Chapter V

The Guardian of The Kettle

But for now I will keep brewing tea for you.

A surprisingly chilly morning had settled over the tea house, catching both Emha and the house unprepared. The sudden cold swept through the walls, and the house, alive as ever, began to shiver gently. Its efforts to stay warm caused faint tremors that rippled through the floorboards, rattling a few objects on the shelves and waking Emha with a jolt. The mountain range of Obscuritea was famous for its rich soil, mild temperatures, and the abundance of level 1 shadow spirits that allowed the Obscuritea plants to thrive and become possessed. Sudden cold snaps like this were rare, practically unheard of.

“Why is it so cold?!” Emha exclaimed, sitting upright and wrapping her blanket tighter around herself. She could feel the house’s discomfort beneath her feet. The slight, rhythmic shivering took her by surprise. Extending her hand to touch the trembling floorboards, she muttered, “I didn’t know the house could feel the cold. How did it survive before I came here? Could all the broken items I found when I arrived be from this... shivering?”

The house stilled slightly, as though it was trying to contain its tremors and protect the delicate objects resting on its shelves. Emha shook her head, worried. Maybe I should ask Coalby to help secure all the teapots, she thought to herself. She slipped out of bed, the icy air nipping at her feet as she reached for her apron. There was so much to do: tending to the house, dealing with the mysterious rider’s key, and preparing for whatever consequences might follow the previous night’s events.

Her thoughts were interrupted by an exaggerated yawn. The key hanging from her neck stirred, unfurling its tiny dragon-like wings as it stretched lazily.

“Morning already?” it grumbled groggily. In its sleepy state, it failed to notice the mute key it had been holding. With a careless flick of its wings, the second key slipped from its grasp and clattered onto the floor.

“Nooooooo!” Emha’s key wailed dramatically, flapping its wings in distress.

Emha sighed. “I’ll have no peace today, will I?”

Her long, slender dragon-like tail—her most visible trait as a dragon manifester—uncoiled from under her skirt. With a deft flick, it picked up the mute key and placed it back into her hand. She crouched down and handed the mute key back to her squeaky, overly dramatic companion.

“Here, take your friend and hold him properly this time,” she said, her voice laced with a mix of sternness and amusement. “I’ll figure out a way to secure you two together later—or better yet, maybe I’ll just return it to the rider.” She muttered the last part under her breath, unsure if she even wanted to keep the second key around any longer than necessary.

The key grinned sheepishly. “Okay,” it squeaked in a childish tone, clutching the mute key as if it were the most precious treasure in the world.

Before leaving her room, Emha turned to the small cage by her bedside, where Shunji was curled into a fluffy little ball. His fur puffed up like a miniature cloud, a natural defense against the chill.

“You’ll come with me,” she murmured softly, scooping him out of the cage and cradling him in her hands before tucking him gently into the front pocket of her apron. “It’s a bit dusty in there, but it’ll keep you warm.”

The tiny bat let out a squeaky noise, curling up snugly in the pocket as she grabbed her cloak and hurried outside. Her breath fogged up in the crisp morning air as she stepped into the garden.

Before heading to the woodpile, Emha paused to glance at the tea house’s facade. Various colorful flags fluttered in the breeze—some she had found buried within the house’s clutter, and others she had made herself. They gave the house an oddly whimsical charm despite its somewhat disheveled state.

“You’re looking cute today!” she called out to the house with a fond smile. “Hold on, I’ll get the fire started soon!”

She made her way to the small woodpile at the back of the tea house, her heavy boots crunching against the frosty ground. She gathered several logs and a couple of old, useless books that had been piling up inside the house as part of her ongoing effort to declutter. “I wonder if the house can read?” she mused to herself, chuckling softly at the absurdity of the thought.

Returning to the main hall, she was greeted by the gentle warmth radiating from a bed of glowing coals. A large iron kettle rested above them, its water bubbling quietly.

