“Oh, aren’t you in a mood today?” she asked as she sighed heavily. The annoyed look on her face did nothing to detract from her beauty, and Quinn wondered if she woke up that perfect or if she had to put some work into it with cosmetics. She didn’t look like she was wearing makeup, but her skin was just so flawless she wouldn’t be surprised if Mara had a full arsenal to apply in the morning.
“I supposed we’d better get going. William is in a mood, and we don’t want to bring the energy in the room down now, do we?” She looked up at her brother who towered above her, silent as per his usual. “Corbin? I am out of some of the herbs I need for my ointments. Is there any way I can stop out and get some from your garden tomorrow?” Mara glanced at Quinn and gave her a saccharine smile. “I sell holistic health and beauty products, and the herbs Corbin grows are just the best.”
Quinn balked at that. She was supposed to go to his garden tomorrow, to his home, to his private space. How many times had Mara already been there? She wanted Corbin to say no, but she couldn’t make him do something like that. She knew she was ridiculous, feeling the way she did, but he was hers - he had just said so. Maybe she had a bit of the devil in her, or maybe she was just finding a little bit of the spine she wished she had for the last ten years, but Quinn could not stop herself from acting out in the pettiest of ways.
“Oh Mara, I would love to help you with that,” she said sweetly. She didn’t know a thing about what herbs Mara needed, but she would be damned if she told the other woman that. “Corbin is taking me to see his garden tomorrow. Tell me what you need, and I will get it for you, no problem at all.” And because she was feeling extra feisty, she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed Corbin on the cheek. His eyes widened in surprise, and then he smiled as she whispered “Twenty-two,” then loudly enough for everyone else to hear “you’ll help me with that won’t you, Corbin?”
She may have said his name, but she may as well have called him “Honey” with how sickeningly sweet the word dripped out of her mouth. It sounded weird even to her, and now she wanted to groan in embarrassment, sink into a hole in the floor, and disappear so no one could see how lame she had become. Corbin’s body shook with silent laughter, and Quinn heard a muffled snort that could only be Rose from behind her. William looked like he wanted to murder everyone, and Mara still stood there serenely as if nothing going on in the room affected her in any way.
“Yes, that sounds nice, Quinn. Thank you. I’ll send the list with William tomorrow.”
With that, she waved goodbye to the rest of the room and practically dragged her brother out the door. Rose was full on laughing now, and Quinn was too embarrassed to look up at Corbin until he put his hand under her chin and chucked it gently, forcing her to raise her head.
His eyes were dancing and he wasn’t smiling, but his lips were twitching at the corners like maybe he wanted to. “Quinn, you have no reason to be jealous. There is a zero percent chance that I would ever look at anyone but you. This is new to you, so you don’t fully understand yet, but you will. I’ll show you,” and with that, he kissed her three times; once on the forehead, a gentle pressing of the lips; once on the nose, just the barest of pecks; and then again on the mouth. Quinn wound her hands up his neck and through his hair and stood on her tiptoes to get closer as she opened his mouth with her tongue and ran it over his front teeth. He tasted so good, she didn’t think she would ever get enough of kissing him.
Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, she thought to herself.
There was a small cough, and then an elderly voice sounded from behind them, “Well, that escalated quickly. Better get a move on, Son, I think your biscuits are burning.”
“Miss Benny, how long were you hiding?” Corbin at least did them both the courtesy of looking embarrassed, but Quinn couldn’t even turn around to look at the grandmotherly figure. Her cheeks were aflame, and she could only stare at the floor, heart rate rising.
I’ve done a weird thing again. Shoot shoot shoot! Quinn felt the familiar panic rising in her throat. She had just gotten here, to this safe place, and now she was caught making out with an almost but not really stranger in front of the only two people who had made her feel welcome in such a long time. Would she ever stop being so awkward?
