“I’m just kidding. You’re more than welcome to lounge around while Charlie does all the work.” There was a glint of a grin through the thick growth of beard as he spoke. “That’s my plan anyway.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Kuro, while Charlie’s dad fended off the assault his comment had earned from his daughter.
“And please, call me Jack.”
That request was a bit too much for Kuro. In his experience, adults didn’t have first names; they had titles: mister, miss, ms, professeur, knight commander, master. He couldn’t imagine ever actually calling this man Jack.
They piled into the truck, all three across the one bench seat, with Kuro jammed in the middle because he was the smallest. They didn’t explain why being the smallest meant that he was also obligated to be the least comfortable, but who was he to argue?
Kuro watched the scenery fly by as Charlie described a version of their school year to her father that Kuro could barely recognize. Her recounting was full of adventure, villainy, mystery, romance, and drama that bore little resemblance to the classes and homework that Kuro remembered.
They took Zephyr Way, a fairy road that stretched across the whole of the realm and marked the border between Alfheim and Tirnanog. With snow covering most of the land, and the warping of space around the road, almost all sense of distance was lost. The world was just an endless expanse of white. It was impossible to tell if the few hills and trees were great mountains and vast forests, or stumpy mounds and lonely thickets.
After a couple of hours, a lonely sign in an otherwise empty expanse told them they were leaving the kingdoms and entering the wildlands. It was a simple sign and poorly maintained, just a splash of paint on bare wood. It stood less as an indication of a border crossing and more as a warning. Past that point they were in the lawless lands of monsters. Giants roamed the mountains, and werewolves hunted the forests, or so it was said. Kuro couldn’t see any difference from the previous hour of travel.
Soon the Western Mountains appeared over the horizon as if it were baring its teeth. The nearly impossibly straight and level road started to climb through rolling foothills, and the sparse trees became thicker and began to hug the road.
Without warning, Mr. Cook slowed the truck and turned into a driveway Kuro hadn’t even seen until they were on it. A small hand-carved sign proclaiming it to be the Cook Farm was nailed to a post and half covered in snow.
Having never spent time on a farm, Kuro couldn’t judge this one. It seemed large, with several fenced-off fields, a pair of red barns, and a good-sized house, all with lines of trees to break the wind. It seemed empty, though, with a single greying, sway-backed unicorn lazily wandering around on top of the snow. Otherwise, the fields were bleak and bare; a few scattered sheds added to the effect.
Upon crossing the threshold of the house, Kuro was attacked. A barking mass of shaggy fur slammed into him, knocking him flat. He scrambled to escape the drooling toothy maw as Charlie leaped to his defence.
“Ralph! No! Down! Sit!” she said sternly.
The beast whined in complaint but obediently retreated enough to allow Kuro to stand. Ralph then sat, panting and drooling, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth as if he were waiting for permission to finish the meal he’d just been denied.
“Sorry,” said Charlie as she helped Kuro to his feet. “He’s a good dog, but he gets really excited to meet new people. Come on! I’ll give you the tour.”
Charlie led him through the house, and Ralph followed, waiting for his chance to strike when his mistress wasn’t attending.
The house was much like Mr. Cook: rough and sturdy but welcoming. No effort had been wasted decorating, and everything had a clear purpose. Most of the furniture was made of unvarnished wood and carried the marks of the tools that crafted it. The spartan style made the few embellishments stand out: a round, ornately painted shield hanging on the wall in the living room, a silver horseshoe above each exit, a spear displayed prominently on the mantle above the fireplace. All were mementos of Charlie’s mother, Helena, who had been an enchantress and a warrior in Alfheim before she had been kidnapped to raise Kuro.
Charlie’s bedroom was the exception to the uncluttered and practical house. It was littered with pictures she’d drawn, interesting rocks, leaves and animal skulls she’d collected, and a collection of books to rival Dani’s, all of it on a backdrop of yellow so bright it strained the eyes. It wasn’t just that the paint was brightly coloured; it was bright enough to light the room. Her walls were enchanted to glow at a level that rivaled daylight.
