10:15
Ben’s head was, in fact, in the wall. In a hole in the wall. And as Kim and Gwen pulled up close to him he tried to wedge his shoulder into the small hole.
He kneeled on a raised structure. Not a table. More like a lunch counter with a protruding top part and a recessed support under it. Not quite wide enough for an actual serving space or for a chair to fit under it. It was a bit of a mystery.
It wasn’t straight but was instead a curve, like a quarter of a circle. One part protruded from the right wall. That was where Ben had his head shoved. He kneeled on the counter part of the contraption with one knee, the other leg hung down and his foot was pointed for traction. The counter curved away from his leg in its arc, entering a similarly small hole in the back wall.
“What is that thing?”
Gwen shrugged.
Ben pulled his head out of the hole and looked at them. “There’s another room back there.”
“Okay?”
“I’m going to figure out how to get into it.” He hopped down then rubbed his hands together while staring at the wall like if he stared hard enough it would reveal its secrets.
“If only you had x-ray vision.”
His head snapped around and he gave her an assessing look. “That would be great. But I don’t.”
“Too bad,” Dempsey drawled, strolling up to stand beside Gwen. “It would make it easier for you to break in places.”
“And find Vaults.” Ben emphasized the last word while grinning at Dempsey.
“Hope springs eternal.”
Dan stopped next to Ben’s other side along the right wall and flexed his knuckles, making the word Hope dance. He and Dempsey examined the counter thing Ben had vacated.
“What is it?” Dan asked.
Ben lifted his shoulders. His tone was distracted. “A counter?”
He was already clearly onto other things. Fingers tapping along the wall, up and down in about a two foot span, he wandered along the wall. Occasionally he stopped, pressed his ear to the wall in the center of a panel and tapped. Then he stepped back, shook his head, and moved on. He made it almost all the way back to the entry wall when he stopped and pressed his head harder against the wall while tap, tap, tapping.
Stepping back he flexed his shoulders, stretching his arms back then unfurling them and giving the panel in front of him a hard push. There was a subtle click and the panel swung in on hinges set to the left of it and flush to the wood frame of the panel.
Kim peered at the wainscotted portion of the wall and saw a tiny little crack she hadn’t noticed before. Wow, that was some fancy hidden bookcase architecture there. She couldn’t help considering the structural challenge of it. Ben didn’t show any of the same interest in the mechanism. Instead he ducked his head into the space beyond the door. Then he took a step over the threshold. At the motion the space beyond the door lit up. Kim scooted around to be able to look around Ben’s shoulder at the revealed space.
Industrial lights marched like soldiers along the line of the ceiling. One. Two. Three. Four. Five rows stepped back into the space, each row containing four lights. The rows stopped against a brick wall to the far side of the space.
The lights revealed what looked like a series of islands or very large columns or something along those lines. Ben stepped in onto what Kim could only call a landing. Or maybe a ledge. A narrow ledge. She was able to get her head in far enough she could look down at the space the tips of his boots hung over.
Lady? She asked. The lady who had followed Ben as he wandered down the wall and found the hidden door writhed around him, undeterred by the nearly non-existent foot room inside the door. She turned her head to look at Kim.
What is beyond that step?
The lady looked at her with a confused look. Beyond? The universe.
Yes, Kim curled her lips over her teeth on a half-grimace. That was vague. What is directly beneath the tips of Ben’s feet.
This one is Ben? The lady’s voice tasted the name.
Yes. What is beyond his feet. And below.
I shall check, Zephyr.
Kim suppressed the sigh at the honorific. No matter how she tried to get air to call her by her name it insisted on a title and Zephyr was what it preferred.
Not to say it was poetical and all but Kim kinda wasn’t an honorific kinda girl. Heck, she didn’t even really go for Miss, Ms, Mx. It all was really nothing to her if someone called her Old Shoe, but Zephyr just felt too exotic to tie to her. At the most she might be lucky to be a breeze. A little breeze that kicked up some dirt and tossed around discarded paper bags sometimes because it was fun.
And she was digressing. Stupid Spectrum brain.
Back on point. She watched as the lady unwound from around Ben’s back and shoulders and slid into the space below his toes. One mikro passed. Another. And another. She started counting as she waited only to have the count blown when Patti came over, bumped her hip, and asked, “What’s up?”
“Down,” Kim answered in an absent tone as she tried real hard to see what Air saw. But Air didn’t really see the way mortal eyes did. Sometimes when she tried to see through its sense of sight she got dizzy and sometimes she got distracted by motes of dust floating on the substance of air and then there was times she swore she saw another country like it was right before her eyes. Hence, again, why she usually didn’t try to see what Air saw. Hearing was good enough. She’d gotten used to ignoring the distraction of the patterns of energy fluctuating through the world that Air danced on like music. Once you internalized the rhythm it was just background noise.
