Chapter Two THE NEW MAN IN TOWN Charlotte
Chapter Two
THE NEW MAN IN TOWN
Charlotte
“Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow ow OW!”
Charlotte vaulted around the kitchen, hopping on one foot and fanning her open mouth wildly.
Her tongue was on fire.
Not literally, of course. But it really felt that way.
Her eyes watered as she reached for the door to the icebox. Through her tears, she could just make out the jug of milk inside.
No time for a glass. She guzzled the ice-cold milk so fast she nearly choked on it.
Ah, sweet relief. The heat was still there, but it was getting better by the second.
It was at that moment that Keir opened the door. “Charlotte? You’ll never guess who I saw in Fossholm—what in name of the Gods happened here?”
For a moment, Charlotte saw the scene through her brother’s eyes.
She could picture herself, tears running down her cheeks, milk running from the corners of her mouth, her silver hair and fair skin dusted in cocoa powder along with half of the kitchen, clouds of flour eddying in her wake, every bowl and utensil coated in dark goo.
And all around them, the faint smell of burning.
“Oh no! The second batch!”
Charlotte reached for the oven in such a panic she forgot the oven mitt.
“The mitt!” Keir yelled just in time as smoke began to pour from the oven.
Charlotte grabbed the tray of burning brownies with one mitted hand, threw open the door with the other, and tossed the burnt brownies into the snowbank just outside.
“Ah,” she sighed in relief as leaned against the door, safely inside the kitchen once more. “I didn’t burn the house down.”
“You didn’t burn the…” Keir started, his head shaking in disbelief. “Isn’t it your day off?”
“Well, yes,” said Charlotte. It was funny how that look of his—those furrowed brows, the set of his strong jaw—brought her right back to childhood. Right back to wanting to lie and make up excuses to avoid his fury.
Well, not his fury. Keir had never really gotten angry with her. He often told her that he would, but he never did. She’d only realized it lately—his threats had been empty. They were only to save her from a far worse punishment that awaited her if their father found out.
But this Keir—the grown up one, the one she’d lived with for a few months since their reunion—was not unreasonable. There was nothing to fear from him.
“I wanted to surprise Mrs. Knox. I found something in one of the books you have in there on the ancient people of Anahuac.” She gestured to the bookshelf in the living room.
She recalled Keir’s surprise when he learned that she’d developed a love of reading in her time with the korrigans; Nolwynn had been very insistent on all of the children receiving an education.
“The people of Anahuac cultivated chocolate originally, and they often served it with chilies like the ones you grow in your garden. I’ve tried adding your chili powder to Mrs. Knox’s brownie recipe, but I can’t quite get the amount right. I’m close though.”
Charlotte went to the hand-written recipe on the table—it was blotched with butter—and crossed out “1 tbsp” next to “chili powder.” Too much, she scribbled in the margin. (Above it, “1/8 tsp” had been crossed out as well, with Too little written beside it.)
“I’ll clean it all up, I promise,” added Charlotte when she looked up into Keir’s frowning face.
Shortly after Keir and the others had left for their trip to Loegria, Charlotte had been in town fetching tea from the market when she’d spotted a sign in the window of Mrs. Knox’s bakery: HELP WANTED.
Charlotte had stopped by many times already since her return, and Mrs. Knox had remembered her right away.
She’d served Charlotte with her favorite biscuits and listened to her stories of life with the korrigans, never once asking why she had run away.
When Charlotte went in to ask about the sign, Mrs. Knox hired her as her apprentice on the spot.
Keir moved cautiously into the kitchen, trying to avoid piles of loose sugar. “Can I try one at least?”
Charlotte smiled mischievously. There was still milk left in the jug. “Go on,” she said.
Keir cut a middle piece from the tray of brownies on the counter—the tray that didn’t get chucked out into the snow—and took a bite.
“Mm. That’s really good,” he said. His brows lifted in pleasant surprise. “I can’t taste the heat—oh, there it is. Oh. OH. OW.”
He began to fan his tongue exactly the same way Charlotte had minutes before.
“Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow ow OWWWW!”