Coiled around the base of the kettle was a small, fluffy, snake-like creature. Its sleek black fur glimmered faintly in the glow of the coals. It shifted slightly, using its tail to rearrange the embers and ensure the heat was perfectly balanced.

“Emha!” it exclaimed in an exasperated tone, looking up at her with its round, expressive eyes. “I was starting to think you’d left me to die!”

✦

Coalby and the tea pot Emha had handmade for him, in addition she has been working on some signature tea cups, to create an identity for her tea house.

Coalby’s story began, much like the tea house itself, in an air of mystery. Emha had first discovered him buried under a pile of old, soot-covered coals the day she started the house’s first fire. She had spent hours clearing the hearth, sifting through the layers of clutter that seemed to have been hoarded by the house before her arrival. When she finally lit the fire, the faint crackling of the flames was accompanied by something entirely unexpected—a soft, sleepy groan.

Startled, Emha stepped back, gripping her apron tightly as the sound grew louder. From the glowing embers, a small, fluffy, snake-like creature uncurled itself. Its sleek black fur gleamed faintly in the firelight, streaked with ash, and its round, expressive eyes blinked groggily as though adjusting to the light. The creature yawned deeply, revealing tiny fangs, and muttered in a grumpy tone, “Who dares disturb my sleep?”

Before Emha could react, her dragon-headed key, hanging from her neck, suddenly came to life with a dramatic gasp.

“Lock him up!” it squealed, flapping its tiny wings in mock panic. Emha rolled her eyes at the key’s outburst, but the creature ignored them both, coiling itself deeper into the warmth of the coals and falling silent once more.

It didn’t take long for Emha to make an educated guess about what she was dealing with. In this world, only two types of spirits existed: shadow spirits and soul flames, and both required an object to inhabit in order to interact with the physical world. This creature, however, was alive in its own right. She could tell right away that it was a hybrid—a being born from the union of two different species. The snake like creature, just like her key, seemed to have no memory of his past or how he ended up in the tea house. So Emha named him Coalby, after the pile of coals he had emerged from. Sometimes she teasingly called him Noodles.

It didn’t take long for her to figure out Coalby’s peculiar needs. She discovered that he needed to maintain a body temperature close to boiling to stay awake and lively. If his temperature dropped too much, he would fall into a deep sleep, one he couldn’t wake from until someone reignited the fire around him. Concerned for his well-being, Emha fetched more coals and even brought him a box of matchsticks. Over time, the two of them formed a bond. Emha went out of her way to make him feel at home—she built him a small teapot house lined with warm stones and even decorated his matchboxes with cute designs of his likeness. She even made little flag signs with his image, planting them around the tea house like a playful tribute to her odd new companion.

Coalby, for his part, adored Emha, trusting her completely. But as he came to understand what it meant to be a hybrid, his contentment started to fade. He began to dwell on the one thing he couldn’t have—a humanoid form. Among hybrids, the inability to shapeshift into a human-like form was not uncommon, but it still carried a deep sense of loss. Coalby became obsessed with the idea of gaining such a form, quietly harboring the hope that he might one day find a way to achieve it.

This obsession occasionally led to trouble. One particularly memorable incident began when Coalby stumbled across Emha’s personal notebook. Mistaking it for a spellbook, he became convinced that Emha was secretly keeping the solution to his problem hidden from him. Among her many sketches and sigils, he found one that caught his attention—a design meant to temporarily give shadow spirits a human-like silhouette. The sigil was one of Emha’s playful creations, something she had drawn up in her spare time for harmless experimentation, but Coalby thought it was the key to his transformation.

Late that night, he painstakingly reproduced the sigil across the tea house, his clumsy attempts smudged and uneven but just functional enough. When morning came, Emha woke to find dozens of shadowy human shapes standing eerily outside her window. Their faceless heads turned toward her.

Emha’s heart leapt into her throat. For a second, she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. Her first thought was that some intruder—some creep—had managed to find their way to her tea house. A wave of regret washed over her. Why had she ever thought running this place was a good idea?

