Then he noticed the note on the floor near his door.
A napkin, folded precisely and tied with silver thread.
Inside: a bone-white envelope, sealed in violet wax.
The handwriting was familiar—elegant, deliberate, and a little haunted.
Signed:
Azik Eggers
Klein sighed and held the envelope up to the light, half-expecting it to whisper something eldritch.
It didn't.
It just smelled faintly of charcoal, old parchment, and melancholy herbs.
He opened it.
Dearest Klein,
I hope this note finds you well—if not well-fed.
I would be delighted if you joined me for a quiet meal beneath the stars.
The cemetery grounds at midnight.
Please dress warmly. The dead can be cold company.
With regard and lingering fondness,
—Azik
Klein glanced at the clock.
11:42 PM. Naturally.
Twelve minutes later, he stood at the gates of the Delaunay Hill Cemetery, bundled in a long coat, scarf, and enough caution to cover a small city.
The gates creaked open on their own.
Inside, lanterns made of faintly glowing skulls lined the path.
A checkered picnic blanket was spread out beside an old stone mausoleum. A small brass grill let off gentle hisses and aromas Klein couldn't quite place—sweet, smoky, and suspiciously incorporeal.
Azik sat cross-legged on the blanket, looking entirely at home next to a stack of old books and a woven basket labeled "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL AFTER DESSERT."
"Ah, Klein."
Azik smiled warmly, though his eyes, as always, hinted at long-buried things. "You're just in time. The soul fragments are perfectly grilled."
Klein hesitated. "Should I ask whose?"
Azik chuckled. "Unclaimed. Ethically sourced. The Bureau of Eternal Affairs cleared them."
"Of course they did."
Their picnic began in silence, as all proper midnight graveyard feasts should.
The skeletal messenger, clad in an apron embroidered with "Soulfully Served", glided between gravestones with impeccable posture and zero muscle mass. A folded towel rested perfectly over one bone-white forearm. His empty sockets gave the distinct impression of polite disapproval—at life, at lateness, at improper spoon etiquette.
With ceremonial grace, he laid out the first course.
---
Course One: Whisper-Smoked Soul Fragments
They crackled lightly, like dreams once whispered too loud.
Tasted faintly like burnt cinnamon, winter air, and the nostalgia of a home you've never been to. Klein chewed carefully, the texture somewhere between charred paper and soft marshmallow.
He might have learned a secret.
Or just remembered a song.
The skeleton waiter bowed with the subtle rattle of courtesy, then replaced the plate with the second.
Course Two: Candied Memories on Toasted Spirit Bread
Thin slices of recollection layered with translucent sugar glaze.
One bite and Klein vividly remembered a childhood he never lived—racing leaves down gutters, a dog named Mango, and laughter echoing through someone else's house.
He wiped his mouth, blinking. "That was… not mine."
Azik nodded. "Memory is just another seasoning."
The skeleton nodded too—either in agreement or because of a slight breeze.
Course Three: Mourning Tea with a Twist of Moon
Served in tiny funeral urns placed delicately on obsidian saucers.
Steam rose in spirals shaped like regrets that never happened. Slightly bitter. Strangely soothing.
Klein drank in silence.
The skeleton poured with steady hands, one vertebrae creaking in time with the wind chime made of ribs somewhere behind them.
Course Four: Eclairs of Fleeting Joy
Delicate pastries filled with ephemeral delight—each bite was a flicker of happiness that never quite lingered. Klein tasted the moment before a joke lands, the warmth of sunlight on forgotten stone, and the quiet thrill of being exactly where he was supposed to be.
But only for a second. Then it was gone, like laughter behind a closed door.
The skeleton server returned with a silver platter and tongs fashioned from wishbones. He offered Klein the last éclair with a courteous bow, his jaw clacking once in what might've been approval… or an attempt to smile.
Azik didn't eat this course. He simply watched the stars.
Klein glanced at the skeleton. "Are these safe for the living?"
The waiter produced a small chalkboard from behind his ribs, scrawled with neat cursive:
"Emotionally, no. Gastrointestinally, probably."
Klein gave a thumbs-up. "Good enough."
---
As the night deepened, the stars above seemed to draw closer, hanging low like curious spectators. They shimmered with the slow blink of ancient eyes, casting a silvery sheen over the cemetery picnic like frost woven from forgotten lullabies.
Azik sat cross-legged, stirring his tea with a spoon that seemed to hum faintly with old hymns. "Klein," he said softly, as if not to wake the gravestones, "I brought you here because there are things only the dead will tell you."