Charlotte pushed the jug of milk into his outstretched hand. Keir knocked it back far more neatly than Charlotte had done, but with no less enthusiasm.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” Keir asked once most of the red had drained from his face.
Charlotte was doubled over laughing. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. Too hot?” she asked, feigning innocence.
Keir rolled his eyes and shoved the milk jug back at her, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “How much pepper did you use?”
“A tablespoon.”
“Are you mad?”
“Clearly,” said Charlotte, then she burst into laughter again.
Her laughter was infectious. Keir tried to keep his face stern but failed quickly, dissolving into chuckles as he took a seat at the table.
“I’ll put the kettle on while I clean. Tell me about Fossholm,” said Charlotte, grabbing a pile of dirty dishes as she listened to her brother tell her about his day.
After all the washing up was done, Charlotte heated pot after pot of water to fill the bath.
It was a luxury she didn’t really need—she could have just as easily bathed in the frigid waters of the stream outside. The adaptations she’d gained with the korrigans hadn’t left her, although that might have had something to do with her weekly return to their camp in the woods outside Fossholm.
“The changes are lasting,” Nolwynn had assured her. “They wear off in some of the adults after a few years away, but you grew up here. You won’t change back.”
Charlotte believed her, but it was more than her adaptation to living in cold water that she feared losing.
Charlotte had been born into the wrong body. It wasn’t unheard of among the peoples of the world, but there just wasn’t much to be done for it when it happened. The best that most people like her could hope for was dressing to match the person inside or changing their name to fit them better.
But Charlotte had been given an extraordinary gift. She had gone to live among the korrigans young, and as she grew, she found her body becoming a woman’s body instead of a man’s.
It wasn’t painful, no more so than was ordinary when growing according to Nolwynn. And it wasn’t scary, either—it felt like becoming who she had always been. The person she saw in her reflection in the lake where she’d nearly drowned slowly became the person she had always been.
The only fear she felt was that someday, she would lose it. It would be taken away from her, and she’d wake up in a body she didn’t recognize, answering to a name she’d never wanted.
Still, one hot bath wouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like she would find the korrigans in the stream outside Keir’s house; they seldom made it up this far. And she would visit them as usual at the weekend.
And oh, the bath was so nice. It felt so good to clean all of the flour from her skin and to soak in the hot water, the fire roaring in the nearby fireplace. Keir had left to stay with Alison for the night (as he usually did), and so she had the place all to herself.
Or nearly. Dinah was there, of course, although the cream-colored cat had no interest in the bathtub. She had probably managed to find a few drops of spilled milk in the kitchen and was enjoying the treat.
Charlotte sank back into the tub, letting the warm water relax her muscles as she planned her next foray at baking—hopefully with a bit less burning, literally and figuratively.
In the morning, Charlotte arose early to head to the bakery. Mrs. Knox liked to open with the dawn, which was thankfully later at this time of year, but it meant getting there early enough to get the first breads and pastries ready before the sun rose.
Mrs. Knox was already there by the time she arrived, rolling out the first loaves.
She was a human woman in her fifties, Charlotte guessed.
She must have been younger than Charlotte when she’d opened the bakery, although young Charlotte had thought she was ancient on account of the white streaks of flour that never left her chestnut brown hair.
That hair was more white than brown now, and Mrs. Knox was a bit rounder around the middle than Charlotte had remembered, but she was still the same kind woman that had made Charlotte feel welcome all those years ago.
On one of her first days at work, Charlotte asked her about her husband. “Oh, no husband, never has been. I just never had need of it. The name is for the business. ‘Mrs.’ sounds more homely, don't you think? But you can call me Moira, dear.”
Charlotte never did call her “Moira,” despite the permission to do so. Even as she learned more and more of the recipes and handled more and more of the business over the weeks, she still felt like a child in the shop more often than not, and it felt rude to be so informal with her elder.
“Hello, dear. I’m just getting a head start on these loaves. The Solstice rush and all. Did you want to get going with the scones?”
Scones were a quick bread, meaning they didn’t need time to prove. Mrs. Knox made them on days after they were closed instead of croissants, which needed to rise in the proving cabinet overnight.