Chapter 23
BURNT SOUP AND LIES
MORGAN
“Right.” I nodded when Nelson finished outlining his survival plan.
He’d been bustling from one task to another since he’d returned from his exploration of the area. A fire, much smaller than the one last night, danced in the hearth, and we had made a full inventory, such as it was, of the cabinets. And now we needed to find more food and supplies.
“So, we’re on level one of the pyramid,” I said.
“What?” His forehead scrunched up in the most adorable way.
“You know,” I said. “Maslow? Hierarchy of needs and all that jazz?”
I hoped we’d fly through levels one and two, so we could get to three. After that, who cared? We could stay on level three indefinitely. Surviving was important, and safety too. But give me some lovin’.
“Right,” Nelson said slowly. He waved toward the kitchenette. “There isn’t enough here to survive on for long, so I’ll need to search the other cabins. While I’m out, I’ll also need to find more firewood and bring in more snow to melt for drinking and cleaning up.”
“You mean we.”
“Huh?” He was so cute when he frowned. I wanted to pinch his cheeks.
“You aren’t leaving me here while you do all the work,” I said. “I might be full of rainbows and bubbles, but I’m not actually made of air. Not that there’s anything wrong with air,” I amended, remembering that his shadow form was pretty much exactly that.
“It isn’t safe,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.
I looked out the window. The shallowest drifts were higher than my knees, and it was still snowing. “I think I can go outside for a bit. No one is coming to find us in this.”
“It’s too cold. Besides, we don’t need a lot, since I’m getting us out of here as soon as possible,” he said, like that was an argument for me staying put. “Everything will be better in Willow Lake.”
“Perfect.” I grabbed my shoes from in front of the fire. “Then it won’t take us long.”
“That isn’t—”
I shoved my feet into the shoes. The soles and the sides were a little stiff, but the shoes were wonderfully toasty. Note to self: My dream house now had to include a fireplace in the mudroom. I wiggled my toes happily and moaned.
“Fuck’s sake,” Nelson complained as he swiped his hand down his face. He looked a bit flushed. I hoped he wasn’t getting sick.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He stomped toward the door. “If you’re coming with me, let’s go. Wrap a blanket around yourself for extra warmth. And remember, we need to move quickly. We don’t want to get frostbite on top of everything else.”
Who knew a shadow would be so temperamental?
I would have thought shadows would be steady and calm, but nope.
Rather than point that out, I pulled on the jacket I’d borrowed from Nelson yesterday.
Then the scarf he’d given me. I hated being cold, not that Nelson needed to know that.
If I told him that, he’d just try to get me to stay here again.
But being cold was how I’d ended up plastered to Nelson last night, which had been awesome.
Not that we were talking about last night, apparently.
Then, because Nelson had awesome ideas, I flung one of the patchwork quilts around my shoulders. I shimmied a little. The quilt wasn’t quite as swoosh-able as my cloak, but it was close enough to set off little bubbles of joy in my chest.
Nelson yanked on his own jacket before jerking open the door.
Cold air blasted us as we stumbled into the great wilderness like intrepid explorers. The snow that’d built up along the door while we’d been sleeping cascaded inside like a mini avalanche. Neither Nelson nor I stopped to sweep it back outside. We’d get more snow inside when we returned anyway.
I closed the door behind us and stared out at the snow. Everything looked so clean and pure and pretty. I hadn’t realized how serene the world would become after a blizzard.
We were sheltered from the wind by the trees. But far above us, the tops of the trees swayed, dislodging small batches of accumulated snow. The fluffy-looking clumps skipped from branch to branch as they tumbled gracelessly to the earth.
I lifted my face to the falling snow, catching a couple of snowflakes on my tongue, but most of them landed on my face. They melted as soon as they hit my skin, chilling my cheeks, reminding me we were in the equivalent of a survival show, not a winter rom-com.
How boring. I sighed. I turned to commiserate with Nelson about the situation, but he wasn’t there. While I’d been marveling at the snow, he’d already made it to the next cabin. Oops. I hurried after him.
I tried following Nelson’s footprints, but they were filling in as quickly as he’d made them.
My shoes weren’t high enough to keep the cold snow from biting my ankles, but I wasn’t going to complain.
I refused to give Nelson any reason to send me back to our cabin.
