"Now, you boys just make yourselves comfortable," said the witch.
It didn't take much to convince the senior Boggart from the Unseelie Nationalist Union to meet the witch. Somewhere between "gain powerful weapons of fairy destruction" and "the most delicious cookies in the world," he was hooked. He and his pair of lumpy green bull Boggarts sat at the island counter in the witch's kitchen.
The kitchen was as intoxicating as it was repulsive. A great stone hearth with a roaring fire, counters built on top of stacks of ham and pancakes and giant oozing sticks of butter. Great posts of candy cane holding up a ceiling of moldy chocolate bark. She had a stainless industrial grade refrigerator, an avocado green KitchenAid, an air fryer, a microwave, and an Instapot. Small mummified bodies of indeterminate origin hung from the spidery rafters.
The witch served up three big tumblers of milk. No doubt stolen in the eldritch fashion. I could smell the nutmeg and cinnamon from where I stood.
"You drink that up and get cozy. Then we then we can talk business."
The Boggarts looked at each other for a moment, shrugged, then messily gurgled down their three tall glasses.
It was barely a moment until they all fell off their stools with heavy thuds.
The witch looked them over greedily.
That was my cue to wait outside. The witch and I had texted before we arrived and worked out a deal. Those cookies weren't going to make themselves, and I didn't want to stick around and watch how the dough got made.
"Oh my god, these are delicious," said Ellix from @
E.X.I.L.E, LLC., stuffing cookies into his mouth. "What are they? Salted caramel?"
"Don't eat them all!," I said, swatting his hand away. "Remember you need to save them for the marketing director, or the CEO, or the board or whatever."
Ellix took his hand away, but kept staring greedily at the basket.
"The witch really does magic in the kitchen," I said. "They say they taste like your heart's greatest desire, whatever that is. In a cookie. All the students LOVE them. You used to be able to get them at the Spoonbender, but there have been supply chain issues."
Ellix looked at me pleadingly.
"Just one more? I'm sure there's enough for the rest of the team. I mean, they only really need one each, right?"
"Your call. You're the one who said they needed a sample."
Ellix pulled one more out of the bag and looked at it closely. "What are these little chunks? Kinda meaty?"
"Uh..." I scrambled. "The witch uses all kinds of natural ingredients. She forages them herself out in the woods. Nuts... berries, stuff like that."
Ellix was finishing the cookie already. Being careful to leave no crumbs.
"Well with these in our care packages, we're bound to see our satisfaction ratings surge," he said. "I'm sure they'll want to start including them right away."
"I'll let you sort out the details with the witch. I'm not looking for a piece of the action. I'll give you the map to her house in the woods, and you can just owe me one."
"Like, bring you a batch every time we get a shipment?"
"I, uh... no, that's ok. I'm kinda cookied out."