by Ruby Loren
January blinked. Biscuits? That seemed so easy! She’d been practicing all kinds of outlandish baking techniques to prepare for this moment.
“Of course, we’re expecting you to add your own flair to this recipe. Don’t disappoint us!”
January turned back to the baking station and discovered there was now a demon in her oven. She glared at it and it dissolved – just an illusion. January seriously hoped that no one would go so far as to summon an actual demon just to win a competition.
January kept her head down in this round. She really wanted these biscuits to turn out well, so that she was high enough in the ranking to have a shot at winning tomorrow with her big finish cake. The biggest incident was when the flustered looking baker’s biscuits turned into green goo, which bubbled out of the bottom of the oven door, looking like something from Ghostbusters.
“I don’t understand it! I just added a few cashews,” the lady said, while the camera zoomed in for a close up of the goo. January only just managed to squash the slime monster back into non-existence before the goo gained self-awareness. She looked around the room, hoping to discover exactly which witch was behind this madness, but everyone was studiously focusing on their own cooking.
“Time’s up!” The promotions girl announced. January looked down at her cranberry and white chocolate hobnobs and was pleased. They looked and smelt fantastic. She’d even helped herself to a spare and didn’t think the judges would be able to fault their flavour.
As it was the technical challenge, they all had to line their bakes up in a row behind the photo of themselves, which the judges wouldn’t be able to see.
The atmosphere was tense when the pair of judges walked in and then began tearing apart the majority of the biscuits. Apparently, there was more to Hobnobs than January had known. Her own biscuits were pronounced passable, which was actually one of the highest levels of praise any had achieved. All the same, she felt a little sorry for the flustered looking baker, whose plate did not contain a single biscuit. After the green goo had happened, she’d not managed to pull herself together enough to bake again.
Lucy’s biscuits were the last in line to be judged. January thought they were probably going to do quite well. They were golden and inviting, and from what the judges had been saying, they fitted the description of the perfect Hobnob.
It was too bad someone had put a seriously nasty spell on them.
January squinted, trying to work out what had been done. The glow was an off-green that sort of hung in a cloud over the plate.
“Uh oh, someone’s taking this way too seriously,” Simon whispered in her ear. “It’s a death hex. You’d better do something!”
January turned to tell him that he was the one who was meant to be doing something to stop this, but he’d already slithered off. She looked back at the biscuits - that were now only inches away from the mouths of the judges - and knew that magic wasn’t going to save her this time.
20
“STOP!” Everyone turned to stare at her.
January bit her tongue. Think faster! “Those biscuits are poisoned.”
The judges returned the biscuits to the plate. January felt momentarily relieved. She’d bought herself some more time and that hadn’t been a half bad excuse!
“My biscuits are not poisoned,” Lucy said, looking like she was going to kill January with her spatula.
“Yes, would you mind explaining yourself?” The female judge said, making January feel like she’d just committed the crime of the century. The camera zoomed in on her face and she couldn’t help thinking this was probably the most drama to ever occur in a village baking competition.
“I saw her add something to the mix when Lucy wasn’t looking. It was some liquid from a small bottle. That seemed pretty suspicious to me.” January pointed at one of the female contestants, a smart looking twenty something with a pageboy hair cut and cheekbones that were making January feel inadequate. Maybe that was why she’d picked on her.
The baker turned and gave January a look so violent, she had no doubt that she was one of the witches. At least she’d got something right!
“Why didn’t you mention this sooner? That’s a very serious allegation,” the male judge said.
“Did you poison the biscuits?” He addressed the woman January had just accused.
“No! Of course not. She’s making it all up.”
“But I saw you,” January said, as convincingly as possible.
“I saw her do it, too,” Simon piped up. She’d have liked to think he was doing it to help her out, but really, he probably just loved the added attention and the chance to cause even more trouble. Now January’s claim actually seemed plausible.
The judges were clearly at a loss as to what to do. There was nothing in the rules about poisoning!
“Well… these Hobnobs look brilliant and they smell amazing. I’d mark them very highly indeed,” the female judge said, smiling at the camera in an attempt to salvage the video. January thought they would be very fortunate if their film didn’t turn into a murder mystery, or even a full-on horror!
“They are NOT poisoned!” Lucy said and marched up to the table, grabbing one of her biscuits.
January did the only thing she could and rugby tackled her, making sure the biscuit she had been about to bite landed far away.
“Get off me! You’re just trying to cheat!” Lucy shouted, as she tried to get out from under January.
“I’m really sorry, Lucy, but I saw what I saw,” she lied, hoping that the other girl would stop making this so personal. The more she said, the less likely it was that people would believe the biscuits were really poisoned.
“Everyone, please calm down! We’ve got the scores for your bakes and we’ll be keeping a close eye on the competition during the final day tomorrow. These biscuits will be sent off for proper testing and depending on the results… we shall see,” the female judge fixed both January and the witch with a ferocious glare.
