“Oh, no,” I moaned. Stepping down, I searched the shelves for the regular blackberries, but they were gone too, at least from where they were supposed to be. I searched the rest of the chiller in vain, hoping that the blackberries, including my spelled ones, had just been mislaid. They hadn't. We were completely out. “We made so many blackberries, Vic must’ve grabbed the wrong ones.”
“What exactly were they enhanced to do?” Beth asked.
“Bewildering Blackberries,” I moaned. “I was going to put one in each batch so it would be a mild effect, just make the eater relax a bit. One pancake would be less potent than one shot of hard liquor. But the blackberries were potent, which is why I only wanted to use one per batch of pancakes.” I leaned against the cooler door. “There’s no telling how many got mixed in. I don’t even know when they were used.” Banging my head gently on the door, I tried to think of what to do. I needed to counter the effects somehow, but wasn't sure where to start with that. Plus, I didn't want to bring the customers down too sharply from their happy high. “They were supposed to make people feel good and see the wonder of the world around us.”
Vic ran in looking frazzled, but a bit calmer than when I'd left him in the dining area. “I think we have everyone calmed down a little.”
“I told you not to use the small batch of blackberries,” I said. My tone was harsher than I intended and I felt bad almost as soon as the words left my mouth. I was furious with Harry, not Vic.
He shook his head. “I didn’t.” But then his eyes widened. “But I did ask one of the other helpers to go grab me blackberries when you were out front.” He slapped his hand on his face. “They grabbed the wrong ones?”
I nodded my head and sighed. “Yeah. Now we have to fix this, cause those pancakes were a bigger hit than I expected, in more ways than one. At least everyone seems to be having a good time.”
Beth snorted, "Yeah they do. I haven't seen Earnie move like that in years, let alone smile!" I had the feeling she was talking about the old man dancing on the table but I wasn't sure.
Vic nodded in agreement before he squared his shoulders and gave me a serious look. “What can we do?”
Beth nodded as Carol said, “We’re in. What do you need us to do, chef?”
FIVE
Deva
“Okay,we have to make something andfast.” I tried to calm down and think of something to make that I could get out to the dining room lickety split. The answer came within seconds. “I think chocolate chip cookies might be the fastest, because I can serve them warm with milk.” I pointed at Beth. “Don’t let anyone leave. I need fifteen minutes.”
She saluted me and took off for the front.
I turned to Carol. “Come on.” We hurried back into the cooler, where I hopped up onto the stepladder and grabbed the bowl of chocolate chips.
Two minutes later, I had the batter mixed and Carol and I dolloped them onto a tray to get into the oven straight away. Carol spooned, and I blasted them with a bit of magic, murmuring the words to a spell I knew too well, and focusing on the effect I wanted the magic to have on the recipe. I’d already done the chocolate chips with a chill-out spell, but it needed more. I put more calm energy as Carol scooped, and we got them in the oven as fast as we could.
“Couldn’t you do a spell on the dining room at large?” Carol whispered, dropping her hand while the scoop in front of her kept floating in the air and dropping the dough on the baking sheet.
I shot her a look, and she sighed, then grabbed the handle with her hand again. Yes, Carol’s magic was really useful and would make things quicker, but we couldn’t risk the human staff or customers seeing her witchy abilities.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” she asked, frowning.
Being a witch meant I had powers outside of just cooking, but nothing that was as powerful or would impact the customers as quickly. Mixing magic and food was simply my greatest strength.
I shook my head. “No, and let’s make a second batch just in case.” I pulled over the flour. “If I do a spell on the whole room, the people whodidn’teat the pancakes will be affected too and might pass out. They’d calm down too much.” Plus, I’d have to figure out a spell that would work like that, and now wasn’t the time to go research spells.
She tapped the side of her nose. “Makes sense. I didn’t think about that.”
As more orders came in, I helped the kitchen since Vic was out there working on making sure nobody got too crazy. Finally, the timer on my phone went off and I hurried back to the oven, hoping my kitchen staff could handle the rest of the orders without me. “No time to let them cool,” I muttered as we pulled them off the pan and put them on plates. “Will you have the servers come here?”
Carol jumped off of a prep table and took off for the dining room. A few seconds later, the first server came in. “Take one of these to each table and give them to the customers who ate pancakes. Make sure they eat them but don’t let anyone else.” I handed out plates of cookies, repeating the same warning for each of the servers. Vic and Carol grabbed plates as well as Beth. I followed them out to walk around and do my best not to let the wrong people eat the magical cookies.
A woman danced by as I hit the dining room floor.
I held out a cookie. “Bite!” I commanded.
She danced over to me and took a big bite of the cookie. Her face filled with happiness, and she ate a few more bites. Yeah, okay, people loved my cookies, but I studied her, holding my breath and waiting to see the desire effect. A minute passed, and her brows furrowed together. She stopped dancing, and looked around, much calmer than before.
Good, she seemed to come down from her high.
“What in the world?”
