by Deanna Chase
When our shared laughter had finished, he looked away. He cleared his throat, as if he were about to say something, but his eyes fell on the book. Elemental Magick. Melissa had left it on the counter, beside the pear tart.
“What’s this?”
“Oh, nothing.” I would have slipped it out of his hands, tucked it away out of sight, but my fingers were coated with the peanut butter that I was trying to coax from the measuring cup. Somehow, I didn’t think that Julia Child ever had these problems.
“It looks ancient! It’s certainly from before my dates.”
His dates. Colonial America. The field that I specialized in, at the day job that he knew all too well. I thought quickly and forced a bright smile. “It’s from before my own, also. I’m branching out a bit. Taking some library continuing education courses.”
“And they let you keep rare books in your kitchen?” He lifted it with a scholar’s reverence, easing open the cover to peer inside. “What sort of program lets you do that?”
“It’s not really a program,” I hedged. “It’s more like independent study.” I finally managed to get the peanut butter out of the measuring cup and into the soup, but I didn’t back up quickly enough to escape the resulting plop. My blouse was drenched.
“Dammit!” I swore without thinking. I grabbed for a dish towel and tried to mop the worst of the damage from my cleavage. It was hot, but not bad enough to burn me. The fat from the soup would stain the fabric, though. At least it was black. That was part of the method to my fashion madness—stains were virtually unnoticeable on my wardrobe.
“Are you okay?” Jason looked up, but he didn’t move toward me.
This was why I’d wanted him to wait in the other room. This was why I hadn’t wanted him to watch me cook. I was embarrassed to find hot tears rising behind my eyes, embarrassment spilling over.
“Hey,” he said, setting down the spellbook. Well, at least I’d distracted him from the magic. He still kept to his half of the kitchen, though. He must be mortified that he was wasting an evening on a klutz like me. “Don’t worry about it.” he said.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize that it was going to splash all over.”
“I wouldn’t have either. I’m totally helpless in the kitchen—I can’t even fix myself a turkey sandwich.”
Chagrined by my own incompetence and thinking that I would have done better to order in two turkey sandwiches from Subway, I was horrified to feel two huge tears escaping down my cheeks. I suddenly remembered watching him with Ekaterina in the hamburger joint. She had been crying then. She had looked gorgeous, despite her tears. I would not; I knew that. I would look like a goggle-eyed carp. The thought of my red nose and swollen eyes was terrifying enough that it immediately desiccated my tear ducts.
“And besides,” he said, before I could find a way to maneuver the conversation around to Ekaterina, before I could find out something more about the ice ballerina, “I’ve been standing over here trying to figure out how to tell you something.”
I took a deep breath. This could not be good. Something that he had to think about. Something that he had to debate. Something that worried him. Something that kept him all the way on the far side of the kitchen. “What?”
“I’m allergic to peanuts.”
My rush of relief nearly made my knees buckle. In one panicked flash, I’d imagined much worse. I’d suddenly expected him to tell me that he was married. That he and Ekaterina had two perfect children and a Labrador retriever named Molly. That he secretly lusted after Neko and had only accepted my dinner offer because he’d seen my familiar lurking about the cottage. That he had agreed to come to dinner because he was involved in a sociological experiment that measured what hopeless, awkward, plain women find attractive about accomplished, gorgeous, entertaining professors.
He just couldn’t eat the food that I’d prepared.
“No problem!” I turned off the burner with a precision usually reserved for aborting missile launches.
“I’m sorry. I should have said something when you first took out the peanut butter, but I was so surprised.”
“I didn’t exactly give you a chance.”
“But you planned everything, and now I’ve ruined your colonial menu.”
“The proportions would be off, anyway. Now that I’m wearing half of it.” I managed a bemused shrug.
He laughed, and I joined him after only a few heartbeats of hesitation. Then he said, “When you told me you’d locked up your cat because you thought I might be allergic, I almost said something about this stupid peanut thing, but I figured, what are the chances that you’d serve them?”
