Chapter 4 #3
I cleared my throat and raised a brow at Jonah. He returned my gaze, eyes wide with confusion before realization washed them clean.
“Oh, um, we have a request…if you all don’t mind.” Jonah fumbled with the plastic baggies.
“Don’t trust our ability to cook a decent meal?” Octavia asked sarcastically and unsmiling.
“It’s protocol.” I smiled at her and nodded for Jonah to continue.
“You all can consume it however you like,” he started. “It just has to be in front of us.”
“There’s garlic in the stew,” Esther said flatly.
“Nice, but…” Jonah tried to laugh to keep things light. “These are ours and the only way we can confirm you all are not…”
“Possessed or something equally terrifying,” Wilson finished for him and held his hand up for the bags. “There’s a what? Nine percent chance of that? Well, according to a recent study by Nathan Lowe.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, perking up. “How do you know Nathan Lowe?”
“You cited him in your book.” Wilson smiled. With the garlic and rosemary in hand, he wheeled over to the counter where a cutting board lay.
“Yeah, but only once and never that study,” I said. “It’s too new.”
Wilson diced up the ingredients as he said, “I may have found a couple of leaked papers on some questionable websites. Nothing peer-reviewed, so I’m forced to take everything with a grain of salt. It’s fascinating nonetheless.”
“He has enough notes to write his own novel,” Octavia said.
“Huh.” I nodded, noting not only the leak but Wilson’s desire to find it. Of course, his interest in solving his problem wouldn’t be casual, but I didn’t expect a client to have done such an obscure deep dive. “There isn’t an official percentage. You can’t really quantify these kinds of things.”
“And yet, isn’t that your entire job?” Octavia laid mismatched plates on the table. Some were lumpy, handmade, and painted with colorful flowers. Others were plain white, chipped on the sides as if rubbed against one another one too many times in a moving box.
“No, unfortunately, that’s above my pay grade.” I picked up the stack of utensils she’d left behind and followed her trail of plates. The air in her wake smelled sweet, a mix of apple spice and pinecones. I took deeper breaths. “I mainly speculate and solve problems in the now.”
“It must have been incredible to be on the road while growing up.” Wilson dropped the chopped garlic in one bowl and the rosemary in the other.
“We grew up on the road,” Octavia reminded him in a flat tone.
“Not like them.” Her brother offered the garlic to Esther first. When she tried to put it into the stew, I opened my mouth to disapprove, but Wilson beat me to the punch.
“We’re supposed to just chew it,” he said and took his share, plopping a couple of bits into his mouth. Jonah and I exchanged impressed glances as the two consumed the garlic without so much as a grimace.
“Every stop is a chance to save the world.” Wilson moved to his sister next. She wasn’t as willing, eyeing the garlic long enough for him to set the bowl in front of her, leaving her alone in the hesitation.
“I don’t know about saving the world.” I laughed a little at Wilson’s assessment. At some point, I would have believed in it. Nowadays, saying I or anyone else in the Guild had come close to saving the world felt too egotistical. “But making lives a little easier, sure.”
“You’re modest,” he noted.
Octavia choked. I looked up from the last set of silverware I put down to find she hadn’t even touched the garlic yet. She avoided my gaze, turning her attention to folding linen napkins. Her ghost of a smile made my own lips curve upward.
Wilson passed out the rosemary next. I watched Esther and him down it.
“I can’t work unless you take them,” I told Octavia as I took a seat at the table.
“Wouldn’t you know if I were possessed by now?” She claimed the seat across from me, pulling the bowl of garlic and rosemary in front of her. “Didn’t you say there are obvious signs?”
“Most times there are. But there’s more evidence every day that some of our methods of detection are not as effective as we once believed. I don’t like to just trust my eyes.”
“Because sometimes people look like they’re possessed when in actuality, they’re on something,” Octavia said. “Drugs can dilate pupils and cause erratic moods.”
I nodded slowly, not sure where she was trying to go. “Sometimes.”
“And sometimes people get sick. Get rashes that look supernaturally awful but are just extreme reactions.”
“Sure.” I offered a half shrug. “And sometimes they’re being torn apart inside, and on the outside everything appears normal.”
“How did you all come to the conclusion that garlic and rosemary were the litmus test for possession?” Octavia picked up the rosemary, turning it around to inspect the thin leaves.
I tracked her finger rubbing up and down the leaves.
Her movements were gentle, as if she didn’t plan on doing anything other than returning the plant to the earth.
“I’ve been told the rosemary was accidental.
A woman in the country with a greenhouse and a daughter who came home from school possessed.
The garlic information was passed on by a shifter who wanted to help. ”
Octavia picked up a piece of garlic, holding it up to the light as she inspected the thin lines stretching along its sides.
“I don’t blindly trust what’s in front of me,” I said. “I’m glad you don’t either.”
The comment urged a subtle softening in Octavia’s eyes. She studied me for a moment, trying to pick past my exterior in the same way I wanted to do hers.
She slipped the garlic into her mouth. I watched as she chewed quickly.
Her throat bobbed as confirmation slid down.
I was so caught up with how soft her lips looked while her mouth parted for the rosemary that I didn’t realize the others had joined us, filling the table with pots and plates of warm food.
Octavia kept eye contact with me as she finished chewing.
“Clear?” she asked. Her lip twitched slightly in one direction, an almost smile that harbored knowing.
I blinked, coming back to myself and a room that was too warm and too crowded.
“All clear.” I nodded.
Now, we could get to work.