Page 21 of The Tea Witch’s Secret

Pepper gave an impressed whistle. "That's a lot of languages. You're smart-smart."

"Not really. Eva speaks four fluently and nine overall."

"Maybe it just comes easier to her."

"It does," I agreed. But that didn't stop the comments at home about how I should be keeping up with her. That was the difficulty that came with us being the same age. Sometimes I wondered if our mothers had planned to have children around the same time, but I'd never been brave enough to ask.

"Well, I think it's impressive," Pepper said firmly.

"Thank you."

"I only know this language and a handful of words from other languages, but mostly cooking and baking terms." She leaned against the counter, still regarding me with awe. "I'm so impressed. It can't be easy to move around so much and integrate into a new community over and over again."

I let out a sigh. "It is exhausting. That's why I carry some things with me that always remind me of home. Like these mooncake moulds, or my clay breakfast pot, and I have some hairpins that are very meaningful to me." I didn't know why I was sharing such personal stories with her, but there was just something about Pepper. It felt like she really cared about my experiences, my life. Me. It was so long since anyone had wanted to know any of these things, that it seemed as if they were spilling out of me now that she had.

Pepper gave me a soft smile. "Well, I hope you and your cousins will stay a long time in Purple Oak. I know I would like it."

I could feel my chest tightening from the intensity with which she was looking at me. I wasn't good at reading people, but even I could tell that she wasn't just saying this to be polite. She meant it, and that was terrifying.

Eva's words echoed through my mind. It was going to be hard to stop thinking about them, especially when I caught Pepper looking at me.

To take the pressure off, I shifted my attention back to the mooncakes. "We should cut into one and see if they're any good," I suggested. They wouldn't be as tasty as if they were left to cool, but I was nervous about how they'd turned out. Not just because I was teaching Pepper how to bake them, but also because it was the first time I'd made them in Purple Oak, and with ingredients from here, other than the lotus seeds which I'd brought with me. The way things had been grown and cultivated had an impact on the taste of it.

"Great idea," Pepper said, grabbing a knife and presenting it to me. "You should do the honours, you know how they're meant to be divided."

"Small sections," I said, lining up the knife and cutting eight wedges that were as close to identical as they could be without measuring them. I'd cut enough mooncakes to be fairly certain that I was getting them right though.

The eight pieces looked right, with the lotus paste inside smelling sweet and nutty. Dividing it into many pieces always felt like there was more even if that wasn't true.

Pepper picked up a slice. "Any rules about eating it?"

"Not really," I said. "They're best shared with friends and family."

"I like that." She held my gaze as she picked up one of the sections.

I was transfixed as she raised it to her lips and they closed around the golden pastry of the mooncake. I swallowed hard, and pulled my attention away before she could notice, picking up my own slice of mooncake. I tried a bite, chewing it carefully. The sweet nutty flavour of the lotus seeds was a delight and it was just how I liked it. Mostly firm and smooth, with a little bit of chew but not too much.

"Mmm." Pepper nodded, her slice disappearing in two bites. "Those are delicious! That's such a unique flavour, but I love it."

"Lotus seeds have a lot of health benefits too. They're very good for you," I said, finishing my wedge. Despite the slight changes in ingredients, it tasted like home.

"Why are they called mooncakes?" she asked. "Is it because they're round?" She looked over at the others.

I shook my head. "Traditionally, they have an egg yolk at the centre, so when you cut it in half, it looks like the full moon," I responded.

"An egg yolk?"

"Yes. A...salted one," I said after searching for the right word.

"We didn't do that." She almost seemed disappointed.

"We didn't have any salted egg yolks," I pointed out. "It is hard to use them if we do not have them."

"Do you know how to make them?" she asked.

"You put egg yolks in salt," I said.

"That's surprisingly simple."