Glad To Be Of Service [✔]

👨‍🍳 03: Dill With It

I inspect my surroundings for the nth time until the shock finally settles in. I must be dreaming. Maybe I am too stressed from my upcoming debts that I have started hallucinating?

How can the costumes that I have deemed so authentic be as real as they can get? There's no way this is true.

My eyes clash with Mr. Pheles whose scarlet orbs brim with obvious mischief.

Hold up. Red irises?

"W-what are you?" I manage to say while my hand trembles unconsciously.

His mouth veers to a corner. "I'd love to hear your guess."

"Who the fvc—" I stop myself right away. Dream or not, this is still a client. "How can I know?"

He grins wider, seeming like he has an inside joke playing in his head. I can only imagine it at my expense with the way he stares at me like I'm an idiot.

"I'll give an additional fifty thousand if you reckon who I am."

See? I can now confidently say I'm dreaming. The dire need for cash must be playing my brain. Do all rich folks give money like they're throwing trash?

Before I can even reply, a piercing scream resounds right at the entrance.

Messy white hair flurries in their path at an unbelievable speed before stopping right in front of us.

"Why are their newborn skulls, Master Pheles? Are you scorning me?" Her high-pitch cadence cannot distract me from her enormous size.

Her pointed nose is half the length of her face, crooking downwards. Her eyebags sag to her cheeks that lack color due to her grayish complexion. Wrinkles and freckles spread on the entirety of her visage while those lips drooping in distaste are chapped and blue. And the smell? I'm stopping myself from pinching my nose.

There's this stench coming from her that makes me want to vomit. Spoiled meat? Raw eggs? It's somehow a mixture of something in between.

"Oh, a pleasure to have you here, Baba Yaga." Mr. Pheles' timbre becomes silkier when he talks to the woman. "I have thought you would not drop by. It's been a long time you have attended after you've taken a recluse."

"You are not answering my question." Her black-stained teeth flash as she talks.

"You have amazing eyesight to have seen the buffet table from afar, Baba Yaga."

She clicks her tongue and sends Mr. Pheles a glare. "Still not answering."

"These are our new chef's specialty. You must try it yourself, Baba Yaga." Mr. Pheles gestures to me and I badly want to cuss at him.

When the woman's eyes focus on me, goosebumps rise all over my body. Her gaze travels from my head to toe and back again.

"Surely you jest. You know my vow," she says after a while. "But, it seems like you forgot yours and brought another human here."

"I have not. He'll be the new chef."

My brow rises. The way he states it makes me think I'll become his personal chef.

"I see but I hope I won't see these things next time."

"I can't promise anything," Mr. Pheles replies, making the woman's face turns sour. 

"I'm leaving, then," she grumbles under her breath.

Mr. Pheles sighs, almost dramatically. "A pity."

The woman pivots and raises her arm. A black cauldron, as huge as her,  materializes midair. There are tiny cracks on the arc-shaped sides but the old woman hops inside like she has done it a thousand times. I can only watch with a mouth hung open when she disappears as fast as she arrives.