He looked up, his eyes reflecting starlight and something deeper—like a memory that remembered you.
"But first," he added, "I need your help."
Klein, already clutching a half-finished candied memory on a spoon, paused mid-bite. "Do you need me to dig something up?"
Azik gave a dry chuckle, setting his teacup down on a nearby headstone that had politely offered its flat surface. "Not quite. I need you to attend a wake. For a memory."
There was a silence. The kind that smells like dust and ancient perfume.
"…Whose memory?" Klein asked, already bracing.
Azik smiled with that ageless sadness he wore like a second coat. "That's the thing. We're not sure it belongs to anyone anymore. It's… unanchored. Slipping between minds like fog between leaves. But it's growing teeth."
Klein blinked. "Right. And, of course, that's my problem now."
"Not a problem," Azik corrected gently. "An invitation."
He reached into the picnic basket—not the one marked DO NOT OPEN UNTIL AFTER DESSERT—and pulled out an envelope made of stitched velvet and written on pressed flower petals. The ink shimmered when it caught the moonlight, as if refusing to settle into a single word.
You Are Cordially Summoned
to the Wake of a Memory
Long Misplaced and Poorly Understood
Time: Between the Third and Fourth Bells of Unreason
Location: The Orchard of Forgotten Faces (via Dreamscape 22-B)
Attire: Vague Melancholy and Light Embroidery
Klein stared at it.
"Do I need to bring a gift?" he asked.
Azik considered this. "A poem. Or perhaps an unspoken truth."
Klein frowned. "I'm not exactly swimming in those."
"Oh, I think you are," Azik murmured. "You just nap on top of them."
Klein stared at the invitation a moment longer, then set it carefully beside the ghost-scone he'd been nibbling. "And this dream... it's safe?"
Azik took a long sip from his teacup. "No."
Pause.
"But I'll be there," he added, as though that changed the terms. And somehow, it did.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, broken only by the rustling of ivy and a distant howl that sounded like a philosophy student realizing their thesis was alive.
Klein picked up a wafer of grilled soul and chewed thoughtfully. "Will there be snacks?"
"Absolutely," Azik said solemnly. "The memory requested salted time-ribbons and grief trifle."
Klein nodded. "Reasonable."
Azik tilted his head, watching him with a warm sort of wistfulness. "You've changed, you know."
"Have I?"
"You've become someone who asks fewer why me questions and more is there dessert. That's progress."
Klein smirked. "I guess existential dread is easier to digest when served with tea."
"Everything is."
As if on cue, the brass grill let out a final hiss and went quiet. The stars above blinked slowly, once—then winked out entirely. One by one. As if someone had blown out the candles of the universe.
Azik stood and brushed ghost-crumbs from his coat, his tone light. "Come, Klein. Let's stroll a bit before dessert."
Klein paused mid-step. "Wait. Dessert?"
Azik nodded toward the unopened basket still resting by the crypt, innocently sinister under the starlight. It was the one labeled in looping script:
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL AFTER DESSERT
Klein stared at it, a faint chill running down his spine. "That is dessert, isn't it."
Azik's eyes twinkled. "It's a dessert."
"…What's the dessert, then?"
"You'll know if we survive the walk."
Klein didn't know whether to laugh or prepare a spiritual will.
He followed anyway.
Because curiosity is stronger than self-preservation.
And also because he was pretty sure the basket would follow him if he didn't.
They strolled between graves that glowed faintly with the warmth of remembered names. Klein didn't look back at the blanket or the urn-teacups or the unopened basket.
He didn't need to.
But he did glance at Azik.
"Do you think I'll ever stop feeling like I'm making all of this up?"
Azik smiled, not unkindly. "Only when it stops being real."
Klein thought about that. And found, strangely, that it comforted him.
---
They walked in companionable silence for a time, gravel crunching softly beneath their feet. Somewhere, a nightbird let out a sound suspiciously like a long, dramatic sigh.
Eventually, they circled back toward the crypt.
The basket was waiting. Of course it was.
Azik gestured toward it. "Now, then. Dessert."
Klein stared. "It hasn't moved, has it?"
"No more than memory does," Azik said pleasantly. "Though I wouldn't leave it unattended in moonlight too long. The last one fermented into a birthday."
"A birthday?"
"A birthday party. For someone who no longer existed. It was awkward."
