by Z.N. Singer
“The house put it there for us. So we could eat it. So let me eat it! It made me my favorite pudding!”
“A house can't make anything!”
“This one does, the mad scientist must have taught it.”
“That's not possible Grace.”
“So how did it get here then? Stupid brother.”
George stifled his growing annoyance enough to say, patiently, “If we don't understand it, then we shouldn't eat it. We don't know what will happen.”
“It's there so we can eat it, who cares about anything else!?”
“We can't!”
“I hate you!” Now Grace was really furious, her little face scrunched up and red and blotchy while tears leaked out of her eyes. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! I'm always hungry and cold and thirsty and now you won't let me eat anything, I hate you! Stupid George!”
George realized it was useless to argue. He picked her up and forcefully began to carry her across the room as she kicked and screamed. “I hate you, I hate you, I'm hungry, it wants us to eat it, it even says so!”
By reflex, even though he knew she was just ranting, George said, “Don't be silly, it doesn't say anything.”
“Yes it does stupid brother, it says right on the table!”
“Grace—” George began, now preparing for a good and proper telling-off.
“George,” Peter interrupted. “....it – it really does say something on the table.”
George stopped, stared, turned. He'd been holding Grace under his arm and facing backwards, so now he was seeing what she had been.
On the table, a space had been cleared among the dishes for two words, spelled in bright green jelly beans.
PLEASE EAT
George stared. Slowly, he went back to the table. He stared some more. Slowly, and almost against his better judgment, he picked one up, and nibbled it.
Lime flavor. Grace's favorite.
“Look, this...this just...this just proves that none of this makes sense! Something is weird here, that must be why it's empty, we need to go, now! We can't stay here, it's not safe!”
“But it wants us to George,” Peter said, finally buckling in to begging. “It wants us to, and it's right there, please George.”
“Look, we can't—” George's voice cut off. In the exchange he'd turned his head back towards his brother. And in the two seconds he'd looked away, the words had changed.
PLEASE STAY. PLEASE. LET ME COOK FOR YOU.
I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU.
“But—why?” George asked softly.
This time, he saw it. Or rather, he saw that there was nothing to see: one moment one way, one another.
I'M LONELY. PLEASE STAY.
The words were written in green and red and yellow: green lime jelly beans, red chewy candies that Peter adored, and lemon drops. George loved lemon drops.
George chewed his lip. “But—”
PLEASE. PLEASE.
George turned around. His hungry siblings stared with identical expressions. George took a deep breath.
“All right – let's eat!”
“Yeaaaaaahhhhh!”
So they survived the war after all, and on royal fare. The house was solid, and no one else ever came. The bombs missed them, just as they'd hoped. And they had no need to take the risk of going back into town. Because they had food. Such food. Even though it always knew how much they could eat, at first the house kept making too much anyway, it was so happy to have people to feed again. The children dreamed of more food than they could eat, lots of everything they'd been wanting, and the house delightedly gave it to them. Eventually both they and the house calmed down and meals became less extravagant, but no less exquisite. That was something the house would always excel in. And so it went, for nearly three years. But everything must end, even – perhaps especially – war. At some point the children realized that they just couldn't keep hiding in the House anymore. Life was returning to normal in London. They might have relatives who'd survived. They needed to go to school (largely George's concern actually). They couldn't just stay in an abandoned house on the outskirts of the city for the rest of their lives. So they returned. There were a few false starts. They got put in places they didn't want to be, like orphanages. Relatives weren't showing up. Each time, they fell back on what they now called The Cooking House until they could start over again. Eventually, life settled into a shape that suited them. They were, in the end, in an orphanage, but it was a good one, and they agreed it was time to accept it and move on. George worked part-time jobs steadily as he studied, his goals twofold: become solvent enough to support himself and his siblings together, and acquire The Cooking House. It was just an abandoned house, and he was sure few, if any, knew its secret. It would be cheap, if he could only find the owners.
It was a bit of a tangled path, but George had two years before he graduated and all the odd lines provided by his various jobs to follow. Bernard, failing to sell the house to a proper buyer, had eventually passed it up to an Estate Agent for pittance. The Estate Agent, in turn, had been regretting the deal ever since. It was now a dusty file in the agency's cabinet, and it took some steady convincing for them to dig it up. Somewhere along the way, he managed to make some good impressions with the right people. When he graduated, he had a lease-until-acquirement plan worked out, and a job. The siblings moved in.
Well, not officially, not at first. Grace and Peter still had to stay at the orphanage most of the time, but they visited frequently, as in fact they had all taken turns doing in secret ever since they'd left. Because they'd come to understand something about the House in those three years they'd hidden there. Whatever it was that gave it life, that life had one purpose, one wish: to cook. So long as it had people to cook for, it was happy. And so they all made it their responsibility to be sure the House was never long without dinner company. They owed it so much, after all.
And besides, the food was always perfect.
Three more years passed. George wrangled Peter a part-time job at his company, where he steadily built credit towards a permanent position on his graduating day. George's own hard work paid off in the usual way: he was slowly but surely moving up in the company, and was now beginning to have to make more important decisions, and meet with other people of business. As Peter's graduation year approached and Grace's string of admirers wrought havoc on her older sibling's hair, George found himself responsible for something quite, quite serious. He needed to get this exactly right.
Of course, he thought of the Cooking House.
