Chapter Three #3
This time, I spy a fleeting glimpse of round cheeks and a small head of dark hair disappearing behind the kitchen door. So I’m not losing my mind. That explains the bike and the small sticky fingerprints on the fridge. Everywhere.
An idea forming, I side-eye the AGA stove. Now there’s a friendly face.
We Frosts need to be moving, to be productive and creating. Takes the edge off. I’ve got to think clearly enough to brainstorm a recipe for a patient I’m not allowed to meet. So I do what I do best when I need to calm my nerves.
Baking is an optimistic term given the ingredients I have access to. This is going to be more creative compiling. But The Frosts’ Creatively Compiled Concoctions wouldn’t create a line out the door of the Apothakery, would it?
I wash my hands and pick the right temperature on the AGA.
The steady heat chases away some of this cold, damp quiet.
After some hunting, I find a loaf of simple country bread, cinnamon, sugar, and yellow butter that softens easily near the ambient warmth of the AGA, making for an easy smudge on thick slices of the bread.
Next comes a good dusting of cinnamon and sugar.
When the slices look like little sparkling faun-colored pillows, I toss them all onto a baking sheet I have to clean twice before I trust it.
Normally a Farewitch doesn’t presumptuously take over a kitchen, especially when she hasn’t seen her patient, but the Governess did say I only have an hour…
The moment the first notes of warm cinnamon fill the air, I feel better.
This was a quick staple breakfast in the Frost household.
The ingredients are always in the pantry, and it can be eaten in one hand while the other sets a mise en place.
It also has the unfailing added benefit of luring almost anyone into the kitchen who’s still sleeping. Or hiding.
Sure enough, a small figure pokes his mop of dark hair around the doorway. By the time I pull out the tray of perfectly GB&D toast, I’m staring at a little boy.
He stares back.
Eight? Nine? I’m not great with kids’ ages. I’m an only child like my mom.
“Hello there,” I say. “Have you eaten? Lunch?” Now that I can see him, he’s wearing pajamas with all sorts of dogs on them. “Or breakfast?”
I transfer most of the hot toast to a platter and push it in the shy boy’s direction across the island.
Then I grab my own slice. The cinnamon hits my tongue and I grin for the first time in days.
I knew it—I’ve surpassed my mom’s own recipe for this.
I’m now Queen of the Cinnamon and Sugar Toast. She’ll have to accept humble defeat.
The boy looks from the toast to me. Back to the toast. His hair is black as my cast-iron skillet, and he’s pale but not sickly, like someone slathers him with plenty of sunscreen.
When he inches closer, he’s only at eye level with the counter.
He seems small for his head size. Or is that a weird thing to think? How tall are nine-year-olds?
“I like your overalls,” he whispers, bright intelligence hovering in his hazel eyes.
Oh, I like this one. “Thank you, they were on sale—”
Before I can blink, he grabs three slices and bolts.
Huh. I’ll take the clumsy robbery as a compliment. And if a little boy lives here, the farmhouse can’t be that dangerous, can it?
Just then, a copper pot falls from its ceiling rack, landing right on top of my platter of toast. The ceramic platter cracks under the direct hit.
No harm in an informational interview, my ass.
If the house is already throwing tantrums… Well, ask any Witch: That doesn’t bode well for the mental state of the house’s owner. The half-chewed toast in my mouth goes dusty to my taste buds. I ignore the mess and take a step back from the island.
What in the world am I going to make? It for sure won’t be the toast, especially now that it’s got extra ceramic crunch.
This is ridiculous. I can’t work with an agitated kitchen, and I can’t work with no patient.
I’ll just wait, run out my hour. He has to show up eventually.
The kitchen is the heart of the home, after all.
Heart and eyes: The kitchen’s entire back wall is all thick-paned windows and stained glass looking out onto the rear of the property. I creep closer to the back windows to peer out.
Even from here, I can tell the grounds behind the Manor aren’t just trees and shrubbery—they’re Gardens, capital letter and all.
Devoted to what looks like everything from flowers to vegetables to fruit.
All perfectly situated for morning sunlight instead of harsh afternoon heat.
Meticulously kept. The smell of wet soil and deep earth is strongest here, too.
Inside, potted vines and ferns and herbs surround me.
I’m starting to feel like I’ve wandered into a farmhouse that really wants to be a greenhouse.
I brush my hand along shelves and countertops, expecting dust. Instead—soil.
That won’t do. Clearly no one’s used this kitchen to prepare anything more than a PB&J. Someone here cares very little about what strangers from town can see from the road, and an awful lot about what they can’t.
But the bones of the place are good. I can work with this.
While I wait, I clean up my food prep and fetch a few basic grocery items from the truck I brought along. The Governess said don’t wander, but I’m going to assume the front lawn is safe.
I end up staring at the frightful contents of a pantry so neglected, I didn’t even see it tucked behind a large palm tree until a second inspection of the kitchen. If I’m not hallucinating, it looks like all the spice jars are filled with plant seeds—
“Are you auditing the pantry?”
A deep voice startles me into spilling a box of Goo Goo Clusters. The chocolates are so old, they hit the tile floor with echoes that are sure to wake any vengeful spirits slinking about this odd museum of a farmhouse. I turn and find a dark-haired man staring at me by the door.
My brain is still in list and recipe mode, so the first items I notice about him are:
He’s pale except for twin patches of color on his cheeks, like the sun spots on my mom’s hands from baking too often by the window.
His age. Or lack thereof. His thick hair is long enough to fit into a hair tie. And his hairline—eleven out of ten. But gray smudges his temples like lipstick on a wineglass. He could be a sun-beaten thirty or a wonderfully taken-care-of fifty.
He’s covered in dirt.
“Oh, sorry, er—I haven’t had one of these in a long time.
” I’m still holding the empty Goo Goo Cluster box.
Shameful recovery. I gather up the fallen chocolates and leave them in an awkward pile on the island.
Right next to the destroyed plate of toast. The man watches me the entire time, his expression a stern, unreadable mask.
I can’t tell if he’s annoyed to find a random woman in his kitchen or if he’s annoyed to learn said random woman is already breaking stuff.
On cue, he looks at the toast.
“To be fair, it was the pot’s fault,” I blurt without any context.
A bubble of silence follows. The moment I’m not trying to push my buttered food therapy out the door, my people skills dissolve. Wow. Minus ten first impression for me.
He speaks first. “You’re younger than I was expecting.” His voice is low and terse, brow furrowing. Definitely annoyed.
“Oh.” Pause. “Thank you?” Oh. Oh no. “You’re him. Warlock Knight.” You’re not what I was expecting, either, but I don’t say that part out loud.
He frowns, maybe confused. “I’m the gardener.”