“Coalby!” she shouted, storming into the main hall, where the little creature was attempting to hide behind the kettle, his tail coiled tightly around himself.

“What have you done?!”

“I-I thought it would work!” Coalby stammered, his tail curling defensively around the base of the kettle.

It took hours to clean up the mess. The sigils had no lasting effect on the shadow spirits—they couldn’t interact with the physical world any more than before, but their temporary transformation had startled Emha nonetheless, she really second guessed her choices in life. What surprised her most, however, was the realization that Coalby had managed to draw the sigils at all. It hinted at something she hadn’t expected: despite being a hybrid, Coalby seemed to retain some of the manifesters’ ability to access the blueprint dimension.

The incident added a new layer of complexity to their relationship. Coalby’s determination to become human, while admirable, sometimes bordered on reckless. But Emha couldn’t stay angry with him for long. She understood his longing better than she cared to admit, and she wanted to help him find purpose beyond his frustrations.

To keep him occupied, Emha began teaching Coalby everything she knew about tea. She brought him books, utensils, and rare tea leaves from nearby markets. Coalby threw himself into the work, and soon his knowledge of tea rivaled even hers. The routine gave him a sense of accomplishment, and his depressive moments began to subside—though Emha knew his longing for a humanoid form hadn’t gone away entirely.

For now, however, Coalby had found his place in the tea house, tending the fire and perfecting the art of tea-making. And despite the occasional chaos he caused, Emha wouldn’t have had it any other way.

✦

“It’s tea time!”

Emha put down the wood and wrapped her hands in protective heat bands before picking up Coalby.

“Noodle!” she teased, gently booping him on the tip of his nose.

Coalby blinked up at her. “I’m not a noodle,” he grumbled, but the corner of his mouth curled in amusement.

“I’ve got a task for you today,” Emha said, pointing toward the shelf lined with an assortment of unique teapots. Each one, though different in shape and design, bore two round, otherworldly eyes on its surface, made of stone and clay. “I need you to secure those teapots as soon as you can. We already have enough broken pieces as it is.”

Indeed, as she’d mentioned before, the tea house had been cluttered with countless shattered objects when she’d first arrived—fragments of cups, plates, and teapots. Some of the pieces she found intriguing enough to display neatly in a box on one of the shelves, but she didn’t need any more to add to the collection.

“Noted!” Coalby nodded, and with the tip of his tail, he picked up a brush and jotted something down on a sheet of paper, brushing off some dried tea leaves scattered across it. He couldn’t really write, but he drew vague shapes that would help him remember.

Before he could finish his masterpiece, his gaze shifted to Shunji, who had somehow managed to wiggle free from the front pocket of Emha’s apron. The tiny bat, wobbling unsteadily on his wings, made a beeline for the shelf of teapots, clearly trying to escape the growing brightness of the fire Emha had started.

“Shunji!” Emha called after him, but the little bat ignored her, fluttering clumsily toward the farthest teapot and hooking his tiny claws onto its metal handle. He hung there, swaying gently, his fluff puffed out from the effort of flying.

The tea pot and Shunji. A alongside the box where Emha kept the broken pieces.

Before Emha could reach him, the teapot suddenly opened one of its eyes. A soft, resonant sound echoed from within.

“It’s tea time!” the teapot proclaimed, its voice high and cheerful, yet slightly haunting.

The room fell silent for a moment, save for the gentle crackle of the fire. Then, unexpectedly, the mute key—which had been held tightly by Emha’s chatty key—suddenly shouted, “Tea!”

“You spoke!” her key exclaimed in its usual squeaky voice, holding the mute key aloft as if it were a trophy.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The teapots in The Haunted Tea House were inspired by dogū figurines, which I completely fell in love with while exploring Japan. These lil alien dudes are so fascinating, otherworldly. Even though no one really knows for sure what they were made for, what really got me, though, was learning that many of them were made to be broken. It stuck with me, and it became part of the story’s core.