January bit her lip, knowing that her promise to herself that she wouldn’t use magic for her own ends in the competition was about to be broken. She looked at Lucy’s plate of biscuits and willed them to disappear. There was an almost inaudible ‘pop’ as the plate and biscuits went somewhere else – hopefully some other dimension.
“Did you already take them?” The female judge asked the male one, pointing to the gap in the Hobnob line up. He shook his head. They stared at the space where the biscuits had been.
“Go home and come back tomorrow when hopefully we’ll have our heads on straight,” the female judge said, losing her temper in a way Mary Berry never would.
Simon was lucky he still had a place to live.
January gave him what she hoped was the most intimidating glare of all time when they lined up at their baking stations for the final day of the competition. She’d confronted Simon about his involvement in the magical goings on, but he’d simply said that he’d been targeting what he’d thought was one of the other witches when he’d caused the icing to curdle. She’d told him if she caught him doing it again, she’d cause his oven to incinerate whatever was in it (she’d already broken her ‘no magic’ promise once, so why not do it again?).
You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife while they all waited in the tent for the competition to begin. Everyone was watching their ingredients and their neighbours very closely indeed. Half of them thought they were watching for poison, while the other half were on the lookout for cursed cakes.
“Do be sure to let me know if you see anyone try to poison my baking again,” Lucy said, sarcastically, when she walked past.
Even Danny gave her a funny look and didn’t say hello. January tried not to take it to heart. She’d been trying to save the lives of the judges and anyone else who’d tried to eat those hexed Hobnobs! Unfortunately, because they’d disappeared and couldn’t be tested for the poison they didn’t contain, the bad feeling was only going to continue.
“What are you making
?” Simon asked, breezing past her work station.
“Boozy carrot cake,” January told him, feeling the usual stabs of doubt over whether or not the old staple was too boring.
“I’m making chocolate cake,” Simon told her.
January raised an eyebrow. “Just chocolate cake? Not chocolate cake with rosemary parfait, or chocolate cake with lavender and mixed berry surprise?”
Simon laughed. “Nope. Just chocolate cake. You can’t go wrong with the classics! I found the recipe for it in your cupboard a couple of weeks ago and gave it a try. It needed some tweaking, but now I think it’s perfect.”
January’s mouth dropped open. “That’s MY recipe, Simon!”
“No it’s not. I made changes. Now it’s my recipe,” he said with a ‘you can’t do anything about it’ smile.
“What changes? I can’t believe you’ve stolen my recipe!”
“You’re making carrot cake. It’s not like we’re competing,” Simon said, trying to sound soothing.
“We ARE competing! This is a COMPETITION!” January glared at him so hard he rushed back to stir his cake mix.
The smile stayed on his face.
“One more bad move and I’ll tell Tor to turn you back into a cat!” She muttered under her breath and then had to cover it up with a smile and some pretend coughing when the camera arrived.
January tried her best to ignore or avert the flurries of last minute magic that were thrown across the room. The raisins in her carrot cake all turned into spiders and some even managed to escape the cake before she could turn them back to raisins again. It was all rather tiring. Fortunately, time was soon up and the final judging took place.
January’s cake was tasted and the judges didn’t say anything bad about it. However, neither of them would meet her eyes, and she knew that the poisoned Hobnob and rugby tackling incident was still weighing on everyone’s mind. Hopefully good cake would out and that’s what the end result would come down to.
“We’d like everyone to leave the tent now while we have a discussion and decide who is going to win the first ever Hobbling Cake Off,” the promotions girl said.
They filed outside and January automatically went over to stand with Danny and Lucy, only remembering at the last second she was probably unwelcome.
“The judges liked both of your cakes, well done,” she said, trying to look friendly.
Danny returned her smile. “Thanks. I was worried I’d toned down the interest too much, but they liked the rosemary twist in the lemon drizzle layer cake! Lucy’s was amazing though, don’t you think? Who would have thought that cola would make such a great cake flavour!”
Lucy batted her fake eyelashes at him.
January suddenly realised that Danny wasn’t being sarcastic.
“Lucy, I really am sorry about yesterday. I just saw what I saw and at the last moment, I didn’t want the judges to take the risk.”
“That’s okay. The judges came and spoke to me and said they were giving me a perfect score for that round to make up for the stress and because my biscuits looked so good,” Lucy said. January decided to overlook the definite note of smugness in Lucy’s voice.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said and then left the pair alone to discuss their unusual cake recipes together.
“The judges are ready,” the promotions girl announced and then had to practically dive out of the way when eleven bakers stampeded back into the tent.
The camera panned around the room, focusing on everyone’s faces while the judges drew out the moment.
“Before we begin, we have an announcement to make regarding an event that happened yesterday afternoon.”
January felt her skin turn cold. The male judge looked so grave when he said it that she knew he was about to say something serious.
“After much consideration, we feel it is only fair that as we can’t reliably ascertain what really happened, Rebecca Smith and January Chevalier should both be disqualified from the competition.”
