A/N: Hello, hello, dear readers! Long ago, I wrote a story of this same title about a dead girl named Amelie who was tied to life by a certain amulet. I unfortunately hit a major roadblock with that story, unsure of how to proceed with the plotlines I myself had cooked up. However, now, months later, I have revamped the storyline and indeed Amelie's character altogether. Herein, you will see the results of an improved, smoother writing style and a plot that has actually been planned in advance. I hope you enjoy, and perhaps feel a sense of nostalgia if you happen to be one of the readers of the original story.

Happy reading!

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Chapter One: At a'leaven o'clock

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The first time Amelie Fortescue brought someone or rather, something back to life occurred purely by accident.

At the time, she hadn't been sure exactly the best process for explaining to her father why their dog, poisoned by an embittered and ever-jealous neighbor, was suddenly prancing about all spry-like. Even harder to explain away was the eclair in the recently-reanimated pup's mouth, and why it dropped dead a mere minute later as the delectable confection found itself fully devoured. This saddened Amelie for two reasons; she loved the dog dearly, and the eclair was the first one she'd been able to make without her father's help.

It was accepted at the time that, being coated generously in fine chocolate ganache, the eclair was quite toxic and did in the poor pup for good. As for the canine's apparent rebirth, it was concluded that it had not truly been dead, merely comatose from the neighbor's heinous poisoning. Amelie's father Bellamy, at a loss as to how to handle such a situation, decided the best thing to do would be to sit down and instill in his daughter a sense of responsibility.

"Mia, dear," he said to her over bread and tea." You know why it is that you can't feed pastries to animals, no?"

Amelie, being an ever-precocious six-year-old, nodded sagely as though she knew all wisdom of the universe.

"Because animals are too simple to appreciate the art and effort put into creating them."

Bellamy caught himself in the middle of nodding and scoffed.

"No, no! We do not feed the animals pastries because what is good to us is not good to them, you see?"

"Yes, papa."

"Good, good. Now run along and knead the dough for the noon loaves. I will take care of our poor friend here."

The baker's daughter did just that, and for ten years thereafter, she flitted through life fully convinced that she had murdered her own dog.

It was only quite some time later, after the birth of her brother Russel and the subsequent death of her mother (unable to endure the stresses of labor), that Amelie would perform another accidental reanimation—this time, on a vagrant who had passed during the night. She found the man in an alleyway behind the butcher's and the shoemaker's, and she had no idea whatsoever that he would be returning to the world of the living, however short a time it was.

In truth, the entire incident began when the young woman laid one of the rolls from the basket of free day-olds (unanimously agreed upon by the populace to be the bakery's finest idea) next to the vagrant's cold, stiff, very much dead body. It was intended as an offering of sorts, a respectful gesture towards the man who must have suffered terribly in life. She most assuredly never expected the man to actually get up and take a bite of the roll, not when she was absolutely, undeniably certain that he had been very, very dead from a head injury.

Thus, after kicking the newly-resurrected man in the indelicate bits, fleeing with a scream, and scattering the basket of day olds into the street (a flock of birds nearby nearly had heart attacks from bliss), Amelie opted to only give baked goods to persons with a pulse from then on. Bellamy and Russel, after hearing of the girl's plight, opted to write it off as fever at first (Russel had just crested the age of five, and possessed an ever-insufferable attitude in regards to his sister's antics). It was only when the girl resurrected yet another vagrant some weeks later, this time on purpose to prove the truth of her words, that they held any stock in her claim. Having witnessed a man return to the world of the living long enough to devour a pastry, only to subsequently perish once more upon finishing the treat, the Fortescue men were forced to accept that their beloved Amelie possessed something of a unique talent for baking that neither her father or brother had. That is to say, the lone female of the family crafted treats so finely delicious, so uniquely scrumptious, that the dead literally returned from the grave in order to sample them.

It was also at this point that the Fortescue patriarch discovered that that was an excellent marketing ploy. Thus did the small bakery known as the Sarriette coin it's motto; "Treats so fine, they'll wake the dead!" Though of course the public did not know that the statement could be taken literally, this was somewhat ironic given that the shop was just two businesses down from the local Undertaker's funerary parlor. London's citizenry were none the wiser.

And so it went, the young lady honing her culinary skills and mastering the art of reviving the dead while she steadily approached a marriageable age. Meanwhile, the bakery enjoyed quite a lot of success among the other businesses of London's streets.

Gradually, it would come to pass that some of Amelie's resurrections were performed on murder victims, who upon revival screamed with terror at their recent fates. Unsure what else to do with a screaming, flailing, bleeding person, Amelie would then shove the treat that had brought the unfortunate individual back fully into his or her mouth and say nothing about the incident. For it was only with the complete consumption of the given pastry that the victims returned to being dead. To have a reanimated cream puff connoisseur on the loose on a permanent basis was something that did not bear thinking on.

In time, however, she mastered the technique of soothing these victims long enough to offer them tea and perhaps ascertain a clue or two regarding the cause of their demise.

"My friend," she would ask delicately. "Tell me, who has wedged that meat cleaver into your skull?"

And the non-corpse would answer, to the best of their abilities, before breaking into tears at their untimely demise. But Amelie felt a certain obligation to the dead she had revived, and so (after assuring they were returned to a state of eternal rest) she would cleverly relay the tidbits to the police in such a way that no one would know she'd spoken to the dead. After all, were she to claim such, it would mean a house of bedlam for the rest of her life. The lady greatly enjoyed her home at the bakery, and the act of baking, so such a change in lifestyle would be extremely undesirable. Thus, for a time, the police and the Scotland Yard went for a long period without a single unsolved case, while the baker acquired a modest amount of money under the table for services rendered. Despite Amelie's insistence that the officers owed her nothing, a certain inspector Abberline offered the recompenses as hush money.

Gradually, the number of murders dwindled. Perhaps the criminals of London's dark bowels had come to fear the Yard's tenacity, or perhaps there was simply no one left to commit the crimes. At any rate, the speed of life cooled to a state of peace, and the Sarriette fell into a state of busy-ness with the impending holiday seasons and autumnal festivals.

It was on a cold, bitterly windy day the week before All Hallow's Ever that the pace of life would be changed once more.

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