I glanced at the bread in Melissa’s basket. “How are you on pecans?”
“Just fine.”
“And gingersnaps?”
“Not a problem.”
“And lamb?”
“My favorite.”
“Peas?”
“The finest of all the legumes.”
I grinned. “I think we’re still in business, then.”
He finally took a step closer, as if he’d realized that he would not actually collapse from the peanut infestation on top of the stove. “You know, you have a beautiful smile.”
I looked down, unable to meet his eyes. That shy glance let me realize that my Miracle Bra was outlined perfectly against my soaking blouse. I shrugged, but the fabric didn’t move. The silence was stretching to something uncomfortable, so I reached for a feeble joke. “You must say that to all the girls.”
“It’s the truth.” He reached out and touched my chin with his finger. With gentle pressure, he made me raise my eyes. I was suddenly preternaturally aware of my smudged eyeglasses. “I notice you at the library every day I’m there.”
And then he kissed me. Jason Templeton kissed me. Standing in my kitchen, surrounded by herbs and spices and the makings of poisonous peanut soup, Jason Templeton kissed me.
I’d like to say that it was the finest kiss I’ve ever experienced. I’d like to describe how he made me feel, what he did to my swooning body. I’d like to explain how this kiss was like no other I’d ever known, that it was better and deeper and more meaningful on a hundred different levels.
But all I could think was that I was covered in chicken broth and standing dangerously close to a cupful of potent allergen, some of which was certainly still on my fingers. I could kill him, then and there. I could send my Imaginary Boyfriend into anaphylactic shock and spend the rest of my life explaining to the police that I’d never meant to harm him, that it had all been Thomas Jefferson’s fault.
I waited for Jason to come up for air before I took a step back. “I’m a mess,” I explained, when he looked confused. I managed a steadying breath and transformed it into a laugh. “Here. I’m going to turn on the broiler so that we can cook the lamb. You must be starving.” As I suited action to words, he grinned wolfishly and pretended to lick his lips. “For food!” I said, laughing and playfully pushing him away, but taking care to use my non-contaminated forearm. “I’m just going to change into—”
“Something more comfortable?” He was totally irresistible when he grinned.
“Something a little dryer. I’ll be back in just a moment.”
“Don’t take too long. I might try to work those spells in Elemental Magick.”
“Be my guest,” I said, laughing and shaking my head. I hurried across the living room, managing to palm the key to my bedroom door and open it smoothly.
Once the door was safely closed, I collapsed against it, fighting down a fit of giggles. Jason Templeton had kissed me. He had stood in my kitchen, put his arms around me and kissed me.
I was so over Scott Randall. I was on my way to true love and eternal happiness. Melissa had her First Date system, but I had knowledge and planning and foresight. I’d had the courage to ask my Imaginary Boyfriend to dinner, and now everything was, um, slipping into place.
I stripped off my blouse and tossed it into the corner of my closet. I c
ould deal with it tomorrow, have Neko take it to the dry cleaner to see if it could be saved. For tonight, though, what would I put on?
Casual t-shirt, right out. Clingy crop top, would have been perfect about ten pounds ago. Sheer oxford cut to accentuate curves, ideal—except that the middle button had an annoying tendency to pop open. I was not about to limit my options for the evening by applying a safety pin for protection.
Slinky wrap-around, that tied on the side. Yes. That was perfect. It said, I am sophisticated, yet fun. It said, I am available, but I’m not an utter slut. It said, you want me, you know you really do.
I was slipping the garment from its hanger when I was interrupted by the most piercing Klaxon I’d ever heard.
Chapter 15
Chaos.
Complete and utter chaos.
The piercing whistle continued as I stumbled into my living room, frantically wrapping my new blouse around my still-damp bra. The door to the basement was gaping open, and Neko was standing beside Roger, crowding the way to the kitchen. I plunged past them, terrified about what I would find.
