CHAPTER SIX: Late for a very important … date.

CHAPTER SIX: Late for a very important … date.

The clock on the wall of her kitchen told Rae it was midnight, which meant she had five hours until she had to get up and start baking for the bistro. Thatmeant she could either spend five hours nailing her golden apple recipe or she could spend just two on it, and then get three hours of rest before the day began.

Rae shrugged off her coat, threw it over the single chair, grabbed the apple from the table and went to work.

She woke up, seven hours later, with her face smooshed against goats cream.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.”

Wiping her palm against her face, she stood from the table where there were two dishes – one the original apple with a bite taken out of it, the other her replica that she’d broken with her face – and hurried to the sink to wash off the remnants of food from her cheek.

Pots and pans littered Rae’s small kitchen. The wooden spoon was making a garbled noise, stuck in the honey glaze now firmly attached to the bottom of the pan. The remaining cream was gloopy when Rae needed it to be set, which wouldn’t happen if she didn’t get it in the fridge ASAP. She went to grab the pot and sling it in the fridge, but there was no space.

Usually Rae’s fridge always had space, there were days where she would have gone hungry if she didn’t have the leftovers from the bistro to rely on. But, with the festival coming up, Rae’s fridge was – for once – packed.

“URGH!”

Desperately trying to rearrange things, she wedged the pot between a bowl of goats cream and an unidentifiable block of something that Rae believed was once cheese. Slamming the fridge door shut, she looked around, trying to get her bearings.

There was dried lotus leaf … everywhere, Rae realised. It was sprinkled across her bench, over her face, in her hair. She looked like someone had sneezed on her with glitter. Except it was a well-known fact that lotus leaf could drive anyone to lose their mind.

“Bugger it.”

She showered quickly, removing as much of the lotus leaf as she could, and ran out the door to work.

***

“You’re late.”

Of course the one and only time Rae would be late to open the bistro was the one and only time that Geras would already be there early.

“I’m sorry, Geras. It won’t happen again.”

“It better not.” He began to walk away to the backroom now that Rae was here, muttering something under his breath about how females walking out on him would get their comeuppance.

The day went from bad to worse from there.

Because Rae hadn’t had a chance to bake this morning, the only goods she could put in the cabinet were the leftovers from the stock cupboard. Luckily, she had enough ingredients prepared to make up the wraps between the few early-morning coffee stragglers. Her ambrosia was easy enough to whip up too, though it would need to set in the freezer for a few hours.

Still, after the mid-morning rush, Rae felt like wind nymphs had spun her into a tizzy.

“Not much of a selection here today, Rae. Trying to make us all hungry for the festival, are you?” Simon asked.

Rae looked at Simon, her head cocked to one side, puzzled. Why he was standing at the counter, in his slumped clothing that was one size too big for him? Simon never stood at the counter. He always just came in and took his seat under the window, then settled up his tokens when he was ready to leave.

Rae realised she hadn’t served him his kylix this morning.

“Simon, I’m so sorry. I’ll be right over with your coffee.”

“Take your time. You seem a little out of sorts.”

Rae offered a tight smile. “Festival jitters.”

“Mmm,” Simon replied half-heartedly, clearly not interested in anything other than his usual as he toddled back to his seat.

The complaints kept on coming. By midday, Rae had run out of the wraps that soothed fears, she only had two corn fritters with their positive pomegranate glaze left. There’d been no chance to make more filo pastries, and the fish dish was always her hardest sell. There was no end of grumbles that the sweet and savoury sausage rolls were out, and apparently daemons, nymphs and other deities in the area simply didn’t want apple-ice or meringues today. Which left four slices of ambrosia and a handful of bliss balls, given that Rae hadn’t had a chance to make a batch of fresh muffins today either.

It was a long time until two o’clock rolled around and Rae could shut up shop.

Dragging her feet home, Rae barely managed to shut her little red door before she was sliding her back down it and collapsing onto the floor in a flood of tears. Today had been an utter failure, and she was exhausted.

When her sobs eventually began to subside to hiccups, the vine wrapped itself around a box of tissues and handed them to her.

“T-th-thank you,” she stuttered between sniffles.

A gentle tug.

“I know, I know, I’ll get up. I always do.”

A more insistent tug that hauled Rae to her feet. Then a push in the direction of the kitchen. Her home knew her better than she did – knew she would feel better after she got herself back to work. But returning to the bombsite she had left this morning almost deflated Rae back to her knees again.

“No,” she scolded herself. “Shake it off. Get it together, Rae.”

Drowning out the thoughts in her head by only focusing on the task in front of her, she scrubbed the kitchen until it was sparkling again. Benches were wiped, then washed and scrubbed with a soap and brush, before being rinsed with water. The palladium appliances were next, with an extra sheen of sparkle given to them with one of those tinctures Rae had gotten from a Hecate store. The fridge was tackled last.

