Cocot paused at the bridge over the stream. The spruce shivered. Closing her ears to the whispering in the trees and she raced along the path back to the stairs.

That evening she lit a candle while she served herself a slice of vin cuit pie. She sat with her back to Sarina, still warm from an afternoon of baking and cooking. Her mother's cookbook lay open at the vin cuit pie recipe page on the table in front of her.

Cocot tried very hard to enjoy her dessert. It was sweet and rich and baked to perfection, exactly the way her mother always made it. She cut each bite with her fork and placed them carefully in her mouth to savor the taste, but it was no use; each bite transformed into tasteless gobs in her mouth. The last time she had eaten this pie, every time in fact, she had been sitting with her mother at the table. She forced herself to swallow each bite past the iron ring squeezing her throat shut.

She tried looking at the cookbook for company her mother had written by hand. Reading the list of ingredients and tracing her mother's drawing in the upper corner of the page. Every page was graced with an illustration in water-color paints and at the bottom of each page, was a short rhyme or a few words of wisdom.

Sometimes, Cocot opened the book just to admire the pictures; a starry sky, rose buds, willows bending in an invisible breeze, an empty snail shell or a bird's nest, ripe raspberries on the bush, wooden flutes, a full moon, and more since each one was unique.

This page had a picture of a girl with two tears on her cheeks and her hair in a long, thick braid over her shoulder, like her mother used to wear her hair. The line at the bottom of the page read, 'If one is shared, one makes two.'

She stopped tracing the drawing and cut another bite from the pie. Then she dropped her fork in her plate with a loud clatter and she covered her face with her hands. She didn't want to eat this pie by herself. She didn't want to sit there night after night alone.

It was her fault.

It was her fault.

And now she had no one.

Her shoulders shook and she couldn't stop the tears. Sobbing and hiccupping, she scraped the rest of her slice onto the cake platter. She could not eat it. She would throw the whole thing on the compost pile behind the cottage.

Tears streamed down her face unchecked and fell on the pie as she carried it outside. Every step and every thought sent needles of pain straight to her heart. Her mother was dead and had left her alone, and she was to blame.

There was no one to keep the darkness away.

By the time she reached the end of the garden, she couldn't go any further. She bent in half, clutching her stomach and sobbing. The pie slid off the platter onto the stepping stone.

Let the rabbits have it, she thought, anger stirring in her chest. Let the mice come and eat it and a fox come and eat them! Let the great fairies from the stories come and think I left it here for them and let them get sick from eating it, each and every one of them!

She howled her grief and pain, crouching on cold ground until nighttime crept over her.

That night her dreams were strange. For a long time she was trapped inside the chalet. Then it changed.

Vin cuit pies were chasing her around the garden screaming that she had forgotten the most important ingredient and now they were going to take the bottled malevilum hiding in the cellar. But she was holding the bottle in her hand. At least, she thought it was the bottle of malevilum. When she looked closer, she realized she was holding a baby bottle full of milk in her hand and she put it to her lips to drink. The milk was sour, though and she noticed it had purple and blue swirls and a label on the side in her mother's handwriting that read Lum, Rum not So Plum.

Sarina hiccupped. Or snorted with surprise. Cocot heard it in her sleep and she swam up from the depths of her strange dream to listen. One of the pies pinched her nose and Sarina snorted again.

Cocot rubbed her eyes open. Sarina sat quiet and calm in her corner as always; no snorts or hiccups or any other unusual noises escaping her iron mouth.

Something cleared its throat from the end of her bed.

*** Thank you for reading! ***