CHAPTER 6 — Chicken - Lizard . It’s What’s for Dinner . #3
If she were Joktepitha or Namak?ga, I’d ask her again, but my ear twinges, making me keep my mouth shut. I aim a close-lipped smile at Opkug and get a gummy grin in return.
We’re all quiet as Ulda ties an apron over her belly and takes up the small but wickedly sharp cleaver I was using.
And then she surveys the ragged mess that I made of my chicken. Pressing her lips firmly together, making her mouth a flat line with four jutting tusks, she gives me a pointed look. “Watch.”
She gingerly sets aside my handiwork in favor of dragging a new bird in front of herself, flipping it to rest on its breast. She gingerly takes up its wing, maneuvers the limb out at the joint, and uses the cleaver tip as a pointer. “Tip. Wingette. Drumette.”
With three chops, she severs them.
“Usually, you wouldn’t use the ox-cleaver to quarter a chicken.”
“It made me feel like a real butcher,” I admit with no shame. “Gave me cleaver confidence.”
With shock, I watch her lip twitch up in a smile.
But it’s only a flash of one. She stifles it immediately.
She chops off the tip, wingette, and drumette on the chicken’s other side.
“All right,” she says. She flips the bird onto its back.
“Take a leg. Cut it here.” She slides the cleaver’s edge along the skin, widening it to the hip.
“Do the same to the other.” And she does.
“Now place your thumbs on the joints, take the thighs in each hand, and pull them back.” She rotates the bird’s legs back like it’s diving, and there’s a soft crunching noise as the joints separate from their sockets.
“Make cuts behind the legs so you can widen its stance.” She demonstrates.
“Roll the bird over and follow the round of the muscle to remove each leg.”
When she finishes, she places her hand on the torso. “See this fat line here?”
Hugging Opkug, I lean in and peer closer. “Yes.”
“If you follow this, you’ll flay the meat from the ribs.”
“Okay.”
She demonstrates for me, leaving the meat on the bird in a flap. She turns the bird so I can see the other side. “Fat line here again.”
“Got it.”
“Follow this one too.” She does, making a meat puddle that sags around what’s left of the bird’s body. “Now if you peel what you’ve cut, you have your breasts.” She pulls the body from these, resulting in two lovely pieces of meat connected only by the skin and some cartilage.
“Next time,” she says confidently, “You’ll do this right.”
I think I actually might, so I nod. I start bouncing Opkug again.
“We’ve been asking around about your world,” she offers as she neatly separates the breasts. “How you came to be here, and the likelihood of you being taken back.”
I tense, making Opkug twitch against me in surprise. “You have?”
She motions to me. “Opkug appreciated what you were doing. Keep doing it.”
I start frantically bouncing the cloth-diapered butt against my forearm, making Opkug giggle. I spare her a grin before locking my eyes to Ulda. “What did you find out?”
She moves to my mutilated bird, making a face as she does her best to fix my chop job.
“Roarg was told that you’re not an otherlander—you’re an other realmer.
He was warned,” she says, drawing out the word as she meets my eyes, “that those from other realms can vanish without warning—but many times they remain indefinitely in our plane. Some live perfectly happy lives. Others go mad, raving about all they’ve lost.”
I stare at her, sickness pooling in my gut.
She turns back to the chicken, her hands making quick work of the mess.
“So our husband said that we need to make extra efforts to ensure you gain your place here. That way you don’t go lunatic, pining after your old world.
” Her fiery glance warns that her extra hard work to make me not miss my former life better be worth her time.
“There was good news after the dire warnings.”
“Yeah?”
“Your coins are pure gold as Roarg suspected, and,” her eyes travel to the newest one, “you have indeed covered your purchase price.” She pins me with an inflexible stare, her green fingers gripped around the wooden handle of the cleaver.
“But make no mistake: you won’t be one of those who vanish.
Not now that you gave Roarg your word. You’re his wife. Do you hear me, miller’s daughter?”
“I’m not a miller’s—”
Ulda glares threateningly, leaves the table in favor of stepping toward me, and thunks the bottom of the cleaver handle on the top of my head.
“HEY! I’m holding a baby!” I yelp, ducking. When Ulda only raises her cleaver handle again, I give up. “I hear you!” I hiss through clenched teeth, lurching away so she can’t nail me twice. Doesn’t mean I agree to her high-handed terms, but I heard her loud and clear.
Her gaze lasers into mine, reading me too clearly, I fear.
But then she starts sweeping chicken parts onto a plate with the same speed and chilly efficiency she does everything else.
“Roarg gets strongly attached, and he develops feelings for his women quicker perhaps than he should. He said you gave him vows before he plowed you, and one night between your thighs has him expecting to enjoy forever with you now. So,” she shrugs, like this is a done deal, “forever you will stay.”