Kuro was quickly pulled out of the house to tour the barns, which was where “all the good stuff was,” according to Charlie. By her definition, the “good stuff” was large and dangerous animals. Most of the stalls were occupied by creatures that looked as though someone had glued spare parts to lions: manticores, chimeras, griffins, and a whole litter of baby criosphynxes, which were winged lions with goat heads. Charlie was most excited about them, as her father had given her the important task of naming them.
Charlie had a way with the animals. Monsters ten times her size would roll over and let her scratch their necks. Perhaps it was because she had raised many of them from birth, and they knew and trusted her to feed them. Kuro, on the other hand, was frequently identified as something that she had brought to feed them with. The creatures pawed the ground, drooled, and sniffed at Kuro, waiting for permission from their keeper to dine on the tasty morsel that had followed her into their paddocks.
Even the criosphynxes, who had never met Charlie, warmed to her right away, nuzzling her and bleating for milk and comfort, while their siblings practiced ramming Kuro. They weren’t big enough to do much damage, but he still came away with a couple of bruises from the charges he’d failed to dodge while Charlie was deciding whether to call the smallest Leonard or Alphonse.
Kuro much preferred the second barn. It was admittedly less impressive, but nothing there tried to make a meal of him. There were ordinary things like chickens, goats, and a couple of cows, which Kuro had only encountered in cooked form, so to him they were just as fantastic as the ten-foot centipede. The magical creatures there were much milder as well. The old unicorn came in from the snow to greet Charlie and investigate the new unicorn on the farm: Charlie’s ever-present familiar, Henrietta. A couple of jackalopes got their antlers tangled when they both tried to nibble on the same piece of lettuce. Then, there was George.
George was a pixiehouse tortoise, so named because his shell had angular plates that looked like dormers and little awnings where his head and legs poked through. But he wasn’t quite the right size for pixies. Tortoises like him never stopped growing, and he’d outlived his three previous owners. He was the size of a small tent and moved nearly as fast.
Kuro liked him immediately.
Kuro had lived his life at the edge of disaster: one step away from starvation, capture, and failure. Everything had always been urgent and desperate, and the few times when it wasn’t, he was constantly anxious, waiting for the next crisis.
George had a very different outlook. There was no reason to hurry. The bit of lettuce he was eating, one lazy bite at a time, would still be waiting for him after a lengthy nap. Should a jackalope steal it, another would appear if he slept long enough. In the time it took George to blink, Kuro could pick three pockets, steal a meal, and eat it. George seemed to have a level of confidence in his own future that Kuro had never thought of imagining. It was soothing just to be in his presence.
Charlie didn’t let Kuro bask in it for long, but that was okay. George would be there later, still eating the same salad.
Days moved quickly on the farm. There was always something that needed doing: an animal to be fed, eggs to be collected, tools to be fixed. With Charlie home, her father set about doing repairs and maintenance that he hadn’t the time for when he was alone, leaving the animal care to the children.
For the first day, Kuro follo
wed Charlie as a shadow, but he wasn’t needed. Charlie could use her outstanding telekinesis to feed five beasts at a time while also filling a water trough, and the addition of Henrietta meant she could even haul the heaviest equipment around. While Charlie insisted that he didn’t need to do anything since he was a guest, Kuro didn’t know how to be idle. He was taking lessons from George, but his feet and hands couldn’t yet handle it, so he ended up in the kitchen.
Kuro learned that while taking care of so many others, Charlie and her dad left little time to take care of themselves. Their meals were quick, simple, and functional. The Cooks failed to live up to their name. Kuro volunteered to fill the gap.
Cooking was one of the few things Kuro was good at. He had made every meal he hadn’t stolen when living with Phineas. Making the meals meant he could feel useful while everyone around him was working so hard. After being given free rein over a kitchen and open access to the pantry and cold cellar, he set about exploring the space.
