Too quiet.
Jennifer felt their eyes on her, studying her. She slowly reached for a cracker.
Cait and Margareta both nodded that she should try it.
Since Cait still held the tray, when Jennifer tried to scrape the firm cheese with the cracker, it snapped in half.
Murdoch cleared his throat. “I thought ya said we would be having cheeses from around the world.”
“Wisconsin is part of the world last time I checked,” Cait said.
“What about that nice Brie Fergus brought back from France? Or the Airedale from New Zealand?” Murdock suggested.
“Shh,” Cait admonished, only to whisper loudly, “This is the first stop on the world tour.”
“You’re doing things out of order,” Margareta added.
“My apologies,” Murdoch muttered. “Though that doesn’t explain the lack of wine.”
“Then why don’t ya fetch a bottle?” Cait urged, her pleasant smile tightening slightly.
Murdoch made a soft noise and walked out of the room.
The quiet house and the seriousness of the cheese conversation reminded Jennifer of all those quiescently boring sitcom scenes of people sitting in bed-and-breakfasts listening to a monotone voice talk about bird watching.
“I wanted to come in and meet all of you and thank you personally for the invitation, but I really should be going,” Jennifer said.
“Knife,” Cait stated.
“Excuse me?” Jennifer glanced at Rory for help.
“For the cheese, dear,” Margareta said before Rory could speak.
Cait set the tray on the dining table and disappeared into another room. She came back with a butter knife. “Here we go.”
Jennifer slowly took the knife the woman offered. They all watched her like she was to kick off the start of the festivities.
“Hey, I heard we’re breaking open the New Zealand Airedale.” Raibeart appeared in the doorway with a grin. “I’ll take a wedge of that.”
“Ya aren’t invited,” Margareta said, shooing him from the room.
It didn’t work. Raibeart dodged her hands when he saw Jennifer. “I see ya met my future bride. How’s it going, love?”
“Wrong woman,” Rory stated. “Your fiancée was out front. She didn’t appear very happy with ya. I think she said she was taking to the woods.”
Raibeart’s eyes strangely caught the light as he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the front door. “Excuse me.” He rushed to go outside. The door slammed shut behind him.
“That was mean,” Cait chastised Rory with a small laugh.
“My love?” The windowpane muffled Raibeart’s yell.
Jennifer turned to peer out the window. “Oh!”
Raibeart streaked past as his kilt fluttered behind him to land on the lawn. He ran across the yard toward the forest.
“Not again.” Margareta sighed. “I’ll send Angus after him.”
“We can do this later,” Jennifer said. “If you need to—”
“He’ll be fine. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.” Cait gestured at the tray. “Try the cheese ball.”
Jennifer took the knife, more out of duty than excitement, and cut a piece of the firm cheese before squishing it on top of a cracker. The speckled insides of the ball had a green tint to it. She lifted it to her mouth and bit.
“Mm,” she nodded that it was good even before she tasted it. She set the knife down.
The cheese didn’t have a distinct flavor. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t anything she’d crave.
“Here, try another,” Margareta said, leaning over to put a giant glob on a cracker. “Really experience the full flavor.”
Jennifer reached for the cracker, wanting to be polite to Rory’s family. She stepped back to keep them from giving her a third one. She swallowed and started to lift the second hors d’oeuvre. Her mouth went numb like she’d been given a shot of Novocain.
Jennifer looked at the loaded cracker she held. Dark liquid dripped from her mouth onto the back of her wrist. She instantly touched her lips. Her fingers slipped in what felt like blood, and she pulled her hand back to look. Thick black coated her fingertips. Her hand shook violently.
She dropped the cracker onto the floor and reached to touch her mouth with her other hand, as if that would change the result. When she drew her fingers back, they were smeared with dark fibrous chunks.
Jennifer’s eyes widened as she glanced at Rory. His lips moved, but she couldn’t hear what he said. Margareta frowned at her. Cait pointed at her face.
She turned in fear, only to catch her reflection in the windowpane. Black dripped out her eyes like tears. Her mouth filled with numbed pressure, and it became hard to breathe.
“Ma tell me ya didn’t try to make that thing yourself. Not for company!” Rory’s panicked voice sounded far away and came beneath the buzzing in her ears. “What did ya put in the recipe?”
Jennifer bent forward and coughed. Rory patted her back. A muddy clump dropped past her lips into her hands. She gasped for breath. It slid off her shaking hand onto the floor.
What the hell?
How were they not reacting to this? Didn’t they see she was throwing up mud?
“Ror…” His name barely made it past her lips as she swayed and stumbled her way out of the dining room door.
“Where are ya going, dear?” Cait asked.
Jennifer tripped over the threshold and landed on her hands and knees on the hard marble of the foyer. Pain radiated up from her knees and wrists. She coughed again, spewing the dark clumps over the clean floor.
“There you are.”
The voice had returned.
Desperate, she crawled toward the door to escape. The pressure spread from her mouth to her throat and she tried to gasp for a breath that wouldn’t come.
“Jennifer?”
Snap. Snap.
“Jennifer?”
Snap.
Jennifer gasped a high-pitched sound as she reached for her throat.
Cait leaned close to her face.
Margareta dropped her hand from where she’d been snapping her fingers beside Jennifer’s
