Warning: this chapter will make you very hungry. Read at your own risk~.

In the morning, Ruth the cook shrieked when she saw the state of the pantry. A quick look told her how much had been taken. She was certain that it must’ve been a thief, since no one could have eaten that much food by themselves. (Author: Lol. Normally, yes.)

Everyone came to see what was the matter, and they too were stumped by the amount of missing food.

“If only there were some sort of trail!” Ruth wailed. “Why, I’d beat the red-handed blighter me-self! Those scones were fer brekkist…Now, I’ll need Jean ta help me to make some toast while I cook some eggs up. Nessa, dear, see if the hens laid some eggs this morning, I’m a bit short today.” 

Ruth put aside the problem of the missing food while she was busy slicing onions, bell peppers, cheese(which had escaped the pantry raid), and some rather fat-looking mushrooms into thin strips to make an egg scramble.

 It was Martha’s duty to check in on the little miss, this morning. So Martha excused herself from the kitchen and went to Thera’s room. Martha slowly eased the handle and opened the door silently to look in on Thera.

She was still fast asleep. Good. Martha’s eyes then fell upon the telltale tray with the crock placed upon it. She looked at it, sucked in a breath, and then looked back at Thera.

A thought made her quickly draw near to the bed and check on her. She was breathing the soft shallow relaxed way that sleeping people always did.

Martha studied her form, and couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to sigh in relief.

 It was most definitely Thera, but not the illness-thin, pale Thera of yesterday. No, this was the rosy-cheeked, natural-sized Thera that everyone had known before the illness. There was not a rib to be seen through her clothing or skin.

She smiled. This would be a good thing to show the others. Silently, she picked up the tray and the crock and left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. She returned to the kitchen.

“Oh wonderful, I was looking for that-” Ruth started to say, but upon closer examination, she noticed the evidences. “Martha.” She said quietly, “Where did ye get that tray?”

Everyone stopped. Although the cook’s words remained pleasant, they had the hottest fires of hell and the coldest fires that ever burned in a blizzard behind them.

“Well, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you where it came from.” Martha set the tray down on the counter. The cook, having just finished breakfast, was just prancing to go.

“Follow ye?  Sure an I’ll follow ye! Lead on, Martha! I’ll follow.”

Not only Martha followed, the maids also wanted to see where the food ha gone. Finally, Martha stopped in front of Thera’s slightly opened door.

“What’re ye on about, girl? Tha’s only the lil’uns room. I’m here ta find tha thief!” The cook, Ruth whispered, puzzled.

“If only you’d look at her, you would realize where every shred of stolen bread, scone, pastry, and cheese went.” Martha replied in a whisper, putting her finger to her mouth to motion to be quiet. They all crowded into the bedroom, silently, to look.

After looking for a long while the maids left one by one, until only Ruth remained. She turned to Martha, eyes’ shining with tears ready to fall. She motioned for them both to go outside. Martha shut the door.

“An you say ‘twas my food that did this?” She asked, her voice hoarse.

“It could be none other. The tray was sitting by the bed as evidence when I came in earlier.” Martha replied.

She nodded, then turned her head to look at the door, throat working for a bit. “If’n my food is what did this, I don’t care if’n she had ate the pantry clean.” She said, finally. “I’d best be gettin’ back to me kitchen. I’ll need ta make sure there’s lot’s fer her ta eat when she wakes.” Then she grinned and, turning, walked down the hallway, cheerily humming a tune.

Martha smiled. Now to show the mistress.

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Thera awoke to a cool hand brushing against her forehead, and her eyes fluttered open. It was Mother Helen, caressing her head.

“Good morning~.” She happily mumbled, and closed her eyes, feeling the caress trail down to her cheeks. It tickled.

“Good morning, Thera. Martha here has just finished telling me a very interesting story. Would you like to hear it?” Her hand started back up at the forehead and, this time, trained down the bridge of the nose to its tip.

