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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.
This year for Christmas, Marni had allowed Jadyn into her kitchen to help her make cookies. It was something they had done as kids with their mother but hadn't since the accident. This year, they were feeling up to bringing up more old memories, more old traditions they missed, and making cookies was one of them. Where Marni did actual baking with their mother, Jadyn's role was official taste tester. Which, as an adult, he now realized was because he was too young to do too much more than that. This year despite the danger to her kitchen, Marni had relented. Jadyn was pretty excited about it, and planning on doing his best not to burn anything. But if he were honest he hoped that Marni would take care of the oven part.
So a couple days before Christmas, Jadyn woke up bright and early to get started. He leaned against the doorway leading into the kitchen, waiting for Marni to emerge from her room. When she did he smiled brightly and opened his mouth to wish her a good morning but before he could, she held up a hand to stop him.
"Nope. Coffee," were her only words. He just snickered and followed her in, taking a seat on a stool at the kitchen island. He gave her time to make a cup of coffee and take a drink before speaking again.
"So what kind are we making?" he asked. She seemed to think for a few minutes before answering.
"I was thinking peanut butter, sugar, chocolate chip, and maybe some shortbread. What do you want to start with?"
"Chocolate chip!" he said and grinned. His favorite. Though he liked milk chocolate chips rather than semi sweet. "Did you get-"
"Milk chocolate chips? Yes, I did. Now, here's the plan."
They then spent the rest of the day making cookies. Marni supervised and told him what to put in the mix when. She used the mixer on the batter most of the time, but let him fold in the chocolate chips with a long handled spoon. All in all, it was a pretty great day. He didn't mess up putting in any of the ingredients, he didn't drop the bowl of batter once, and Marni even let him put some of the pans of cookies in.
Best part? They didn't burn a single cookie. They all came out perfectly! Well, he supposed that could be put down to the weird innate timer-sense his sister inherited from their mom, but still. His mere presence in kitchens had been known to cause disaster.
Now he was up in his room, playing video games, when he heard it.
"You can't catch me~" something sang. At first he thought it was his game, but he'd never heard that before on Mario Kart. Then he noticed the smell. He thought it was just the shortbread cookies they had made but it smelled spicier than that, like...
Gingerbread. "You can't catch me~" he heard again. There was no way that someone was pranking him with the gingerbread man. Marni wasn't the type, and is friends were all with his family. Zak wasn't the type, either. He heard that voice again and was starting to get creeped out.
He turned the volume up on his game and tried to ignore it, but the smell of gingerbread just became stronger. He tried not to let it freak him out (any more than it already had) but it was really weird.
The smell and the voice lasted for a couple more hours, but even after the scent of gingerbread faded Jadyn felt weird. No way was he going anywhere near gingerbread anything for a while.
