Content warnings

Death. Bereavement. Food.

“I remember the very first time we made soul cakes, Nan,” I say.

Nan dons an apron printed with a charm of miniature bees. Her kitchen is a hive of activity and the heart of the home. Always has been. She wears a wistful expression, waits to hear more.

“I was around the age of five, and me and Granddad had spent the morning planting crocus bulbs in the back garden.”

At the mention of his name, she pulls out a lace handkerchief and blows her nose. She loves to reminisce, but doing so always makes her tearful. I study her face. Skin like parchment. Gossamer, as if it might tear at any moment. Her pale blue eyes are rheumy and clouded by cataracts, but her mind’s still sharp as a pin.

I lean against the kitchen sink, watching her wipe down the table, as she waits for me to continue.

“My nails were caked with dirt, and you stood me on a stool in front of this sink and scrubbed them clean with a little yellow nail brush shaped like a duck.”

I tilt my head back and sniff the air—Imperial Leather, the brand of soap with a little paper label stuck to its middle. Nan’s favourite. A glance at the soap dish tells me she still uses it. What remains of the soap bar is cracked, just like her skin. She won’t replace it, though, not until it’s a tiny sliver of a thing. Thrifty, is Nan.

“A good baker always starts with spotless hands and nails,” you used to say.

She smiles and hobbles over to the store cupboard. No recipe. Nan instinctively knows which ingredients she needs to make the cakes. Her back is turned, and I see the stoop in her shoulders, note how her spine has shortened and twisted with arthritis.

“Caster sugar, flour, raisins.” Her voice is as fragile as eggshell but sweet as honey. One at a time, she takes down the jars and carries them over to the farmhouse table in both hands, like a child. The fingers on her left hand curl towards the wrist, gnarled knuckles and skin speckled with liver spots. I would offer to help, but she’s fiercely independent.

Butter and milk from the fridge, plus two eggs from a chicken-shaped receptacle that sits on the worktop. It clucks as she removes the lid, and we chuckle like a pair of old hens. A favourite item of mine as a child, I’m surprised it still works after all these years.

From the spice rack, she selects a little jar of allspice and another containing strands of saffron.

“My own special ingredient,” she whispers. “A peace offering to a dying sun god.”

It amuses me no end, Nan’s devout Catholicism, sprinkled with a hint of pagan.

“When I was a little girl, I wouldn’t touch saffron,” I say. “It reminded me of sinew, like corned beef.” I shudder. “But you explained how saffron was made from the stigma of crocus flowers, not flesh. You know me, Nan, I’ve always been a picky eater.”

She focuses on lining the baking tray with parchment and says nothing.

For many years, until I went away to university, Nan and I would make soul cakes on Halloween, or Nos Calan Gaeaf—Night Before Winter—as it’s known here in Wales. Nan has her own word for it, though—Ysbrydnos—Night of the Spirits. Ysbrydnos—the one night of the year when the barrier between the living and the dead is rice-paper thin.

When I was a little girl, she would tell me stories of Ysbrydnos, such as the naming of the stones. She spoke of how all the villagers would write their names on a stone before throwing it onto the bonfire. Of how the following morning the ashes would be inspected, and if your stone was missing, your death was imminent.

And then, of course, there were the stories of ghosts, far too many to remember, though none of them fazed me. In fact, I found them comforting. The thought of a lost loved one being close again warmed my heart. If Granddad’s spirit is able to visit, it will do so tonight. It does not frighten me in the least. In fact, I’d love to see him one more time, especially as I didn’t get to say goodbye. I don’t think Nan could bear to part with him again, though. Perhaps she’d go with him this time. My throat constricts, and a tear threatens at the thought. I’m feeling nostalgic today. Here in Nan’s kitchen, nothing changes—it simply ages. Gets a little more worn around the edges with each passing year.

I watch her sprinkle a dusting of flour on the table. Late afternoon sun sits low in the sky, streaming in at the window and highlighting the tiny white particles in the air. She watches them float downwards, and I know she, too, is thinking of Granddad, hoping his spirit is with us. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Then she rolls up her sleeves and begins.

Butter cubed, golden sugar weighed, she creams them together with a wooden spoon until the mixture is light and fluffy. No fancy food processor for Nan. She’s old-school. Skinny forearms, veined and bruised, struggle with the effort, but the frown on her face proves she won’t let it beat her. She pauses every few minutes to dab at the sweat on her brow. She seems anxious today, troubled. Perhaps she’ll open up later, once we’re sitting with tea and cake.

“I wonder if we’ll have many callers tonight, Nan? Kids these days expect shop-bought candy, not homemade cakes.”

She’s concentrating on separating the eggs, so doesn’t answer. The tip of her tongue pokes between her lips. Focused. It’s a habit I’ve inherited.

Once all the ingredients are combined, she rolls the dough and cuts a dozen little rounds with a cookie cutter, marking each with a cross before placing them on a baking tray. As she opens the oven door, the warmth from the old Rayburn envelops us in a warm blanket. She stoops and places the baking tray inside, then straightens and makes the sign of the cross—forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder, uttering the words, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” in the hope that the Lord will prevail and the cakes will come out of the oven crisp and evenly baked. I can’t help but smile; minutes earlier she offered peace to a dying sun god.

