Page 117 of Ex Somnis

“I am.” He holds my gaze. “So you should probably start coming to terms with sharing your life with the rest of us.”

Movement in the kitchen window catches my eye again, but this time, it’s a small silver-haired woman moving between the counter and the stove.

Mom.

“Come on.” Paul nods toward the cottage. “I want to get this done and get back to our woman. And we need to grab all of your things before we go.”

I start walking. “All of my things?”

“You’ll need more than a change of clothes if you’re going to stay.”

“Stay?”

“At the house. Yes. You can grab one of the rooms upstairs. Make it yours. It’s now your home too.”

“You can’t just decide that.”

“Apparently, I can.”

“That’s not how houses work.”

“It’s my house. It works how I want it to.”

“Jesus Christ, fine.” Honestly, I’m done trying to question the ways of Paul Bennett.

If he wants my ass in his house, then I will plant it there.

I duck inside the too-low doorway to the cottage, the smell of incense hitting me immediately. The thick sweetness of palo santo, sage, or whatever phase she’s in this week.

My face does something involuntary, and then I catch myself because Paul is right behind me. I don’t need him to have a complete picture of my childhood right now.

He’d psychologist the shit out of that.

The hallway opens into the living room, all crystals, hanging things, and a selenite lamp that casts everything in a pale blur. When we turn left into the kitchen, the air changes. It’s warm, buttery, and something cinnamon. Mabel is at the stove, flour on her hands, with the oven on.

My stomach wakes up before I’ve decided to be hungry.

Then I register that it’s not quite right.

The spice balance is off, or the browning, or something I can’t name. I realize with a sort of resigned despair that Lennon has apparently recalibrated my entire sensory system without asking.

I think about her in the inn kitchen, how she moves as if she already memorized it, how she tastes things directly off the spoon and then immediately adjusts without hesitating.

Nobody else’s cooking is going to be right anymore, and that’s just something I’m going to have to live with.

I should tell her that. That she’s ruined me.

I will. When she’s back.

“Boys.” Mabel looks up and smiles at us with the warmth she reserves for people she’s known since they were young and stupid. “Sera had a feeling you’d come by today.”

“She did?” I look past her.

Mom is at the kitchen table, her cards spread across the surface in a pattern I don’t recognize. Her silver hair is loose down her back, her rings clinking softly against each other, and she’s looking at the cards with an expression I know—the faraway one, the one that means she’s somewhere else entirely.

Then she looks up.

Not at me.