Witch Biscuits

Short Story — a desperate baker hopes a bizarre but irresistible recipe can save her struggling business

"Where did you say you found this?" My partner Suzie held up the soft-cornered recipe card for Witch Biscuits with a hand on her hip, and a skeptical eyebrow raised.

"Estate sale. Can you believe it?"

She scoffed. "I believe you're crazy if you take these instructions seriously, just look: 'only use fresh rainwater, not tap.' "Bake over live coals.' Or what about this one—" she smacked the card with her hand, "—allow to cool outside overnight, beneath a new moon.'" She burst out laughing. "What, we can only make them once a month?"

"That's why the batches need to be so big. Look, Sue, I've tried this a million different ways. If you change even the slightest thing, they come out tasting like an ashtray."

"Says right here: 'Makes 1 serving. Do not double or enlarge.' All caps." She pointed to the warning, which was written in a different color and hand, as if it had been added later by a second baker.

"Probably added by some family member who couldn't fit all the dough in their mixing bowl. I baked two dozen at home last month and they came out great."

"I dunno, Jenny." Suzie set the paper down on top of the empty display case, beside a precarious pile of bills. “These ingredients are expensive. What if, well…”

“Our with it.”

“What if you’ve got weird taste, and they don’t sell?”

“I swear, they're like nothing you've ever tasted. Polished off all of 'em in one sitting, they were so good. People won't be able to get enough.”

“Then let’s do a test batch. Couple dozen. If they sell out, we can double down next month.”

“You still don’t get it—there’s not going to be a next month. Look at this place!” I waved my arms at the empty bakery around us. The pair of retro red booths still had their brand new shine. The pile of printed menus beside the register were immaculate; unblemished and unwrinkled by the touch of customers. "You've got to trust me; this is what's gonna save us."

Suzie consulted the recipe again and chewed her lip while she did the mental math, tallying an imaginary ingredient list. She held her eyes shut for a moment, then reopened them. "Okay Jenny. Let's do this."

I couldn't help but smile. "You won't regret it."

That evening was the last time I’d ever bake. We slaved in Suzie’s kitchen until our arms were numb, and baking sheets of Witch Biscuits covered her back patio.

She regarded them with a frown. “You said they’d come out with pale blue swirls.”

“In the morning,” I corrected her. “You’ll see.”

And see she did.

Suzie was still alive when I arrived the following day, but barely so. I found her huddling over a pile of empty cookie sheets on the patio, grumbling and moaning as she shoveled handfuls of Witch Biscuits into her mouth .

"Sue?"

She whipped her head around so fast, I thought she'd snap her neck, crumbs clinging to her messy hair. "You were right—they're so good it hurts."

My eyes flitted around the yard, counting. There must've been a couple hundred cookies left. But that meant Suzie had already eaten thousands.

"Put it down!" I knocked one of the pastries away, tackling her away from the tray.

"More, More, More!" She shrieked like a spoiled child, clawing at my face as I pinned her. As she struggled to get free, one of her hands smeared some of that delicious silver-moon frosting across my lips and into my mouth. At that moment I forgot that I had come to save my friend.

I didn't even see Suzie as a friend, or even a business partner; she was competition, and she was eating my treats. After that, I can only remember flashes of clarity: cops pulling us off one another; an army of hands holding me down in the hospital bed; and the gnawing hunger.

A man with slicked back hair, a crisp dress shirt, and a tactical vest was standing between a doctor, and the door to my hospital room. My stomach ached; my throat felt raw; and a groggy post-anesthesia fog seemed to cloud my brain.

"Where's Suzie?" I asked.

"We were able to pump your stomach in time. But your friend... I'm sorry." The doctor hung his head. "This gentleman had a few questions for you, if you don't mind. I'll make my rounds, and be back in about an hour." He dropped my chart back in a clipboard holder at the foot of my bed, and ducked out into the hall.

"Miss Perkins, my name is Nelson," said the man in the tactical vest, "I'm with the FDA."

"Food and Drug Administration?"

"Yes, we have reason to believe this had something to do with what you ate." He held up a small stenographer notebook. “A neighbor heard shouting and called 911.”

He flipped the page. “Autopsy found Suzie died of gastric rupture—which is almost unheard of. Her insides were crammed full of partially digested baked goods. In other words, she kept forcing herself to eat, even after her stomach burst.”

My own insides, mercifully empty, squirmed.

“We found this in your bakery kitchen.” He held up a clear evidence baggie holding a faded recipe card. “These instructions are bizarre… where did you get this?”

“Estate sale.”

“And what about this warning here?” He pointed to a message written in capital red letters: "Says: 'Makes 1 serving. Do not double or enlarge.' You ignored the warning."

“Thought it had to do with taste. You don’t think that’s what caused this?”

Nelson nodded. "Afraid so. One of the deputies was exposed to the frosting while processing the scene—went absolutely ballistic. Took his partner, and supervisor to stop him from eating the rest of the evidence."

"So the batch size is small because once you get a taste, you can't stop eating." I swallowed, thinking of the other recipe cards from the box; how quirky they were, and how fun I thought it would be to send them off to my friends from culinary school to try. 

That had been well over a week ago. If even one of them had tried replicating the recipe...

"It certainly seems like something supernatural is in play," Nelson said.

"Seems so," I agreed. No way this guy was really with the FDA.

He pulled a chair over to the hospital bed, looming over me. "Miss, I need to know: how many other cards were in the box, and how many other people know about them?"

---

Thank You for Reading!

Fun fact for those of you who stayed until the end: this story was originally a planned continuation of The Killer Cookbook. If you haven’t read it, please do, it’s one of my favorites! I’d cooked up an idea of a story collection surrounding a set of occult recipes, and the effects wrought on the poor saps who made them — loosely themed around the seven deadly sins. The eponymous tale following the prison chef was meant to be wrath. This one is obviously gluttony.

I’d mapped out sloth and lust, but started to feel bogged down by the time commitment. If you enjoy this, please let me know, and I may finish the set!

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