I step aside for her to get to the sink. Needless to say, she has no dishwasher. The kitchen window overlooks the back garden, and while she washes up, she glances now and then in the direction of Granddad’s greenhouse, and sighs. I picture him, too—Wellington boots, straw hat, and a smile as wide as the ocean.

“You coming out the garden with Grampy, Bethan?” he’d say, and I’d jump at the chance. He taught me how to sow vegetable seeds, how best to help pollinate tomatoes, but it was the story of the Robin’s pincushion I liked best. A prickly gall, caused by the larvae of a tiny wasp on the stems of his dog roses.

“Why’s it called that?” I remember asking him.

“What? Robin’s pincushion?” He’d squatted over the rose, pretending the pin-like prickles had stung his bottom. “Now, imagine I’m a robin,” he’d said, laughing. “Robin’s pincushion—get it?”

I didn’t like the thought of a robin getting stung, so I’d imagined squeezing the gall between my fingers and watching the wriggly grubs oozing from within before squishing them. I didn’t tell him, though. Granddad would not have approved of such violence.

Nan opens the oven door, and the smell of freshly-baked cakes wafts towards me. A buttery, cinnamon scent promises sweetness, and my mouth waters.

“Put the kettle on, Nan,” I say, and she does. From the dresser, she retrieves two bone china cups, saucers, and matching plates and adds milk to both cups. I’ve drunk mine black since Uni, but she’s forgotten. Tempted though I am, I know for a fact that if I were to lean over and steal a cake off the cooling rack, she’d flip me on the hand. “You’ll burn your mouth, Bethan,” she’d say, so I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans, and wait.

As the kettle whistles, there’s a gentle tap on the back door.

“Gwen? It’s only me.” Nan’s old friend, Dilys, pops her head round and enters without waiting for an invite. My heart sinks. I didn’t know she was expecting visitors. Once Dilys starts talking, there’s no stopping her, and I had hoped to have Nan to myself.

“Come in, come in,” Nan says. “It’s lovely to see you.”

Dilys wraps her arms around her. I watch, dumbstruck, as Nan’s chin quivers and her shoulders heave. Whatever is the matter? I take two steps towards her, but what she says next stops me in my tracks.

“I still can’t accept she’s gone, Dilys. Twenty-five years old, her whole life ahead of her.” She collapses onto a chair, and I find myself falling down a dark tunnel, a bottomless one, it seems. Arms flailing, feet desperate to find purchase, the tunnel walls are black as coal. Down and down I go, my cry of despair echoing in the void. Snow-white words tumble with me, appearing out of nowhere and disappearing before I have time to digest them. Words like fatally injured, lorry collision, student dead. I try to grab them as I fall, wishing to crush the lies they speak, just as I would have crushed the prickly gall for hurting the robin, but they slip through my fingers like a knife through butter.

I hit the bottom, and the impact severs the junction between my spine and brain stem in one fell swoop. The world as I know it turns black.

The witching hour is upon us, and the boundary between my new existence and my grandmother’s is as transparent as a tulle mourning veil.

The comforting scent of sugar and spice still lingers in the air, and the realization that I never got to taste my last soul cake fills me with sadness. Ridiculous, I know. The house is pitch-black. Silent, too, apart from the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. Tick-tock, tick-tock, the rhythm of a heart that no longer beats.

I require no light to guide me to her room. In death, such things are mere fripperies. I stand at the foot of her bed, watching her sleep. A blanketed bundle and a tuft of silver hair, as innocent as a newborn lamb. My death has broken her heart, of that there is no doubt.

I wander over to her side, leaving no imprint on the deep-pile carpet. On the cabinet sits a lamp with a tassled shade, her spectacles, and a funereal order of service with my photo on the front. I’m wearing a bridesmaid dress, and my hair is coiffed in an elaborate updo. It feels like yesterday, my cousin Sian’s wedding. Such happy memories. I close my eyes and think back, finding myself immersed in a swirling bowl of peaches and cream. A champagne fizz of excitement.

I pick up the pamphlet, curious to read the details. The inscription beneath the photo reads:

In Loving Memory of

Bethan Williams

1st April 1996 to 10th October 2021

Three weeks spent in purgatory, according to my Catholic upbringing, though I never did believe a word of it. I know in my heart that it took me three weeks to accept what has happened, that’s all. And it was Nan and her soul cakes that triggered the acceptance.

I look down at her face. Even in sleep, she frowns. Her old soul is troubled, and I would give anything to free it from torment. I kneel beside the bed, her dandelion breath cool against my cheek, and plant the lightest of kisses on her forehead.

“Thank you for everything, Nan,” I whisper, though there is no need to lower my voice.

She issues a soft moan, and for a moment I fear I’ve disturbed her, then her frown disappears and her face relaxes. Her right arm is free of the blankets, fingers curled in tension. Gently, I lift her hand and hold it in mine.

“See you soon, Nan,” I whisper. “But not too soon, I hope. You have a few more years of soul cakes to bake yet.”

Sensing a gentle hand on my shoulder, I turn.

“Ready to come to the garden with Grampy?” he says. His hair is the colour of frost on a windowpane, his smile still as wide as the ocean.

I get to my feet, take hold of his outstretched hand, and together we step into the light.

END

This story first appeared in an anthology published in 2021 by Alienhead Press.

Catherine McCarthy

Catherine McCarthy is a Welsh writer who weaves dark tales on an ancient loom. Her long and short form work has been published in various places including Dark Matter Ink, Sobelo Books and Haven Spec Magazine.