Chapter 1: The Pie-Maker and the Boy Named Fee
At the exact moment when Sigrid of Dale was 9 years, 27 weeks, 6 days and 3 minutes old, she discovered that she was not like anyone else.
Certainly, Sigrid seemed like most girls who are 9 years, 27 weeks, 6 days and 3 minutes old. She loved to play pretend with her younger brother and sister, she loved to bake pies with her mother, and go on fishing trips with father. She was also utterly in love with the boy who lived in the blue house over the road.
His name was Fíli, Fee for short, and at the very moment in question he was 11 years 11 weeks, 21 days and 56 minutes old. To Young Sigrid, Fee wasn't simply a boy; made up of snips and snails, and puppy dogs tails like most boys that age are. He was the type of boy who shared his school lunch when hers wouldn't stretch far enough, and let her and her sibling join in with the imaginary games he played with his brother; fighting mighty battles, slaying fearsome beasts from the sky, and ruling over their kingdom in the front yard.
All in all, it seemed to Young Sigrid that Fee was sprung up from the ground as he was; ready-made from the Play-Doh fun factory of life. He was her best friend in the whole wide world, and the world was theirs to conquer.
But when Young Sigrid's mother was 38 years, 17 weeks, 3 days and 42 minutes old, a blood vessel burst in her brain, killing her instantly.
They had been in the kitchen, her mother carrying a strawberry pie to the oven when it happened. At the sound of the loud crash, Young Sigrid had looked up to see the pie and her mother on the floor, both beyond saving.
The Sigrid of today, 24 years, 13 weeks, 1 day and 47 minutes old, would always remember how she had looked desperately about her for help, and the terrible realisation that there was none to be had; her Da was working overtime at the Fire Station and her siblings were staying with friends. There was nothing to be done, her mother was already dead.
Tremulously, Young Sigrid had crept to where her mother lay, looking to all the world as if she were merely sleeping. Then, Young Sigrid stretched out her finger and touched her mother's still hand.
In an instant, Sigrid's mother sat bolt upright.
Young Sigrid jumped backwards in fright, staring as her mother, who had been dead not 5 seconds ago, as she looked about her in bewilderment before lamenting aloud at the mess of wasted strawberry pie splattered on her linoleum floor.
Staring first at her hand and then back at her mother, that was the moment when Young Sigrid realised that she had a gift. She could touch dead things and bring them back to life.
Thoroughly confused and terribly frightened, Young Sigrid backed cautiously out of the kitchen. This gift made no sense. To be sure, the terms and conditions had not been clearly outlined. But as the sound of her mother humming a merry tune carried through from the kitchen, Young Sigrid suddenly could not bring herself to care. Her mother was alive again, and that was all that mattered.
Grinning ear-to-ear she raced out her front door, desperate to find her best friend in the whole wide world and tell him of this strange and wonderful gift. But as she ran across the road to the blue house with the pointed roof, another tragedy befell her young life. Fíli's father, who had been watering the garden only a minute ago, fell where he stood. Dead in an instant.
Stunned, Sigrid stared at the dead man on the lawn, and then back through the kitchen window at her alive again mother. Thus, Young Sigrid came to understand that it was a gift that not only gave... it took. Her touch could only bring the dead back to life for a minute without consequence, any longer and someone else had to die. In the grand universal scheme of things, Young Sigrid had traded her mother's life for the life of Fee's father.
But there was one more thing about touching dead things that Young Sigrid didn't know. And she learned it in the most unfortunate way, as her mother's lips pressed a Goodnight kiss to her head later that night.
First touch, life. Second touch, dead again, forever.
You can imagine what happened then.
Sigrid's father never recovered from the loss of his beloved wife. He busied himself with work at the Fire Station and took on more and more responsibilities at the Town Hall.
When his mother redeployed, Fee and his brother were fostered by their uncle, Thorin, a renowned jeweller and notorious recluse. He moved the boys across town and into the old family mansion atop a hill.
Young Sigrid had thought that she would at least see her best friend at school, but alas she was wrong. Fee's uncle had decided to home-school the boys.
The big blue house across the road stool silent, and the once thriving lawn that had been the kingdom of their imagination became desolate with disuse.
In the years that followed, Sigrid avoided social attachments, terrified of what might happen if someone else she loved died. This was not difficult to do after her father became Mayor and he could afford to send her to a Private School.
She mostly ate alone, and while her packed lunch was now always enough to fill her stomach, she felt somehow empty without her very best friend to share it.
But besides her family, there was one thing that kept Sigrid happy, and that was baking pies. Pies of all shapes and sizes, flavours and varieties filled the house with food and a sense of comfort once more, and so life went on.
15 years, 14 weeks, 5 days and 44 minutes later, heretofore known as Now, Young Sigrid became 'The Pie-Maker', opening her own bakery, complete with a pie-crust roof and aptly named 'The Pie Hole'. It was her sanctuary, a place where her gift of mysterious origin and dangerous consequence could do some good. No fruit ever went to waste in the Pie-Maker's hand, but would retain its ripe flavour forever more, so long as she did not touch it again. When asked what it was that gave the fruit pies their fresh and flavoursome appeal, the Pie-Maker would shrug with a modest smile and simply said that it was her late mother's recipes that made all the difference.
