It was a small town.

A town where neighbors knew how and when each other’s grandmothers died. A town where it took too little for whispers to turn into rumors. For rumors to bring infamy.

Her family had always been a source of rumors. Were it due her mother’s sickness or her father’s infidelity, the whispers were always circulating the streets. She once thought the rumors would decrease once she had a family of her own.

Yet it was a small town.

And people always talked.

A few years after tying the knot, her husband finally got the money to open their own restaurant. The very thing she had dreamed of since she was a small girl. The one thing she needed to answer to her calling.

Your food is a true blessing from God. It brings solace to the soul, warmth to the body.

It was what people used to say. Those whispers, she never minded them. Her cooking was her pride and joy, the reason she had been born into that world. Everyone else thought so. And her husband knew it to be true, as well.

There is no jewel in this world more precious than your hands. So care for them like I can for you.

He would kiss her fingers more than he touched her lips, for he too knew the worth of her calling. Of the one thing she knew how to do.

Cooking.

Though the restaurant was under her husband’s name, some people would talk about how she also referenced herself as an owner. Before it had even opened, rumors kept twirling and dancing around small shops and neighborhoods. However, she paid those whispers no mind. For she knew those same people would come once the doors opened, eager to smell her food.

Anxious to take their first bites.

Like her husband had predicted—like she, herself, knew to be true—once the restaurant opened, people came. And every time she glanced at the filled tables, watching their fulfilled expressions as they hungrily ate every single crumb from their plates, the woman felt euphoric.

A rush that was hot enough to make her cheeks blush and her heart race—an unmatched joy she knew would never be surpassed by anything.

For a long time, things prospered.

It was challenging to not feel superior. To not feel special when she was one of the few people who had not only discovered her true calling, but was also prospering on her path. Before her mother died, the older woman told her she was destined for greatness. That her blessing was bound to bring prosperity to the family.

Yet it was a small town.

Too small, at times.

And like so, the whispers never really stopped.

Whispers telling how her husband kept walking with questionable men. How those groups seemed unscrupulous and dangerous. How her husband had been seen gambling in the big cities, more than once.

However, she paid those rumors no mind. After all, people were still coming.

They still asked for her meals.

Yet the more time passed, the louder those whispers became. Their words more callous, colder, rougher. Whispers that soon became monstrous rumors, carrying words so unsightly and preposterous, it carried their own venom.

I heard he borrowed money from the mafia, some said.

They told me this place is a front for those criminal groups, others retorted.

I was told someone got murdered here just the other night, others replied.

I heard they own so much money, they will sell their house, some complemented.

And like so, the rumors never stopped. But people—

People stopped coming.

Little by little, their numbers began to dwindle. No matter how many times she told them those were all lies, the whispers never stopped. The woman was certain their situation would improve. She knew that to be true, for it was her calling. The one thing she was capable of doing, and doing well.

But then came a night when her husband got home late. He was staggering, trembling, crying. The woman thought him to be in a drunken state. Yet the more he spoke to her, the less she saw the alcohol in his speech. The more she saw the fear in his eyes.

The man began to break their things. Throwing plates and cups onto the walls, shouting, sweating.

The woman shrunk and shivered in her spot, trying to understand the things her husband was saying, yet not being able to do so. After all, he was a decent man. He would never get involved with those kinds of people. He would never borrow so much money when they had so little.

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But if they had so little, how come he opened the restaurant?

How come he got the money?

Her husband hurt her for the first time that night. He slapped her across the cheek and cursed both her hands—yet it was his words that hurt her the most. The thing that truly destroyed her.

Words saying her cursed hands were the reason everything was falling apart. That he was foolish enough to believe in her family’s lies, and bet everything on the restaurant. But that sales never got where they needed. People never ate as much as they had to.

After that night, she never saw her husband again. Whispers said she had become a widow who never saw her husband’s corpse, and never would. And after that night, even with the doors wide open, the restaurant would remain empty.

With not a single soul inside.

Still, every day, she got up and got dressed.

Before the sun had risen, the woman was cleaning the tables and sweeping the floor.

Every day, with no fail, the woman would open the doors and wait.

Waiting for her life’s purpose to call her again. Waiting to see people’s satisfaction as they tasted her food, once again.

As time passed, bills piled. The first thing she sold was the house.

And as the restaurant remained empty, she eventually sold her wedding ring. It didn’t pain her to do so. After all, she was doing it for her true calling. Even if her husband had stopped believing it, it didn’t stop being true.

