I scramble. “I’m making extra for a few folks.”Named Mom. “Don’t worry, I have separate funds I use for my customers. You’re not subsidizing groceries for the entire Holler.”
He stiffens, like I’ve insulted him, but then quickly absorbs a couldn’t-care-less aura.
That’s how Governess Zeen, Lazlo, and the Warlock are making Sunday supper in the kitchen. With me. Together.
And nothing’s caught fire.
“What’s burning?” Lazlo asks, mid-whisk.
Nothing’s caught fireyet.
“My patience,” Ms. Zeen says, slicing okra at the kitchen island. She wasn’t happy about the post I assigned her, and keeps mutteringaudacityunder her breath, although that could bea dash of tea. I can’t tell—the kitchen is busy and loud for once.
I try a new recipe for the Warlock each day, which is as fast as Farewitch magic can work. The body needs time to digest the food and process the ingredients, to see if the recipe has an effect. Or not. The town expects me to reopen the Apothakery in a week. That’s seven or so chances to cure the Warlock. But I don’t feel any closer than when I started.
We’ve covered the basics: sweet tea for headaches; sorghum-syrup sweet potato casserole for joint pain; cornbread for general under-the-weather malaise. Coconut cake…
Nothing. Zero results.
My anxiety can’t ignore the parallels. Momaw, my mom, the Warlock. Why are these three cures so stubbornly evasive? I’ve been trying different foods for months and months with my mom, and I’m running out of answers. The right recipes for both of them have to be here in the Warlock’s archives. Like the sharp taste of bourbon in the first sip of a Kentucky Coffee, I can feel it in my belly. Theyneedto be.
“Nothing’s burning, thank you,” I say, hopping over to the ovens. “The leftover bits on my cast iron are burning off. Life cycle of a skillet.”
The Warlock looks up from chopping the squash. He’s got superb knife skills even with the bulky gloves. ’Course he does. Unfair. “Again, I have to protest. It seems appallingly unsanitary to not clean them.”
“We clean them.” Lazlo’s down to a tiny chunk of ungrated cheddar, so I free him of his task before he starts skinning fingers. “With water.”
“No soap? Honestly?”
I point to a damning pile of other skillets off to the side. I’ve been working to free the house’s cast iron from a glaze of rust since I got here. “Honestly, Mr. Knight, if you bring so much as a single sud near my skillets, I will mulch your mums. Respectfully.”
His gaze narrows. “I dare you.”
“Respectfully.”
“Twice,” he says, teeth tight. “That’stwicenow you’ve threatened my plants.”
I try not to focus on how his biceps flex through his shirt as he chops with increasing agitation. My head must still be recovering from all that church-lady perfume.
To distract myself, I check the consistency of Lazlo’s dessert. The kid’s a furious whisker, and stiff peaks become granite boulders real quick. I’ve graduated him from the corn genre of pudding to banana. The South loves its hash, mash, or mush.
Once the Warlock is finished with the squash for the corn pudding, I promote him to the fried catfish. Gloved hands hovering over the flour, egg, and cornmeal bowls, he insists on using a fork rather than perfectly good fingers to dunk the fillets.
“Sunday supper is a Frost tradition, and it requires happy skillets,” I explain as I mix our prepped ingredients for the corn pudding: cheese, creamy milk, leeks, serrano, kiss of sugar, cornmeal, salt. And of course, gobs of corn. “No matter how busy the shop and life were any given week, my mom and Momaw and I protected suppertime together on Sundays.”
Even now, I can hear Momaw Frost snapping instructions across the kitchen, wild gray hair held in place with illegal amounts of hair spray. When was the last time I cooked a full meal on a Sunday? Not for the shop, not to deliver to neighbors. Just for myself?
Probably the last time the inhabitants of Knight Manor had a real meal. These people have a kitchen table made for a mess hall, yet no one ever eats together.
Cue my intervention. A shared meal will be good for the Warlock, for this cranky house, foreveryone. If I can get everyone spending enough quality time together, I might be able to tease out more information about the Warlock, some helpful nugget of history that could point me toward a cure for him.
Tonight’s menu, a.k.a. my battle plan: okra, sliced and sizzling in a shallow skillet (Ms. Zeen); pan-fried catfish (the Warlock, begrudgingly); cornbread (mine, of course); and banana pudding courtesy of Lazlo.
“What about you, Ms. Zeen?” I ask. “What did your family like to cook together?”
The Governess tosses me a grimace. With her cardigan sleeves rolled up and wrinkled, she looks like a disgruntled wet cat. I can see where the Warlock gets his favorite expression. “Whatever was canned.”
“Don’t expend your energy, Ms. Frost,” the Warlock says. “Ms. Zeen doesn’t discuss her life before the Manor. Even I’m not privy to her rubric of friends and foes.” His words verge on teasing, but I’m realizing it’s unlikely even moonshine would get the woman to spill her past.
