, chock full of lumbering trees, wild flowers nestle in over grown blades of grass and all kinds of bright coloured funghi grow on rotting logs lying on their sides.

Diana makes her way along the path single mindedly, the wind blows through her hair with the scent of dirt and flowers. At the centre of this chaos lies the one inexplicably tidy spot. A trimmed patch of grass, with two beautifully carved stone grave markers and a delicate glass table, stand out amidst the veritable jungle surrounding them. In the distance, the mansion looms, its stone walls and dusty windows seem to glower at Diana. Undeterred, Diana continues past the graves, almost carelessly. She has never learnt the names of those that lie beneath the markers.

However, she does spot a tea pot with two cups of tea on the glass table, one untouched and still hot. She leans over and takes a sip. Today was chamomile, wonderfully brewed as always. Behind the tea table lies the one thing that stands out even more than it. A beautiful clump of rose bushes.

Neatly trimmed with vibrant red roses swirling against the emerald green leaves. Delicate drops of dew glisten like rubies on the rose. Sitting in the unruly garden, the rose bushes are somehow the most ethereal part of the setting. Diana slowly approaches the roses, almost afraid they may disappear. Then, as she’s done multiple times before, she kneels down and gently plucks some roses from the bushes, careful not to prick her finger on their thorns.

Diana places the beautiful flowers in a lavender coloured pouch from her skirt pocket. She replaces the pouch and smiles triumphantly. She has once again successfully acquired the last ingredient for her chocolate cake. 

Trespassing on the foreboding property, which no one else seemed to go near, was willful rebellion on Diana’s part, taking the roses had been a whim and using them in her cake had bee spur of the moment, but once she tasted the cake, her undoubtedly illegal activities, became routine. She had tried using other roses, but nothing provided that extra flavour that the stolen roses did. They gave the cake a subtle floral undertone and scent, without being blatantly rose flavoured. The rose somehow blended in perfectly while still standing out enough to give the cake a unique flavour.

Diana was contemplating how long she would need before her next robbery, when she hears a particularly loud patron say something about Pembrooke manor.

“That old pig sty at the borders, Pembrooke was it?” drawls a pudgy looking woman wearing a tacky pink dress, “Well it’s finally being sold. Maybe it’ll get some decent owners at last.”

“Doesn’t it already have an owner?” blurts out Diana, desperation clouding her judgement. Speaking to a woman who drinks her tea from the saucer, and not the cup was at the bottom of the list of things she wants to do today.

“My, my, you really know nothing about this town,” replies the gaudy busybody, “Pembrooke’s been unoccupied since the previous occupants died ten years ago. Some frivolous young lady and her money hungry husband.”

The lady was going on about their lifestyle and spending, but Diana could not care less. If no one had lived there in ten years whose tea had she been drinking? The rest of the day went by in a blur, and Diana finds herself locking up the café. She trudges along the road in shock. Before she realises what she’s doing, Diana finds herself before familiar black gates with a pretty pink and white striped box in her hand.

Following her usual routine, Diana makes her way to the graves. This time she reads the grave markers.

“Here lies Marissa Pembrooke, loving wife,” she mumbles turning to the next grave, “Here lies Leo Pembrooke, loving husband.”

“Marissa and Leo, husband and wife. Were you all each other had? Thank you for the roses and tea. I hear someone else is moving into your home. What will happen to you now,” she askes the grave, half expecting an answer.

“Here,” she says softly, “I figured since it was thanks to you that I got this recipe, you should get to try some.”

Diana places the striped box on the tea table and takes a sip of the tea. Today’s tea is brewed from rose petals. She calmly absorbs her surroundings for what will probably be her last trip to Pembrooke, then quietly sets down her tea cup and leaves.

Once she’s outside the gates, Diana feels something heavy in her pocket. She reaches in and pulls out a brown package tied with red string with red roses painted on. Inside are seeds. Distant feminine laughter echoes around the trees.

“I guess they liked the cake.”