He had an extremely eccentric kitchen; the small stove and a blender
were among the few things she recognized. He did nearly everything in his
collection of machines. He showed her how to fry an egg in one, to roast a
parsnip in another, to fashion a seven-layer cupcake, complete with a lovely
ribbon of frosting tied in a bow on top, in something that looked like a
martini shaker.
“Forget everything you know here,” he advised. “Experiment. Invent. Create.
That’s why I built these.”
She spent the first working hours doing just that: tossing food at random into
his inventions just to see what would happen. She turned a red onion into ice
cream, a potato into sea foam, bread into what looked like curly shoe leather;
she made sequins and stars out of radishes, frothed an egg yolk, then deep-
fried the froth into a golden lace. She found herself eating constantly,
licking a finger or a spoon handle, desperate for a taste of anything besides
air. Sage wandered in occasionally to nibble Carrie’s experiments, give
critical comments about how something looked, make suggestions about what to
pair. Now and then, she said simply, warmly, “Yes. That’s good. Todd was
right about you.”
“It’s nothing,” Carrie said helplessly.
“No, no. It’s wonderful.”
Maybe, she thought, lying beside Zed and listening to him breathe in rhythm
with the sea, that’s what magic is. Believing that nothing is something.
“You haven’t been cooking the way you used to,” Ella commented wistfully as
they prepped for the next day’s lunch. “I miss your tidbits. Your little
bites.”
Carrie looked at her, surprised. She seemed to be inventing all the time,
coming up with this and that, plate jewelry, edible ornaments. But that was
for Todd Stillwater, she remembered; she had neglected them in this kitchen,
where every tool and recipe was predictable.
“I forgot,” she said lamely. “I’ve been distracted, I guess.”
“Something worrying you?”
Carrie shook her head, speechless. Working two jobs, skulking to Stillwater’s
three times a week, trying to find her father, deceiving Ella, hiding her
thoughts from the scarily perceptive Lilith, had put her beyond worry. Maybe
that was why she was hungry all the time, at least at Stillwater’s. Here, she
barely remembered to eat.
“Not more than usual.” She whacked at celery for the soup of the day, the
old workhorse chicken-veg. She never chopped vegetables in Stillwater’s
kitchen, she realized. If he served soup at all, it would be in the form of a
custard, maybe, or a cone of little frozen pearls. She made an effort, shoved
his kitchen out of her mind. “I’ll come up with something today,” she
promised, and later, she combined several things lying around in such a
fashion that there were visible signs, on many plates, of bites that had been
spat back out.
“You’ve got some serious weirdness going on here,” Jayne declared, eating
Carrie’s creation. “I like anchovies. I just never knew I liked them with
sweet pickles before.” She swallowed and added, “There are knights at one of
my tables. Three of them, from Severluna. I had to explain what a shrimp
basket is. What’s with these knights coming through Chimera Bay? Are they all
lost?”
“Maybe someone’s making a movie,” Bek suggested, hefting a tray of plates
to his shoulder.
“You’re probably right,” Jayne said, absently munching more anchovy bites.
“Real knights can’t all be that gorgeous.”
They were that gorgeous in Carrie’s dream that night: they all had Stillwater
’s face. The knights had gathered in the Kingfisher Inn to watch the solemn
ritual Fish Fry. Women from an era of crimped hair, red lipstick, heart-shaped
bodices, full skirts made of satin and chiffon accompanied the knights. The
high-hatted chef led the ritual, holding a great platter of beautiful little
bites. He carried it around the room, offering it to the richly dressed,
smiling women, to the knights who all looked alike, to Hal and Merle, who wore
their tuxedos, to Ella, even to Lilith, who had come down from her tower to
join the merry gathering.
Everyone ate. The platter never emptied; more and more bites appeared and
disappeared. Colors in the dream began to flicker, vanish, return. The rich
hues of women’s gowns paled, melted into grays and whites and blacks of old
photos. People kept talking, laughing, even as one by one lights in the
chandelier went dark. Airy skirts began to tear, part into shreds; high-heeled
sandals vanished, left the women barefoot. Their glittering diamonds winked
out like the prisms above them. The knights’ beautiful faces became hollow,
haggard, even as they kept eating. The walls of the prosperous inn grew thin;
moonlight came through them, and the sound of the gulls. Here and there a
rafter fell. Still the party, the celebration, continued, as if nothing were
wrong, nothing at all, everyone talking, laughing, eating from the chef’s
inexhaustible platter, even though shadows crept over the walls, and Lilith
had vanished, and so had Hal, leaving a crippled old man in his place, leaning
painfully on a staff, and beside him, Merle turned into a wolf.