It was a trove of forgotten cookware. Everything beyond what was needed for simple meals for two had been pushed to the back of cupboards, or lost beneath piles of work gloves, boxes of nails, and other things that had no business in a kitchen. Kuro scoured the rust off neglected pans and breathed life back into an oven that was storing a collection of kettles. Also, in a cupboard above the sink, which he had to stand on the counter to even reach, he found a true treasure. It was a simple wooden box, stained with spatters of grease and tomato sauce, and filled to bursting with scraps of paper. The papers were covered in writing, fading and smeared from age and use, but all following a familiar format: a list, followed by a block of instructions. Recipes.
They were just like alchemical recipes, full of precise times, measurements, and coded language that was shorthand for complex processes. If they could be deciphered and followed correctly, the magic they produced was delicious food.
Kuro sorted through the recipes with care, as some had grown delicate with age. He compared the ingredients demanded by his newfound treasures against the contents of the pantry and formed a plan. The next day was Solstice, and he had everything he needed to make a proper Yule feast, with ham, vegetables, breads, hot drinks, and the greatest and most perfect of all foods: pie.
He lined up the kitchen chairs along the cupboards, where they acted as scaffolding that allowed him to reach the counter, and their backs served as a barricade against Ralph. He soon found that he also needed to barricade the doors and fend off invaders with shouting and wooden spoons, as both members of the Cook family had the same habit of eating things before they were ready and putting their fingers where they didn’t belong. He started laying decoy ingredients out for them to steal so they wouldn’t ruin the doughs and sauces he was preparing or abscond with any vegetables he couldn’t replace.
Kuro worked late into evening while his hosts rested and read. He went to bed reluctantly, worried about leaving his bread rising unsupervised and eager to wake up and get back to work. As he lay in the rarely used bed in a guest room under the layers of heavy quilts he’d been given, he wondered at his own enthusiasm. It was a lot of work that he was doing, and he hadn’t even been asked. He had convinced Charlie and her father to let him and had chased them away whenever they offered to help. He could have been spending his vacation watching George eat salads and napping by a fire, but instead he was working himself to exhaustion and loving it.
It was precisely because he didn’t have to, he realized, that he was enjoying it. He couldn’t think of another time in his life that he’d been allowed to choose what he was doing. Everything else had been out of necessity, or obligation, or at the very least by someone else’s design. Even the games he played were picked by others. He had chosen to cook, though. Also what to cook, and how to cook it. It was delicious freedom.
Kuro woke with the dawn excited to get back to work. He was met in the kitchen by Ralph, who cornered him and vigorously tasted his face. He was rescued by Mr. Cook, who was already returning from feeding the animals in the barn. “You’re up early,” he said. “Couldn’t wait to open presents?”
The thought hadn’t crossed Kuro’s mind. “The raisin buns need time to rise,” explained Kuro. “And I wanted to try to make hollandaise sauce.”
The farmer laughed. “You’re going to spoil us,” he said and then nearly knocked Kuro over with a clap on the shoulder. “Well, I won’t interfere with your art.”
Kuro opened the refrigerator to discover that he already had interfered. There were fingerprints in his dough, and some of the applesauce he’d prepared was missing. Kuro growled, and Mr. Cook retreated.
He made steady progress until a cry shattered the quiet of the house. “YUUUUUUULE!” Charlie bellowed, announcing to the world that she was awake and that there would be no peace until that changed.
She charged into the kitchen moments later, a woolly housecoat roughly tied over her pajamas and toothbrush still in her mouth. “Presents!” she said. “Come open presents!”
She grabbed Kuro and hauled him away from his simmering sauces.
“No!” he cried. “It’ll burn!”
Charlie was faced with an insurmountable choice, having to wait to open gifts or eat a substandard breakfast. In an extremely Charlie fashion, she chose neither. She left and returned minutes later dragging all the gifts into the kitchen along with her father.
