Christy said, “Oh this is creepy. It looks like a torture chamber. It is where they used to keep the dragons? In dungeons?”
Marlene smiled as she led them through the wide room littered with long tables and chairs, bookcases filled with various tomes, and pretty rugs that kept their footsteps from echoing across the floor. “No. I imagine they saw enough dungeons back in our world.”
That piqued Christy’s interest, and fast. “What do you mean?”
Marlene led them to one of the long tables. A whole lot of beakers and glasses and various spices and other objects lay upon it. “Well, I mean that in our world most of the dragons that are here now were once prisoners. They weren’t always in favor with the king. In fact, at one time they were all sentenced to death. They were held in the dungeons. At least the men were. Max and Blake’s fathers both. Aura was held in the tower, you know, the one where they held all the royal prisoners? As I understand it, if that war had broken out and they had been so needed, she would’ve lost her head.”
Christy welcomed the chance to think of anything except Blake. “Aura? What did she do to end up in the tower?”
Marlene began to lift the herbs from the table and snipped the stems off them with a pair of deadly sharp shears. “Well, she plotted to overthrow the king of course. She had her reasons. They were, from what I hear, pretty good ones too.”
Heather burst in with, “I have to know. I’ve never asked Max because...Well, it just seems rude. How old are they?”
Marlene set the herbs that she had been trimming to one side and picked up another bunch. Her eyes held no expression. “In all honesty? I don’t know because time is so different in our worlds. I’d say at least a thousand-years-old in our time. Here? Maybe five-hundred, six-hundred-years-old.”
Heather muttered, “I never thought I’d date an older man. I never really thought I’d date a man that old.”
Christy ignored that. She asked Marlene, “Why did you want to come here?”
Marlene handed her a bunch of herbs and a pair of the shears. “Just trim them like I am if you don’t mind.” The light bounced off the end of the shears. “I came because I heard the stories and I knew this was where I wanted to be. I never felt like I belonged in our world. I was always kind of a hippie I guess, and a solitary practitioner of magic. I wanted to find a place that was simpler, someplace where I had enough space to be me.”
They continued to trim the herbs. Heather asked, “So, you’re a witch?”
Marlene said, “Over there I was a very weak which. Here, my powers are magnified.”
Christy surveyed the herbs in her hands. “Are we helping you with a spell?”
Marlene said, dryly, “No. You’re helping me make pesto.”
Heather’s mouth fell open. “I beg your pardon?”
Marlene said, “You know, pesto. Oil, basil, oregano. A few other things mixed in and presto, pesto.”
She grinned as she said the last two words and Christy found herself hovering on the edge of laughter too.
Heather gave the herbs in her hands a dubious glance. “Why do you want pesto?”
Marlene said, “Because it is delicious. Also, the cook is great, love her, mean it. But she has been using the same recipes for at least a thousand years. I’m doing my best to convince her to make something new. I’m hoping to whip up a batch of fresh egg noodles and pesto before she gets into the kitchen, put it on the table for dinner tomorrow, and get everyone to say they like it before she can snatch it off and throw it out the window.”
Heather looked bemused. “Why would she do that?”
Marlene rolled her eyes. “Because she’s a kitchen tyrant. She honestly thinks things have to have marzipan and almond pastes and all meats must be stuffed, preferably with other meats, to be good.”
Christy set one bunch of the herbs aside and began trimming another. So, we have to make a lot of pesto is what you’re saying.”
Heather said, “And you can’t make it in the kitchen because she would catch you.”
Marlene said, “Exactly. She thinks I’m down here creating magic, and she’s right: I’m making pesto. I have to tell you if there’s anything more magical than the big bowl of fresh noodles loaded down with pesto and maybe a couple of diced tomatoes and a little bit of chopped onion, I have not yet found it.”
I want to stay here.Those five words flashed into the field of Christy’s vision like they were lit up in glowing neon lights. She did want to stay. Not just for Blake, but for herself. She wanted to be there. She wanted to know what it would be like to be herself and nobody else. To not have to get up in the mornings and put on that face that would get her through the day. To not have to pretend to be happy when she wasn’t. To not have to smile when men walked by and patted her on the ass and called her honey or sweetie even though she was one of the company’s best and brightest employees.
But the truth was, she had been pretending to be self-confident, brilliant, funny, and happy for so damn long that she had convinced herself that she was. And in everyone else’s eyes, she was. She had everything she had ever dreamed of. One of the best things that it ever happened to her in her entire life had been the day her mother had walked into that apartment that Christy had gotten for herself and said, “Oh honey, you finally did get yourself a place right where you always wanted to be.”
Those words had been high praise coming from her mother. Her mother, who had found the love of her life and taken off to the other side of the country shortly thereafter. Her mother, who called maybe once a month but only if Christy called her first and left a voicemail for her asking if she was all right. Her mother, who had always put herself first and who had never seemed interested in her daughter. The mother who always told her she was pretty but who had never told her that she was smart.
Heather’s hand stilled Christy’s. Christy looked down to see herself holding a ragged and somewhat chopped bunch of herbs. She blurted out, “I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else.”
Marlene said, “It is fine. The stems were off. Half the chaplains done. No worries. You just did the next part of the job a little early, that’s all.”
Christy stared at her. Then she asked, “Did you ever fall in love with any of them?”
Marlene said, “Course I did. I am mated to one.”
She was? That was something that Christy had not known. She looked at the table, wanting to ask a million questions but not daring to. If she did ask this question, she would be giving her own heart away, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. She could not trust anyone, not even Heather, with how she felt at that moment. She couldn’t trust herself with that knowledge either.
Heather said, “How much pesto does it take to feed a table full of dragons?”
Marlene gave them a mischievous smile. She produced several large mortars and pestles from below the table as well as a large jug of oil. “A whole lot. I hope you girls have been doing your upper body workouts.”
It was going to be a long and difficult process, pounding that enormous bunch of herbs into the delicious and savory sauce that Marlene craved so much but Christy welcomed that labor. She was frustrated and anxious and beating the hell out of something was probably just what she needed to do.