And again with the damned distraction. Get your brain right, Kim! She counselled herself.
She turned her head to look over her shoulder at Patti and almost bashed noses with her friend who was leaning in like she could see over both Kim and Ben’s shoulders. Only they were a very similar height and Patti had to lift up on her tiptoes to do it and she overbalanced, bumping into Kim. Kim instinctively drew back, inside herself but also with her body. Gwen held a hand a solid inch from Kim’s arm and instantly Kim was able to relax muscles she hadn’t even realized she’d tensed.
Shifting her shoulders so her torso was at a subtle slant she looked at Patti again.
“It looks like islands or columns or maybe stalagmites? Actually,” she nodded as that image formed, “they are like stalagmites, but the tops are flat. There’s,” she leaned in and looked along the wall from the left to the right, “five of them in total and they have probably four or five-foot gaps between them. If they are stalagmites,” she frowned as she looked back to where the ground fell away from Ben’s feet, “I’m not sure where the cave floor is they are growing out of.” She made this correction as she felt the air lady floating up from far, far, far below them. “Beyond really far away.”
“So, what I’m hearing,” Ben said, “is don’t fall.”
As he said this, he threw himself forward and off the landing. Kim instinctively threw a hand forward, whether to stop him or help she wasn’t sure. Instincts, you know? The lady coming out of the depths beneath them seemed to read her intent because she flowed up under Ben with her hands out, forming a cushion of air if he fell. Not that he did but it settled Kim’s nerves to see that safety cushion beneath him.
Ben landed on a ledge around the column he’d jumped to. Kim hadn’t noticed it there because it was the same black stone as the column or stalagmite was.
“There’s a solid several feet of floor around the column.” Ben called back. “Huh.”
This as he walked around the column, his gaze intent on the top of it.
“Huh, what?” Patti stepped one foot forward onto the landing so she could crane and look around.
Kim slid her right leg forward to plant her foot on the landing. “Yeah, huh what?”
“There’s a stove top here.” Ben brushed his hand over the top of the stalagmite. “A hot one.”
Gwen jockeyed back and forth just behind Kim and Patti, bobbing around so she could catch glimpses of what was beyond them. “A stovetop?”
“Yes.”
“So, it’s a kitchen island.”
Ben cocked his head then turned and looked down into the pit around the stalagmite. “It is.”
“Because a dining room needs a kitchen.” Dempsey’s voice came from vaguely behind Kim. She turned and saw him standing behind Gwen. He’d lost his shield somewhere and was standing with legs braced and arms crossed over his chest.
“And food doesn’t make itself,” Gwen added.
“Right.”
There just wasn’t enough room in the doorway slash on the tiny landing for all of the group to see inside the room, so Kim called back to be heard passed Dempsey’s considerable bulk.
“There’s a stove top on a stalagmite. Its one of five. Ben is,” she paused as Ben jumped to the next column, hanging over the dark pit for a mikro that took her breath, “Oh, shit. No, never mind. Ben is fine.”
“That’s good to hear!” Siobhan called from behind.
“Ben is a baller!” Patti added. Sass squeed. Clearly Ben’s feats of acrobatics appealed to a mouse’s sensibilities. Or their tiny, tiny brain. The same size of Kim’s brain she decided as she cast a look back at Gwen and Dempsey then launched herself off the landing and towards the column Ben had abandoned.
Fuuuuck! I’m an idioooot! She thought as she flew through the six-feet or so of air towards the column. The six feet was a guess. She could also go with “I may or may not make it that far” as a measure.
Her toe plunked down on the very edge of the span of floor circling the column. And then her fat ass failed her, as it often did, and she tipped backwards. She didn’t even have time to flail her arms or have her life flash before her eyes before several air ladies swept up from the depths and grabbed her under the arms, lifting her up and lowering her so both of her feet were firmly planted on the stone ‘floor’.
She turned and met Patti’s wide eyes. “I’m a fucking idiot!”
“You are a fucking idiot!” Patti yelled back. “A fucking idiot that can fly. When did that start?”
“It didn’t?” Kim’s tone was hesitant. “Several ladies caught me. And lifted me up here.”
“Looked like flying to me.”
“Trust me it wasn’t. More like calamitous interruptus.”
“It looked like dancing to me.” Gwen stepped into the small space on the landing Kim had vacated.
“Dancing with motherfucking death.”