We were a team, which might even be better than his being my sidekick.
His bossiness was just how he showed he cared, right?
Based on what little I knew of him, I doubted he cuddled with his usual business associates in front of a blazing fire. At least that’s how I chose to think of last night. And tonight, who knew what might happen?
A giggle popped out, and iridescent bubbles erupted through the air. Nelson grunted in response to my laughter but didn’t look back.
Was it weird that I found his grumpiness sweet? It made me want to hug him and call him my cute little grumpmeister.
The first cabin had nothing in it, absolutely nothing, not even an old wooden chair.
So we didn’t stay. By the time Nelson opened the door to the next building, a thick dusting of snowflakes coated my blanket and head.
I brushed my hand over my frozen curls to knock away some of the snow as I stepped inside.
This one was larger than the place we’d been holed up in last night. A separate bedroom was visible from the door. I waited for Nelson to suggest we move into this cabin, but instead, he just moved toward the bank of kitchen cabinets to the right of the entrance.
“They have some cans in here,” Nelson said as he rummaged through the cupboards. “Soup. Vegetables. And there are some glass jars that appear to have pasta and rice in them.”
“Eureka!” I rubbed my hands together as I shimmied. I danced in a little circle, flapping my makeshift blanket-cape. As I laughed, bubbles of happiness filled the air around me.
Nelson turned to stare at me. His forehead was all furrowed again. Sheesh, he frowned a lot. I wanted to rub my thumb over the crease between his eyebrows. Oh! Or chase it away with a kiss. That could be fun.
But wait… Why was he frowning? Finding food was a good thing, wasn’t it? Did he not understand what I said?
“Eureka means—”
“I know what it means.” His cheeks were pink, probably from the cold.
“Okay. Let’s load up these bad boys,” I said, before he had the chance to suggest we stay here for the night.
To my surprise, he agreed.
In one cupboard, we found a few plastic containers filled with linens.
They were clean and critter free. Excellent!
We filled a couple of pillowcases with as many cans as we thought we’d need for a couple of days.
Nelson dropped a few twenties on the counter as we left.
That was way too much money for what we’d taken, but we had broken into the cabin, so I suspected the money was meant as an apology too.
When we returned to our cabin, I shimmied as we unpacked our bags. Nelson and I were brilliant. We’d gone out with nothing and returned victorious, like mighty hunters returning from a successful hunt. It made me feel weirdly capable.
My long-ago ancestors might have needed to forage to survive, but I preferred stores. I know, I know. Acquiring things from someone else’s cabin wasn’t exactly foraging, but it still felt that way. What could I say? I was a modern unicorn.
Our cabin wasn’t as warm as it had been during the night when the fire had really been blazing, but it was still warmer than those other ones. And the snow we’d gathered in pots and set by the hearth was melting, which I figured was a good sign.
“Why don’t you make something for us to eat while I find more firewood?”
I was about to argue with him when my stomach rumbled its discontent.
“We need to eat,” Nelson said.
“I’m not much of a cook.”
Nelson cast his gaze over the cans and dried goods on the counter. “I don’t think you need to know how to cook to heat a can of beans.”
Violet said I was a poor cook because I was too easily distracted. But without access to the internet or a TV, the odds of my making something edible had to be a touch better. “Okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Without another word, Nelson faded into his shadow form and slipped out the door. I watched as he moved from shadow to shadow under the trees. It must be so cool to do that, to go anywhere a shadow existed. Poof. Just like that.
Not like being a unicorn.
Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t hate myself or anything like that.
But it wasn’t easy being a unicorn. I couldn’t just go galloping across the landscape whenever the mood struck.
Some people might dismiss seeing me as a hoax or a horse in an elaborate costume, but there were too many jerks who knew about magic.
And they thought a unicorn would… I don’t know… be useful or something.
Over the many years I’d been searching for my birth family, I’d read a lot about unicorns.
Unicorns showed up in written works from cultures all around the world.
Ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, Renaissance Europe, and even the Bible talked about my kind.
There were stories from South Asia and possibly China too, although I personally thought calling a qilin a Chinese unicorn was about the same as calling a faun a two-legged centaur.
Most myths suggested unicorns could heal and do all kinds of marvelous things: purify water, heal people, or bring the dead back to life.