Every witch knows that the ingredients matter.

Eye of newt. Wing of bat. Something unpleasant collected beneath a full moon. You cannot expect a satisfactory result if you simply throw things into a saucepan and hope.

In our kitchen, the ingredients are less ambitious. Butter. Sugar. Cinnamon. A little cardamom. Chocolate, which has been disappearing at a rate not accounted for by the recipe.

We are making something for Halloween.

Outside, the afternoon is losing its colour. Inside, flour has reached places flour had no reason to visit. There is a spoon in the sink, a bowl on the table, and someone asking whether these are ready yet when they have barely entered the oven.

If this is witchcraft, it involves a surprising amount of washing up.

Still, something is happening.

The kitchen smells different. Someone who was passing the doorway comes back. A chair is pulled out. A conversation begins that would not have happened if everyone had remained wherever they were.

That is quite a lot for butter and sugar to accomplish.

We tend to imagine enchantment as a spectacular event. Sparks. A transformation. A person suddenly unable to resist another person’s mysterious power.

But the gentler kind leaves everybody free.

It offers a warm plate. Remembers that someone prefers the piece with a little more cinnamon. Puts the kettle on without making an occasion of it. You can take it or leave it. There will be enough either way.

And sometimes, years later, a familiar smell opens a room you had not thought of entering that day.

Not because anyone commanded it. Because once, there was something good there.

The doorbell rings.

Three creatures are waiting outside. One has green cheeks. One has a cape. The smallest appears to be a pumpkin who has lost confidence in the whole arrangement.

The older two deliver their line. The pumpkin looks at the floor.

We lower the bowl.

A hand emerges from a sleeve. A very careful selection is made. Then the little face lifts, and there it is: the smile for which all this elaborate frightening business seems to have been organised.

The pumpkin leaves holding something sweet. We close the door feeling unexpectedly pleased with ourselves.

Perhaps a spell can work in both directions.

Back in the kitchen, the tray is cooling. We break one piece to see whether it is done, which is a respectable excuse for eating it. Someone burns a finger and blames the recipe.

There are still bowls to wash. The evening will not become perfect. Nothing has been solved by cinnamon.

But a little warmth has been made and passed from one person to another.

If I knew a spell worth keeping, it would be this small. No promises extracted. No future foretold. Just the ability to leave someone with a little more warmth than they arrived with.

And perhaps, much later, a reason to smile when they remember the kitchen...