The chuckle was not something Quinn expected to hear from the small, matronly woman. She expected to be chastised, but instead, Miss Benny came up to her and placed her arms around Quinn and squeezed. It was a lovely feeling, that hug. It spoke of familial ties that Quinn herself hadn’t felt since the before, and before she could psych herself out of it, Quinn was hugging her back.
“I’ll ask it again. How long were you hiding?” asked Corbin, this time he there was most definitely a smile in his voice, as well as a clear affection for the older woman.
“This is my place, Son. It doesn’t matter if I am in this room, the basement, or in a hallway, I am right where I plan to be. It isn’t hiding if it is my own home.”
“Miss Benny does not like Mara,” Corbin explained to Quinn.
“Cannot stand her in fact,” this came from Rose.
Quinn could not for the life of her figure out why someone wouldn’t like such an angelic woman, aside from her possible infatuation with Corbin, which really could not be tolerated. Other than that small flaw, she had seemed like a perfectly sweet individual.
“I’m an old lady,” Miss Benny cut into Quinn’s thoughts, startling her. “I don’t need a reason to like or dislike anyone.” Quinn hadn’t been aware that she had spoken her thoughts out loud, but Miss Benny had responded to her as if she had, so she must have been mumbling without realizing. Doing more weird stuff, Quinn, she thought to herself.
Corbin was incredulous, “You like Murderface William, but quiet little Mara is abhorrent to you. I don’t get it.”
Miss Benny’s expression turned mulish and belligerent like only an elderly person could get away with. “Boy, I wasn’t kidding when I said something was burning.” With speed at complete odds with her advanced years, Miss Benny snagged the dish towel from Corbin’s shoulder and gave him two cracks across the backside with it. “Get your butt in the kitchen and finish cooking dinner!” Like an afterthought she added, “Oh, and add another place setting, Corbin dear; we have another guest this evening.”
Leaving Corbin gaping at the apparent dismissal, Miss Benny grabbed her arm and led her past the great staircase and into the formal dining area of the lodge. The perfectly square tables with their hunter green cloth napkins showed stark against the crisp white table linens. Quinn listened raptly as Miss Benny began to instruct her as to the proper way to set the flatware in a formal table setting. Such a common task to accomplish in such an abnormal situation, and yet Miss Benny had still not mentioned a word about Quinn’s outburst the day before or anything about the accident ten years ago. She was treating Quinn just like another member of the family, like Corbin or Rose. Standing there, being bossed around by a granny lady was one of the most enjoyable experiences Quinn could remember as an adult. To thank the older woman for treating her with absolute normalcy, Quinn gave her most focused attention and lost herself to learning about the different kinds of forks used in a meal. She learned that by placing your fork and knife a certain way, you can signify to a server in a restaurant that you are finished, and they can remove your plate. It was mundane; it was boring; it was wonderful.
Corbin could not believe his eyes as he brought out the dinner and laid the repast down the center of the large banquet table in the middle of the dining area. Two of the square tables had been pushed together to accommodate everyone plus the food comfortably. With one eyebrow raised, he laid the platter containing the slow cooked pork roast in front of where their “dinner guest” sat and maintained eye contact with the bushy-browed old man the entire time. Laid down the large salad bowl – slow blink. Roasted red potatoes – blink. All the way down the table as Corbin put dishes of food from the cart he had wheeled from the kitchen, he never took his eyes off the
old man.
The Green Man was in his dining room, getting ready to share a meal. In all the years that Corbin had known the green man, he had never seen him inside the lodge. Did magical forest guardians even eat? If they did eat, was it even human food? The old man’s eyebrows lowered in consternation, and he gave Corbin a baleful look, as if he knew what the young man had been thinking.
He always did that. Sometimes the old man knew Corbin’s thoughts before he spoke them, and that pissed Corbin off. Come to think of it, Miss Benny seemed to have a knack for doing the same damn thing, but she was a little more tactful about it. Sometimes he wondered if Miss Benny was something other like Quinn or the old man or even himself, but so far she wasn’t talking, and he wasn’t going to ask.
