Just Desserts

By Hannah Carter

Everyone knows you’re supposed to exchange sweets with loved ones on Valentine’s Day.

What no one had ever specified—probably for lack of a reason—was that those sweets probably shouldn’t be sentient.

My bad.

“Broomsticks and baubles!” I stood in the middle of the kitchen of my magical boarding school, caught in a barrage of tiny, frenzied crème brûlées. “Help!”

Desserts hung from the sconces and crawled over countertops. The giant oven beeped wildly, birthing dozens of carnivorous custards at a time.

They leapt across the floor and swarmed me like a pudding plague. Some tried to snatch my wand from my hand, while others tugged on my shoelaces.

“Oh, no you don’t!” I cried as one of the crème brûlées gnawed on my ankle. I punted it away, and it gave a high-pitched wail as it sailed through the air—right before the kitchen door slammed open. The soaring sweetie splattered against my elder sister Zelda’s face, while the door crushed three more climbing crèmes.

Zelda growled, cleaning her face with a fierce swipe. “Haddie Underwood! What did you do this time?”

Her eyes found mine then flicked to the wand in my hand. I tucked it behind my back and showed her my sweetest smile. “I just thought I could—hey!” I yelped as a crème brûlée jerked on my sock. I stomped on it, but several more began to scale my legs. “I thought we’d be able to get ready for the Valentine’s banquet faster if—ouch, you brat!—if the food could cook itself!” I turned my magic on the one biting my thigh. “Explode!”

Creamy custard splattered over me and the cabinets. Maybe not my brightest idea of the day, but certainly not my worst. My worst had sinister sweets crawling out of the woodwork.

Zelda aimed her own wand at a dessert on the table. “Explode!”

A crème brûlée leaped from a sconce toward her blonde hair. “Geronimo!” it squealed. Its cartoonish eyes were fixed on Zelda, stick-like arms extended.

The divebombing dessert opened its mouth and swallowed Zelda’s wand whole.

I placed my hand over my heart. “Aw! Look at that, Z. They’ve learned to talk! I’m such a happy mum—ow!” One cheeky custard bit my elbow, and I smashed it in response.

Zelda’s naughty nibbler darted into the frenzy. My sister shrieked. “Who cares, Haddie! It ate my wand! I can’t fix this until we get it back!”

“Just use mine.” A globule of custard dropped on my nose, and I looked upward. “Oh, no.”

A multitude of my little monsters crawled across the ceiling.

“Attack!” one bellowed.

The delicious divers flung themselves at us.

I shrieked as they splattered against my head and yanked at my hair. Creamy guts ran down my face like a holiday horror flick. Even worse—my wand slipped out of my gooey hands, and one opportunistic ankle-biter held it aloft like a trophy and skittered away.

“All right, Plan B!” I slapped the dessert away from my eyes. “How do we know which ones took the wands?” I shoved another off my head. “They all look the same—gooey and delicious!”

“I’m thinking!”

A crème brûlée dove for my ear, teeth bared. Zelda flung out her hand. A pulse of raw, unfocused magic exploded from her palm, flinging her against the wall. The monster careened off my shoulder, eyes wide, and crashed into several more. They tumbled to the stone floor.

It was all rather dramatic.

“Explode!” She cast the spell five times in a row, and each time, her palm grew increasingly red and blistered. “Find a wand, Haddie!”

I dropped to my knees, plunging my fist into one of the little buggers. No wand. I shook it off and tore into the next one—and the next—and the next…

Crème brûlées nipped me, causing pinpricks of blood to bubble up on my exposed skin. I belly-flopped and rolled around on the floor, a giant steamroller of death. No wand, no wand, no—

Crack.

I reached under me and winced as I drew out Zelda’s wand. A split right in the middle exposed the crystal core.

“Whoopsie.” I held it upwards to my sister and wiped the eggy dessert off my face.

“Oh, Haddie!” Zelda groaned. Crème brûlées crawled on her head, her legs, her arms. “Just give it here. Maybe we can use the crystal…” She pinched the white stone between her scalded fingers. “Grab it, Haddie! I need your help.”

I latched onto the core.

“Bite! Bite! Eat! Eat!” a chorus of crème brûlées called.

Zelda raised her voice to be heard over the cacophony. “What spell did you use to do all this?”

“I didn’t use anything specific! I just—” I kicked at the approaching hoard. “I dunno. I just said what I wanted to happen!”

“Broomsticks and baubles, who thought it was a good idea to send you to school here? You are the most irresponsible witch…”

“And the most intuitive?” I offered.

Zelda glared at me. “Oh, I just hope this works… Stop! My sister and I do agree, return to desserts and leave us be!”

I channeled all my magic into the crystal. A blinding light flashed from the stone. Thunder shook the kitchen, loud enough to set my ears to ringing. I blinked at the pulsing spots in my vision. More desserts crashed from the sky—now lacking faces, arms, and wills.

Could it be…?

I swept my finger along my cheek, then licked the custard I gathered—and it didn’t squeal. “Mm. Want some?”

Zelda smacked me upside the head. “I hope you enjoy that, because your punishment is eating all of this for a very long time, Haddie Underwood.”

I grinned. “I guess you could say… I’ll get my just desserts?”

Zelda rolled her eyes and marched out of the kitchen, crème brûlée squishing beneath her feet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hannah Carter is just a girl who wakes up every day hoping it will be the day she discovers she’s secretly a mermaid. Her debut novel, Depths of Atlantis, is out through SnowRidge Press now. Her stories have been included in several anthologies: Whispers From Before, The Never Tales, and Havok’s Casting Call and Prismatic. Her flash fiction piece “A Home for Nova” won the 2022 Flash Fiction Realm Award.

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