Smoke billowed out of the oven in greasy black clouds. The uninterrupted shrieking was the smoke detector, letting me know that my house was on fire. And Jason was standing on the far side of the kitchen, looking like a deer trapped in someone’s headlights.
When I moved into the cottage, I had told myself to get a fire extinguisher. Melissa had suggested it on that first day, but we’d forgotten when we were at Target, buying all of our cleaning supplies. She’d already told me the brand to get, the one that would be useful on grease fires. The one that could have saved me now, if I’d remembered.
I could barely think, with the smoke detector’s constant shrieking.
I grabbed for a dish towel, taking a hurried moment to wrap the cloth around my hand. Reaching for the oven door, I tried to open it quickly. The motion felt silly, helpless, like the softball throw that had made me the laughingstock of third grade gym class. Steeling myself (and filling my lungs with too much greasy smoke) I tugged the door open. And then I realized my mistake.
Oxygen feeds a fire.
I grabbed for the mojito pitcher, full of water and flowers. Before I could throw the entire thing into the oven’s maw, Neko knocked the container to the floor, sending the flowers flying. “Not on a grease fire!” He managed to convey the same horror he might have expressed if I had proposed wearing white shoes after Labor Day.
He was right. “Smother it!” I exclaimed, finally remembering my one summer at Girl Scout camp. Drop and roll. Well, I didn’t have a fireproof, outdoor sleeping bag at the ready, but I recalled the principle. “Roger!” He was closest to the couch in the living room. “The throw!”
He somehow figured out what I was saying, even above the penetrating scream of the smoke detector. Damn that thing! It should have some sort of wall switch, so that I could turn it off and deal with an actual emergency without going deaf in the process.
Roger tossed me the blanket—his overhand throw was more girlish than my own. I wasted a few moments shaking it out, hoping it would cover more area. Then, I hurtled it toward the oven.
In theory, that should have worked. The blanket should have smothered the flames and cut off the oxygen that was feeding them. Everything should have been fine, and I should have earned my Fire Safety merit badge.
Except the blanket had been made out of something flammable.
The greedy flames crackled as they grabbed hold of the material; for one short moment, the fire was actually louder than the smoke detector. Then, the flames began to work their way down the throw, onto the linoleum floor, where the ends of the blanket trailed after my imperfect toss.
“Jane!” Neko’s voice rang out, sharp and clear over the shrieking detector. I turned to him in panic, wondering just how long we had before the floor caught along with the walls. This cottage was ancient; it had to be as dry as kindling. And Jason was still on the other side of the oven, still frozen into place.
Neko called my name again, and this time he sounded strangely calm. My excitable familiar might have been summoning me to a discussion on the merits of beige over ecru, for all the emotion in his voice. I realized that he held a book in his hands. Elemental Magick.
It was open to a page in the middle. A page that I was willing to bet Neko had not chosen at random.
I crossed to him.
He leaned in toward my side, putting his mouth right beside my ear. He held the book in front of us, and his fingers rested lightly beneath the words. “Take a breath,” he said, and I did. “Now exhale. Again. Exhale. Calm yourself. Take another breath. Deeper. Exhale. One more time.”
He sounded perfectly centered, perfectly calm, as if we did this exercise every single day. In a flash, I was reminded of Melissa’s yoga teacher, the woman whose constant droning about breathing and holding postures and reaching for the quiet inside us made me fall asleep in corpse pose.
“Very good,” Neko said, and now I could listen to him and hold his words separate from the screech of the smoke detector, apart from the crackle of the flames that wanted to take over my kitchen. “Now, take your right index finger and touch your head to offer up your pure thoughts. Touch your throat to offer up your pure speech. Touch your heart to offer up your pure belief.” I did as he said, and each time my finger landed against my flesh, something thrummed deep inside my mind. I felt as if I were in the middle of a child’s game, suspended on a string stretched between two tin cans. Power vibrated around me, through me, in me.
