Chapter 1: The Caramel Curse

Ophelia was multitasking. As always. And, as always and completely unsurprisingly, it backfired. The pan she had been precariously balancing on one gloved hand while she reached into the oven with the other clattered to the ground, spilling gooey cookies all over. The freshly baked metal corner found her bare ankle and sizzled on her skin.

She jumped away with a yelp and sighed, rolling her eyes and grumbling to herself, “Of course, the tiniest sliver of skin, and somehow I still get burnt.”

She wiped the sweat off her brow with her forearm and surveyed the damage. The corpses of twelve beautiful salted caramel cookies littered the floor in various states. Loyal soldiers fallen in battle, their lives lost, and bodies sacrificed to appease the hubris of their general.

She sighed again and went to fetch the broom and accompanying dustpan. Now she had to mix up a whole extra batch of cookies, with their extra sticky dough. Definitely her least favorite item on the menu to make but they were bestsellers so odds were low she'd make it through the day with just the one dozen that did survive the war.

As she swept up the sugary massacre, she realized she’d have to get up close and personal with the carnage to really lift the hot caramel off the linoleum. She grabbed a rag and some cleaning supplies, spraying the area down and scrubbing hard, grateful that the years of kneading bread had prepared her well for this showdown. Within minutes the floor was clean, spotless even, and though she wouldn’t eat anything off it quite yet she was satisfied enough with her work.

She got up from the floor and dusted herself off, reminded in that moment of the burn on her ankle by the jolt of pain that shot through her leg. Letting out another sigh she got out the first aid kit. She braced herself, features scrunched up on her face and her eyes screwed shut as she rolled up her pant leg.

Cautiously cracking open one eye, she let out the breath she had been holding as she realized the burn wasn’t bad enough to be bleeding. A blister had already begun to form but she could handle it with ease, it was the blood that gave her problems. Her arms were a certifiable smorgasbord of scars as a result of incidents just like this. She peeled open a bandaid and covered the wound, nodding her head in acknowledgment of a job well done. Now. Back to work.

Checking the clock, she did some mental math and figured she’d have to put her nose to the grindstone, so to speak, to get everything prepared by opening. Three hours to go, it was doable but not ideal. At least she hadn’t washed the dishes from the previous batch of cookies yet.

She began to gather the ingredients and realized with a scowl that she only had one egg left inside. Which meant she had to go out to the walk-in refrigerator in the back of the building. Glancing out the window, she lamented the fact that it was a new moon. No light to ease the itch of paranoia that lived in the dark corners of her brain. Nighttime always made this worse and she wondered, for a moment, why she took a job that required her to be on her own for hours while the rest of the world slumbered peacefully.

She wasn’t afraid of the dark, per se. In fact, she enjoyed it and considered herself a night owl at heart. But, ever since she was a child, the vast darkness had held a distinct feeling of being watched that made her uneasy. She never voiced these fears to anyone, as she knew they were absurd, but even now she often felt a… presence in the night.

Her mind wandered to memories of the stories she was told then, about a creature that lived deep in the mountains. Powerful and dangerous, their parents warned them to be out of the woods before nightfall, lest the creature choose one of them as its victim.

Her father had always eased her fears a bit. Unlike the other parents and citizens of Boulder, he not only believed in the creature’s existence but also in its humanity, or proximity to humanity. The rumors painted it as a bloodthirsty beast and farmers in the area would occasionally find bite marks in the limbs of their livestock. Livestock that was always a bit weak and woozy from blood loss.

Others used this as evidence that the creature was a threat, some sort of vampiric monster stalking the hills and valleys that bordered their city, despite the fact that no deaths, human or animal, had been attributed to the beast yet. Ophelia’s father, on the other hand, saw this as an example of the creature’s respect for life.

“Clearly, it means no harm. We cannot help what we are, nor can it. Many humans fail to see the value in life that this creature sees. It belongs in our world as much as you or me, Mosi,” he would say to her, using the nickname he gave her as a baby.

It was a Diné bizaad word meaning cat. He always told her he knew that she was reserved and intelligent from her demeanor as a baby. She never cried, just looked around curiously taking in the world. Drinking it up but remaining quiet, thoughtful. Even so, he told her, she always had a glint of mischief in her eyes, like a cat.

Ophelia shook her head and drew herself back into reality, to the task at hand. Steeling her nerves, she opened the door, hand on the knife she kept at her side at all times. You could never be too careful with nature at your backdoor, you had to be prepared for anything. She took a tentative step forward, the invisible pressure of eyes on her as soon as she left the comfort of the doorway.

She swallowed and pushed on, rolling her eyes at herself and muttering, “You do this every time. Grown a** woman can’t walk fifteen feet in the dark. Ridiculous.”

Scanning her surroundings, she pressed on until she reached the looming shadowy figure that was the walk-in. With one more quick glance around her, she pulled the door open and grasped for the string that served as a cord to turn on the one, perpetually flickering, lightbulb.

Her fingers closed around the frayed material and she gave it a small yank, filling the room with dull yellow light. Squinting as her eyes adjusted, she turned to the shelf of eggs. She went over the recipes she had left in her head and grabbed two palates of them, concluding that would be enough to avoid any repeat trips out here.

Remembering she was low on lemons too, she allocated the palates of eggs to one arm and used her other to tie up her apron into a makeshift bag in which she placed six lemons from the basket in the corner.

Satisfied, she adjusted her grip on the eggs and made her way out of the walk-in, tugging the string with her finger as she left and cursing herself for the breath that caught in her throat as she was plunged back into darkness. She glared up at the cloudy sky; The stars and moon were usually bright enough for her to maneuver her way to and from the walk-in with relative ease but today she relied on the lights from the cafe and her memory of the path to guide her back.