Klein crouched and carefully undid the silver latch. The lid opened with a sigh like parchment unfolding. Inside, nestled in folds of midnight cloth, was a delicate glass jar. It glowed faintly—pearlescent, like fog caught in sugar.
Azik knelt beside him. "Memory preserve. Rare. Sweet. Slightly weepy."
"Is it… edible?"
"Technically. Also metaphorical."
Klein peered closer. Tiny shapes moved inside the jar—distant laughter, a streetlight flickering, the sensation of someone brushing past you and saying your name in a voice you almost recognize.
"…I'm not going to cry, am I?"
"Almost certainly," Azik said with a smile. "But in a refined, dessert-appropriate way."
They each took a spoon.
The taste was like childhood winters, like an old book opening to your favorite page, like remembering something you thought you'd forgotten and realizing it had always been with you.
Klein blinked rapidly. "It tastes like… my mother's coat. After she hugged me in the rain. And the color red."
Azik's spoon hovered thoughtfully. "This one tastes like a name I used to have."
They sat, quiet again, the last course finished beneath the sky's velvet hush.
Klein leaned back and let the moment settle into his ribs.
"You know," he murmured, "for a cemetery picnic, this has been unusually wholesome."
Azik chuckled. "Wait until you see the souvenir."
From the base of the basket, something shifted. A small envelope slid out on its own.
Klein picked it up. Inside was a single black feather, and a note written in looping, ancient script:
One favor redeemed. Eight remain.
Azik took a sip of phantom tea that had reappeared in his hand.
"You'll need the others, eventually."
Klein, after a beat: "…Are they all going to involve graveyard cuisine?"
Azik raised an eyebrow. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
---
The picnic ended with a soft hum in the air.
It wasn't music nor wind—something quieter, like the sound of a memory putting itself to sleep.
Azik walked Klein to the edge of the cemetery path, where the moon filtered through the trees like whispered blessings. They didn't say goodbye. They never really did. Azik simply tipped his hat, and Klein found himself turning a corner that hadn't been there before—
—and stepping straight into his room.
No ripple, no door creak, just the faint scent of ghost-tea and something faintly scorched. Klein blinked. The space was exactly as he'd left it, except:
A faint shimmer of soul-flavored sugar lingered in the air.
His mirror was slightly fogged, as though it had been watching him dream.
And on his bedside table, impossibly dry despite the phantom moisture, lay a feather-light book bound in soft black linen:
"Etiquette for Dining with the Recently Departed."
He picked it up. It smelled like funeral flowers, quiet candlelight, and a particularly well-worn section of an old university library. A pressed forget-me-not was tucked inside the front cover, and someone had penciled in "Best read after dark."
Klein turned it over in his hands just as his gaze drifted to the wall.
There, his celestial loyalty card had updated itself—again:
2 Gourmet Revelations Attended
7 More Until Enlightenment + Complimentary Spirit-Infused Digestif
He stared at it. The stars on the card twinkled faintly, smugly.
There was now a faint engraving at the bottom:
"No refunds for metaphysical growth."
Klein sighed and sat down on his creaky chair, cradling the etiquette book in one hand and a warm cup of something-that-wasn't-quite-tea in the other. He wasn't sure when it had appeared. He didn't ask.
He flipped to the back of the book and found a blank page. Naturally, he used it for his review:
Klein's Review:
Ambience: eerily reverent, with a touch of the afterlife.
Courses: delightfully unsettling, with an aftertaste of forgotten things.
Host: disturbingly well-prepared, with a penchant for skeletal efficiency.
Skeleton Server: impeccable in bone-chilling service.
Unexpected Book Acquisition: 1 (smells like funeral flowers and curiosity).
Existential Residue: surprisingly manageable.
Would dine again (though maybe bring extra salt and a sense of self).
10/10.
He leaned back, closing his eyes.
The taste of that last spoonful lingered, soft and sweet—like a good memory kept warm in the chest pocket of a worn coat.
He didn't know what the next invitation would bring. A banquet in a sea cavern? A duel of sorbets with a long-dead poet? A cheese platter made entirely of dreams?
But he knew he'd answer it.
Probably in formalwear. Possibly with backup salt.
And hopefully—hopefully—before dessert decided to hatch.
---
Next Chapter: Klein stumbles into a bakery that only appears in lucid dreams.
Will he solve the mystery of the flour that forgets?
Will he be forced to wrestle a croissant made of sentient dough?
Will the pastries whisper his true name?
Find out next time in The Fool's Gourmet Tour!