by Z.N. Singer
“Well...I suppose I've always been partial to this cake and cream dish our cook makes...”
“...It looks good,” he agreed.
She almost fainted. Her empty plate had been filled.
It was perfect. She could tell without even tasting it. Just like everything else she'd ever eaten here. She's always marveled at it.
None of it, she suddenly realized, had been natural.
“This is the secret, Annette,” he told her quietly. She just stared at him, eyes wide, just barely realizing through her shock that he was trusting her with the biggest secret of his life. “The perfect meals, the Food Test – this is the secret. Do you remember me telling you about how we survived the War?”
“Yes. I remember.”
“That was the version I tell everybody. But this is the truth. Or at least, the extra truth I always left out. I never actually told any lies: I just left out the most important part. I let everybody else assume we scavenged and stole for food like all the others like us at the time, and for a while we did, but we never had to steal food again after we found this place. It...it adopted us, Annette. It saw us, three starving children, after it had been alone so long, and it couldn't resist. It set a table like we'd never seen, and when I was afraid to trust it, it begged. It begged us to stay.”
Georges eyes had grown distant. “ 'Please let me cook for you,'” he said softly. “ 'Please stay. I'm lonely.'”
Annette realized she was staring spellbound. Her mouth was open... and there were even tears in her eyes.
“It was so happy when we stayed Annette. It had waited so long to be found again. It's the only time it cooked too much, it just wanted us to eat and eat, eat and eat, it couldn't get enough of us eating. It had been so long since anyone had eaten for it. It needed us so much...and because we were there for it, it...it loved us, Annette. It took me a long time to realize it, but it's true. The House – this house – it loves. It loves us. It loves those it cooks for. We're its family now. And it looks out for us.”
“Annette – this place is alive. And I know it's strange and at first it's frightening, because everything too new and strange is frightening, but all it wants...all it wants is people to cook for. For people to be here, happy, eating its food. That's all it wants...”
“Annette. There's nothing to be afraid of. There's nothing, nothing at all. How can you...how can you be afraid of something...that just wants you to be happy?”
Annette looked back at her plate, filled with unnaturally perfect food, on plates and settings and table. All perfect. Perfect – for her.
“George...if you never cooked the food then...all those times...”
“The House wants us to be happy,” George said quietly. “And it always knows...it always knows what we want, even when we don't know it. And it's never wrong.”
His eyes never left hers, as he reached into his pocket, and took out a ring.
“Annette...marry me. Join my family.”
She stared. Then looked down at her plate again. There was a fortune cookie there. It hadn't been there before. She opened it.
PLEASE JOIN MY FAMILY.
She folded the note back up with trembling hands. It was all so hard to take in...but she understood the most important thing.
“It does love,” she whispered. “It loves you all...and now it loves me.”
“There's nothing more human than that.”
She smiled at George: shakily, and with tears in her eyes. But honestly.
“I'll marry you.” She said. “I'm not afraid.”
And she took a bite of the cake.
So the family of The Cooking House at last began to expand. The House could not have fit all the guests for the wedding, and they could never have hoped to hide its magic from so many anyway. But it made them a wedding cake like no one had ever seen. And when their honeymoon was over, they returned to a welcoming feast that said, even more clearly than the words written in icing and marzipan roses on the centerpiece, just how much they were 'welcome home'.
The Cooking House was happy. And so was everyone else.
Time rolled on. The business continued to flourish, as it only could, with George now the CEO, and The House still behind him just like before. The family flourished as well. Peter did well in the position George had given him, and was now looking for a wife of his own. And Grace had at last begun to grow up, and her boyfriends were no longer boys that were wild and fun, but young men that she could take home. Which, when she found one that she thought just might be special, was exactly what she did. Just like Peter.
The House was their matchmaker, and it was never wrong. And when Annette began to get morning sickness and strange cravings, she was pampered for both like no other woman ever had.
The House was blissfully happy.
But time rolled on yet farther, and things could not stay perfect. Three siblings living in a house was one thing, but three married siblings was quite another. Eventually they reluctantly realized that they would have to choose one family to live in The Cooking House, and the others would have to be satisfied with visiting, however frequently. George was the inevitable choice. He would be keeper. Legally, he was already the sole owner.
But the truth was they all owned the Cooking House. The same way it owned them.
The House missed them badly at first, but a new baby had arrived, and The House was quickly delighted with him. For the first time, Annette and George discovered that The House did indeed have a flaw: apparently, it had no concept of nutrition and the debilitating effects of sugar. They found themselves hard put to convince The House to stop providing an unending stream of sweets, cakes, and chocolates, especially when Harold began crying for them.
HE WANTS IT. HE'S CRYING.
“Yes, I know, but you see, children...oh! It's just not good for him, all right?”
HE'S CRYING. I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
They coped. Overall, things were still good. Changing, and sometimes in ways sad and nostalgic, but ultimately for the best. Life was like that, after all.
But time kept rolling on. And good times eventually change to bad.
Harold grew older, and the world grew smaller. The seventies had arrived, and overseas travel had changed dramatically from when his parents were his age. George was beginning to eye the global market, or at least the American one, and toyed with the idea of expanding the business for the next generation. And so, to prepare Harold, he sent him to college in America.