January felt her heart drop to the floor. She’d saved both of their lives and this was her reward! She’d been kicked out of the competition that had meant so much to her. Now she’d never know if she really deserved to be successful in the world of baking.
January wasn’t the only one who was put out by the announcement. Rebecca turned to her and hissed. Perhaps to another witch it might have been scary, but January just gave her a bored look. She was used to dealing with real-life snakes on a regular basis.
“Now that’s out of the way, we can get back to the results! After much deliberation, we’ve decided to award first prize and the lease on the bakery to…” Everyone held their breaths. “Simon Bennett! Your chocolate cake was absolutely unbelievable. We’re both hoping you’ll sell it when you open your shop and remember to save us a slice,” the lady judge said.
January tried not to will lightning to come down from the sky and strike him dead. It wouldn’t be very sporting. Not that Simon was being sporting when he stole my recipe! She thought.
Unfortunately, life wasn’t always fair, January reflected when she walked out of the tent. In the grand scheme of things, she should just be happy for every day she got to spend alive when there were so many people out to get her. How much did a cake competition really matter when you thought about it like that?
“You’re going to regret crossing us!”
January turned and found herself face to face with the witch named Rebecca and the flustered looking contestant. No way! January thought, surprised that she was one of the witches. It just went to show, you couldn’t go by appearances.
“Thanks for the warning. Out of interest… which coven are you from, Witchwood, or the other one?”
“The other one!” Rebecca hissed, clearly outraged that January didn’t know. She seemed to have a thing for hissing.
“Well, I’ll be sure to pop by sometime so you can exact your revenge. You might have to wait your turn. There are several different groups all plotting my downfall right now.”
The witches glared at her some more but then drifted away, still hissing slightly.
January sighed and went to collect her baking equipment and what was left of her carrot cake. She bumped into the male judge as she walked through the doorway of the tent. In his hand, was a slice of her cake. Guilt wrote itself all over his face.
“Sorry we disqualified you. Just between us…” He leant in closer. “Your cake was the best one here and your other bakes were also outstanding. If it hadn’t been for…” He left it hanging and shuffled off to finish his cake.
January smiled and packed away her silicon cake mould. She hadn’t won, but hearing the judge imply that she would have done had the circumstances been different was basically as good. This had been about validation and now she felt like she might have just got it.
I don’t have a cake shop, but I do have a bar! She thought and was more determined than ever to make serving food a success at The Wild Woods.
“Is there any cake left?”
January looked up at the familiar voice and saw Ryan standing in the entrance of the tent. He was dressed in a dark grey t-shirt, which clung to his large arms, and dark denim jeans. January felt a pang of regret deep in her stomach.
“There’s tons left! Please help yourself,” she said, knowing her voice sounded overly cheery. Seeing Ryan unexpectedly was like throwing a freezing cold water balloon in her face.
He picked up a slice and took a bite, instantly praising it. January managed a small smile and then her expression returned to one of anxiety. Ryan hadn’t just come here to compliment her cake.
“Has something happened at the bar? Did the wolves come?” She asked, expecting the worst.
Ryan shook his head but wouldn’t meet her eyes. “No, it’s nothing like that.” He sighed and January wondered who had died. “I came to tell you that I’m sorry, you know… for being an idiot. I just… everything got too much and I was stressed because of the bar and annoyed that you want
ed to get involved after I felt like all the work had been done. Now I realise I’m lucky to have you onside. Things have gone far more smoothly ever since you’ve started working there.” He ran a hand through his military style undercut, still struggling to look at her. “I heard more about the Simon thing. Witches’ gossip spreads. I also heard he’s living with you.” He took a deep breath and looked up at January, defeat written on his face.
It took her a few seconds to work out why he was looking that way.
“Simon’s gay!” She blurted. “I mean… if you thought that…” Wow, this was going terribly. She took a deep breath. “Ryan, are you here to apologise and suggest that we try to be friends, or would you like to get back together again?” As soon as the words left her lips, she regretted them. It sounded so businesslike. Those words bore no resemblance to what she was feeling inside right now.
“Gay, huh?” Ryan nodded as he processed that information.
“Ryan?” January waited for him to meet her eyes. “I think I might be in love with you.”
Inside her head, January was screaming. That had not been what she’d intended to say! Where had it even come from? But the more she thought about it, the more she knew it was true. Why else would it hurt so much seeing him at the bar and not being able to touch him, or feel any kind of connection? Why else would everything he said matter so much to her?
His silence was not promising.
“I need to do some thinking,” he said and walked out of the tent.
January unleashed a tirade of colourful swearwords in her head. She looked at what was left of her boozy carrot cake and then cut it in half. That was definitely a reasonable serving size for a situation like this one.
Ten minutes later, she’d packed up and was leaving the Cake Off tent to head home. She hoped Simon would have the sense to still be out celebrating, or he might just find himself furry again.
When she turned the corner of the tent, she almost bumped into Lucy and Danny, who were busy snogging each others’ faces off.