Actually, I've not been late with this chapter as I've uploaded it to AO3 yesterday. I wanted to upload it here as well BUT THIS WEBSITE DIDN'T LET ME. There was some kind of error - and so, I am uploading this a day "too late."

I was not late though, for the protocol.

Hope you enjoy this third and last part :)

Christmas Special:

Three Times Christmas (3) - Cakes and Comfort

Countryside, England, United Kingdom – December 1866

It took Vincent Phantomhive two days, five hours, and forty-seven minutes to find it, not including the time he had spent and lost eating and sleeping.

But it had all been worth the effort.

My mother had been very fond of baking, especially of baking cakes. She hadn't done it very often due to her busy schedule, but she had always baked for special occasions: birthdays, Eastern, Christmas.

And now… And now, she was gone.

A bit more than five months had passed since Francis and I had lost our parents. The wound was still fresh and, today, on Christmas Eve, it burned particularly badly again.

Francis and I had decided not to do anything for Christmas this year as we were still in mourning and it would only seem and feel odd. Still, Tanaka had taken us to Manchester for a few days as Mother used to take us somewhere the week before Christmas. And when we had returned, just like when our parents were still alive, Francis and I were greeted by Father's winter wonderland which the servants had managed to recreate in eerie detail: The manor had been drowned in white, in self-made paper stars in various shapes and sizes, in crystal figurines, in false snow and baubles in white and blue.

And apart from our parents, of course, all that was left now was Mother's Christmas cake.

But Mother had never allowed anyone into the kitchen while she had baked – not even Father. She had never told anyone her recipes, but we knew that she had collected all of them in a book – in a book whose location was unknown to us.

When we had been younger, Francis and I had often searched for it but had never been able to find it. Eventually, we had given up on it, but now, after spending over two days on my search, I had been able to accomplish the impossible and found Mother's recipe book.

"Recipes Which Can Bring You Back from the Dead," Vincent read the recipe book's title aloud, slightly shuddering at the macabre title, while he headed to the kitchen.

The day after we had returned from Manchester, Francis had fallen ill. She had caught a terrible cold which didn't want to get better. Annoyed and miserable, she had to stay in bed for the last days. And to lift her mood, I had decided to search for Mother's book and bake our annual Christmas cake all by myself.

I had watched the cook and Tanaka baking; I was the Watchdog and had already been on a mission – even if it had been neither official or truly successful.

Baking couldn't be all too difficult.

"Tanaka!" Vincent called when he arrived in the kitchen. "I have been triumphant!"

Tanaka looked up from the Christmas Pudding he had been preparing. "You found it, Young Master?" he asked, and Vincent waved with the book – a leather-bound thing touched by age and from which little papers were sticking out.

"I did! It was in a secret compartment in the vitrine where Mother put her signed copy of Oliver Twist. I found it by accident when I stumbled against it in exhaustion. Fortunately, the vitrine didn't break. It's incredibly stable for being made of wood and glass."

Vincent put the book on a table and went through it. Tanaka finished the pudding and came to stand by his side and watch him.

"Ah! I think I found the cake Mother used to bake for Christmas. It's called…" he announced after a while before he cut himself off and frowned.

"'Dahlia Duke's Chocolate Cake?' I've never heard of a Dahlia Duke. Did you, Tanaka?"

Tanaka shook his head. "As far as I know, the Mistress didn't know a Miss Dahlia Duke. Or, at least, she never visited or invited one."

"Then, why did Mother name a cake after her? Dedicate one to her?"

"Perhaps, it's not someone Lady Cloudia knew herself," Tanaka replied. "She could have copied the recipe from somewhere else or someone might have given it to her."

"But wouldn't that mean that Mother knew someone who knew a Dahlia Duke?"

"It might also be simply the cake's name. Or the name of its baker."

"A female baker? There are so few, I think, if she had a shop in London, we would know." Vincent stared at the recipe which had not even been written down on one of the book's blank pages. Instead, it was just a loose piece of paper which had been tucked between two pages. And then, there was something else which was odd about it…

"It was not even written by Mother!" he exclaimed. "That's not her handwriting. This one is still clear, elegant, and seems to belong to a woman, but it's not Mother's."

"That is indeed a peculiar case, Young Master," Tanaka agreed.

"And one we will investigate just when the holidays are over," decided Vincent.

Of course, I had known my parents and known that they had loved me, but it was usual in the upper class that parents kept a certain distance from their children – and, of course, so had ours. This distance had resulted in them becoming puzzles from which a few pieces had fallen from the table and simply vanished as some things sometimes did.

