and carefully placed the split log on it while talking to myself.
“Don’t think of that. Don’t think of Rosa, of Aggie, of Dashiell. Think of how to get home. Think of how to get the hell out of here.”
I went back to the hides and tucked myself in, staring at the fire and thinking.
What could I have done? How did I get here?
I sifted through recent memories and all I knew about how this kind of shit happened in the movies.
I had not made a wish for a fairytale life from a weird fortune teller vending machine at a creepy magic store. In fact, I’d never been to a creepy magic store mainly because they were creepy.
I had not accidentally bumped into, therefore ticked off, anyone strange-looking, like a magician with white gloves and a top hat or a gypsy with long hair and flowing, jangly skirts.
I had not happened onto any object, say a magic vase or an enchanted crystal, and taken it home.
I had not sat by the light of a full moon on the banks of the Puget Sound and wished for a more exciting life surrounded by angry hot guys and birds that talked.
I hadn’t done any of that.
So why was I here? This stuff didn’t happen outside of the movies.
And yet it did because here I was, in a cave, in a nightshirt, with no shoes and a hot guy who apparently hated me that I didn’t like all that much either out finding us food.
Time wore on and I kept feeding the fire as I continued not to think of the sweet, singing Rosa being swept away, wondering if Aggie had been hurt, maimed or even worse while getting caught in that wind or contemplating why the Cora of this world married someone she clearly didn’t get along with while harboring, it would seem, a crush on her sister’s fiance.
Instead, I wracked my brain to figure out what to do next.
Nothing came to me.
What I did notice was that the wood Noctorno brought in was very dry. It went up like tinder and to keep the fire going I was using a lot of it. Not to mention, he’d been gone a long time.
But the wood was dry, it was also split so someone had prepared it, so he hadn’t gone out into the rain and gathered it. And he didn’t have to go very far to get it so perhaps there was a stash somewhere. And if he was gone much longer, the supply he left me would be gone, the fire would go out and he’d get pissed.
I didn’t like him pissed (which seemed to be his only emotion) so I didn’t want to make him more pissed.
Therefore, since I needed something to do, and I didn’t particularly relish freezing to death in this world (or any world for that matter), I decided to see if I could find the wood stash.
It wasn’t hard. I pulled aside the hides, noticed the thunder and lightning were gone, as was the driving rain, but the day was still gray, dreary and a persistent drizzle was falling. The mouth of the cave was huge, the preliminary space, though, was wide but not vast. There were two hide covered antechambers, the one I was in and another one I discovered which was full of split logs, kindling and more weapons – these, lances, knives, daggers, hatchets, hammers, clubs and a couple more swords.
Hmm. Seeing as his cave was heavily armed, it seemed Noctorno earned that scar through his lifestyle.
Picking my way carefully on my bare feet, five times (with much smaller loads than Noctorno could bear) across the rough surface of the main space of the cave and back, I replenished the wood stock, threw a couple more logs on the fire and climbed back under the hides.
I barely got them settled over me when I heard the snort of a horse and hooves on the stones outside.
Noctorno was home.
Drat.
Not long after, the pelt at the opening was thrown back and Noctorno was there.
I looked at him. He looked at me.
Then he looked at the fire.
His head turned and he looked at the reloaded stash of wood.
Then his head swung back in my direction and he didn’t try to hide his surprise.
Jeez, how lazy was I in this world? Only a moron, or someone really idle, would hang in a dark, damp, cold cave and not keep the fire burning.
Noctorno moved to the fire and I noticed he was carrying something over his shoulder. He swung it around and dropped two small, bloody, skinless carcasses that were hanging on a stick to the stone floor by the fire.
I stared at the carcasses.
Holy crap!
“Are those… rabbits?” I asked, sounding as aghast as I was.
He had been moving toward the table but stopped, his gaze sliced back to me and his lip curled.
“My deepest apologies, Cora, I didn’t bag your favored venison,” he stated sarcastically.
I stared at him in horror.
We were already having Thumper for lunch and he was apologizing that we weren’t eating Bambi.
Ick!
I couldn’t eat rabbit. And furthermore, I wasn’t hungry. Not for rabbit, not for anything.
This was a first. I could always eat. But no way was I eating Thumper.
He continued to the table, grabbed the iron rods from the bottom shelf and moved back to the fire and I decided not to share the state of my appetite seeing as he was wet, he looked (still) angry and he’d gone out to kill a couple furry critters so we wouldn’t starve to death in a cave. Therefore, I figured I should keep my mouth shut on that score.
He set up the apparatus which was, essentially, a rotisserie, over the fire and he set this up with the rabbit carcasses on it. Then he added more logs to the fire. Then he left and came back (three times) with even more logs to reload the pile.
I guessed this meant we were in it for the long haul.
When he was done with his chores, he crouched by the fire probably for the same reason I stood by it, in order to get warm and use it to dry his clothes.
What he didn’t do was speak to me.
What he also didn’t do was rotisserie the rabbits. He didn’t turn the handle that was at one end of the iron rods at all. That meant one side would get roasted and the other wouldn’t. Furthermore, even though they were rabbits, which freaked me out, all their juices were falling into the fire. If they were captured and used to baste the darned things, they would end up more succulent and flavorful.
I decided not to share this culinary expertise with him either. Instead, I got out from under the hides, went to get the frying pan and then moved to the handle by the fire. I gathered as much of my nightgown as I could in my hand (which was a lot, seriously, there was a huge amount of material covering me), used it to shield my skin against the heat of the rod and squatted as ladylike as I could by the fire while using the handle and holding the pan under the rabbits to collect their juices.
I did this for awhile feeling his eyes on me before he spoke.
“By the gods, what are you doing?”
I didn’t look at him as I replied, “Rotisserie. You cook them like you were, one side will get charred, the other won’t cook. And everyone knows you need to baste meat.”
This was met with silence.
I kept turning then when I gathered enough juices I lifted the pan and poured them over the meat. Then I held the pan under again as I kept turning the handle.
Truth be told, the actions were tedious, the pan was heavy and my arms were beginning to ache. But at least I had something to do.
After awhile, he called, “Cora.”
“Yep,” I answered, lifted the pan, basted the meat then returned it under the carcasses, all the while turning the handle.
“Cora,” he repeated.
“I said, yep,” I replied.
“Look at me, woman,” he ordered.
I lifted my eyes to him. His face was blank but his eyes were alert and working and they were fastened on