Corbin didn’t say much while everyone was eating; he was too busy watching Quinn’s facial expressions while she ate the food he made for her. Food he put his soul into for her. She was breathtaking to look at, but she was very delicate and frail as well. If that was normal for her then fine, but if she was so wan because she wasn’t taking care of herself properly, then he would make damn sure to put some meat on her bones himself. He had learned the gift of cooking from Miss Benny, and she had been magic in the kitchen. Pun maybe intended, Corbin thought to himself. Miss Benny was a mystery.
The dinner passed with Miss Benny and Rose making small talk about the weather and how many guests had reservations for the summer, the old man not saying shit to anyone and just staring a hole at Quinn, and Quinn making noncommittal responses to small talk questions throw her way. Corbin stayed mainly silent until he finally couldn’t take it anymore and snapped.
“Are we really going to act like this isn’t the weirdest meal we have ever shared and that nothing is going on? Is that really a thing that is happening right now? I don’t know about you, but in the ten years I have lived here, I have never had the local forest deity over for supper.”
He started to say more but was stopped by Quinn’s soft hand on his leg. “I think,” she said slowly, “I think that everyone was being very courteous and giving me time to get used to everyone at the table. There is a lot to know, and it seems like everyone knows more about why I am here than I do.” She paused to smile, and her eyes were shiny with unshed tears.
“Thank you so much for that,” she said to the table at large.
“Meals are meant to be shared with family and those close to us,” Miss Benny cut in, “and you gave me a son ten years ago. I would have never known Corbin as the sweet young man you see here today if it wasn’t for you. So to me, you are family as well.”
Both Corbin and the green man raised their eyebrows at the “sweet young man” comment. Corbin couldn’t think of a single similar quality in himself that would relate to what the older woman was saying, but Miss Benny was a Goddamn saint and fuck the old man for thinking any different. Fuck him and his angry eyebrows.
He was saved from telling the old man how much he didn’t like his face by Rose piping up. “We all know why you are here; we have all been waiting for you to come back. It was your journey to make; we couldn’t know where you were or what you were going through, only that you would come back someday. You don’t have to feel out of place here at all. Everyone has something inside them that is a little different. Yours is just a bit more visible.”
With that last cryptic statement, Rose got up from the table and started stacking plates on the side cart that had been used to bring the food out. Corbin and Quinn both moved to help her, but Rose held up her hand like a stop sign.
“I can do a sisterly thing every once in a while,” she grinned, eyes shining with mirth. “Besides, I can tell when there is something important to talk about, so I will be in the kitchen while you grown-ups sort things out.” Rose stopped to take the plates in front of the old man, who had pulled a home rolled cigarette out of his pocket and was patting his other pockets trying to find a light. Corbin wondered why he didn’t just light it with magic, and no doubt the man could do exactly that, but Rose surprised everyone by pulling a flip top lighter with a unicorn etched on the front out of her pocket and lighting the end for him. Then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Good night, Uncle Gus,” she said brightly and turned to push the cart into the kitchen.
Corbin thought maybe he had lost his mind. “Uncle Gus?” he whisper-screamed. “He has a name? And you know it? And you are so close that you are calling him Uncle? What is this shit? Have I been living under a rock for ten years? What the shit is happening around here?”
Rose swiveled her head to look at him, green eyes uncharacteristically serious, and said, “Your universe is still pretty small, Brother. I know that you have had a hard time of things, and I can appreciate that, I can. But there are more things in this world than just you. Tunnel vision is a dangerous thing.”
Then she disappeared, serenaded by the back and forth slapping of the kitchen door. About thirty seconds later, her voice could be heard belting out the lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody” over the sound of running water.
