Page 86 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

She steps aside.

I enter. The door shuts behind me with the soft finality of a coffin lid.

She pours us tea. Or something that pretends to be tea, overly floral and cloyingly sweet, like she dumped every flavored sugar packet from a gas station into hot water and prayedfor depth. It scalds my tongue and offends my soul, but I sip anyway. Civility must be maintained, even among the damned.

Cookie fidgets, wrapping her fingers around her teacup like it’s the only thing anchoring her to this plane of existence. Her nails are chipped, the polish bitten halfway off. I smell burnt lemon zest beneath the perfume of her panic.

“I had a crush on you, you know,” she blurts, eyes glassy. “Back in school. Thought if I beat you at something, you’d notice me.”

I don’t respond right away. I let silence swell between us, uncomfortable, unblinking, like a spider poised in a web. Then I tilt my head, sip again, and smile. “You never needed to best me to be noticed,” I say, smooth as silk folded over a blade. “You just needed to be worth noticing.”

Her laugh comes out too fast, too loud, and cracks halfway through like an overwhipped meringue. “You loved that nut the moment you saw her,” she says, venomously nostalgic. “That’s what Randy from the sub shop said. Jennifer. Such a common name. Too common for you.”

Randy wasn’t wrong.

Jennifer. Bright-eyed, blood-slicked lunacy. She walked into my life all curves and hidden edges. Of course I noticed. Of course I was doomed.

Cookie blinks hard, like she’s trying to cry but forgot how. Then she huffs, stands abruptly, and moves to the counter. Flour dust rises from her apron like smoke from a battlefield.

“Come on, then,” she says. “Tell me it’s not good enough and I’ll believe you.”

She lifts a domed glass lid with desperation, revealing a single lemon cupcake. It’s beautiful, in the way haunted houses are beautiful, cracked frosting, sugared zest curled like a smile too wide. I can see the effort in it. The pain kneaded into the batter. The shame piped in rosettes.

I lean in, examining it like an autopsy.

The sponge is dense. Too much egg. The frosting has split slightly at the edges. A ghost of bitterness from scorched citrus clings to the air. Close. But not perfect.

“May I?” I ask.

She nods, holding her breath like a child at their first piano recital.

I reach into my coat pocket and withdraw a small glass vial, stoppered with mother-of-pearl, etched with microscopic script. It glints under the kitchen light like a secret too elegant to speak aloud.

A pinch. That’s all it takes. Pale powder, fine as powdered sugar, folded gently into the lemon glaze. I whisk it once, twice. No more. Precision is sacred.

“Arsenic,” I say, “should be like vanilla. Used sparingly, and with intention.”

She doesn’t even flinch. When I offer her the finished product, she stares at it like it might answer all her questions. Or none of them. She takes a bite.

Silence stretches.

Her eyes well. She exhales like something inside her finally loosened. “Well?” she whispers.

I smile. Soft. Cold. Kind, in the way a scalpel is kind when it cuts exactly where it should. “This is your ribbon moment.”

Without grace, as I expect, she faceplants into the glaze.

I leave with quiet steps. No rush. No need. The night is still and satisfied, like a lion licking blood from its whiskers.

Behind me, the bakery sighs into silence. I’ve left everything in its proper place: lights dimmed low, kitchen a mess. On the counter, a delicate glass bottle, clearly labeled Arsenic in looping vintage script, rests beside a small plate of lemon cupcakes, each one frosted with trembling care.

Beside them lies the note, written in Cookie’s signature bubbly pink ink:

“I just couldn’t go on. But at least I baked something beautiful.”

I made sure to sign it with a little heart.

By the time I reach the parking lot behind the fairgrounds, the stars have shifted. Carson is already there, leaning against his cruiser like a noir cliché, arms crossed, sunglasses still on even in the dark. I admire his commitment to the bit.

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