The next two and a half hours went by relatively smoothly, though every time she passed one of the cafe windows she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She brushed it off and kept working, putting on a playlist of old Motown music to lift her spirits.

Shortly before the barista was supposed to arrive, she glanced over to the hot plate in the corner of the kitchen. Like a deer in headlights, her eyes widened and she dropped the spoon she had been using as a microphone while serenading the standing mixer with the sweet words of Freddie Scott.

The sight before her was similar to that of the poor people of Pompeii the day Vesuvius decided it had enough. She had forgotten about some caramel she had been heating and it now spilled over the pot like lava rushing from the mouth of a volcano. It was everywhere. All over the hot plate, which was definitely still on as Ophelia could smell the caramel burning with every passing second, the table, and dripping down onto the floor. The smell broke her from her stupor and she rushed over to turn off the hot plate, hissing when some molten caramel dripped onto her hand.

“This is just not my day,” she growled, glaring at the offending blob of caramel as she gently pulled it off her now throbbing finger.

Surveying the mess she raised her uninjured hand to the back of her neck, noticing at that moment that somehow she had gotten caramel in her hair. She covered her face with her hands and crouched down, letting out a scream of frustration before standing back up, dusting herself off, and resolving to deal with the caramel in a moment, after she finished setting up the last display case out front.

As she arranged the last of the blueberry muffins she saw her coworker Javier approaching the front door. He was a broad-shouldered man with a tan complexion; a charismatic gym rat who thrived under pressure and was very popular with the customers. He had been working at the cafe for nearly as long as she had, and she started with a part-time position in high school.

Of course, Javier always makes an entrance and today was no different. He pulled the door open with far too much energy for 6:30 in the morning with a greeting that was far too loud for Ophelia’s ears.

Almost immediately, the brilliant smile dropped and his face contorted into a grimace. “Woah, qué hiciste, Ophelia? What is that smell?”

The grin spread on his face again, only this time there was a devious curl in the corners of his mouth. She was briefly reminded of the Cheshire Cat as he fades away, one lingering sardonic smile the only evidence of his presence.

Javier interrupted her thoughts with a laugh. “Tsk tsk tsk, you burned something, didn’t you? We have to air this place out before we open, that is suffocating.”

Ophelia narrowed her eyes at him but couldn’t help the embarrassed smile that crept onto her face. “Look, it's been a long morning, okay?”

His eyes ran over her face thoughtfully and his smile softened. “No pasa nada, I’ll go open some windows and get the fan from the basement. We’ll have the smell cleared out in no time. No te preocupes.”

Letting out a breath, Ophelia smiled at him, intentionally this time. “Thanks, Javi. I was just headed back to clean up the mess anyway. I wanted to finish stocking the front first.”

He nodded and gave her a salute and stuck out his tongue, to which she rolled her eyes, before bouncing off to the basement.

Ophelia trudged back to the kitchen and got to work. Scraping and scrubbing and scraping and scrubbing. She decided she’d never eat caramel again. Her knees ached from spending so much time on the ground and her terracotta hands were bright red from working the rags through the caramel. It took ages but, eventually, she cleared the area and tuned back into her surroundings.

She could hear the coffee machines humming away and when she looked through the window from the kitchen to the front, she scoffed at the sight of Javi flirting with one of their regulars. He was a relentless charmer and most of their customers fell head over heels for him.

She supposed that was one of the more redeeming qualities he had, he was all about free love. Didn’t matter the age, race, or gender, he saw beauty in everyone and enjoyed telling them as much.

She pursed her lips remembering the, frankly, absurd number of local college students who had their hearts broken as a result of that… openness. Javi was a straightforward guy with a good heart but he was not one for monogamy and some of his conquests didn’t seem too keen on that.

Ophelia laughed to herself. It was their own fault though, for thinking they could change someone. For thinking that love meant changing each other. For falling in love with the idea of a person rather than who they really are.

She scoffed again, this was why she didn’t bother. Well, that and no one had really caught her eye. Maybe one day she’d figure out the big deal about romance and love and all that. For now, she was more than content with her friends, family, and career.

Turning back to the kitchen she proceeded to clean up the rest of her dishes and ingredients, making sure everything was in its proper place for the next morning. Once she was satisfied, she untied her apron and hung it up in the small closet outside the kitchen, and went up front to clock out.

Javier was busy with a regular, one Ms. Alma, who was absolutely smitten with him and could talk for hours on end. Ophelia let out a snort at Javi who was nodding along at the rapid-fire Spanish coming from the tiny elderly woman. She knew him well enough to know he adored the opportunity to indulge in a little “chisme” so she simply waved as she left through the front.

Taking a deep breath, Ophelia relished the feeling of the crisp mountain air in her lungs. She closed her eyes for a moment and let herself marinate in the smell of the morning around her. The scent of coffee from the cafe drifted out of the windows and combined with the fresh scent of the woods behind them.

Smiling contentedly, she turned to her right and unlocked her bike from the rack, slinging her leg over the seat and pushing off toward home. The air rushed against her face and she felt peace. Until she remembered she still had caramel in her hair. She frowned and picked up the pace, wanting to get home, shower, and hop in bed as soon as possible.

Ophelia sped past the main streets, turning onto the dirt road that led into the mountains and, more importantly, toward the small cottage she lived in. Technically, it was her grandfather’s but he had moved to a retirement community in Florida long ago. It was the house he and her mother had lived in when they immigrated to the U.S. from Canada and now, it was hers.

She arrived home and within a half hour, she was safely in bed, ready to sleep the day away.