She was not one to waste food, but the festival period was a strange time. She separated her food into edible and ‘not-sure-what-in-the-Underworld-that-is’ and then washed, soaped, scrubbed and wiped the fridge shelves and dirty dishes too.

Restacking the remaining food in containers and layering them according to purpose – fuel, bistro new recipes (?), festival prep – Rae was done. Then, only when it was clean, and Rae herself was freshly showered, did she mess it all up again.

The Vraveío Astéri festival officially kicked off tonight at six o’clock. Originally, the competition had only been for restaurants across Asphodel. With the population continuing to grow, and the festival popularity too, the offer had been extended to bakeries, bistros and cafes in the last four centuries. It gave Rae an extra day to prepare – which, this time, was a blessing in disguise. Usually, however, it gave restaurants the advantage: getting to wow with their showstoppers on the first night.

Rae glanced at the token peeking out of her bag on the dining table across the counter. It fluttered at her, flirting.

“I’m not going to Garth’s. Look how today turned out after yesterday. No, I need to stay here and prep my entry for tomorrow anyway.”

The rules were clear: you had to meet the brief, impress with your flavour and food combinations, and you had to have enough for whenever the secret judge came to visit.

In her first cook-off, Rae hadn’t known about the secret judge. She had just assumed a judge would turn up on the first day.

She’d been incorrect.

They’d turned up on the sixth day, according to the score card she’d later seen in the νέα and cringed at. The judge hadn’t had a chance to sample her dish – ambrosia was her entry that century – at all. “A pity,” the report had read, “because a loyal customer told me that Geras’ Grub had sold out of them by day three. If only the chef had been more prepared.”

Rae had been prepared the next time. But she’d still come second to Garth. And the time after that. The time after that. This time would be different.

The competition ran for twelve days, which meant there was no way Rae was going to be able to prep every individual entry tonight. Even between her own home and Geras’ place, she wouldn’t have enough space to store all the ingredients that made up her dish. Instead, she’d make the first batch of apples today. Enough to get through the first three days of the festival, then reload at three more intervals. Due to the ingredients she was using, the only thing she could completely make now was the apple moulds anyway, which meant tonight’s workload would be the heaviest.

Her entry dish had to be bistro appropriate and still hit the brief, so Rae had settled on an apple casing that she would first make in a caramelised honey mould before filling with a cream she had whipped herself from the goat milk provided from the same mountain it was rumoured Zeus was raised on.

The milk was heavier, making it easier to whip, but the process of separating the milk and cream took far longer than usual, meaning Rae had gallons of the stuff in palladium containers by the fridge.

Finally, two lotus leafs, cut to look like apple leaves, would sit on top of the apple.

That’s what Rae had been deciding last night – whether to sprinkle the lotus leaf within the golden moulds, the cream itself, or have them resting on top. So, she’d taken a bite of the golden apple she was trying to replicate.

Last night’s memories reappeared in Rae’s mind like an old dream shaken awake.

The first bite had made her realise that the caramelised honey moulds she was thinking of using would be too delicate. To get that crisp consistency she was looking for, she would have to dip the moulds in an extra layer of warm honey right before serving so they didn’t turn out brittle.

With the second crunch, Rae had realised that if the lotus leafs were placed either inside the cold filling or the warmed honey, they’d lose their primary nutrient: which held the ability to make the eater lose their minds. So that had determined the lotus leaf position as leafs that would balance on top.

Finally, as the juice of the apple seeped onto her tongue and into her bloodstream, Rae’s eyes widened as she realised exactly how to make her competition entry a winner. She remembered feeling euphoric, as if she’d just been told the secrets of the gods. The sweet juices from the original apple had penetrated Rae’s cerebral fluid, shot up into her brain, and swept away the fog of her subconsciousness. She knew exactly what it would take to win the cook-off. She simply had to trust the process.

Which was why Rae decided to do one final thing to her entry dish. She took the Hesperides apple that she had taken a bite out of the previous night and began to press the rest of the juice of it out.

She would store the juice in a vial and add just one drop to each apple as she piped the cream in. Whether it would replicate the effects or not, it was worth a try. Some part of her synapses zinged in agreement, as if they remembered what the knowledge in the apple had revealed to them.

It felt like a hunch, a knowing, an ‘aha’, a tug on the thread of life from one of the Fates themselves. Rae followed the tug and got to work.

***

She was just about to turn the lights on in the bistro’s kitchen for the day when there was a knock on the door.

“Who would be here at five in the morning?” she asked the walls.

They seemed to give her a little sigh, as if they, too, were still sleepy.

Rae padded to the door. Only to open it and find Garth there, hands in his pockets, on the street corner.

“What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t use your token last night, and after what you said I was worried. I thought we’d be able to talk after the dinner service, but you didn’t come. So here I am.” He ran a scaly hand through dishevelled hair.

