Alpha's Moon

Chapter 6

"Hah! Listen to this. 'No one really knows what Māmā Fàn looks like or how old she is. She rarely comes out of the kitchen and when she does, she wears a veil!'" Theo stopped scrolling on his phone long enough to pop the last piece of chicken into his mouth. "Do you really think she will come out here?"

Gabriel sat back, looking around the tiny restaurant Xiāngwèi, Fragrance. The tables, plates, chairs and the restaurant itself was all made with the type of clean, minimalist wood designs that one came across in Scandinavia. Simple tear-shaped light bulbs hung above them on natural strings, although Gabriel assumed they were rarely lit since the six large windows that surrounded the tables let in plenty of sunlight and filled the room with the colours of the surrounding forests. The entire effect was one of a simple elegance he had not been expecting from a place run by a woman called Māmā Fàn: Mother Rice. Of course, what was far more surprising than the look and feel of the restaurant was its food.

After hearing how highly Rosabelle thought of the Chef, Gabriel had expected Xiāngwèi to serve good food, really good food, but not this. This was something different. Something more. The creativity and flavour balance of each dish was of the highest standard, but it was the scents that really drew him in. Like expensive perfume, the subtle tones within the plates melted together with sublime precision.

"She will come," Gabriel said after a long moment. "A dissatisfied customer is not something a perfectionist will treat lightly."

"A perfectionist? Well, yes, I suppose only a perfectionist can create the flavour in these dishes." Theo looked disappointed to find the rice bowl empty.

"It goes way beyond the food," Gabriel said, taking in his surroundings. "The napkins are the exact shade of the red maples outside those windows. The lotus carvings on the end of the chopsticks match the designs on the door nobs and each of the dishes was served in a bowl made from a different type of wood."

Theo stopped tracing the flower carved at the end of his chopstick and looked at the now empty bowl of chicken. "The bowls? They all look pretty much the same to me?"

"What kind of Lupus doesn't know his trees?" Gabriel raised a surprised brow. "The chicken was in black birch, it has a sweet scent." He pointed to the salad bowl next, "Walnut tree has a spicy-citrus scent." Then he nodded towards the neighbouring table where the waitress was setting down a pot of tea. "The tea spoon is made of balsam poplar which has a sweet-honey scent."

Theo took a deep breath, raising his eyes to Gabriel's. "Are you saying she picked the woods to accompany the dishes? But the scents are barely perceptible, Humans would not pick up on them."

"Most wouldn't, at least not consciously," Gabriel agreed.

"Is Māmā Fàn one of us?" Theo frowned, shaking his head in answer to his own question. "She couldn't be. Rosabelle would have told us, or you would have felt her presence... you didn't right?"

"There are no others of our kind nearby," Gabriel confirmed just as he spotted the subject of their conversation stepping through the door. She was no werewolf, but her presence was strangely magnetic. From her baring, Gabriel could tell that she was a lot younger than he had assumed while her almond shaped eyes suggested she was not local either. Intrigued, he watched her move towards them.

Her white trousers and tunic were cut in the fashion commonly worn by monks. Her black hair was covered with a bandana and the semi-transparent veil on her face hid all of her recognisable features other than her eyes. Gabriel tried to see their colour, but she kept her gaze low as she moved between the tables with hands pressed to her sides. The silence that had descended at her appearance erupted into a flurry of low murmurs as she came to a standstill beside their table.