And my body was filled with excitement at the prospect of, perhaps, being able to find one of those missing pieces.

"Will you need help for it?" Tanaka wanted to know, and Vincent looked up from the book. "Help for the cake or the investigation?"

Tanaka smiled. "For both."

He returned the smile. "Yes for the investigation, no for the cake. If my mother could bake and my father could make disturbingly detailed and complex paper stars, I should also possess, at least, a little bit of talent for handicrafts – especially if my sister inherited such a talent as she's a brilliant fencer."

"I am not sure if you can count fencing as a handicraft, Young Master."

"You do it with your hands, you need precision, you get dirty – I think fencing can be counted as a handicraft."

Tanaka bowed his head. "Nevertheless, I will make you a few pots of tea to enjoy while you are baking."

Vincent smiled. "Thanks, Tanaka. And I promise you, I won't destroy the kitchen."

After Vincent had collected the ingredients he needed, he went through the recipe book again.

The first few pages had clearly been written when his mother Cloudia had still been young, and with every page, the clumsy handwriting evolved more and more into the elegant cursive Vincent was used to. There were recipes for every kind of confection – muffins, biscuits, tarts, pies, puddings – but most of them were for cakes. Many formulae had been countlessly erased, corrected, rewritten like the one for a chocolate charlotte russe with pears and currants. And in-between the pages, little additional notes or abbreviations of the recipe, photographs of the finished product, and napkins from restaurants and cafés had been put. Sometimes, there were even papers in Cloudia's cursive, detailing recipes, lettered when she, most likely, wasn't able to write directly into her book.

Of course, Cloudia had shown him and Francis warmth and love, but she had often seemed sad or deep-in-thought, and she had always been more aloof than their father. Reading her private recipe book filled Vincent with warmth as he imagined his mother smiling, content, and happy while filling the pages, but when he came closer to the book's end and thumbed through empty pages, the warmth was replaced with biting sadness.

He wanted to return to the Christmas cake formula when he noticed that the book's very last page was lettered again. However, it seemed to have been ripped out and rumpled once as if his mother had intended to throw it away and forget it forever.

Vincent read the title and his eyes widened. And with confusion and excitement oddly mixing inside his belly, he began to work.

Francis' eyes widened when Vincent showed her the recipe book the next day when they sat beneath their Christmas tree, surrounded by still unopened presents. She, healthy enough to leave her bed again, asked him question after question about how he had found it and how long it had taken and where it had been. And, an hour later when their presents were opened and everyone thanked and they sat at the table to eat, Francis' laughter, infused with coughs, echoed through the manor when she saw her brother's clumsily made chocolate cake.

"It was my first try," Vincent mumbled while Francis chuckled and Tanaka cut the cake.

"At least, it's not burned, just disfigured and far too sweet. Do you want to give everyone cavities?" Francis said after finishing her piece. Then, her gaze was caught by something else. "Did you bake them as well?" she asked while she reached out for one of the biscuits.

Vincent nodded. "The recipe was in Mother's book too, and I wanted to try them out."

His sister sceptically eyed the biscuit in her hand. "I have never seen Mother make biscuits before."

"Me neither. We don't even have biscuit cutters – that's why I had to shape them into circles myself."

"Circles, you say? I hope you mean awkward heptagons." Francis took a bite and grimaced. "Tanaka, don't eat one – it's too sweet again!"

Francis kept on criticising my cake and biscuits but did not stop eating them – either because I had baked them after Mother's recipes or because I had baked them for her or both. I smiled while she happily talked and talked, nibbling on biscuits myself.

And although right now, I was smiling and feeling happy and well, I could not stop thinking about the ripped-out page I had discovered at the end of Mother's book.

Mother had always told us that "there was nothing supernatural in the world." But she had also given Francis a necklace which couldn't be anything else but supernatural.

And now, I had found a recipe which had been undoubtedly written by her and which had the title "Cedric's Special House-made Biscuits for Humans and Reapers" – in a book titled "Recipes Which Can Bring You Back from the Dead."

And I began to doubt that I had known my mother, had known Cloudia Phantomhive, at all.

Who had she been; what had been going on?

And was it still happening?

But, for now, I pushed this discovery away and focused on Christmas – on Francis, on Tanaka, and on the other servants. This was a question for later – whenever "later" was. Whenever I was ready to find the missing puzzle pieces – if I ever was.