"Would you like a cookie, dearie?" she would ask any time you came into her kitchen. She was *always* in the kitchen, and that kitchen *always* smelled of caramelizing sugars, citrus fruits, and cigarette smoke. She'd be sat on her stool in the corner near the open window and before you ever had a chance to answer she'd be handing you a cookie from the cookie jar on the counter behind her. Even if you said no she insisted that you take it anyway, and if you still resisted she'd just eat it herself. I don't think that I ever saw her put one back, I don't think I ever saw her put anything into it, actually. And yet somehow she always had an endless supply. She was magic like that.

As kids we were never allowed to touch the cookie jar, only Gran and Auntie Cee, her younger sister. When Auntie Cee was around the smell in the kitchen would change. It would grow almost deeper, with hints of chocolate and spices. The cookies she used to give to us had a darker brown to their molasses and were much chewer. Auntie Cee's cookies were the best.

But Gran would sit on her stool, and smoke her cigarettes with her ash tray and radio on the counter behind her. And when Auntie Cee would come by she would pull up a stool of her own and join her. Then a few years back Auntie Cee passed and Gran still sat by the window and still smoked her cigarettes but she never turned the radio on again. And the kitchen never smelled of chocolate or of spices. In fact it somehow lost a little sweetness and the cookies, too. From then on she would just mutter "cookie" and hold one out in your direction, eventually losing the words all together.

It's a shame Dad never learned to bake, or at least that's what I used to think. Until one day Gran shared a secret with me. "Have you ever seen me bake a cookie, dearie, think about it?" she asked me pointedly one evening. I had joined her for an evening cup of tea as the sun dipped below the rooftops.

"What do you mean Gran, we had cookies here all the time when we were kids? Your kitchen always smelled like a fresh batch was in the oven."

"Yes, but did I ever actually do any baking? Did you ever see baking trays or bowls and spoons in the sink?"

I hadn't, no, but I'd always assumed she'd just done the baking before we came over so we had fresh cookies when we arrived. I was puzzled, and Gran gently took my hand and lead me back to the corner where she would smoke cigarettes and listen to the radio and watch the world from her open window. "I want you to reach inside and take out a cookie for me." She took the lid off the jar and before I could ask why she continued, "please ask me if I would like a cookie."

"Gran, why are you acting so strangely?" I reached into the jar but there was nothing inside. I pulled my hand back and looked to Gran for an explanation.

"Ask me if I would like a cookie," she moved the cookie jar closer to me, "please."

"Would you like a cookie Gran?" She nudged the it into my arm insisting I reach in a second time. And since you don't really say no to Gran, I complied. And when I pulled my hand back, she set the cookie jar back on the counter, and I placed a cookie into the palm of Gran's outstretched hand. She took a small bite and savored the taste, analyzing each flavor note.

"Here, take a bite." She handed me the cookie and I looked it over in amazement, soon looking deep into the very empty cookie jar Gran had just sent back down. "Taste it, tell me what you think."

"Where the hell did it come from Gran, that jar was empty?" She smirked and pulled out the extra stool, the one no one has used since Auntie Cee passed. She patted the seat and beckoned me to sit down with her.

"First taste the cookie. How does it taste?" I took a small bite of my own. It was a chocolate chip cookie, my favorite, but that wasn't usual in Gran's cookie jar, especially since Auntie Cee was the one who liked chocolate.

"Dearie, there is something you must know about this family. All the women with a bloodline connection on my side; so me and Auntie Cee, our mother and her sisters, and her mother and so on, we all have some level of abilities or powers or what have you. And at a time when having such abilities or powers put you in danger someone in our family chose to channel those powers into inconspicuous household items, placing charms on them to not draw too much attention. A cookie jar, among many other things, was crafted and a charm of sorts was placed upon it so that so long as you had blood that traced back to its creator you could retrieve a small treat, that was truly perfect to you, at a moments notice. We were never taught to use our powers ourselves so all we can do is use what charmed items we've managed to gather from the family over the years."

I, for the first time ever, lifted the jar to inspect it. It was much heavier than I had imagined, with a bumpy imperfect exterior glazed in a bright white. The blue mosaic accents were clearly hand applied the closer I looked. Initials were carved into the bottom of the clay but Gran wasn't entirely certain who they belonged to.

"That is why both Auntie Cee and I could take different cookies out of the same jar at an instant, and why there were always perfect. So, take another bite and think hard about it, what does yours take like then Dearie? How does it taste different from mine or Auntie Cee's?" I took another bite and closed my eyes to focus hard. It was more buttery and was salted much more heavily, and it had three chocolate pieces embedded in it, the perfect amount.

"Why couldn't I take out a cookie the first time, then?" The rules of the cookie jar felt unclear and incomplete. "And what happens if Dad reaches inside?"

"You didn't want it, nor did you need it, and once you have it you can't put it back. The cookie jar does not like you to waste. It will also not deliver if something other than your hand is inside. That was part of the disguising it."

"And Dad...what if he tries?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing happens at all. No one that isn't a blood female can retrieve anything from it. In fact, your father doesn't even know that is how his favorite childhood treats, and yours, came to be. His grandmother, my mother, would get these gingersnap cookies that your father would go mad for. He would ask constantly for me to make him her cookies and no matter how hard I tried they never tasted the same. Her kitchens always smelled of ginger and honey. When she passed I never smelled it quite the same way again."

That conversation with Gran took place well over a six months ago and I had just gotten off a very long phone call with Dad as I made my way back into town. Gran was getting ready to say her last goodbyes she believed and had asked that the family be gathered.

The phone call with Dad I had today wasn't quite as long and wasn't necessarily any better. He was readying to sell Gran's house, the house he and his brother were raised in, and the house where Gran would sit on her stool and her smoke cigarettes by the open window and listen to her radio. He told me to come collect anything that I wanted and say a final goodbye because everything was to be going if not claimed or sellable.

When I arrived Dad was sat in the kitchen with photo albums of when he was young. He had already been boxing up the house slowly over the last few months and sorting through what had compiled over the last sixty years of life pulsing through it. The kitchen did not smell of caramelizing sugars or citrus fruits. The smell of smoke hung faintly in the air, as if the walls were breathing it back to us.

And that's when I noticed the empty counter behind him; ashtray, radio, and cookie jar all gone from their usual spots on the counter. I began to open cabinets and near by boxes in hopes that he had simply tucked it away somewhere, as to not break it while packing. He turned to me and I undid his hard work, "what are you looking for exactly?"

"Gran's cookie jar, where did it go?" I didn't look back at him as I answered and my search grew more intense and rapid.

"What cookie jar?" At that I paused my search.

"The white and blue cookie jar, Dad. The one she has had on the counter forever!" I pointed furiously to the counter behind him.

"Oh, that thing!? You don't even bake, what would you want with an old cookie jar?" I could feel the blood in my veins running cold.

"Dad," the words hesitated to exit my lips as I asked the question, "what have you done with Gran's cookie jar?"