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Your Christmas cookies turned out great for once! There was no burning or dropping of the batter and now you have dozens of cookies just waiting to be eaten or given out as gifts. However, as you leave the cookies to cool and go about your business, the smell of gingerbread seems to follow you, no matter if you made gingerbread cookies or not. A strange feeling as though someone is watching you takes over and from time to time you swear that you can hear a strange little voice saying the same thing over and over. “You can’t catch me”. The feeling passes after a few hours, but it might be best to avoid gingerbread for the rest of the holiday season…just in case.
With a soft crow of triumph, Daisy set the last cookie sheet down on the racks she’d set up on every available counter space. She was hot, sweaty and dusted in flour and powdered sugar, but she’d finished every bit of holiday baking she’d had to do. Pulling off her oven mitts, the tall brunette tossed them onto the counter she’d left clear of cooling racks. A glance at the clock told her that she still had a few hours before the party she’d been baking for. Therefore, she had plenty of time for a nice shower and maybe even some time to do some mending. Grinning, she inhaled the warm, sugary, spicy scents in her kitchen before sighing happily and heading for the bathroom.
Once the door was closed and the faucets on, Daisy caught a faint whiff of gingerbread and simply put it down to some of the cookie smells lingering in her hair. Of course, she hadn’t made gingerbread, but some of the spices she’d used had a gingerbread-y similarity. No matter, a shower would take care of any stray aromas.
By the time she stepped out of the steam filled bathroom and had thrown some fleece jammies on, Daisy had forgotten about the gingerbread scent. Before she wandered to her bedroom to fetch the basket she kept her mending in, she paused in the kitchen to check on the cookies. Everything was cooling nicely and would be ready to box up on time. As she left the kitchen, she thought she smelled gingerbread again and paused to sniff. No, just warm, powdered sugar. Weird. Shrugging, the brunette got to her room and settled on the bed with her sewing kit and a small pile of things that needed quick little mends and touch ups. Since one of those items was the dress that she planned to wear to the party, that was what she grabbed to work on first.
Settling into her sewing, Daisy hummed Christmas carols softly under her breath when, once again, there was a distinct gingerbread-ish scent around her. Only this time, it seemed to be accompanied by a sense of being watched. Even more alarmingly, she was convinced she heard a tiny, thin giggle followed by someone saying, “You can’t catch me!”
Head shooting up in alarm, she set her sewing aside and made a careful circuit of her room, looking in all the corners, drawers and even shoving a broom around under the bed. The gingerbread smell now seemed to be permanently attached to her as she stalked through the rest of her apartment. Once she’d finished her inspection, she’d been ready to breathe a sigh of relief when the feeling of being watched returned. The same odd little giggle and voice taunted her once more about her inability to catch them.
Freezing, Daisy closed her eyes and tried to laugh it off. Once of her neighbors was probably watching some crappy little cartoon or something. Nevermind that none of her neighbors were the cartoon watching type. And cartoons couldn’t account for the feeling that someone was watching her. And since she’d already checked her windows and hadn’t seen a living thing near them…
“I’m just tired,” she muttered. “But on the off chance that Freaky s**t is happening, I am going to be so pissed if my life turns into a shitty Gary Busey movie.”
Going back to her mending, Daisy did her best to ignore both scent and voice. Though, by the time it was time to prepare to leave, Daisy found her nerves to be shot for the night. Setting her sewing down, she reached for her phone and without looking, punched in a number.
“Hello? Glennie? Hi, it’s Daisy. Hrmm? Oh, well, about that. Can you swing by and pick up these cookies? I’m afraid I can’t come tonight. Yeah, I’ve got a migraine hitting and nothing is touching it. You can? Fifteen minutes? Perfect. Thank you.”
Hanging up, she raced for the kitchen, packaging every cookie up in the tupperware boxes she’d gotten. By the time her friend had shown up to collect them and give her a bottle of wine and a bottle of Excedrin, she was nearly frantic. Still, she slapped a wan smile on her face and helped to cart cookies to the waiting car. By the time it was driven off, she was ready to fall on her nose. Still, she was pleased enough to note that the gingerbread smell, which had been fading, was completely gone now. And since it seemed to have taken the invisible eyes and taunting little voice with it, Daisy decided to be grateful.
But be damned if she was going to go anywhere near any gingerbread cookies for a long, long while after this!