Harold did very well. He had his father's gifts, and they served as well for college as they had for handling management responsibility. And he learned, oh he learned a lot. His grades were stellar, and his parents were thrilled. And he learned about America and American thinking, which also pleased them. Everything seemed to have worked out wonderfully. They were sure Harold would make an excellent heir to the company – and everything else as well.
But unfortunately, away from The Cooking House and surrounded by the intellectual elite, he'd also learned one other thing they'd never, ever wanted him to learn.
He learned not to believe in magic.
He hid it at first, because he loved his parents, and didn't want to upset them. But now he was like Bernard, only worse – rather than simply being oblivious, he deliberately refused to believe in magically conjured food and a House with a living awareness. He had excluded such things from his world, and now they couldn't get in no matter what they did. Nothing could make him believe anymore.
And now the insistence of everyone around him to believe without question ate away at his soul. He had left it behind, but somewhere inside of him was a part that knew that what he'd really done was betray: betray the benevolent being that had given him everything he had, and snuck him candy and chocolate at night. A being that loved him, then and now.
But he'd left belief and magic behind. And so, tormented by what he would not acknowledge, but unable to bring himself to break the hearts of his parents, he hid it, and hid it well, for m
any years, stewing all the while. Burning under acid guilt, until they finally died, unaware of the change that had occurred in their son, to the last.
But once they were gone, he couldn't stand it anymore. The House's very presence was an accusation, the meals it made a torment to his new resolutions. The House refused to abandon, acknowledge, or resent his inner estrangement: it continued to care for him as if nothing had changed. It demanded, in pure silent tones, that he remember the love he'd once had, the wonder he'd once known. That there was magic in this world, magic for him. Reminded him every day that it was all still there, if he would only open up his heart again.
And because he would not, would not let the memories return, it haunted him instead.
“Tear it down,” he told the construction company.
Time rolled on, and the bulldozers and the backhoes rolled in. The foreman thought it was a pity – it was a remarkably well preserved old house, it could have been saved. But that was life, and he saw it all the time. People just weren't willing to take the time for these outdated places. He shrugged, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“Let's rock people.”
The machines rolled in...and over, and through. Timbers creaked, cracked, and gave. Roof timbers stretched and collapsed. The dining room where so many meals had occurred disappeared under the rubble. And something...something indefinable...trembled, and began to lose its hold on the place it had kept for so long.
Somewhere far away, as far as he'd been able to arrange, Harold clamped his hands over his ears. And told himself that it was impossible for him to hear it.
A part of himself that would never die, no matter how many years he tried, did not believe him. It never did. It never would. Nothing he ever did would make it go away.
Harold was indeed a haunted man.
Doug, one of the workers, was in a bad mood. He'd been up late the night before, and overslept the next morning. He'd had to skip breakfast and had only been able to slap together the barest lunch to bring with him. He was tired and he was hungry, and there was little prospect of relief from either for the day. He grumbled his way through the wreck of the kitchen, mumbling about the irony of helping to ruin a kitchen when that was exactly what he needed. Why, if he had that kitchen whole right now, he knew what he'd do with it. A nice juicy ham and cheese sandwich, dripping hot and toasted, so moist you didn't even need any condiments, because they'd have been an insult to the meat. He could see it so clearly he could almost smell it. Suddenly he stopped.
He could smell it.
He looked right. He looked left. He looked down. Slowly – still trying to figure out what was going on – he got down on his knees, and lifted a slab of rock.
A juicy ham and cheese sandwich, toasted and moist. Perfect, and pristine within several layers of saran wrap. It steamed slightly in the morning air.
He stared. He looked left. He looked right. He looked down.
He took the sandwich.
It was the best ham and cheese sandwich he ever tasted.
Six months passed. And somewhere in London, a wearied widow hurried home from her second job – there was a third later that night – to prepare what food she could for her children. They were such good kids, bright and never complained, but this was the best she could do these days, trying to get along without their father. There was no point marrying recklessly, so she worked all she could, and came home in time to have dinner for them whenever she could. Not that she could afford much. Poor things could have eaten far more and far better, and so could she. But they would be all right, she told herself as she opened the door to her apartment. They'd all be alright. In time. With hard work and time, things would get better. She was sure of it. She walked into the kitchen.
The table was set. The table was full. Full of all their favorite foods.
And all of it was perfect.
“....impossible....”
There have been many tales of The Cooking House.
This was one of them.
*******
Z.N. Singer probably owes his career first and foremost to his parents' callous act at the tender age of seven – specifically, they threw away the television. It never returned to the family, and he was forced to find other entertainment. He found books. Because writing makes a satisfying career but an uncertain source of income, he finds time to write in-between coursework at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he studies Interior Design (not decorating – think interior architecture). You can find more examples of his writing, as well as extensive and ever expanding documentation on the world in which his eventual fantasy series will be set, at www.thewordpile.com. Free samples of (fantasy) fiction writing and occasional short stories are expected to become available as well. There's a chatbox and comments are open to all, so no matter what your reason, even just to hang out, be sure to stop by. You can also connect with me on Facebook and Twitter.