“I was busy,” Rae chose to reply, keeping both arms crossed and wrapped tightly around her herself. It was chilly in the early morning hours. Hell, it was always chilly here. “That’s why I didn’t come.”

“Too busy to eat?”

Rae scoffed. “I barely had time to breathe between doing a shift at yours and going back to the bistro. I was exhausted yesterday.”

“I heard.”

“You heard what exactly?”

“News travels fast down our little road. Everyone was coming in for lunch for a change, complaining you were out of everything. What happened?”

“I overslept,” Rae grumbled, staring at her feet.

“You overslept?”

“I was working on my festival entry, alright?! Then I fell asleep in a mound of goat mush, and then I had to get that to set, so there wasn’t time to bake, which meant I was late, and—”

Garth laughed, a loud, good-natured rumble. “Goat mush? What on the Asphodel green meadows are you making, Sunshine?”

“None of your business.”

“Well … that’s what I was here about actually.”

Rae stared at him a moment. “Huh?”

Garth smiled. “To be honest with you, we don’t usually get such a busy lunch. Ever since you started at Geras’ Grub, you put us out of the lunch service. I thought the least I could do was help you out for your cook-off prep, seeing as you helped me out so much.”

Rae went to open her mouth, but Garth held a hand up and stopped her. “I know, you don’t need my help. But please. I’m starting to feel bad here, and I don’t want people thinking I deliberately sabotaged a cursed ones efforts. It would be bad for my reputation. So, let me help? Let me prove I’m not trying to ‘psych you out’. It’ll put my conscience at ease.”

She knew he was deliberately baiting her, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of a single reason to justify saying no to him. She could use the help.

“You have a conscience?” Rae muttered sarcastically, though she didn’t really mean it, so she stood aside and let him enter.

“I do. And I haven’t seen the bistro this quiet in … a couple centuries at least.” He looked around, then threw a smile over his shoulder at her.

“Yeah, well, you might see it quieter later after the disaster that was yesterday.”

“I wouldn’t be too worried about that,” Garth continued as he stepped behind the counter and began rolling his sleeves up as they entered the kitchen. “Everyone’s allowed an off day. They’ll be back today to see how you fare. They’ll especially want to see what you’ve created for the festival, if it’s anything like your ambrosia.”

“How do you know about my ambrosia?”

“Sunshine, everyone in Asphodel knows about it. It’s the stuff of legends.”

The kitchen lights flickered to life in agreement.

Across every available surface was a golden bauble in the shape of an apple that sparkled to life under the lights.

“Holy gods,” Garth breathed.

“These are just for today,” Rae explained, trying to scoot around him and then busying herself in the kitchen, trying to organise chaos. “They still need to be piped, then kept chilled, the honey warmed and the lotus leaves plucked and ready for presentation. Not to mention the usual dishes for the cabinet.”

“Well then,” Garth looked at her, eyebrows raised. “Where do you want me?”

Rae couldn’t help but grin back. “How are your baking skills?”

***

She’d set Garth in charge of the sweets. Sure, it would have been easier to have him whip and set the goats cream, but Rae wasn’t entrusting her entry dish to anyone. So, while she laboured over each individual apple; carefully piping the cream into the edges and then adding the apple juice drop, Garth was covered in flour.

Every so often he would turn to ask her how exactly she wanted something done when it came to the flavour combinations, and Rae would answer him without looking up from her work.

When she was done with the final apple for the day, she looked up from the dropper to find Garth staring at her, his arms crossed in front of a flour-bombed apron.

“What is that?”

Rae narrowed her eyes slightly, her lips quirked to one side, considering something. “You want to try it?”

Garth surveyed the apples in front of him. “Well, you can’t be wanting to poison the whole Asphodel meadow so … sure.”

Rae tried not to break out in a grin. This was the perfect way to test if just a drop of the apple was enough to induce the effects she’d experienced from taking a bite.

“Hold out your tongue then.”

Garth took two steps towards Rae and then stooped down so that he was the right height for her to place a drop on his tongue, their eyes perfectly aligned. The eye contact made the act seem more intimate – uncomfortable – and Rae tried not to squirm away by focusing her attention on the dropper, on the pale golden drop forming perfectly on the end of it, then heavily dropping onto Garth’s forked tongue. She watched his eyes dilate, black pupils meeting shards of palest green, before returning to their normal sizes a minute later.

Garth took a moment to stand to his full height and cleared his throat. “Well.”

“Well?”

Garth looked around, looked anywhere but at Rae. “Do you still need me? I think I’ve done about as much as I can do to help you here. I should really get to the restaurant.”

Rae frowned. She’d expected him to comment on the flavour, or the reaction – because he’d definitely had a reaction – not ignore it completely.

“Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

“Good.”

And with that, Garth strode from the kitchen. The lights dimmed ever so slightly.

“Oh, stop it.”