by Morgana Best
“Oh, please, I don’t need you to hold my hand any more.”
Thyme pouted. “No, I need to hold you down and chain you up out here.”
I waved her off. “You help the customers. I’ll whip up a batch of double chocolate.”
“You know, the only reason I’m letting you do this is because you’re the boss,” Thyme said, shaking her head.
I laughed again and went into the back. It was amazing how different I could feel in just a few days. Melanie had been arrested, and the news that she had poisoned her fiancée had gotten around town pretty quickly. Business was booming. Nothing had been in the cakes, and now everyone knew it, and it was almost as if the town folks felt so bad for avoiding the place that they were now coming three times more often than they would have normally. There had been a lot of handshakes, a lot of smiles, and I was getting to know many of the locals rather well, even in only three days.
My best customers were the store owners who owned the shops nearby. They came in for snacks throughout the day, and chatted and gossiped with me. It made me finally feel like one of them.
When I had first moved to town, I hadn’t known what to expect. And to be sure, there was no way I could have known I was going to get caught up in a murder mystery, or that I would be one big reason that a killer confessed and was arrested. There had been moments of sheer terror, that was for sure, but there had also been moments of belonging, moments of friendship like I had never known.
As I took out the bowls I would need, pulling them down from a shelf bolted to the wall above the workspace, I thought of the people I had met in the last few months. Thyme was absolutely the best friend I’d ever had. Coming into work, no matter how stressful it had been for a while there, when we had no customers and the money was running out, had still been a pleasure. Thyme had been friendly and caring, and had made the move and the new responsibilities so easy on me.
And of course, she had started me down a magical path. I still couldn’t quite believe that I was actually a witch. My aunt had been a witch. I lived in a temperamental house which could grow smaller or bigger, rearranging its rooms at will.
As I set out the ingredients I would need, I thought of Ruprecht, so helpful and kind, and his granddaughter, Mint. Camino, my neighbor, was as thoughtful and caring as the others. So many people had been willing to help me out, solely because of my aunt. That was something special to me.
I had the dry ingredients in the bowl, and I used a wooden spoon to mix them, before cracking three eggs into the bowl. So far so good. If only Thyme could see me now!
The mixing went well, better than I had expected. As much bravado as I pretended to have, the idea of baking unsupervised still frightened me. I was a terrible cook, after all.
But I was doing it. Maybe I had learned something after all. It was possible, wasn’t it? If someone did something long enough, even if they were terrible at it, surely they could learn to do it. Not everyone who picked up a guitar was a virtuoso when they plucked their first string. Not every writer could use words to describe a scene or a character beautifully. They learned. I could learn.
I poured the batter into cupcake tins and slid them into a preheated oven. Now I had to wait. I set the timer and went back out to the show room. There was still a line, stretching to the door. Thyme looked at me in surprise.
“Well, I guess that was better than I expected, huh?” she asked. “I can’t smell smoke.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “I told you I would be fine,” I said. “No fires at all.”
I settled in next to Thyme, the two of us falling into an easy rhythm. Thyme would take orders and box the cupcakes, while I took payment. A woman came in looking for a cake for her son’s birthday party in a week, and Thyme broke away, taking her to the end of the counter to get her order, while I was left to handle the customers by myself. When Thyme returned, tucking the order form into an envelope by the phone on the counter, the line had died down. There was a ding from the oven out the back.
“I can get them,” Thyme said, but I reached out and pressed my fingers to her arm.
“No, I got them,” I said. “I want to see these through.”
Thyme smiled and nodded. “Promise me there’s no love potion in this batch, though.”
“I only add love potion to the red velvet cake icing,” I said with a laugh, hurrying through the swinging double door and into the back room.
I turned off the oven and pulled down the door, half expecting to see a horribly burnt pan with rock hard cupcakes charred black. But no, these looked good. What a shock!
I pulled out the two tins and set them on top of the oven. I then checked the bucket of cream cheese frosting in a refrigerator against the wall. It would be a while before the cupcakes were cool enough to ice.
I tried to remember the last time I had been so happy. I almost felt like a kid again, in a way. That’s how happy I was.
