She didn’t see it.
She didn’t hear it.
She couldn’t understand.
“It’s had a few names. Welsh rabbit or Welsh rarebit in theeighteenth century, but given the origins of those names I think ‘cheese on toast’ will do.”
“It’s still chasing us. I can feel it. It knows where we are.”
“And it waited until we drove away to spring its trap? No. You’re driving home to a rest. You’re warm and dry. You’re learning about my favorite food for autumn evenings.”
He glanced at Valentina. Her color still looked wrong, like a badly painted mannequin, but it was improving.
Green checked the rearview and said nothing.
“You might infer from the name ‘cheese on toast’ that you already understand the recipe, but you would be oversimplifying. The name doesn’t do the meal justice. Like most simple foods, the ingredients are key. A homemade loaf. Not too dense. Thick slices. Toasted on a fork by the fire. Modern toasters do not replicate that flavor.”
She paused and fished out her jerky bag and insisted Green take a piece.
“You chew while I talk.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I didn’t say you were. Now chew.”
He did as he was told. The jerky tasted like salt and campfire smoke.
“Toasted bread.”
Green’s heart still beat in his ears, but he felt the adrenaline easing.
“Yes. Fire toasted on a fork. Once you have your toast, you need a rich Cheshire cheese. Hard to find in North America these days, but worth the effort. The smell of it sets your feet on cobblestones in eighteenth-century England. Now, you would be doing this while you toast your bread, mind you, but you crumble the Cheshire with a three-finger pinch of breadcrumbs and the crushed yolk of a boiled egg into a pan and warm it on the fire. Just hot enough to melt the cheese and bring the mixture together.”
Green chewed jerky and shivered. He worked to watch the road without thinking about his hands on the steering wheel. They were still the wrong color.
Valentina’s words pulled him into a firelit place full of the smell of toasting bread and cheese.
“Like all the best comfort foods, this recipe isn’t too complicated, and it has the added benefit that if you begin with frost-reddened cheeks and numb fingers, you will thaw yourself while you prepare your meal. Turn left here.”
Green turned.
If it wanted to, the wolf could already be back at Candle-Fly.
Maybe it was stalking Dancer as she walked out to watch the sunset.
Maybe it was visiting Alf and Jerome. Perhaps everyone he met now was cursed to die.
Maybe it was lying low in the bed of the truck.
He thumbed the acorn in his pocket and heard a line from an old horror movie.
The call is coming from inside the house!
“Next, of course, you spread the Cheshire mixture on your toasted bread. You could eat it then, but you would miss the crowning touch that takes it from simply delicious to transcendent.”
They passed the Count and Countess and Green slowed to look. No wolf. No sign of danger. His car was there, windshield still broken.
“Do you know what a salamander is, Mr. Green?”
