He nodded in response, perhaps too tired to keep moving, the banging of porcelain and metal in the back doing nothing to sway him further away from sleep. He’d been tired lately, deeply so. Once or twice, he murmured to me that he now knew how I felt, a comment that made me laugh. Still, I couldn’t ignore the way that he struggled to keep his head up.
I let him drift, dozing closer and closer to the edge. It was a kindness in the end, though he’d insisted that he wanted to remain awake as long as possible, I couldn’t stand to see him fight it. He’d awake again soon, give his order, and then we’d be on our way. There was no harm in only allowing a few minutes.
Or so I thought.
Smoke began to pour out of the kitchen, a heavy cough following suit. Leo’s eyes sprang open, and I began to stand once more, concern coating both of our expressions. When it didn’t stop immediately, the alarm became far harder to fight.
“Hello?” My voice carried as I began to walk away from Leo, my hand lightly pressing him back into the chair. “Is everything alright?”
No response.
I stepped forward, casting a wary look back to Leo, yet calmed by the lack of fire alarms ringing.
“Hello?” I called. “Is anyone in there?”
A sputter responded to me, and I rushed through the yellow saloon doors that served as an entrance to the kitchen, alarm bells ringing in my head even if they weren’t ringing on the wall. My hand sat on the door, ready to push it in before a face greeted me, Blue eyes nearly lost in a sea of glass, soot covering her face in long smudges.
A fretting old woman pushed through past me, her croaking voice loud as she announced to the parlor, “No need for concern, anyone, just another grand old mistake on my part!” Her hands wrung together as she admitted, “just a silly old woman, trying once again to relive her youth! No concern!” Her face suggested that there was much concern to be had, she was nearly in tears
She stomped her feet, clearly disappointed in herself, the motion shaking loose thick black soot from her skin. Mottled, paper thin skin showed again, a shock of white visible through the black. She pulled the round glasses off her face, sniffling as she wiped away the tears from her eyes, doing very little to help with the blackness on her face, instead forcing more of the soot from her sleeves to adhere to her eyes.
“My mother’s recipes, and yet here I am, her flesh and blood who can’t even begin to cook them! A liar that Marla Cain is, curse her and her cookbook! Easy she says, that’s what they all say! Oh, to dig her up and give her a piece of my mind,” she grumbled into the ground, her eyes downcast as she shuffled closer. But then, the edge of my shoe must have entered her vision, the woman’s eyes widened as she looked up, hurriedly placing her glasses crookedly onto her nose. “Oh, I’m so sorry there, miss, you must ignore me, these are the prattling’s of—” Her mouth fell open, the woman removing her glasses and then placing them once more, squinting through the large lenses. “You,” she said, a strange sort of excitement to her tone. “The girl!”
Oh.
I recognized her then, though it’d been a while since I’d so much as thought of her. The older woman from the shop, the one who had wanted to buy the cookbook that her mother once used. There she was, covered in soot, cursing over what was very likely the same cookbook. Her blue eyes formed into perfect circles as she stretched upward to look at me, amusement on her features.
“You’re here alone?” She marveled, but then quickly reassured herself, “No, of course not. Meek, a little shy, but—” She cut herself off, throwing an excited look behind her, her slipper covered feet skittering forward on the floorboards, a sharp inhale sounding from her lungs.
“I…” I began, unable to figure out what exactly to say to the woman.
But she seemed to know exactly what to say, and exactly what to do. In a few easy steps she crossed the floor, and stood before Leo, grasping his face in her hands. “Leo!” She marveled, patting his cheeks. “The nice young man! Why, I never thought I’d see you here!” She pulled away, taking in his face once more in his entirety before, seeming to have decided that she found a fault with it, reaching into her pocket and withdrawing a stained handkerchief. Licking the tip, she leaned forward, wiping away some imaginary dirt. “Oh my, look at you! Just as you were the day I met you.” He was most certainly was not, but no one needed to point that out.
“The witch,” was all Leo could begin to say, his voice faint as she moved back in, throwing her arms tightly around his neck.
“First my sister at the crossroads, and now here; my you’ve had the strangest of luck,” she said, not caring to explain herself. She turned back to me, gleaming as she declared, “which means that your name is Lyra, Lydia’s girl.” She clapped her hands in delight, eyes moving from him to me, unsure where to land before she declared, “and on just the day that you two were supposed to meet! What a lovely surprise!” She was practically shaking with excitement, looking back and forth between us over and over again, seeming to struggle to decide what exactly it is she would like to do. “Oh, to hell with it, I’ll get the tea first!” She declared, hurrying past with little regard for Leo or I’s astounded expressions.
She pushed through the doors beside me, once again vanishing into the kitchen.
Leo opened his mouth