I had to turn out the cupcakes onto the cooling rack. Surely they’d had enough time to settle. I reached for one, and just before my fingers touched it, it gave off a hiss, and blew up in my face. And then, as if spurred on by the first, the others did too. Chocolate was everywhere, on me, on the wall, the ceiling, the floor. I didn’t know what I had done. Too much baking soda? Too much flour? What could even make a cupcake blow up like that? Had they heated and cooled too fast? I had no idea.
Luckily, there were no customers in the shop when I stepped through the double doors. Thyme took one look at me, all covered in chocolate, and burst into laughter. She doubled over, unable to say anything for a long while, tears falling from her eyes. I joined her, laughing as well. Chocolate dripped down to the top of my eyelashes, and then fell onto the floor.
After a while Thyme walked to the double doors and pushed one open. She let it shut and turned around. She simply nodded, and then she laughed again and shook her head. “I have to tell you, boss,” she said, “and let me assure you, I’m not lying when I say this, but that’s a new one for me.”
I laughed, nodding my head slowly. “You forgot the best part, though,” I said.
“What’s that?” Thyme asked.
“I’m the boss. I get to tell you to clean it up.”
I watched the smile disappear from Thyme’s face. Her mouth dropped open, and she shook her head. And then both of us fell into helpless laughter once more.
* * * * The End * * * *
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Next Book in this Series.
Book TWO in The Kitchen Witch series.
Dizzy Spells.
Amelia’s spells have improved, but her baking has not. She needs to make enough dough to save her crumbling cake store business. Yet that is soon the least of her worries, when a body is found on her porch and her new friend, Dianne, becomes the main suspect.
As Amelia tries to clear Dianne’s name, she finds that some people in her life are not what they seem. Craig finally whisks Amelia away on a date, but Amelia’s house has something to say about the matter, much to her distress.
The police say that solving the murder will be a piece of cake, but are they keeping her on a knead-to-know basis?
Will Amelia discover why Alder Vervain has been watching her?
Will she rise to the occasion and solve the murder, or will she become the next victim?
* * *
Other books by Morgana Best.
You might also enjoy Morgana Best’s latest series, The Deadly Habit Cozy Mystery Series.
Nun of That (Book ONE).
Rose Taylor is struggling to keep her furniture store afloat, but her financial problems soon become the least of her worries when her neighbor is murdered, with Rose as the only witness. The problem is, nobody will believe that she saw a nun fleeing the scene. The popula
tion of her small Australian country town increases with the arrival of Adam Bowen, an investigative journalist writing a book on an infamous gang of bank robbers, and Bunny, the murder victim’s estranged and colorful wife. Are these things connected, and if so, how? Rose plans to find out – because in her town, she’s having Nun of That.
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You might also like Morgana Best’s #1 Amazon Cozy Mystery Bestseller and Kindle All-Star Award recipient series, Sibyl Potts Cozy Mystery Series.
A Cereal Killer (A Sibyl Potts Cozy Mystery, Book ONE)
Sybil Potts has moved to the pleasant town of Little Tatterford, eager to find a life of peace and quiet after her stressful divorce.
With minutes of arriving in town, she sees a dead body and finds she is surrounded by eccentric people: the English gentleman, Mr. Buttons, who serves everyone tea and cucumber sandwiches, and her landlord, Cressida Upthorpe, who is convinced that her fat cat, Lord Farringdon, speaks to her. Yet Sibyl herself has a secret to keep.
How will Sybil’s secret put her at odds with Blake Wessley, the exasperated police officer who is trying to solve the murder?
About Morgana Best.
#1 Best-selling Cozy Mystery author, Morgana Best, lives in a small, historic, former gold mining town in the middle of nowhere in Australia. She is owned by one highly demanding, rescued cat who is half Chinchilla, and two less demanding dogs, a chocolate Labrador and a rescued Dingo, as well as two rescued Dorper sheep, the ram, Herbert, and his wether friend, Bertie.
Morgana is a former college professor who now writes full time. Her subject was grammar. Morgana was a published author of dry academic books under a pen name, but abandoned academia to write cozy mysteries.
In her spare time, Morgana loves to read cozy mysteries, repurpose furniture, and renovate her old house. She is vegan.
