Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Dafni
I sat on the bed the rest of the day and into the start of the night, my knees tucked into my chest. With my stomach full, there weren’t any rumbling sounds to distract me from listening through the door to the people who lived here.
There were three of them—a woman, a young girl named Emily, and a young man named Luke.
I’d heard the female voices most often, along with the sound of pots being set on a stove and dishes being washed in a metal sink.
There was no yelling, no chaos—just seemingly normal, everyday activities.
The home was quiet and dark at night. I found myself brave enough to turn off the lamp beside my bed and lie down on top of the mattress.
The clothes Emily had left me were adequate and comfortable.
Although she was younger than me, all the clothes she provided fit.
I was naturally petite, and I’d lost weight from my walk through the woods as well as the time I spent here in bed.
There were black pants with a drawstring and a white shirt that was baggy, with sleeves long enough to cover my arms down to my wrists.
Emily had even included an apron that matched hers, probably from her own collection.
There had been two nightgowns included in the pile of clothes, sleeveless and the collars frilly with lace.
I curled up my legs inside one of them as I laid there.
I didn’t want to cover myself with a blanket for fear I’d get tangled if I needed to flee quickly in the night.
My intuition told me that I wouldn’t have to run or fight these people. Unlike anyone else I’d found in these woods, they’d been kind. They’d taken care of me when I’d been unconscious, but they didn’t know who I was…
Still, my fatigue overtook my fear, and I found my eyes closed more than opened and soon drifted off into sleep.
I awoke to a high-pitched squeal and the sound of hissing—sizzling like a cauldron was boiling over.
“Oh no—oh no, no, no!” a voice whined.
I stood tentatively. After being immobile for so long it was hard to know how weak I’d still be.
I pulled open the door, opening it just a crack, and looked out at the rest of the home.
It was almost entirely a kitchen. With a refrigerator and freezer on one side and a stove and sink on the other, it left little room for a table with chairs, but somehow it worked.
They fit a round table with four chairs alongside a window in the small space that was left.
Where there weren’t cabinets, there were shelves full of books, most of them with Latin titles.
I recognized the girl, whose name I remembered was Emily, hovering over the stove messing with the dials and waving a wooden spoon wildly in the air. She looked small standing next to the stove—probably five years younger than me.
“Oh gosh…oh no…” she continued.
Classical music played in the background, the sound coming from a small black radio with a long antenna perched on top of the refrigerator.
She hadn’t noticed me yet. I tiptoed into the kitchen, craning my neck to see what she was cooking on the stove.
White frothy bubbles poured over the rim of the pot cascading down the sides, hissing as they hit the flames of the burner below.
Whatever she was cooking smelled good…it was some sort of food.
Emily was still messing with the dial of the burner, now using her spoon to try to catch the white foam before it fell into the flames.
I walked up beside her, grabbing hold of a glass bottle of oil on the counter next to the stove and pouring a stream of it into the pot.
“Oh!” The girl squeaked, moving away from the stove once she’d seen me.
The bubbles instantly subsided—a trick from my grandmother.
Emily stood on her tiptoes, flipping on the light above the stove before she looked down into the pot.
The water was now bubbling at a low simmer.
She looked up at me, a smile on her face.
“Thank you! If I’d burned those potatoes my mom would’ve been so mad—they’re the last of our stores from last year.
We’ll have to wait until fall to harvest more. ”
I nodded, reaching across the stove and adjusting the dial before hunching over to check the flames below the pot. She’d had the flames too high for this size of pot. It would’ve continued to overflow until there was nothing left but dried starch on the stovetop.
“How do you know how to do that?” she asked.
I tilted my head to the side. “Do what? Adjust a flame?”
“No, how do you know how to cook?”
I looked down at the pot that now had white peeled potatoes rolling around in the bubbling water.
I’d added oil to stop the overflow, just like my grandmother had taught me with potions.
She’d also taught me about flame height and the heat it created.
I knew how to make potions…cooking seemed similar.
I shrugged. “My grandmother taught me a little bit.”
“Great!” Emily said, grabbing cloves of garlic and a few leeks from the counter near the stove and shoving them into my chest. I instinctively grabbed hold of the food. “Then you can help me. We have to make a soup base before my mom gets back from weeding the garden.”