It had always set for the food as well as cooked it. When George asked, by the simple method of standing in the kitchen and worrying about it, it assured him classier settings were well within its power – the meal would lack for nothing. Grace was given severe warnings on the penalties of bringing anyone, boy or girl, over that night (she sulked for a week). Peter, a member of the company in any case, however low-ranked, agreed to perform as server, thereby helping to cover for the fact that the food was essentially being conjured into being. The House, after some very carefully focused worrying, agreed to manifest the food in the adjacent room, where Peter would fetch it out. Everything was arranged.
The day – or rather night – arrived. The House was as good as its word: the table looked wonderful, and the client was duly impressed. Peter, smartly dressed and scrubbed painfully clean, did a credible job as waiter, carrying in dishes so perfect they might have been created just so an instant before. Which, of course, they had, but the client wasn't to know. Everything went exactly, exactly as they'd hoped.
Then the client choked on his food.
Both George and Peter were horrified. The House had never produced a dish that had so much as an imperfect texture, let alone something you could choke on. And yet there their client was, desperately trying to dislodge a large lump that had inexplicably found its way into his dish and then disastrously down his throat. Much desperate pounding dislodged the object, but the client was w
eak and rasping: it seemed to have done some damage on the way out. Shaken and stunned, George arranged for an ambulance: the client was escorted away with assurances that he would be fine.
George, however, was not.
In many ways, it resembled the day Bernard had found only one place setting for his guest. But unlike Bernard, George understood the true nature of the Cooking House, and the implications of what had happened. Surely only some horrible accident could have caused this, but what? He refused to contemplate that the House had deliberately sabotaged him. He and his siblings had come to see it as a family member, a close friend and benefactor. And until today, the shoe had fit. Why, he wondered, standing in the kitchen. Why had this happened?
HE WAS LYING
“...what?”
HE WAS LYING
George stared at the words for one second, two, three.
Then he bolted out of the house to do some research.
By the time the client had been released from the hospital, George had confirmed what the house had told him: the client had lied about the property. Carried out, the deal would have been a disaster. He presented the information to the company: they agreed that things had worked out quite fortuitously all around, assured George that they did not consider any of the mess his fault, and commended him on his detective work. Life went on unchanged, and most importantly, unharmed. Even his reputation at work was intact.
In fact, the only thing that changed was George's decision to hold all his business meetings at the Cooking House.
The decision paid – literally. Apparently it was only a short step from knowing who would come and what they'd want to eat to knowing which ones brought trouble with them. It did not seem to matter whether the client even knew there was a problem: the House simply found less violent means to show it. A drink that was too warm or cold, a dish with a little too much salt – when your standard is absolute perfection, any variation stands out. George never had any trouble spotting the signs. George's business record became impossibly spotless and his reputation in business circles began to approach legend. Everyone, of course, wanted to know how he did it, but no one could quite bring themselves to credit the Food Test, as it came to be known, at face value. Wild rumors circulated, ranging from connections with M15 to a pact with the devil. The company heard it all but merely shrugged. George's results were both spectacular and profitable – so long as it wasn't illegal, it really didn't care how he did it, so long as he could do it to order. And, rumors of illicit use of government intelligence aside, legal it seemed to be. George continued to work hard, and he was now the most reliable employee in the company. Promotions came regularly.
George dealt well with his success. He had always been organized and steady, so his new responsibilities didn't faze him. He was intelligent and likeable, so he had no trouble with his employees either, or at least no more than expected. And for all the hard decisions, he had The Cooking House. It never steered him wrong. The company rose in the world, and George rose with it. It soon looked likely that eventually, George would be the company.
And then one day, something changed. He invited a new client to dinner, and the client brought his daughter, Annette, a young and charming women with a warm smile. She seemed to get along with Peter as well, and had a calming effect on Grace, who had of recent years been driving both her brothers to despair. But even more than any of that, for the first time, The House began to make changes to the meal that weren't mistakes. Annette's dishes would have some extra little touch – a flower in her napkin, a sampling of some favorite of hers that wasn't in the other's dishes, some extra pink vanity that never failed to bring a smile to her face. The House was never wrong. Before long, George was bringing her for meals without her father.
Six months later, George, with a ring in his pocket and a terror in his heart, invited her to the most important meal of his life.
If she could accept the truth of the Cooking House, he would ask her to marry him.
The meal, of course, was perfect. Like always. Soft candlelight, flowing napkins and fragrant flowers, everything a wooing meal should be. They were both nervous, so nervous it was hard to eat even the House's cooking. They both knew what this meal was, and both knew the other knew. But neither had any way of knowing what the other would really do.
For something so important, any uncertainty can feel like doom.
So when George brought in empty plates at dessert time, Annette was immediately and irrationally frightened. Because so much hinged on tonight, and she didn't know what it meant. Everything seemed like a prelude to the moment of truth – hard or soft. Good or bad.
It was the not knowing that was so hard.
He put a dish in front of each of them, and sat down. She could tell that somehow, this was important. She hadn't thought she could possibly be more nervous.
“Make a wish,” he told her softly.
“Wh..what, anything?” she asked. Confused, and almost afraid to show it. What if it was a test?
“No, for dessert. What do you want to eat?”
She looked at him, then at the plate, then at him again. She still didn't understand. But she was afraid not to go along.
“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.