“Best kind of dancing!” Ben called from his own stalagmite.
Kim gulped and turned her head so she could look down into the abyss while ultimately hugging the top of the island until her arms ached. “Gonna stick to shaking my ass in my own kitchen, thank you and all.”
She said the last to the ladies who swirled around her and the island, their motions agitated. Her hair flew in a swirly swirl, flying from her left and trailing to the right in the slipstream of the ladies. That was going to leave such tangles. Stupid thing to think in the moment but welcome to her brain. It was a delightful place to avoid. Like the transfer station. Aka the dump. Which considering the absolute terror of the moment of dropping she was damned lucky did not describe her cargoes. If ya knew what she meant.
Poop. She meant poop. Truth, she was damned grateful in her near-death experience she hadn’t done worse that pooped herself.
Small blessings.
Thanks, ladies.
The ladies slowed their flow at the projected words. They didn’t stop fully but they slowed enough that she wasn’t getting a micro-abrasion skin treatment from the whipping ends of her hair.
One of the ladies reversed her direction to flow up to Kim and stare hard into her face with oh, about a quarter inch of space between them, so close if the lady had breath they’d be breathing each other’s air. You do not die.
I will try my best.
Do.
With that the lady swirled away to float on the other side of the stalagmite.
Ben ran his hand over the surface of the column he stood next to then leaned over to look at something Kim couldn’t quite see. “I think I found the rest of the circle from outside.”
“Any idea what it is?”
“Hold on.” Ben hopped up on the top of the column. Kim gulped.
“It isn’t hot?”
Ben pivoted in a crouch to look at her. “Just a countertop. Not a stove.”
With that he turned back around and stared off to the side. There was a large space between where the column thrust and the wall to the left that Kim could see easily as the stalagmite Ben was on was on a forward diagonal from the stalagmite she was at.
Instinctively she threw out a hand like she could catch him if he fell despite them being separated by at six feet or abouts. Ben’s air lady slid around so that she hovered on the far side of the column. Kim wasn’t sure if it was to protect Ben or to look at what he was examining. Probably more of the latter. Air was so curious.
“I’m not sure what it is. Same narrow countertop but no support underneath except a few,” Kim’s breath caught as he leaned out to crane over the far corner of the stalagmite. The air lady slid in, raising a hand and a gentle wind to hold him aloft if he slipped. “A few,” he continued, “columns. Way more narrow than the island columns. I’m not sure the counter would support much weight if they are the only support.”
He pulled back to sit on the counter then spun around so his legs hung over the side facing Kim. He propped his hands on the edge and kicked his feet.
“What’s the plan in there?” Dempsey called from his place by the door.
“I don’t know. I think,” Kim turned to look across the abyss, “there’s two more islands farther in.”
“There is,” Ben confirmed. “Let me just–” He threw himself from the island he was on, hanging for a long moment over the abyss before landing. Of course he didn’t wobble. Darned dexterous bastard. “There’s a cupboard here.”
He pulled open the cupboard doors and looked inside. He had to push up on tiptoe to see the higher shelf and then dropped to squat to see the lower. Kim’s heart dropped as she eyed his butt, to her, dangerously close to the abyss. Darned man and his darned compact man butt. She would not be able to do that without pitching backwards.
“There’s plates and,” he drew out the word as he made a visual inventory, some more plates.”
He paused to count.
“Let me guess,” Kim said as he did so, “there are 30 plates.”
He turned to shoot her a look over his shoulder. “Good guess?”
“Less guess than calculation. Fifteen tables, each missing two items. So thirty missing items.”
“So, thirty plates. Makes sense.”
“If each item fits on a plate.”
“They are pretty small plates.” He reached into the cupboard then turned to show Kim a dark green plate that for sure would hold only one thing.
“So, we have,” Siobhan’s voice came from behind Dempsey, “can you please move?”
Kim turned to see Dempsey shift to the side to give Siobhan room to see through the door. She tapped Patti on the shoulder and Patti moved out of the doorway so Siobhan could step up. Once she was there she pressed the tip of one foot to the small landing within the room and leaned in to look.
“Five islands. Look like they are evenly spaced.”
“It looks like a star,” Gwen added.
“Yes. Five islands at the points of a star, evenly spaced. The one Kim is at is a stove.”
“The one I was at first,” Ben added, “was a clear counter with that circle counter running up along the back edge of it, back edge being in relation to the far wall. This one has a big cupboard. Not much foot room but I guess there’s enough to get into the cupboard and pull stuff out.” He looked over to his right. “Looks like the other one here to the back has an icebox.”