“Now,” Neko said. “Read the words.” I started to argue. There were strangers around us, people who did not know about my powers. “No,” he said, his voice still given over to that eerie calm. “Read. The rest will follow. Read.”
And so I read.
Good and evil, loss and gain
Flame is savior, flame is bane
On a bitter winter night
Fire might preserve a wight
Flames unbound can lead to ruin
Lives destroyed, possessions strewn.
Learn the power of the fire,
Note its strength within the pyre.
Tame the flames by calling other
Powers of the world to smother
Balance water, air, and earth
Push back fire, salvage worth.
For a moment, nothing happened. After all, it couldn’t be so simple. Who was I to think that I could control one of the four elemental forces of the universe? Me—Jane Madison? A librarian who couldn’t even make a single date work out? A witch who didn’t know the first thing about her powers?
But then, I saw a shimmer in the air. It was a curtain surrounding the flames. I sensed the pure essence of water, knew it with my witchy senses. It looked like a waterfall made up of the finest droplets possible, suspended in the middle of my kitchen. I poured my thoughts into the curtain, summoning up all of the tingling power that I’d ever felt and transferring it into the wall of water.
I was terrified by the whoosh as the fire consumed the sheer liquid conjuring, but that sound was immediately dampened by a sudden heaviness in the air. The weight of the atmosphere in my kitchen had doubled, trebled. It felt like the pressure was dropping before a hurricane; I was crushed beneath the airless weight of a ferocious weather system, the kind that made old bones ache and migraines blossom. Its pressure smothered the remaining flames, beating them out as if they were trapped beneath an invisible flame-retardant blanket.
Sparkling dust coalesced from the heavy air. It fell like gritty snow, sifting down on the already-cooling remnants of the fire. I imagined pulverized earth, volcanic stone exploded into the tiniest fragments imaginable. The dust drifted down in silence, catching the light in the room, sparkling like a million diamond shards. It ensured that no whisper of flame survived.
The fire was out.
But the smoke detector was still shrieking. I grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and dragged it across the room, so that I could step u
p and retrieve the battery. Neko moved like my shadow, and I put a hand on his shoulder to steady myself before I climbed onto the seat. It took three tugs to get the plastic case off, before I could reach the nine-volt battery. My fingers slipped twice, but I finally wrenched the power source free.
The silence was so sudden that I wondered if I’d been struck deaf. But no, I heard Jason’s slacks rustle as he finally stepped forward. I heard Roger, breathing deeply as he tugged his tight T-shirt down over the six-pack abs that had been on display after whatever basement romp the fire had interrupted.
And I heard Neko whisper, “Okay, Jane. We’re all done here.” Then he stepped back and raised his voice for everyone to hear. “What are we going to do with you, Jane? Three-alarms are fine for a chili cookoff, but they really put a crimp in a boy’s love life.”
I was still standing on the chair. My knees were turning to jelly, though, and it seemed as if I hadn’t filled my lungs since Neko had told me to take those cleansing breaths. I reached out for his shoulder, but he stepped away, gesturing toward Jason.
And my Imaginary Boyfriend finally moved to my side. “What the hell is going on here?” He sounded more frightened than angry. I leaned on him a little more heavily than strictly necessary as I stepped down, but he didn’t get the idea. He didn’t sweep me off my feet and carry me into the next room, lay me down on the couch and fan my flushed face with fathomless concern.
Instead, he stared at my stove as if it had been possessed. Then, he turned those disbelieving eyes on me.
Before I could muster a response, Neko stepped forward. He cocked his head to one side, executing one of his perfect single-eyebrow arches. I knew that he was evaluating Jason’s every move, measuring out every drop of manliness my Imaginary Boyfriend had to offer. When Neko presented his hand to Jason, he kept his wrist just lax enough that there could be no mistaking his intentions. Or, rather, his preferences. “I’m Neko,” he said. “And you must be Jason. Charmed.” My familiar turned to me and grinned. “Yummy.”