“My guy, you are overpaying for your bread.” I tell the being in front of me, getting a hissed out sound that could be a laugh, could be a death rattle. There are six sourdough loaves on the counter, unbagged and still a little warm from the oven. It’s four-forty-five AM, and sunrise is in thirty minutes.
“Unless this is a trick coin that disappears when the sun rises.” I muse, looking down at the very suspicious *solid gold* coin sitting on my counter. It’s happened before. “I’ll go get the scale I guess.” I say, resigned, and head back to the office where I keep the box of jewelers-grade tools for this kind of thing.
If the coin is real, it certainly is heavy enough to be Significant. It’s nearly two ounces of solid gold.
“Look.” I say, sighing as I look up the days gold prices. “If I take this coin as a solid piece, *and* it’s genuine through a year and a day, I’ll take the value and set you up a tab so that you don’t have to pay every time. Human money isn’t worth as much as this any more, and it’s not fair to overcharge you for *bread*.” I tell it.
The coin is worth over five thousand dollars in modern human American currency. That’s absolutely going to be a pain to explain to the IRS.
A chittering sound like birds in the dark. Agreement, probably. Should be anyhow, my refusal to cheat anyone has been the reason these strange beings show up more and more often.
“So I can’t make change for this.” I tell the being. “I’ll add it to the Vault, get it appraised once I’ve got it authenticated, and in the meantime you can have as much bread as you want.” I say, and the bread vanishes into the things robes, to a very loud chirping storm that is silenced when the robes fall back into place.
“Pleasure doing business.” the being says in a voice that isn’t human, is very much *not* human and I don’t want to ask further. “We will return. The wild seed rolls are delightful.” it says in six different voices, and I grin and nod.
“Come back on Thursday.” I tell them. “I’ve been experimenting again, and I think the sunflower and pumpkin seed rolls are ready to go live. We’ve got the drop scheduled on instagram and tiktok!” I tell them, and they whistle a chirpy tune as they pull a cell phone out of nowhere and scan my code that I had etched into the counter so that I didn’t have to make business cards. Even the eldrich have smartphones these days, and it’s just easier to have something available that they don’t have to touch to get what they want, since some rules still say that they must offer something of equivalent exchange and cannot take gifts. Like a business card.
It’s not easy running a bakery, and nobody else will work the witching hours, but it’s a lot of fun. I’d had no idea that so many *interesting* beings also loved bread as much as I do. I turn from waving to the strange being, and I move to check out my next customer.
Who is absolutely not three gnomes in a trench coat. Absolutely not. That would be absurd. They want three sandwiches, three giant cookies, and three coffees. Can’t be three gnomes in a trench coat though.
The rubies they pay with are very pretty though, and I consider again how hard it would be to find a jeweler who didn’t ask questions. A ruby necklace would be a lovely way to turn the gems and gold into cash for the business account.
I reload the gnomes tab, and they leave with their sandwiches and coffee and cookies, and I throw in a pack of ginger snap cookies for them to try too, since they always leave me good reviews on the local facebook pages.