“And the last one?” Siobhan asked.
Kim raised a finger. “I’ll check.”
She eyed the space between her island and the next. The layout of the columns meant she could only jump off the corner of the landing on her island and land on the corner of the target one. Which seemed like a very small target to hit. And she had to hope the landing was sturdy enough to hold her when she landed. Considering Ben had no problem with his jump it was probably safe. Probably.
There was almost no room to get a running start. More like a two-step start. Which meant she was going to get way less loft. She bunched her thighs, took a deep breath, and jumped as hard as she could.
Like holding her breath would make her lighter.
She landed with her forward foot and threw her hand out to grab the top of the stalagmite to help draw in her second foot and keep herself balanced forward instead of falling back. Then she drew her hand back as the heat radiating from the top of the stalagmite registered.
Shaking her hand, she turned to look over her shoulder at the door. “Stove!”
Siobhan winced in sympathy then continued. “Two stoves, one counter with some weird doohickey on the side of it, one cupboard, and one icebox. That’s right?”
“Yes,” Kim said and Ben echoed her. She very carefully turned so her butt was to the side of the stove column and she could look back at the island she started at. She closed her eyes, offered a request to the universe, then threw herself back to the first island.
Ugh. Thunk. She made it, mostly, though she did end up hopping forward and spreading her right arm out to hug the column while leaning forward to settle her weight. Once she was sure she wasn’t going to plummet to her death in the abyss or have to rely on the air ladies to heft her weight out of said abyss, she pressed her forehead to the side of the column, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she straightened and turned to look at the group clustered in the doorway.
“Two stoves, one prep area, icebox, and cupboard. Want to bet the icebox and the cupboard have the ingredients for Crepes Suzette and cucumber sandwiches?”
Siobhan cocked her head. “I will not take that bet.”
“Smart call.” Kim shifted to look between the four other islands. “So how are we going to handle this?”
“What do cucumber sandwiches have in them?” Ben asked.
“Bread, cucumber, and some kind of spread usually with dill and something creamy.”
“I can make cucumber sandwiches.” He slipped a knife out of the inside of his jacket and idly cleaned his nails with it. “Have knife. Can slice cucumbers.”
Kim eyed the way he cleaned his nails. “You’ll clean the knife?”
“Sure. With the sink we don’t have I will absolutely clean my knife.”
Kim wrinkled her nose. “We won’t be eating them so I guess I can let go of my urge for hygiene.”
Wedging her shoulder into Siobhan’s, Gwen leaned in and looked around the kitchen. “We know how to make crepes.”
“We do,” Kim agreed.
“What makes them Suzette?”
“A sauce.”
“Know how to make it?”
Kim ran over what she knew about the oldy-fashioned recipe. “Yes.”
“Okay. So, I can make crepes on one of the stoves. You can make the sauce on the other one. I assume it is cooked.”
“It is.”
“And then we bring the crepes and the sandwiches out to the dining area and put them on the tables and we’re good?”
“That’s my hope.”
“Seems too easy.”
“Right?” Kim shifted closer to the island. “Except for the whole jumping around over a bottomless pit while making the things.”
“That does make it harder.”
“It does.”
“But still too easy.”
Siobhan shrugged. “So we assume there’ll be a wrench thrown in somewhere but making the things seems like a good start.”
“Does anyone else think its too quiet?” Patti turned to look at the dining area with its rows of tables and food and little else. “Like maybe something is going to come flying in through the windows and kick our asses?”
“Good point,” Dempsey said. He turned, probably to eye the windows though he was too far out of the kitchen and to the side for Kim to actually tell. “We’ve got five islands, so max five people can be involved in the food preparation. That leaves five of us to watch for any threat in the dining area.”
Dan’s head came into view in the space between Gwen and Siobhan, bobbing as he scanned the kitchen with his gaze. “Probably only four.”
“Why?” Dempsey asked.
Dan held up a finger where Kim could see it then started moving it like he was counting the islands. “One mikro.”
Dempsey craned from the side to look at what Dan was but he didn’t stomp on the mikro Dan asked for. Once he’d done a visual sweep of the room then doubled back and done another then tripled back and did a third, Dan fingered his chin.
“To be able to get the ingredients from the cupboard and the icebox to the stoves and the prep island for Ben is going to require an open landing for shifting. If you have five people with one on each island they are stuck there because the landings appear to be too small to accommodate more than one person.”
“Oh.” Siobhan craned her neck to look into the kitchen and over the islands. “That makes sense. But how are we going to coordinate this? We can’t throw ingredients across the voids. I mean, we could, but we could lose or break some and I’m guessing there’s a limited amount.”