Well, this evening just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
Quinn looked over the table at the other three occupants, all of whom seemed to be staring at her and waiting for her to start. What was she supposed to say that wasn’t going to make her sound like a lunatic? Sure they said she was safe here and they knew all about her, but certainly there was a limit to how much weird could be thrown around the table at once. She was so nervous that she had about chewed a hole in her lip and her knee would not stop shaking, foot tapping endlessly under the table until Corbin put one hand on her leg to still her. His touch went miles to soothe her physical signs of nervousness, but it couldn’t quite stop the tornado going on inside of her. She was about to have a real conversation about the things that were happening to her with people who actually seemed as though they believed her and not doctors trying to decide which medication to put her on.
“Why did it take you so long to come here? Why after ten years?” asked the old man apparently known as Gus. “I understand you need answers, anybody would in your position, but why wait so long? I have an idea,” the old man said, “but I want to hear you say it.”
Quinn struggled for air. The old man made her nervous, and sometimes she felt like when she spoke, he was looking around her words for the meaning behind what she wasn’t saying and not what was actually spoken out loud. She’d already told Corbin everything, but the old man and Miss Benny probably weren’t privy to the information.
“I was in a coma at the hospital in Duluth. I was there for months where they operated on my skull and repaired the broken bones in my face. My face didn’t scar up too badly, a few light lines under my eyebrows and around my nose, but I have a doozy running under my hairline in the back. I have been on medication for most of nine out of the last ten years. The doctors blamed my memory loss on the head trauma, but to be honest, after all this time, I really think the drugs played a bigger part.” Quinn twisted her hands nervously in her lap. “I didn’t come back here because I didn’t know I was supposed to. Everything that I remembered, I remembered from dreams. Every time I tried to tell someone about my dreams, they changed my medication. My foster parents didn’t believe me, my friends were way ahead of me socially when I finally came home and was able to attend school again and to be honest, I didn’t even believe myself.”
“But why now?” Gus interrupted. He seemed genuinely interested in the answer to that specific question and was getting grumpy because Quinn hadn’t answered it yet. The old man made Quinn nervous; it was a fact that he downright scared her. Nobody ever wanted to recognize her power before, and Quinn struggled all this time to suppress what lived under her skin, but this old man seemed familiar. The energy living inside Quinn seemed to think so too and made her restless, wanting to do something but not knowing what. The not knowing, that was scary too.
Corbin grabbed her fingers, which had begun tapping a rhythm on the table in nervousness, and laced them with
his. His simple touch gave her the confidence to go on.
“The medications were killing me slowly. They made me feel brain dead, and ultimately my writing suffered, my art suffered, and my body suffered. I was on such a cocktail that one medication got me going during the day and one helped me sleep at night. Side effects made me lose my appetite and lose weight, and I had to start taking something to help me want to eat and keep the nausea away. I was eating more pills than food, and I hated it. I hated that I had to be medically suppressed just to live, and just because I am nervous and scared to outside doesn't mean I don’t remember what it was like.” Quinn sighed wistfully.
“I remember the grass in between my bare toes and the sun on my face and being able to sit on a stone under the trees and draw without worrying I was going to freak out and hurt someone. I remember breathing clean air and talking and laughing and being able to have a conversation with strangers without having a panic attack.” Angrily, Quinn closed her free hand into a fist and thumped it lightly on the table. “I remember living, and that was not what I was doing, so I decided to stop taking the meds.”
“Not all at once,” she amended, “I had to stop them in stages, and it was brutal. First went the downers, then the uppers, and finally, when I could sleep again, the dreams came back. I couldn’t even classify them as nightmares because I was never really scared. I always started out really happy and then just really sad. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I started having anxious dreams. I would wake up with pain in my chest and just like, I don’t know, an urgent feeling. Like there was so much more to know, and I just had to find out my story or something bad was going to happen. I don’t know why I felt that way, but I have one friend from my online life group that I told my story to, and she urged me to come here. I believe her exact words were
You are a grown ass woman, and you can go places and do things.
Northwoods Magic (Northwoods Fairy Tales Book 1) Page 10
