We passed Alcippe on our way around the house. Her fingers twitched as I walked by. I smiled at the girl walking beside me and attempted chitchat, saying something nonsensical about which pumpkins made the best pies-as if I knew. The young Amazon played along, and we both passed the high priestess without darting a glance in her direction, but the hair on the back of my neck curled upward, and my eyes scanned the terrain ahead, watching for another attack. Earth was Alcippe’s element of choice-not that she couldn’t call on one of the other three-but since it seemed to be her steady fallback, like air was mine, I assumed it was her area of strength.
We made it to the root cellar intact, but as the girl started to descend the steps, I stopped her. Being under a pile of earth and stone with Alcippe so close did not seem like a good plan. “Is there somewhere else we could go?”
She adjusted the pumpkin, wedging it against her hip for a better grip, then glanced at the back of the farmhouse. “We could make pies. You were just talking about it.”
I was? “How private…?”
“Plenty. Everyone’s outside. It’ll be fun and get me out of cooking later.” She laughed. “Not that I mind.”
Yeah, who would mind standing over a hot stove, slaving away for a bunch of ungrateful warriors? I suppressed a grimace. Instead, I stepped back and held out one arm. “Lead on.”
A bounce in her step, she headed toward the back door. I smacked my palm against the pumpkin pressed against my stomach. I was going to bake a pie. Mother would love this.
Chapter Eleven
Luckily, the back door led directly into the kitchen, not a room I’d spent much time in during any of my stays at this safe house. Future warriors, which had been my mother’s plans for me, did not learn to cook; future priestesses, my grandmother’s plans for me, were considered a threat to all things culinary. Their tendency to play with the elements, especially fire and wind, wreaked havoc with recipe outcomes.
By the time I’d settled into my own artisan plan as an adult, there had been no reason for me to enter the kitchen.
So, the room happily held no bad memories. I could almost pretend I wasn’t in the house where I’d lost my son at all.
Almost.
“Is there a problem?” Dana, she’d told me her name a few minutes earlier, stopped in the process of pulling an apron over her head. Her face showing curiosity and a little concern, she watched me as I stared through the door that led from the kitchen into the rest of the house. The dining room I remembered. Things hadn’t changed much in ten years-same battered oak table and chairs, same ugly 1970s gold chandelier. Memories started creeping back.
“No, nothing.” I shoved the swinging door closed with my foot and turned my back on it.
Dana chattered merrily, pulling pie pans, spoons, butter, and other necessities from cupboards, drawers, and the refrigerator. In the kitchen, or maybe out from under the other Amazons’ watchful glares, she was a different person-confident and content.
I grabbed a knife and did the only job I knew for sure I’d be able to master. I chopped the pumpkin in two and scooped out seeds, dumping the stringy stuff onto a cookie sheet Dana had set out for the purpose.
“The trips to Madison…” I prompted.
“They were fun. Maybe because we knew we weren’t supposed to be going there.” While Dana pulled out various ingredients, she watched as I cut the pumpkin into pieces. When I was done, she tossed them into a bowl with water, covered it with a lid, and put it into the microwave.
Pumpkin-cooking under way, she cut butter into a bowl of flour with a fork, sprinkled some ice water on top, and started kneading the mixture with her bare hands.
I watched, somewhat fascinated. It was like watching Bubbe perform a new spell. How this mess would work out to dessert was beyond my understanding.
After only a few seconds of kneading, she flipped the dough out of the bowl onto the flour-covered tabletop and held out a rolling pin. “Make it that size.” She nodded toward a pie pan.
I wiped my hands on my pants. Horror shot through Dana’s eyes. I spun, expecting Alcippe or a band of warriors to be standing behind me, but aside from Dana and me, the kitchen was still vacant.
With a shrug, I picked up the rolling pin and did my best to flatten the dough. “So, Madison. You went there to…?” I prompted.
Dana edged around me and took the now-steaming bowl of pumpkin from the microwave. After dropping the pumpkin into a blender and pureeing it smooth, Dana replied, “Boys, of course.”
Of course. “You find any?”
A tiny smile curved Dana’s lips and her hand moved toward her middle. “We did.”
“You’re pregnant?” The rolling pin fell from my fingers with a thud.
“I’m twenty-two.”
Well, then that was okay, another few years and her eggs would have been all dried up. I ground my teeth together to keep my sarcastic thoughts to myself. Thanks to the priestesses, Amazons had had control over their reproduction for centuries before female humans had. Because of our long lives, most of us waited into our eighties to have a child.
“Were the other girls…?” The thought made my stomach lurch. I hadn’t sensed spirits aside from the girls’, but I was far from the most experienced in such deductions.
Dana poured the pumpkin back into its bowl along with a mixture of sugar and spices. Stirring, she replied, “I don’t think so. None of the other girls who went with us are-just me.” Again with the dreamy, too-stupid-to-know-better look.
I mean, I loved Harmony. But at twenty-two, I’d have no more been able to take care of her than-I glanced around-than bake this pie. And that, of course, was the difference. Dana was a hearth-keeper and obviously one content with her fate. The whole maternal thing was probably as natural to her as casting a spell was to Bubbe or tossing a spear was to Mother. I’d never been that natural at anything. I was good at art, but even that didn’t come to me like breathing.
“So, boys. What kind did you meet?”
“College boys, mainly. Most of the girls were warriors. Tereis was. Aggie was an artisan.”
No one had told me the dead girls’ names, but it was easy to guess who she was talking about.
“They both wanted athletes.”
Of course.
“The bar we went to. A lot of UW football players hang out there.”
“And your guy?” It wasn’t really a piece of information I needed to know, but I was interested.
“He worked there. Part-time. He wasn’t as…you know.” She mimicked broad shoulders with her hands. “But there was something about him. I don’t think he was stronger than the guys the other girls went after. Just different.”
She walked over to survey my work. It must have passed muster. She flopped it into the pie pan.
“Was there any one guy the other girls showed interest in, or that showed interest in them?”
Busy pressing perfect ridges into the crust, Dana sighed. “All the guys showed interest in the others, especially the warriors.”
Some things never changed. “But no one in particular? Did Tereis and Aggie talk to the same boy?”
Dana poured the pumpkin into the crust, then tapped the spoon against the bowl’s lip. “Not that I noticed. Tim”-she touched her stomach, an unconscious gesture that told me who she was referring to-“tried to be polite, but they brushed him off. Had bigger fish to fry, I guess.” She carried the pie to the oven and jerked the door open. The rack inside rattled.
Then, as if remembering what had happened to the pair, she flushed. “Not that I blame them. I realize it’s important to pick someone strong. I just…” She stared down at the unbaked pie.