He reaches into a cupboard and throws a pinch ofnothinginto the pot, stirs, then tastes again. “Much better.”
“You must be starving.” A curly-headed man sits across from me, laugh lines around his mouth. “Flying always makes me peckish.”
My tongue seems to be stuck to the roof of my mouth as he stares at me.
“Not talkative.” He shrugs. “I thought you would be, but that’s okay.”
“Curly, did you get the bread?” Peter asks him.
“Forgot. I’ll be right back.” He gives me a wink and disappears into a room to the right. I try again to get my bearings, but the cave walls are all the same—some sort of gray granite with veins of silver and specks of random golden sparkle. I could be at the bottom of the ocean as far as I know. There’s no way home from inside these stone walls.
“Finally.” Peter elbows one of the redheaded twins out of the way and makes a big show of ladling some soup into a bowl.
I stare. There’s nothing else I can do as he brings the bowl over and places it on the table in front of me.
“Here.” He hands me a rough wooden spoon. “Enjoy it. It’s my favorite. After, maybe you can tell us a story?”
The other men seem to all pause for a split-second then get back to bustling around the kitchen as if nothing happened.
I look down at the empty bowl then up at the smiling kidnapper. “There’s nothing here.”
“What?” He blinks and then smiles brightly. “She even has jokes, boys. Did you hear that?”
One of the redheaded twins ladles up more ‘soup’ and hands out bowls until all the men are sitting at the table with their spoons at the ready.
“Got it!” Curly returns from the side room with an empty plate in his hands. “Bread fresh from the oven.”
When he sets it in front of me, for perhaps only the barest moment, I could swear I smell warm, yeasty bread. But once again, the table is empty.
The men begin dipping their spoons and slurping noisily, clearly enjoying the invisible food.
“Hey!” Peter sits at the head of the table and adopts a stern expression. “We have a guest. Where are your manners?”
The men look around at each other. “Huh?”
“Our guest should eat first.” Peter gestures toward me. “Go ahead, Moira. You must be hungry.”
The firefly that seems to haunt this cave flits past his ear and settles on his shoulder, and I can hear the distinct sound of a bell ringing, though the notes don’t hit my ear quite right. It’s as if someone’s playing at a great distance, so far that the notes warp and go discordant before they reach me.
He waves the firefly away with an irritated sigh, then turns back to me. “Go on.”
I look down at my empty bowl. “Um.”
The other men watch me closely, one of them wiping the side of his mouth as if there’s something dripping from his chin.
“Don’t you like carrot soup?” Peter frowns.
“I do. It’s just …” I slowly slide my spoon into the bowl, stalling. “It’s just I already had those hotdogs, you know?”
“Right.” He throws his hands up. “I’d forgotten. I do that a lot.” He taps the side of his nose. “But how about some bread and butter? Curly.” He points to the empty plate as Curly mimes cutting off a hunk of bread and slathering it with butter.
“Here you are.” Curly hands it to me, the candlelight overhead catching the strands of silver in his hair. “I churned the butter myself.”
“Thank you.” I take the ‘bread.’
One of the twins snorts.
“Hey.” Peter gives him a sharp look.