Her hands, they were a blessing from God. And they would make her prosper. Would make others happy.

Things changed on that evening.

The woman was about to close for the day when someone walked in—a stranger. He never asked for the menu, never asked for a price. He only asked her to make him something warm to eat.

She went to the kitchen with tears in her eyes, her hands shaking with every movement she made. When she finally put the plate in front of him, the stranger ate in complete silence. She offered him a second portion, a drink, something sweet—he rejected every single one.

When he stood up, he thanked her for one of the best meals he had in recent years and paid threefold the meal’s value, stating he would come back again soon.

The woman did not sleep that night. She could only smile, keep on dreaming.

The stranger returned three days later, doing the exact same thing. Yet on that day, he paid sevenfold the true value of the meal. Before she could ask why, or even thank him, he stated he would be back soon.

And walked away.

On his fifth visit, the woman could barely control her joy as she saw him walking into the place. He would always come late at night, wearing nothing but elegant clothes and polished shoes, and pay the most absurd prices for her meals. Still, the woman would smile, that old rush coming back to her.

Of course, things will be all right. I told them.

After all, this is my calling.

Yet something happened on the man’s ninth visit. Right before he ordered, he leaned closer to her and whispered in a low, velvet voice.

“If you do me one small favor, I will come every single day.”

When she asked what kind of favor, the stranger said he wanted her to pick him the prettiest wildflower she could spot and gift it to him on their next encounter.

The woman said yes in a heartbeat.

On his next visit, he smiled for the first time when he saw the poppy flower she had stolen from one of her old neighbors. And just like he promised, the stranger began to visit every day.

And every day, he would make her a new proposal.

「Bring me a four-leaf clove, and I will order two meals every time」

「Bring me a red jewel, and I will order a dessert」

「Bring me a small dog, and I will come every morning for a hot beverage」

With each request, the favors got more daring.

More dangerous.

Break into a store.

Kill a bird.

Harvest an organ from a fresh corpse.

Yet no matter what the man asked her to do, the woman found the words of agreement falling from her lips as her heart raced more and more. For the rewards…the things the man gave her once she had done her part…oh…

They only ever got sweeter.

And the town, it still whispered. Called her insane. A maniac trapped in delusions, a pitiful widow who never recovered from her husband’s sudden departure. A foolish woman who dreamed higher than she could.

Yet those were not the only whispers she heard.

For there was one person who valued her for who she was—for what she could do.

「Kill the person who has wronged you the most, and bring me their eyes. If you do so, I will buy a restaurant for you, in another town.」

And her cheeks flushed, and her eyes glistened. For that town had always been too small. Too convoluted with its whispers. None of the people there truly appreciate her gift—her calling. Not like that stranger did.

So a few weeks later, she handed the man a jar filled with alcohol.

With her husband’s eyes floating inside.

When he gave her the keys to the new store, all she could feel was ecstasy. An overwhelming sense of accomplishment and pride. The man said she just had to wait for a few days before he settled everything right for her.

「Do not move from this spot. Wait for me until I come for you.」

And she waited.

Without sleeping. Without eating. Without moving.

She kept waiting for him inside her restaurant, with the doors opened wide.

Yet after a few days, when neither moonlight nor bright stars shone through the clouds, with the air getting colder and heavier as the darkness stretched, instead of meeting with the strange man, the cook saw someone else.

A person who very much resembled her mother.

Yet their eyes were void. Their voice haunting. Their form, too grand.

“Thy contact beings of taint and wickedness. Of the immoral and the godless. Thy time belongs to the living no more, child, unless thou beseech me with a small grace.”

The being’s voice boomed into the space, stealing all remaining light that somehow had found its way into that place. The woman feared the darkness more than she feared that presence, wondering how much more she would have to wait for the stranger to come for her, at last.

“And h-how may I be of service to you?”

The figure who resembled her mother smiled, extending her a knife. Its blade was sharp and clean, reflecting a light she could neither see nor touch.

“Cut thy hands clean, with no regrets. Do so, and I shall show thou the path back to the world of the living.”

At that moment, the woman knew.

She knew that being would never let her meet the man again.

She knew her heart was not beating right anymore.

So she stared at the knife for a very long time, and felt that rush once again.

I was right. I had always been right.

That had been the cleanest cut she had ever made, from one side to the other, the skin and flesh of her neck separating in one smooth motion.

This is my one true calling.

As she gazed at the blood on the floor, she realized it too shared that being’s coldness.

The reason I was born into this world.

And if she could answer to her call no longer—

Then, there was simply no reason to be.