We?
She was asking me to help?
“There’s a knife in the block near the fridge and a cutting board on the drying rack by the sink.”
She was going to give me a knife?
Why did she trust me? She didn’t even know me. No one in the woods had trusted me the entire time I’d been struggling to find my way. They’d all treated me like a stranger. Someone to be weary of.
Emily didn’t know me, yet she was giving me a chance. Treating me like a person, not some alien creature that didn’t belong. She was treating me like…a friend. That made the corners of my lips rise up a bit.
I got to work finding the knife and the cutting board and chopping the vegetables. The chopping motion was familiar and comforting. I’d helped my grandmother many times prepare ingredients for our meals and her potions.
Emily nodded after I’d presented my work and motioned for me to throw the chopping’s into the pot. I let the vegetables tumble in the boiling water just as the door opened and the woman who had wiped my forehead yesterday appeared. She paused in the doorway, glancing between Emily and me.
Quickly, I backed away from the stove, moving across the kitchen to put some space between me and her daughter. Emily might’ve trusted me, but I wasn’t sure her mother did just yet.
“Is everything okay?” her mother asked.
“Yes, it’s great!” Emily chirped. She walked over to where I stood, grabbed the cutting board from my frozen hands, and set it on the counter. “The soup base is ready. Even she”—Emily motioned to me—“came out of her room to help.”
The woman looked over at me, pausing at the knife I still held in my hand. Oh no. I slowly set it on the counter next to me. She kept her eyes on me as she walked over to Emily, continuing to stare at me as they spoke in whispers.
She noticeably exhaled, her shoulders moving up and then dropping down before she nodded and turned around to face me. The woman walked over to where I was standing and picked up the knife I’d just set on the counter. She backed away, placing it in the sink—out of my reach.
Okay, so she didn’t trust me yet. That was fair.
“You look much better; some color in your cheeks,” she said.
My hand went up to my face, trying to feel the warmth she saw.
“It’ll take some time to feel like yourself again. You’ve been existing on only moose broth for the last week.”
A week? I’d been in bed for a week? It hadn’t felt like that long.
My heart started pounding, and my breath quickened. I’d wasted a week.
My magic tingled down my arm into my fingers. A week without using it.
Everything came rushing back to me.
Matilda. The pail.
My knees bent into a defensive stance, and my eyes glanced back and forth.
“I had a pail… When…I… When Luke…” My voice shook just as bad as my hands trembled. How could I have forgotten about that?
The woman put her hands in front of her, palms facing down, in a calming motion. “Your pail is in our freezer,” she said. “It’s still frozen.”
She lowered her chin, motioning her head toward the room I’d been staying in for the last week.
I left Emily to the soup base and followed her mother into the room.
Standing by the bed, holding my still shaking hands, I watched as she turned around and closed the door behind her. I reflexively took a few steps back.
A moment passed between us before she spoke. “I know who’s in the pail.”
My stomach dropped. This was it. The moment where it all fell apart. This woman wouldn’t let me keep my mother frozen in a pail—not if she knew who she was. She’d force me to release my mother, and then my mother would unleash her wrath onto me.
“I also think I know who you are,” she said.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears.
“I’m not going to do anything about it,” she continued. “And I have questions, but I’d prefer if you let me guide the conversation with my children. Emily is still young and naive to danger. Everyone here needs to be careful—if anyone at the Coven knew who’s in the freezer, we’d all be in danger.”
Breath slowly released from my nose. I nodded.
“Let’s take this slow. We won’t hurt you.”
“I won’t hurt anyone—I-I promise,” I stammered. These were the first kind people I’d met, out here all alone. If they turned me away, I’d have nowhere to go.
The woman nodded, continuing to stare at me. “Emily seems to like you. She’s always been a good judge of character.”
Then she reached behind her, grabbing a hold of the doorknob. “Can we trust you?”
Her body blocked the closed door as she stared at me. I understood what she was doing—she was protecting her family, as any good mother would. She’d just let an unknown woman into her home who’d brought a pail with a frozen cat; she only wanted my word. I could give her that.
“You can trust me,” I said.