Kuro only had a few things to open, which was a relief. The year before had been a bit too much for him, with many gifts from mysterious origins, none of which he’d reciprocated. This year was much simpler: a card from Marie that had been left in Charlie’s care to deliver, and a wrapped package from both Charlie and her dad.
They took turns opening things, which gave Kuro a chance to monitor the progress of breakfast. Charlie got a training sword and shield from her grandparents in Alfheim, who, while they had disowned their daughter for marrying a stray, were trying to claim Charlie back from that same stray and bring her into their family through bribery.
Charlie got Kuro a heavy stone mortar and pestle, which he had found on the first day on the farm but which had been missing when he went looking for it to grind some pepper. “You’re so good at alchemy but the dumb professeur doesn’t even notice, and just think how good you could be if you had good stuff like the rich kids instead of using the old and chipped stuff they let us use for free, so I got you a good one so you can show everyone how good you really are.”
Kuro was moved by how earnest Charlie was about it. She was truly upset that Kuro’s skills were being ignored. Kuro didn’t really want the attention of Professeur De Rigueur, but he appreciated her thoughtfulness.
His other gift was just as wonderful. It was a hat, a warm thick sheepskin hat with earflaps and a fluffy lining. It was the sort of hat that Kuro had coveted when he was shivering in the streets in the winter. It would keep him toasty warm while practicing magic with Bindal in the graveyard and on the wintery walks to Dani’s cabin. Charlie did not approve.
“Daaaaad, that’s so boring!” she said. “Nobody wants clothes for Solstice!”
“Then you’re going to be really disappointed in your present, honey.” He grinned cruelly as he said it, and Charlie scowled in return.
“I think it’s great,” said Kuro. “But I didn’t think to get you anything.”
“That’s fine.” Mr. Cook waved away the idea of a present and then took a long sniff. “If breakfast is half as good as it smells, that’s more than enough of a present for me.”
“We know you can’t get us presents, anyway,” said Charlie. “You don’t have any money, and there isn’t much of a way to get shopping done on Avalon.”
“I did get you a present, though,” replied Kuro.
Charlie slumped briefly in surprise, and then shuffled through the wrappings around her to uncover the small rectangular package. “It’s a book!” she said with excitement before even opening it. A quick flurry of motion shredded Kuro’s careful
wrapping, exposing the novel beneath. Charlie’s eyes nearly fell out of her head. “It’s a Blandlands book!” she squealed. “I’m going to read the whole thing today!”
True to her word, she did nothing but read for the rest of the day. Following breakfast, she built herself a nest of blankets on the couch and became completely immobile. The book floated in front of her face, and the pages flipped themselves. Kuro gave up on getting her to move and delivered her lunch to her, most of which was stolen by Ralph as she was too immersed in the book to defend it.
That left Kuro free for the day to work on his beautiful creations. He sliced apples, rolled pastry, and ground spices in his new mortar. He even established a kind of truce with Ralph, who stopped attempting to gnaw on Kuro if given a small sampling of the meats he was preparing.
In the afternoon he went to visit George and collect some eggs from the chickens for nog. He spent a good half hour watching the massive tortoise take two bites of a cabbage. Before he was finished chewing, he retreated into his shell. It was fascinating to watch as his trunk-like legs and long neck pulled inside, and the hard ridges that looked like awnings closed over, making him an impregnable fortress.
Moments later Kuro heard a voice. “One should be careful about remembering to close the barn doors,” it said. It wasn’t a human voice, nor was it quite using words. It was more like a collection of sensations, like claws scraping on gravel and wind whipping through thick fur in the shape of words that skipped his ears and went straight to his brain.
Kuro whipped around, alert and ready to bolt, but the voice in his head had no direction, so Kuro didn’t know which way to run until he felt the eyes on him. He turned to see a silhouetted canine form padding its way in through the door that Kuro had failed to latch behind him. At first, he thought it was Ralph, but it wasn’t as fluffy; then he had a moment of horror as he thought it might be Garmr, Dubois’s familiar, but it wasn’t big enough.
Volume 2: Burglary Page 22