“Only thirty plates, no more,” Ben said. “So we can’t break one. I can jump from this island,” he thumped the island he sat on, “to the cupboard and back to move the plates to here. I’d say put some on the stoves but they could break from the heat.”
Kim agreed. “I do think the plates would break.”
“There’s also two pans in the cupboard,” Ben added. “But only one top. So assume one pan is for making the crepes and one is for making the sauce. Which one gets the top?”
“If we have to jump across the abyss with the finished dish?” Kim eyed the space between her stove and Ben’s prep area. “Probably the top goes here because the dish requires crepes to be made then cooked in the sauce. The crepes can be transported from the other island easy enough. Or as easy as jumping island to island will be. Then they can be added to the sauce and then the whole dish can be transported to the plates.”
“That makes sense,” Siobhan said. “What do you need to make the crepes and the sauce?”
Kim held up a finger, asking for a mero while she ran through what she remembered. The crepes were easy.
“The crepes need milk, egg, flour, salt, and oil. Maybe some orange zest if there are oranges.”
“What equipment?”
“Bowl, whisk, measuring cup and maybe a zester.”
Siobhan looked to Ben. “Did you see those in the cupboard?”
Ben cast a look over to the cupboard, paused a mikro, then looked back to Siobhan. “Yes. I’m not sure what a zester is but there was a bowl. One bowl. And a whisk if it’s that metal poufy thing.”
“It is,” Kim confirmed. “Probably. If there’s a metal utensil and it has a basket or what you call a pouf it’s probably a whisk. Especially if it’s the only utensil.”
“There’s a wood tongue thing and a wood spoon too. I know what the spoon is. Not sure about the wood tongue.”
Kim measured and inch between her fingers and held them up to Ben. “About this wide? And wood?”
“Yeah.”
“Curved at the end?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a spatula used to make crepes.” Kim looked back at Siobhan. “A very specific tool for a very specific job.”
“You don’t say,” Gwen drawled and lifted her brows.
“It’s almost like we are being lead around by the nose,” Siobhan added.
“You think?”
“What do you need for the sauce?” Dan lifted his pencil to indicate he was writing down the ingredients.
Kim crunched her brows togethger as she dug into her memory. Her response came slow as she pulled the ingredients out of somewhere in her brain. “Butter. Sugar. Orange juice. Orange liquer. Cognac. And orange zest.” She looked to Ben. “Really hope there’s a zester or two in that cupboard.”
Ben pushed away from the top of the stalagmite, landing lightly on the landing below. “Explain what it is. I’ll look.”
“It could look a couple of different ways but the commonality is there’s a very fine plane.”
“A plane?”
“Like a wood plane?” Ivan asked from next to Dempsey. Kim wasn’t sure when he’d come over but she figured there was only so much staring at baked goods and windows he could do. Made sense he’d come to suss out the challenge.
Kim thought of the planes she’d seen on work sites. “No. Think more like a…” she squeezed her fingers together over her hands then furled them. How to explain? “Rasp?”
“A metal rasp?”
“Ish? Maybe it would be better to ask what’s in the cupboard?”
Ben called over from the island he’d jumped to when Kim wasn’t watching for a mikro. Damn, she wished she could fling herself over certain death with as much aplomb. He opened the doors and dug around in the cupboard. Squatting he accessed the lowest shelf, sticking his arm in halfway to the shoulder and pulling out something small and metal.
Tucking the item in the inside pocket of his jacket, he hopped back to the prep island stalagmite then removed it from the pocket and held it up in front of his face. It was a metal plane with a long wood handle. Kim squinted a bit to get a clearer view of the metal part.
“I think it might be?”
“Here,” Ben drew his arm back, making like he’d toss it to her. Kim threw up a hand. “Fuck no you don’t. I will for sure fumble and lose it and I’m guessing it’s the only one?”
“It is. We could test if The House would give us another one if we lost it though.”
“No. Let’s not do that.” Kim gave the far wall an eye roll. “With our luck it wouldn’t replace it and we’d fail.”
“Fail is bad,” Gwen said and shook her head at Ben. “Put the zester down, Ben.”
“Fine.” Ben rolled his lips on the start of a pout and put the zester back in his jacket pocket. “Where are we going to mix this up? On the floor near the icebox?”
Kim wrinkled her nose. “Not ideal.”
“Hop back to the other stove. See if maybe the entire top of the stalagmite isn’t hot.”
“You say that likes its easy to just bounce all over.”
Ben looked at the point that was across from his part of the star. “I could go to the cupboard and then the icebox and then the stove or you could hop over one island.”
