"Loose Tea" by Andrea Bernard — Our December 2024 Silver Medal Winner

Andrea is our second place winner from the contest posted in our December 2024 issue!

What the judges had to say:

“Good pacing. Clever premise.”

“...masterful misdirection.”

“What elevates this story is its patient buildup and attention to detail. The description of the apartment establishes atmosphere efficiently, and the dialogue carries narrative momentum while maintaining believability.”

Meet Andrea

Andrea is a marine biologist. For most of her career she lived and worked in sunny South Florida, but in April 2020, she returned home to the Toronto suburbs where she now lives with her husband and her dog, Indiana. Her short fiction has been published in the Antigonish Review, On Spec, Blank Spaces, and Prairie Fire.

Loose Tea

the unedited story by Andrea Bernard

Alice’s gaze flitted about the sterile space. The apartment was one of those industrial studio jobs, with high ceilings, exposed brick, polished concrete floors, and stainless-steel appliances. A row of expansive windows ran the length of the building’s outer walls filling the unit in natural light. The place was near empty; the owner preferring a minimalistic approach to furnishing the space. There was a sofa bed, a flat screen television, an armoire, a wooden knife block on the otherwise empty kitchen countertop, a lone bar stool tucked beneath the lip of the kitchen island, and a galvanized steel coffee table that could serve double duty as a coroner’s autopsy table.

And then there were the glass bottles.

Above the kitchen sink and sitting on rows upon rows of a sort of built-in shelving unit were a series of apothecary-style glass bottles. They had glass stoppers and faded, illegible labels. Some bottles looked to be decades old, others gleamed, but each contained some sort of dark, granular, flaky debris.

The realtor glanced up from her phone and noted Alice’s interest in the bottles. “Spices,” she said.

“Spices?” Alice said. “The bottles seem a little large for that.”

The realtor pressed her lips together and squinted. “Or tea.”

“Tea?”

“Loose tea, you know?”

“Loose. Tea.” Alice took a step towards the rows of bottles.

“It’s all the rage.”

“So, the tea doesn’t come in those tiny bags?”

The realtor nodded.

“If the tea isn’t in a bag, how do you get out the bits?” Alice made a scooping gesture.

The realtor chuckled. “You put the tea in a contraption. An infuser. The leaves don’t literally float about in your drink.”

“It’s not loose, then.”

The realtor sighed.

Alice moved into the kitchen. She peered up at the glass bottles, her hands rooted firmly on her hips. “But why so much of it?”

“People enjoy a variety of flavors. Peppermint. Green. Camomile.”

The realtor’s phone sounded: a round symmetric ding. She glanced down, then held the device in the air as if in triumph. “It’s the seller. He’s five minutes away.”

Alice grabbed one of the nearest bottles and studied its contents. “Doesn’t look like tea.”

“It’s tea. There’s this bougie place around the corner that sells it. Probably where the seller got it.”

Alice removed the lid and brought the bottle’s narrow opening beneath her nose. “Smells like campfire.”

“Tea flavours are endless: ginger, oolong, black currant.”

“Campfire.”

The realtor shrugged. “So, what do you think of the space? Square footage is around what you were hoping for, and it’s a family building.

Alice grimaced. “Kids?”

“God, no.” The realtor tapped the toe of her stilettos against the concrete floor. “A fall on this could crack a kid’s head open like a coconut.” She raised a finger into the air. “Coconut tea, peppermint tea, and English breakfast.”

“So, no kids?”

“Right. I meant the building has been owned by the same family for years. They immigrated here before the war and started up a chain of grocery stores. And those stores made a lot of money, so they bought this building. Or maybe it was a chain of convenience stores. I can’t remember. Anyway, once the old man passed, ownership transferred to his son, and then to his son after that. You get the idea. But someone from the family has always lived in one of the building’s units.”

Alice deposited the bottle onto the kitchen counter and reached for a second. It was roughly one quarter full. She opened the jar and took a whiff.

“This one smells the same,” Alice said.

“Different brands?” Another shrug. “There’s central air and gas heating, and it’s high-speed internet ready.”

“Convenience stores, eh?”

“Or maybe furniture stores. Or mattresses.” The realtor surveyed the mostly unfurnished apartment. “Or not.”

Alice grabbed a third bottle, popped the lid, and inhaled. Then a fourth, and a fifth. Each smelled of campfire, ash and burnt wood. Pine.

“Granite countertops,” the relator continued. “And the windows have all been replaced in the last two years.”

“The current occupants?” Alice sniffed the contents of a nineth jar.

“The owner’s son. Florists, I think.” She frowned. “Or hardware stores?”

“If they’re florists, maybe this is dirt?”

Alice pushed up onto the tips of her toes and reached for a bottle on the top shelf. With her fingers splayed and scrambling for traction, she jockeyed the bottle to the shelf’s edge, then gabbed for it, but missed. The bottle toppled from the shelf and shattered on the concrete floor.

The realtor gave a startled squeak.

“I’m sorry.” Alice glanced around the studio apartment. “Broom?”

“Maybe the closet by the front door,” the realtor said.

Alice hurried away and returned a moment later with a dustpan and broom.

“I’m so sorry.”

The realtor waved away the apology. “It’s just tea. The jars are all probably second-hand. Conversation pieces, maybe.”

Alice swept at the shards of glass and black debris.

The realtor crouched down to steady the dustpan “It does smell like ash. Wait, what is that?”

“What?”

“That.” The realtor pointed to a tiny white porcelain-like cube amid the broken glass and debris.

Alice bent next to the realtor and picked up the object to study it more closely. “It almost looks like a … tooth.”

The realtor blinked.

“You said the owners had furniture stores?”

“Yes, Borowitz and something.”

“Borowitz? You mean Borowitz & Sons?”

“Maybe?”

“That’s a chain of funeral parlours. Not furniture stores.”

“Oh,” said the realtor.

The women’s eyes locked; their lips parted ever so slightly.

They turned towards the dozens of shelved bottles.

“You don’t think …,” Alice said.

Just then, the women heard the unit’s front door open and a man in a somber black suit entered. “Sorry, I’m late ladies.”

The women scrambled to their feet and offered matching strained smiles.

“Not a problem,” the realtor said. “Traffic is always bad this time of day.”

“Yeah,” Alice said. “It can be murder.”

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