Camilla: Violetta and the Pearl 4

I woke up in the afternoon, on Auntie Mu’s bed. She would let me take a nap here when I was tired and since her room was all the way at the back of her house, I wouldn't be disturbed by the noises coming from her kitchen café. 

Auntie Mumu’s bedroom was always tidy. She only had the most necessary furniture, a bed, small table next to her bed and a reading chair in the corner with a standing lamp just behind it. The thin curtains gave the room a golden hue and it always made me really calm when I could lie down here for a while. She had a picture of her brother as a young soldier next to her bed and a small porcelain sculpture of a dragon. It was hand made and its wings were painted with glitter, the rest of it was a very light shade of violet. It was so finely sculpted, every claw and even the eye lashes were formed by some unknown artist. On its chest, there was a small hollow spot with remnants of glue in it. Something once part of this little dragon must have fallen off at a certain point. I wondered what that might have been.

Yes, Mumu had a Kitchen Café in her tiny kitchen. Anyone who wonders what that might be, it is exactly what it sounds like. A café in a kitchen. A kitchen supposed to be private, but open to anyone who wants to drop by and have some coffee or tea and a piece of banana bread or cookies filled with raspberry jam, all made by Auntie and sometimes me in her very own little kitchen. Even though many people came just to have a cup of joe and a bite, what Mumu was most famous for was the different kinds of tea she made. The entire wall in the hallway was taken up by shelves with hundreds of pots of different kinds of tea with different flavours and also different intentions.

Town people would come in with different ailments and be handed a cup of tea that “might just help a bit” or “will definitely do the trick”. Troubled people with backache, insomnia, eczema or a severe case of heartbreak would stop by for a chat and a cup of Mumu magic. Some teas tasted absolutely horrendous. Those were the most powerful ones, according to Mu. Some were so delicious it almost made you dizzy to have a sip. Star-anise mixed with lavender and rose petals, cardamom mixed with saffron and dried mushrooms, nettles and turmeric mixed with swirls of honey, ginger and dried Hawthorne berries.