Her jade-green head tipped into the kitchen, silver highlights catching the oven’s glow, nostrils flaring on a scent that wrapped the room like a promise. Cookies.

Yes, it was a land positively dripping with Splendid Things. The only hitch—and you can always count on a hitch—was The Rule. Nobody was to say anything that might unsettle the general atmosphere. Not a peep. Not a whisper. Speak truth and, it was believed, the rivers would sulk and turn an unbecoming shade of brown. So everyone went about with fixed smiles and polite coughs, like distant cousins forced to share a parlor sofa.

They just sit there, looking innocent, as if butter and sugar were perfectly ordinary things that had no intention whatsoever of forming a conspiracy. The oven hums along, pretending it’s just a metal box and not a device with ambitions of culinary tyranny.