People seemed content to accept that answer, too absorbed in devouring the perfectly crusted golden pastries to delve further into the matter.
Indeed, only one person knew of the Pie-Makers secret, and that had been a complete accident.
Tauriel Silvan, a police officer, had been on the verge of taking down the villainous leader of a criminal gang when the Pie-Maker had stumbled across her path, or more accurately, had stumbled into the path of the now twice dead criminal.
It had been a fairly standard day for the young police officer; terrible coffee and fairly bland doughnuts, a lengthy briefing from her captain, more terrible coffee, and then they had gotten the call out to move in on the headquarters of the infamous Arachnid gang. But someone must have warned the gang that the Police were coming, the result of this being that the leader bolted and Tauriel found herself in pursuit across the building rooftops.
At the time, the Pie-Maker had been going about her day, oblivious to the rooftop chase occurring nearby, at least until the gang leader misjudged his jump and fell to his death at her feet.
The young Officer looked on from above. First in horror as the man's body hit a large metal trash bin with a bone-crunching wham, and then in alarm as his body rolled off of the bin and hit a bystander.
All things considered, it was already going to be difficult to explain to her Captain that she had chased the criminal across several rooftops. That specific tactic was never going to be found in any official police manual. But Tauriel Silvan's day got an awful lot more complicated when the dead man's body hit the bystander… and opened its eyes again on impact. Tauriel watched on, with an expression that could only be described as dumbstruck, as the undead criminal and the young woman he had hit both clambered to their feet.
The criminal looked between himself and the trash bin in a daze, and then made to run again.
Perhaps things might have turned out rather differently if Sigrid's gift had no rules. Perhaps Tauriel could have convinced herself that the fall had not been deadly after all, just her mind playing tricks on her. The usual types of things people told themselves when they needed to explain the unexplainable.
But through the shock of a man falling dead at her feet, Sigrid remembered the clause of her gift; if the dead lived longer than a minute, another would have to die and take their place. With that in mind, Sigrid leapt forwards and caught the once dead man's arm in hers, where upon he fell at her feet, dead for a second time, this time for good.
Later that day, after several explanations and even more slices of fresh apple pie, Tauriel sat across from Sigrid in a booth of the closed Pie Hole and eyed her shrewdly.
"I'd like to propose a partnership. I think we can make this work for both of us."
Sigrid fidgeted in her seat, already uncomfortable with where she suspected this conversation was headed.
Tauriel leant forwards. "Murders are much easier to solve when you can
ask the victim who killed them. So, I would do my job and investigate these murders, you would come along as a police advisor and 'Zombie Touch' the victims, and then together we solve the case and make the world a better place." Tauriel sat back looking deeply satisfied.
Sigrid frowned. "I'm not sure I see how I benefit from this partnership."
"If you are looking for credit-" Tauriel began.
"I'm not." Sigrid interrupted. Quite honestly, she could think of nothing worse than getting credit for the job. She wanted to keep as far away from any form of notoriety as possible. "I just want to go about my life normally… or as normally as I can."
Tauriel held out a hand. "Deal. It will be our secret."
Sigrid sighed, and then shook Tauriel's hand. "Deal."
Tauriel grinned and began tucking into another slice of Apple Pie.
"In future, can you please not use the word 'zombie'." Sigrid burst out after a moment. "It's disrespectful. Stumbling around, squawking for brains. That's not really what they do."
Tauriel shrugged, still eating the pie.
"And can we not refer to them as "undead" either? It's a horrible way to describe someone. Nobody wants to be un-anything. The living Dead doesn't really work either. It implies that the person is both living and dead at the same time, but that's just confusing. You should be either alive or dead, not both at once."
Tauriel put her fork down very deliberately. "What do you call it?"
"Well, alive-again is a nicer way to put it." Sigrid suggested.
"Then alive-again it is." Tauriel went back to eating her pie.
There are some things you just can't share without ending up liking each other, and keeping a secret like the power to make people alive-again is one of them.
For a while, their partnership operated without a hitch. Tauriel brought Sigrid on as an 'expert', and together they solved crime after crime. Tauriel was soon rewarded with the rank of Captain, and the Pie Hole was never short of Police Officers with a penchant for sweet pastries.
But alas, when the Pie-Maker was exactly 24 years, 13 weeks, 1 day and 47 minutes old, everything changed again.
She was in the kitchen baking tomorrow's strawberry pie with the television on in the background when she heard the evening bulletin.
"In Breaking News tonight, Police have been called to Erebor Mansion where two bodies have been found. Thorin Durinson, aged 50, and Fili Durinson, aged 28."
The Pie-Maker let out a gasp, and the strawberry pie she was carrying fell to the floor.
"Fee?"