Page 10 of Magic in the Woods
With each pass of the cloth, I felt more alive. I could do this, be on my own, take over the Coven.
CHAPTER SIX
Dafni
I saton the bed the rest of the day and into the start of the night, my knees tucked into my chest. With my stomach full, there weren’t any rumbling sounds to distract me from listening through the door to the people who lived here. There were three of them—a woman, a young girl named Emily, and a young man named Luke. I’d heard the female voices most often, along with the sound of pots being set on a stove and dishes being washed in a metal sink. There was no yelling, no chaos—just seemingly normal, everyday activities.
The home was quiet and dark at night. I found myself brave enough to turn off the lamp beside my bed and lie down on top of the mattress. The clothes Emily had left me were adequate and comfortable. Although she was younger than me, all the clothes she provided fit. I was naturally petite, andI’d lost weight from my walk through the woods as well as the time I spent here in bed.
There were black pants with a drawstring and a white shirt that was baggy, with sleeves long enough to cover my arms down to my wrists. Emily had even included an apron that matched hers, probably from her own collection. There had been two nightgowns included in the pile of clothes, sleeveless and the collars frilly with lace. I curled up my legs inside one of them as I laid there. I didn’t want to cover myself with a blanket for fear I’d get tangled if I needed to flee quickly in the night.
My intuition told me that I wouldn’t have to run or fight these people. Unlike anyone else I’d found in these woods, they’d been kind. They’d taken care of me when I’d been unconscious, but they didn’t know who I was…
Still, my fatigue overtook my fear, and I found my eyes closed more than opened and soon drifted off into sleep.
I awoke to a high-pitched squeal and the sound of hissing—sizzling like a cauldron was boiling over.
“Oh no—oh no, no, no!”a voice whined.
I stood tentatively. After being immobile for so long it was hard to know how weak I’d still be. I pulled open the door, opening it just a crack, and looked out at the rest of the home. It was almost entirely a kitchen. With a refrigerator and freezer on one side and a stove and sink on the other, it left little room for a table with chairs, but somehow it worked. They fit a round table with four chairs alongside a window in the small space that was left. Where there weren’t cabinets, there were shelves full of books, most of them with Latin titles.
I recognized the girl, whose name I remembered was Emily, hovering over the stove messing with the dials and waving awooden spoon wildly in the air. She looked small standing next to the stove—probably five years younger than me.
“Oh gosh…oh no…” she continued.
Classical music played in the background, the sound coming from a small black radio with a long antenna perched on top of the refrigerator.
She hadn’t noticed me yet. I tiptoed into the kitchen, craning my neck to see what she was cooking on the stove. White frothy bubbles poured over the rim of the pot cascading down the sides, hissing as they hit the flames of the burner below. Whatever she was cooking smelled good…it was some sort of food. Emily was still messing with the dial of the burner, now using her spoon to try to catch the white foam before it fell into the flames.
I walked up beside her, grabbing hold of a glass bottle of oil on the counter next to the stove and pouring a stream of it into the pot.
“Oh!” The girl squeaked, moving away from the stove once she’d seen me.
The bubbles instantly subsided—a trick from my grandmother.
Emily stood on her tiptoes, flipping on the light above the stove before she looked down into the pot. The water was now bubbling at a low simmer. She looked up at me, a smile on her face. “Thank you! If I’d burned those potatoes my mom would’ve been so mad—they’re the last of our stores from last year. We’ll have to wait until fall to harvest more.”
I nodded, reaching across the stove and adjusting the dial before hunching over to check the flames below the pot. She’d had the flames too high for this size of pot. It would’ve continued to overflow until there was nothing left but dried starch on the stovetop.
“How do you know how to do that?” she asked.
I tilted my head to the side. “Do what? Adjust a flame?”
“No, how do you know how to cook?”
I looked down at the pot that now had white peeled potatoes rolling around in the bubbling water. I’d added oil to stop the overflow, just like my grandmother had taught me with potions. She’d also taught me about flame height and the heat it created. I knew how to make potions…cooking seemed similar.
I shrugged. “My grandmother taught me a little bit.”
“Great!” Emily said, grabbing cloves of garlic and a few leeks from the counter near the stove and shoving them into my chest. I instinctively grabbed hold of the food. “Then you can help me. We have to make a soup base before my mom gets back from weeding the garden.”
We?
She was asking me to help?
“There’s a knife in the block near the fridge and a cutting board on the drying rack by the sink.”
She was going to give me a knife?
