The Demon in the Pastry Shop

7: The Crushing Weight of Friendship

 The cake and the baked goods were bribes. Kit couldn't pretend that wasn't true, despite how much she wanted to believe her neighborhood friends were glad to see her after she disappeared for the past year and a half. Jude told her that Vaness stopped by a few times to see her, though Kit wouldn't allow her in (she didn't remember that) and another time a Thought Witch (a friend Jude didn't know) tried to check on her to the same response.

It was Vaness who ended up stopping by the pastry shop, though she hadn't known Kit was working. She said as much after she ordered a dozen cream puffs. She grew increasingly alarmed the more notes Kit wrote to answer her questions, but eventually she invited Kit to come visit with another two of her friends from the neighborhood. Kit smiled and shriveled on the inside.

Dusk fell as Kit walked around the curving sidewalk to Vaness' house, a tower of baked peace offerings in her arms. She desperately wanted to see her friends again. It had been so long. She never meant to cut them off in the storms of her mourning, but that's what she did. She wasn't naive and expected that, if not Vaness, the others might bear a grudge for that.

And so cake. And so danishes. And so muffins. She thought a pie might be overkill so she didn't make one. But she made cookies.

She breathed the way she learned would help her get through the day as she headed for Vaness' house at the end of the street. Her footsteps made no noise.

Vaness' house wasn't much bigger than Kit's and Luca's around the corner. The outside was dressed in vibrant, though dark colors, which made the lights and the candles along the porch stand out that much better. Before Kit even approached the path up to the house, she saw Austeya waving to her with her gossamer wings buzzing. Austeya was an Omen Spirit, the same as Vaness, but a much brighter one than Vaness. Vaness brought bad news. Austeya brought good.

"Kit! Is all that for me?" Austeya bellowed happily from her seat on the porch table, "come on and get over here!"

The tightness in Kit's chest dropped one knot. Maybe this night could be fun. Just like old times. She smiled and bounded up the steps, setting the cake box and the box of pastries on the table, scooting bowls of other snacks to the edge of the table. Austeya threw open the lids and rubbed her lavender hued hands as she gawked at the prizes. Kit laughed through the air of her nose and looked to her left where Glin sat. Glin was a Thought Witch and as such could often be found in deep contemplation. Kit waved a hand in front of her face to get her attention.

"You know better than that," Austeya said, already launching a cookie into her mouth, "you gotta yell, you know?"

Kit swallowed hard and grabbed her notepad from her purse, writing furiously until she thrust the paper under Austeya's face. The light was low outside. She hadn't considered that. She forgot what it was like, the environment they always liked best. She loved it then and thought she would love it again, but now she understood that it would get much harder to read her notes on the porch as it grew dark.

Austeya was already squinting with crumbs on her face as she read Kit's words.

"Vaness didn't tell you about me?"

Then she glanced up, "tell me what?"

Just then, Vaness kicked the front door open and strode onto the porch with a big pitcher of her newest mixed drink idea. The outside was slick with condensation and the inside rattled with ice. Kit felt a like that too.

"Hey! I'm so glad you made it," Vaness told her, her violet skin started to blend into the darkening day around her. When she got to the table to set down the pitcher, her mouth popped open in indignation, "I can't believe you did this! You brought all this just to make me look like a bad host, didn't know."