I looked down at my hands. They were smeared with flour and dried
vanilla extract. A raised red mark stood out on my index finger. I crossed to
the sink, washed my hands clean, and checked again. The small red bump
had a dark centre. The splinter from my first day in Marwick was still stuck
under my skin. I grumbled to myself and went to find my sewing box. I
couldn’t believe the wood had been there so long without bothering me
before.
The discordant smells of cinnamon and mint essence floated through my
kitchen as I settled under the brightest light with a needle. I poked at the
splinter, trying to ease it out, but the skin seemed to have melded over it .
“Fine, be stubborn.” I gritted my teeth and poked the needle through the
skin. Blood welled, hiding the black wood fragment from sight. I kept
digging, trying to get under it, trying to even find it. Something warm trickled
over my finger and slipped down the back of my hand. My mental agitation
manifested in frantic and furious probing. The warmth continued to flow. It
dribbled over my wrist and dripped onto the bench. I went deeper.
The doorbell rang, and I snapped out of what felt like a trance. For a
second, I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing. Then I looked at my hand
and choked on a gasp.
Blood flowed from where I’d gorged a hole in my finger. It was everywhere—running over my hand, onto the bench, onto the floor. I ran to
the sink and put my hand under the water. Hot pain bloomed from the cut.
The visitor leaned on the doorbell, creating a cacophony of noise through
my house.
“I’m coming!” I yelled. I pulled my hand out from under the water. The
cut didn’t look too large, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding. I grabbed a tea towel
and bundled it around my hand.
A new alarm joined the blaring doorbell. I looked up. Smoke filled the
kitchen; it poured out of the oven in heavy black plumes. I swore and hurried
to unlatch the window. When I opened the oven, I nearly choked on the
smoke. The cake was scorched black. I didn’t understand; it hadn’t been
cooking for more than ten minutes.
The visitor was knocking now, the bangs growing increasingly urgent. I
muttered a swear word, turned off the oven, and ran down the hallway.
“Hold on! I’m coming.” I unlatched the door and opened it with my left
hand, the right still swaddled in the tea towel.
Lucky stood on the doorstep, his long features grim. “Took you long
enough. I was starting to think the cats had eaten you after all.”
I pulled a face. “Don’t start. I’ve had a rubbish day. And I wasn’t
expecting you to get here early.”
He gave me an odd look. The smoke alarm continued to wail. Lucky’s
eyes shifted from the tea towel wrapped around my hand to the hallway,
where black smoke rolled along the ceiling. “I’m late, actually. Jo, what
happened?”
“Nothing,” I said reflexively. “Wait here a moment. I’ve got to sort my
kitchen out.”
In typical Lucky fashion, he ignored me and followed me down the
hallway. I pulled the cake out of the still-hot oven and threw it on the
stovetop. Then I grabbed a chair, dragged it under the smoke alarm, and
climbed onto it so that I could reach the source of the blaring beeps.
“It’s not like you to burn a cake,” Lucky yelled to be heard over the siren.
“And what happened to your hand?”
Lies sounded more reasonable than the truth. “I fell asleep holding a
knife. The doorbell startled me, and I accidentally cut myself.”
Finding the button to turn off the alarm was awkward with one hand
swaddled, so I smacked at the battery cover until it popped open. I threw the
batteries on the bench. I’d barely gotten off the chair when a second alarmwent off in the hallway.
“I’ll get it.” Lucky grabbed the chair from me, even though I was pretty
sure he was tall enough to reach the alarm without it.