“That’s a lot of hopping,” Siobhan said.
“And it is going to make the logistics of this very complicated,” Dan added. “It’s why I said you need a free island. If there are four people in there, you’ll have to keep rotating around all the stations. Like Ben could move to the cupboard and Kim could move to the prep station and someone else can go to the stove there,” he pointed with his pencil. “Then from there they could go around to the refrigerator or the other stove. You’d need an open space, probably at the icebox or the cupboard for people to shift to so someone else could shift into another space.”
Dempsey made a hmm noise and rubbed the side of his jaw. “That would take some engineering to do. If you had five people it might be more efficient because then you’d have someone in each spot to do something.”
“But then they’d all have to coordinate jumps and move at the same time if they wanted to rotate.’
“Let’s not do that,” Kim interjected, imagining herself and some of her friends plunging into the abyss when they mistimed a jump.
“Who would go in?” Dempsey asked.
“The landings are fairly small,” Ben said. “I’d suggest no one with big feet.”
“Well, that leaves me out,” Ivan crowded in so he could eye the stalagmites and probably determine the engineering structural challenge of them.
“Me too,” came from Dempsey looking over Gwen’s head from the right.
Dan looked down then up again. “I suspect I’m out too. My knees have only so much bounce in them.”
Abe’s head showed next to Dan’s then disappeared then showed again, like Abe was actively bouncing to see into the kitchen. Plenty of bounce there.
“I can bounce!” Abe said with extreme enthusiasm, emphasizing this by bouncing up and down two more times.
“You can also get your cassock tangled up around your legs and plummet to your death,” Dan said on a dry tone.
“Darn!” Abe stopped bouncing into view. They’d probably dropped back to let someone else in, which left Patti and Prairie. A mikro later Patti’s head popped up between Siobhan’s and Gwen’s as she scanned the kitchen area.
“Ben said he’ll do sandwiches. It isn’t Magick empowered flight so trust he can.”
“Thanks,” came Ben’s droll reply.
Patti kept on like he hadn’t interjected. “Kim knows the recipes and she’s already in there so that’s two of the four Dan said. Dempsey and Ivan’s giant clodhoppers rule them out.”
Ivan snorted and shook his head at Patti with a compressed grin.
“Dan’s old and has bad knees.”
“Yep,” Dan rumbled.
“Abe’s fancy robe means no jumpy for them. That leaves,” she counted heads, “Siobhan, Gwen, Prairie, and I as the other two.”
“I know how to make crepes,” Gwen offered.
“That leaves Siobhan, Prairie, and I,” Patti amended. “Gwen is on the other stove.”
“Kim?” Siobhan looked to Kim. “If Ben moves to the cupboard can you move to his station?”
Kim eyed the space. “I’d say sure but that seems a little too positive. I’ll go with okay.”
Ben skipped over the space between his island and the cupboard one. No, really, he freaking skipped, making it look like a big old bunch of fun. Maybe it was. For him.
Kim clenched her butt, shoved down her fear, screwed up her courage, and leaped to the island Ben abandoned.
“Okay, Gwen,” Siobhan said. “Jump to Kim’s island then over to the one on the right.”
Gwen put her plunger down then looked behind her. “Move?”
Ivan, Dempsey, and Patti peeled back. Gwen stepped back a few steps, ran, and leaped from the doorway to the stove island. She landed lightly but she did flail her arms a little before settling. Then she pivoted and shot off on the diagonal to the right stove. Once there she held her hand over it, fingers splayed, and moved it around the surface.
“About half of this is hot, the other half is not. Bet we’re supposed to put the bowl on the not hot side to mix.”
Siobhan acknowledged this with a nod. “Ben can you…” she trailed off as she ran her gaze around the kitchen. “Darn it! This isn’t going to work. Gwen, come back.”
Gwen gave her a look that spoke volumes. “Sure?”
Looking across at Kim she shrugged then jumped back to the first stove then back into the doorway, cleared by the others so she could land. Siobhan straightened her bag strap then without any explanation jumped to the stove in a furl of skirts and panache. Seriously, she was absolutely clothed in panache. And skirts. Her flower crown didn’t even shift. Pa-na-che.
Barely slowing she used the momentum of the first jump to send her sailing to the second stove. Then from there she launched herself towards the icebox landing. This time she held one hand to her flower crown and held her skirts with the other. Less panache, more safety. Kim applauded it.
Once she was situated in front of the icebox, Siobhan yelled back over the abyss. “Gwen, jump back to the stove.”
