Jackson Pearce - Cold Spell

“There’s no food?” I ask, remembering a fairly large assortment of cereal in the kitchen this morning.

“There’s food,” Ella says, “but Becky can’t get here with the storm.”

“She makes dinner,” Lucas says a little awkwardly.

“You have a woman who comes every day just to make you dinner?” I ask.

“I guess we could eat cereal for the third time,” Ella says, sounding sad. “Although after grad school I swore I’d never eat it for dinner again.”

“Can I… see what you have?” I ask, trying to squash the bolt of laughter growing within me at Ella’s helpless expression. She nods, and we walk to the kitchen. The cereal is still on the counter, and our bowls from breakfast and lunch are still in the sink. Ella wrinkles her nose at them, then opens the door to the pantry.

I’m pretty sure the Reynolds’ pantry is as large as my entire kitchen in Atlanta. There’s a glass pendant light hanging over a butcher-block table, and everything has its own separate, defined spot on the wire shelves. There’s flour—wheat, pastry, self-rising, all-purpose—and rows upon rows of tiny glass jars full of different-colored crystals; it takes a moment before I realize they’re salts from all over the world.

“We don’t have any bread,” Lucas says. “Ella doesn’t eat anything with preservatives.”

“Neither should you,” Ella says. “Don’t think I don’t see the MoonPie wrappers on the Audi’s floorboards.”

Lucas shrugs, smiles, and doesn’t look the least bit apologetic.

“Okay,” I say, brushing past them. I open the refrigerator and find it’s more of the same—lots of ingredients, but nothing prepackaged or precooked. “Give me an hour?”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have to cook! You’re our guest,” Ella says, a flash of the pageant queen emerging in her voice as she steps out of the pantry.

“Lucas ran over a werewolf to save me,” I say. “We’ll call it even.”

Lucas and Ella insist on helping. Lucas seems to have a clue, as if he’s at least seen someone knead dough before. Ella watches the entire thing like it’s a cooking show, sliding ingredients and utensils across the counter to me when I ask for them. She looks mildly concerned when she sees me cutting butter into chunks, as if she’s calculating the fat content of the dish. It’s something Kai and I would have made fun of—he always thought it was hilarious when seven cheerleaders opted to split a single candy bar. But because the look on Ella’s face is so endearing—and because she’s so quick at converting the metric measuring utensils to standard and back again—it’s hard to judge her.

I make what I’m good at—breakfast. Scrambled eggs and bacon don’t require recipes, but for the biscuits, I use a recipe from Grandma Dalia’s cookbook. The three of us carry the serving dishes to the kitchen table, where Lucas has already set up plates. The utensils are all in the right place, lined up perfectly, and there are even cloth napkins. Everything is loud, and the kitchen smells like bacon and is messy with flour and used bowls, and it feels…

It feels like home in the way that I thought only Kai could. I’m not sure how—it’s been less than a day—but there’s something around my heart that feels relieved, comforted, happy in a way that has nothing to do with the dozens of bedrooms or expensive paintings. It makes me smile; how can I smile when Kai is missing? But I can’t stop.

“Maybe we should ask Becky if we can help her cook sometimes, too,” Ella says, rubbing her hands together eagerly. “So we can learn things. Other than the microwave, I mean.”

“It’s not like you let me use the microwave anyway,” Lucas says, half joking.

“That’s because he wants to make Hot Pockets,” Ella says, frowning. “Day and night. They’re awful.”

“You’ve never had one,” Lucas points out.

“They smell like wax.”

“Did neither of you ever cook at home, before you got married?” I ask.

Ella shrugs and reaches for the plate with the biscuits. “Not really. We had a cook there, too.”

Lucas looks bemused. “I have eight brothers and sisters back in Ellison. We weren’t allowed anywhere near the kitchen when our mom was making dinner—she’d chase us out with a spatula. And when I moved out, I pretty much exclusively ate Chinese takeout. Lots and lots of Chinese takeout. And Hot Pockets.”

“Gross,” Ella mutters.

“Eight?” I ask, probably too excited to hear about Lucas’s family. The idea of growing up surrounded by sisters and brothers delights me.

He nods. “Eight. Three sisters, five brothers. We lived in this tiny house for ages, and then my dad implemented this rule—if you want your own bedroom, you have to build it.” My eyes widen; Lucas laughs at the expression, then continues. “My dad’s a woodsman. His dad was a woodsman. His dad’s dad was a woodsman. Most of my brothers are woodsmen, even. So building a room isn’t that crazy.”

“Did you build one for yourself?” I ask.

Lucas hesitates. “As it turns out, I’m a pretty crappy woodsman. I didn’t really fit in with my brothers, and my sisters went to boarding school early on. My brothers were big on fighting Fenris, actually. It was like this weird, twisted game they played, hunting them down, trapping them, killing them. I wasn’t exactly cut out for it, but I could track them. I could track them anywhere, through any weather. It was the only thing that made me fit in.” He says this with a smile, but there’s a cool tone to his voice.

“I think it’s pretty impressive,” I say.

“Why? I haven’t tracked anything for you just yet. Wait till I do. Then be impressed,” Lucas says, grinning again. “Speaking of Fenris—all that talk of the beasts from this Grandma Dalia, and you never actually saw one till yesterday?”

“Not really—I mean, I’d never seen one like that ,” I say slowly, pausing to take a bite of bacon. “But when I was little, there was a man at the grocery store. There was something about his eyes that was wrong, and Grandma Dalia pulled me away from him.”

“How old?” Lucas asks.

“Seven. Maybe eight.”

Lucas tsks, shaking his head. “Must have been hungry. That’s young.” He pauses and leans back in his chair. “What I can’t work out, though, to be honest, is how an old woman with a cookbook knows about this Snow Queen, yet I’ve never heard of her.”

“Well, you heard of her, when she was dating Larson. You just didn’t know she was some sort of evil ice witch,” Ella points out.

“Fair point,” Lucas says. They look to me.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Grandma Dalia hated me—she never told me how she knew about any of this stuff. We hardly ever spoke, and when we did I was usually getting snapped at. It was like that from the moment we met.”

“Grandparents are tricky,” Ella says. “Maybe worse than parents. Though Lucas’s father loathes me.”

“My father has Alzheimer’s. He doesn’t even know who you are,” Lucas says, waving a biscuit at her.

“He thought I was a hooker.”

“He can’t see well, and you were wearing that dress thing!”

“He offered me a hundred dollars to—”

“Stop!” Lucas says, slamming his hands over his ears, and I laugh with them. Ella leans over and kisses Lucas on the cheek as their laughter dies down. I hope she appreciates what it is to have him here, to kiss him whenever she wants. She does. I know she does—I can see it in her eyes. I inhale. Kai. Focus. Figure out how to find Kai. Figure out how to find Mora.

After a few moments, I look at my hands and ask, “What was Mora like, when she was with your opera singer?”