“Mmmm. Whas Intrestin?” Thera asked lazily, too comfortable to even want to move.

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Helen smiled at the picture of health lying there on the bed.

“Well,” She began softly her voice as gentle as the stars, “This morning, Ruth and the girls found that someone had come in the night and seemingly magicked away most of the food in the pantry.”

At this point, Thera had awoken sufficiently to remember what had happened last night, and Helen could feel her stiffen under her palm, then relax. Thera figured it wouldn’t hurt to tell the truth.

“Oh, that? That was me.” She looked up at Helen, smiling an angelic smile. “I was awful hungry, so I went and ate as much as I could.”

Helen raised an eyebrow. “But this was enough food for twenty full-grown adults to eat. Are you sure you ate that much?”

“Uhuh!” Thera nodded. “I ate thiiis much!” She spread her arms out wide. “All of my favorites-well, the ones that can keep a while, anyways. I had bread and cheese and dried beef and fruit and lots of scones with cream. I used the scones to scoop the cream out. Then I had the pastries and cookies for desert and I finished it all up with a big cucumber.” Thera stayed in her four-year old role as she told the tale.

“A cucumber, huh?” Helen smiled. “I see. But how did you manage to eat all of that without your stomach bursting with all the food?”

Thera giggled. “Cuz I was so hungry that it was gone as soon as I ate it!” She replied. It was true, but Thera didn’t say that it was because she had consciously absorbed the energy.

Helen looked a bit puzzled, but then sighed and gave up. “Well, I don’t really know how it happened. But, honestly, I don’t care. I’m just glad that you’re recovered and alive.” She smiled.

“Oh, Thera? After eating all that food, do you think you’d possibly be hungry for breakfast?”

“Am I ever!” Thera said enthusiastically. She quickly hopped out of bed to get dressed.

“Drat these buttons! Martha, come and help me, please! Hurry or breakfast will be cold!”

Helen laughed and left them to their work, going ahead of them.

At the breakfast table, there was egg scramble with fried vegetables and toast, and then the cook placed a tray of a huge stack of something that Thera recognized immediately. “I didn’t have time to bake ‘em.” Ruth said. 

“So I thought maybe it would be quicker to fry them instead. It looks like I went a bit overboard, though. This here is an intuition piece. Me and the girls have already tried it, and they think it’s nice. I made this to celebrate Thera’s ‘Gettin-well’ day.”

“Why thank you, Ruth, they smell positively wonderful! What are you going to call them?” Helen asked.

“Well-” She started.

“PANCAKES!” Thera interrupted.

“I was thinkin-”She started again.

“PANCAKES.” Thera interrupted again.

“That mebbe-” Ruth was looking at Thera who was now staring at Ruth, silently pressuring her to adopt the name.

“We could…call it pancakes, ma’am.” Ruth gave in, grinning at the name.

“Indeed? Well, let’s try it, then!” Helen and afterwards Thera began eating. Halfway through a pancake, Thera stopped eating.

“Wha’s wrong?” The cook asked, wringing her hands.

“You ask what’s wrong…” Thera said slowly. “The thing itself is perfectly fine, but…I get the feeling that this would go really well with some butter and sweet stuff, like fruits and creams and stuff.”

No, she didn’t suddenly ‘get’ the feeling. She knew it would taste good with such things. She was just trying to give the cook a hint towards its improvement.

“Hmm?” Helen tasted her pancake. “She’s right, Ruth. It’s a perfectly marvelous creation, but it seems a bit bland by itself, perhaps if we add some butter and jam?” She suggested. Martha was at her elbow with the suggested condiments within moments.

Thera accepted the suggestion. Maybe later she could tell the cook how to make crepes so that she could make a crepe cake, later. Thera remembered having a crepe cake in her previous life, the night before she died.

With whipped cream between every one of the 100 layers, and a generous drizzle of chocolate-raspberry sauce: it had been the best cake Briar had ever tasted. 

Now that she was Thera, it would be such a shame to never taste it again…