Gwen gave her a short look then did that. Once firmly planted in front of the stove she shoved her hair back from her forehead and looked to Siobhan. “What now?”
“Kim jump back to the stove. Ben get the stuff from the–” Siobhan trailed off and stared at the icebox then the cupboard then shifted to look at the prep island. How is this supposed to work?”
She looked back at the door where Dan had shifted forward to stand next to Patti, watching the movement. Ivan rested his hand near the top of the doorway and leaned in. Dempsey continued to loom behind them, using his superior height to see over Dan and Patti’s head.
“Maybe you can,” Dempey trailed off.
“Could you,” Dan stopped then started again, “move? Damn.”
Prairie, who had until then been silent, pitched her voice to be heard over the screen of people in the door. “You are making this too complicated.”
Ivan turned his head to look down. “How so?”
“Everyone clear out except for one or two people who are at the icebox and the cupboard.” She sketched out the movement with her hand. “They get the ingredients and jump around the islands to distribute them. I suggest Ben and Siobhan as they are already there. Then Ben can jump back to the island where there’s no heat and make the sandwiches. Siobhan can choose to stay or come out. And then Gwen enters and goes to the right stove and Kim follows on the front one.”
Patti turned and looked at Prairie. “When did you get so smart?”
“Birth?”
Kim smirked at Prairie’s response then looked at the others in the door. “What are you waiting for? Move so I can get off of this thing.”
The others stepped back and Kim jumped to the doorway landing and then stepped out into the dining room. She looked around quickly just to make sure the tables were still there and the baked goods were as they’d left them and there was no looming threat in the room. Satisfied there was not, she looked back to see Gwen jump out in the dining room after her.
Abe stood at one of the windows, staring out at impossible landscapes. Wandering up next to them, Kim craned her neck to look as well.
“Weird this is all in a structure.”
“It isn’t a structure,” Abe replied in a distant voice.
Kim slanted a glance at their face. Their eyes were unfocused, not so much looking at the distant horizon as at a nearer one. If that made sense?
“What do you see?”
“Possibility.” Abe turned with a soft smile. “And impossibility.”
Turning back to the window and the landscape beyond Kim mused, “I wish I could see what you see.”
“It is pretty awesome.”
“I bet.”
“I’d like to be able to have an infinite amount of Magickal constructs.”
“Friends,” Kim corrected and her smile grew fond. “They are friends.” She tilted her head to look at Abe. “Magick is pretty awesome,” she said, borrowing Abe’s favorite word.
She turned back to the group clustered around the kitchen door. “Progress?”
“It looks like they’re almost done,” Dempsey responded then turned to call into the kitchen, “Are you almost done?”
“Almost!” Siobhan’s voice carried from the room, quiet over the distance but still discernable.
“That’s my cue.” Kim turned and headed back to the kitchen door, joining Gwen off to the side. “You first.”
“Me first.”
“You remember the crepe recipe?”
“Cup of milk, an egg, a pinch,” Gwen demonstrated by pinching her fingers close,” of zest, half a teaspoon of salt and oil, and half a cup plus one tablespoon of flour.” She looked at Kim, “Why the extra tablespoon?”
Kim shrugged. “Don’t know. It just works?”
Gwen returned the shrug and looked into the kitchen. “Okay. We don’t want to wait an hora for the mix to rest?”
“It’s better but not absolutely necessary.” Another shrug. “I don’t think anyone wants to wait an hora.”
“We don’t,” Ivan said.
Kim waved a hand in Ivan’s direction. “They don’t.”
“Me neither. So, do you think one recipe will get enough crepes for the fifteen tables?”
“No. I’d triple it to be safe.”
“Got it.” Gwen slanted a look at Kim then ducked under Ivan’s arm and gently bumped Dempsey with her hip to nudge him out of the way of the door. He stepped back and to the side, clearing the door so Gwen could take a running start to jump to the first island. She landed then adjusted and shot off on a diagonal to the second stove. Once she landed she looked over to Siobhan where she stood in front of the icebox with her back to it. “Darn! Forgot to let you get out.”
“I’m good with staying.” Siobhan lifted the strap of her bag over her shoulder then placed it at the base of the icebox behind one of her feet.
Gwen looked back to where Kim stood in the doorway. “Whatcha waiting for?”
Kim cast a quick look back at Abe then ran her gaze over the rest. “You all good with waiting?”
“As long as it isn’t horas,” Ivan replied.
Dan looked up from his book. “That.”
“Okay.” Kim tucked her hair behind her ears, took three steps back then made a running leap for the stove at what they were calling the tip of the star.
