Tea for the Last Monster
A retired monster hunter opens a tea room for the creature she was paid to kill.
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How it begins
The monster took six sugars.
Agnes added a seventh without comment.
It sat outside because the doorway was too narrow, holding her best teacup between two claws as carefully as she had once held her newborn niece. Moss grew along its shoulders. A small fern had established itself behind one ear.
"Too hot?" she asked.
"No."
"Too weak?"
"No."
"Then why are you crying?"
The monster looked down.
"Nobody has asked before."
Agnes busied herself with the biscuit tin.
At fifty-eight, she had become skilled at recognizing moments that should not be crowded with words. Retirement had improved this skill. Hunting had required a great many confident statements made at a safe distance.
She set the biscuits on an upturned barrel.
Across the lane, Bram stopped carrying a plank.
He looked at the monster.
He looked at the sign above Agnes's door.
Pike's Tea Room. Everyone Welcome.
"That's ambitious," he said.
"The sign or the customer?"
"The chair situation."
The monster shifted on the ground. One knee rose above the windowsill.
Bram considered the plank, then the old cart beside his workshop.
"I could make a bench."
Agnes nodded.
"No chains," she said.
He looked offended for a moment. Then he looked at the iron rings still attached to the cart and understood.
From the village square came the sound of a bell.
Market day.
Soon people would arrive to buy monster whistles, monster insurance, monster-proof locks and illustrated accounts of Agnes's most successful hunts.
Her pension depended on those accounts.
The creature offered her an untouched biscuit.
"You don't have to tell them," it said.
Agnes watched Bram remove the first iron ring from the cart. It fell into the grass with a small, final sound.
She had spent thirty years being paid to make the village feel safe.
Perhaps, she thought, it was time to learn how.
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Outline and characters
- Agnes serves the creature she was hired to kill.
- Bram repairs a chair large enough for their guest.
- The village demands proof that the monster is gone.
- Agnes discovers local trade depends on selling fear.
- The monster helps during a flood without asking for praise.
- A merchant stages an attack to restore business.
- Agnes admits her past role in the deception.
- Bram dismantles the old traps publicly.
- The village replaces hunting income with honest work.
- The monster chooses a permanent table by the window.
Characters
- Agnes Pike, 58. A retired monster hunter opening a tea room
- Bram Moss, 64. A village carpenter who once built traps
Series possibilities
- A neighboring village asks Agnes to host a peace conference for rival scarecrows.
