A Yuletide Treasure by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

wafer-thin. Hooking a finger around a sturdy chair, she pulled it in front of the massive blackened iron stove.
    “Sit ye down,” she ordered. “Take off them clodhoppers of Mavis’s and get warm.”
    Camilla obeyed.
    With the side of her hand, the cook slapped open one of the iron portals of the big stove. As though a dragon had opened its mouth, the roaring and rattling of the fire in the chimney filled the kitchen. The flames, orange and bright yellow, snapped like the banners of hell’s army while heat, blessed heat, wrapped around Camilla.
    Slowly, she moved to obey the cook’s commands, wiggling off the boots and the thickly knitted woolen stockings while the woman’s back was turned.
    A moment later, the cook was lifting her feet and placing them in a round, flat copper basin. A heaping tablespoon of mustard went in followed by a stream of hot water from a high-held kettle.
    Camilla sank against the back of the chair as the cold retreated from the cloud of steam that enveloped her. Inch by inch, the chill of her bones was chased away. Between the mustard footbath and the dragon’s breath from the stove, she felt as if she were melting. Soon nothing would be left but a grateful puddle.
    But the cook’s treatment wasn’t complete.
    Camilla found a tall, curve-sided mug in her hand, the most delicious aroma arising from the sludgy-looking liquid. She could have sworn something went “plop” in the depths, as the dark brown liquid roiled. There were yellow flecks of butterfat amid the frothing milk on the top.
    She looked doubtfully into the mug, then glanced up at the cook. Standing over her with her arms crossed, deep-dimpled elbows showing under the rolled-back sleeves of her day dress, the cook gave a brief, but encouraging nod. Even more encouraging, however, was the beguiling fragrance beckoning to Camilla’s taste buds.
    With a hesitation that did not last beyond the first sip, Camilla tasted the hot cocoa. Mixed with cinnamon, cardamom, and other spices that danced on her tongue, it was a taste more blissful, or sinful, than any she had ever tried. She opened the eyes she had not realized she’d closed to savor the exquisite blend of chocolate and spice. “Amazing,” she said. “What’s in it?”
    “A pinch o’ this ‘un and a dash o’ that. ‘Tis a family receipt.”
    “My compliments to you.”
    She nodded regally, a goddess on her own hearth. “Puts the pink in your cheeks.” Slapping her side with a noise like a fish flapping on the water, she smacked her lips. “Puts the flesh on, too. Need it, this weather.”
    “I suppose so.” Camilla looked down into the mug. The level of cocoa had already dropped significantly, and she hadn’t even realized how much she’d drunk. “Good heavens,” she said, undoing the top button of her woolen dress. “I’m already feeling ever-so-much warmer.”
    The cook judged her again with narrowed eyes. “Not yet.” She picked up a log from the wood basket and pitched it easily into the open stove. The flames licked up even higher. “Don’t get up. Have another.”
    The cocoa in the chocolate pot didn’t pour; it blupped out, stopping and starting as rich lumps of chocolate caught and were released through the narrow spout. Camilla had practically to chew her way through her second portion. Dinner, which had seemed of such desperate interest, suddenly retreated to the mildest of curiosities. With cocoa like this, she didn’t care if she ever ate dinner again.
    After a few more swallows, the cook gave her a towel to dry her steaming hair. It seemed curlier than ever before. Camilla wasn’t sure if it was the combination of steam, heat, and the quick drying, or the cocoa. If it put roses in her cheeks and meat on her bones, mightn’t it make her hair curl?
    She couldn’t help but undo her second button. Though now more than warm, she felt too enervated to move. The very idea of entering that chilly bedroom was more than she could face. She