Her lead foot kissed down on the ledge at the front of the stalagmite and she quickly yanked in her other foot to secure her footing. Only once she was sure she was completely planted did she look at the top of the stalagmite. A lidded pan sat to the right and front. To the back and left sat the ingredients she needed for the recipe as well as the zester.
She hovered her hand over the left side of the stalagmite to determine it was no longer hot there which was good because she needed the butter softened not melted. A single measuring cup sat beside a pitcher of orange juice, a bottle of orange liqueur, and another small bottle of brown liquid.
Picking up the unmarked bottle she gave it a sniff to determine it was the cognac. The fumes almost knocked her back. She wasn’t much of a drinker. Flammable ingredients and fire creatures did not mix and she preferred the latter in her house to the former. Intoxication and firey friends also lead to too much mischief. She’d learned that fairly young.
“You got what you need?” she called over to Gwen.
“Don’t have a zester.”
“Oops!” Siobhan looked bashful. Then she looked from Kim’s island to Gwen’s. “We’ll need a little logistics to get that over to Gwen. Unless you both want to move out into the dining area again.”
Kim eyed the abyss between the islands. “Doesn’t make much difference jumping out again so Gwen can jump over and back and then I can jump in again or,” she eyed the empty cupboard island, “you jumping to the cupboard, Gwen jumping to the icebox, and me jumping to Gwen’s island with the zester. Let me just get my zest then we can shift.”
Putting thoughts to words she lifted the lid off the pan, grabbed the zester and an orange, and zested off the skin from the entire orange into the pan. She eyed the bald orange, rind exposed, then set it back on the left side of the island with the intent to squeeze its juice into the jug. It wouldn’t take a knife to cut the orange; her thumb should go through the rind fine.
“All set,” she called over to Siobhan. Siobhan lifted her bag and looped the strap over her head then grabbed her skirt in one hand and crown in the other and leaped over to the cupboard island. Gwen hopped to the icebox one.
Once the other two were situated, Kim gripped the handle of the zester, holding the file portion down like a knife, and jumped over to the other stove island. She placed the zester next to the bowl there then turned and threw herself back over the abyss. Gwen jumped back to her island. Siobhan opened the cupboard and looked inside. She shifted to look into the corners and then up on her toes to check out the top shelves. Then she looked back to explain. “Wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
“The cupboard is bare?” Kim asked.
“It is.”
“As a champion scrounger I am offended you thought I would leave anything behind,” Ben pressed a hand to his chest, the picture of affront.
Gwen shorted “There’s championships for scrounging?”
“Championships. Breaking and entering?” Ben swirled his hands. “It’s really a matter of definition.”
“Or law,” Dempsey drawled from the doorway. Ben turned, lifted his brows, and made a big show of shrugging.
“Gee Warden, you gonna arrest me?” Ben held up his arms, wrists together, as if waiting to be cuffed.
“Not in my job description.”
“As the Warden?”
Dempsey just lifted his brows and crossed his arms over his chest. “Want to get on with this?”
Ben turned to Kim. “I just slice the cucumbers and the bread then what?”
Kim eyed the ingredients on Ben’s counter. “Cream cheese over there?”
“Yep.”
“Dill?”
Siobhan crossed her arms. “What kind of an alchemist would I be if I forgot the greenery?”
“So dill. Mince the dill,” Kim directed, “mix it into the cream cheese.”
“It’s a block.”
Kim gave Ben a long suffering look. “Have you never worked in a kitchen before?”
“I have people for that,” Ben said in a snooty tone then grinned wide. “Yes. I have worked in a kitchen before. Just never did anything with cream cheese.”
“Mash the cream cheese,” Siobhan directed. “I left a fork for that.”
Ben lifted the fork and waved it at Siobhan. “Okay. Mash the cream cheese, mince the dill, mix them together. Spread on bread?”
“Spread on bread.”
“Why did you volunteer for this?” Gwen called over at Ben.
“I was bored.”
“Valid.”
“Are you good?” Kim asked Ben.
“That is also a matter of definition.” Ben waved the fork at her this time. “But, yeah, I’m good with the direction.”
That said he put the fork down, pulled out a knife from one of the various knife places he stashed knives, and set to slicing cucumbers. Satisfied he was good, Kim turned to the ingredients on her island and grabbed up the denuded orange. She looked over to Gwen who started cracking eggs into her bowl.
Then she looked back and Ben. Then she looked at Gwen. Back again. Then she looked to Siobhan. “How are we getting the food out of here?”
Siobhan eyed the distance between the islands. “Huh. We did not consider that. Let me think.”
Enter The Woods 