I scowled and moved through the lower floor, opening as many windows
as I could. My hand ached. I didn’t want to take the cloth off to look at it
again. The sun had started to set, I realised with a jolt. The afternoon had
melted away.
Maybe I really did fall asleep? I was just trying to get the splinter out… I
hadn’t been at it for more than a minute, tops. Right?
I returned to the kitchen. The burning smell stuck in my nose and throat. I
looked at the abomination of a cake I’d made. It was seared black. The top
had cracked, and the gorges created a strange pattern. The more I stared at
them, the more I began to think they looked like a woman lying down, her
head twisted to the side, her arms and legs flung out, one shoe knocked off
her foot—
“Jo.”
Lucky’s voice came from just over my shoulder. I startled. How long had
he been standing there? The alarms no longer blared, at least.
To my surprise, he actually smiled. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Yeah.” I gave the cake a final, wary glance. The fissures no longer
created any kind of image. I opened the cupboard under the sink and found
my kit, which hadn’t seen use since I’d moved in.
“Great.” He took it from me and carefully pulled out a chair by the
kitchen bench. “Here, have a sit down. I’ll look at your hand.”
He kept smiling. His voice was kind and soft, not the usual sharp barks he
gave me. He sounded as though he were trying to coax a frightened animal
out of a corner. It was the same way he’d spoken after my mother died.
I shivered and turned away. The doll continued to stare at me from the
windowsill. Her smile had just the right tilt to suggest she’d seen everything
that had happened in that kitchen… and was judging me for it. “I’ll be fine.
I’ll just wash it again and—”
“It’s okay, Jo. I’m here now. Just sit down, and I’ll get that fixed up in a
heartbeat.”
I hated being coddled, and I hated the patronising concern. He thought I’d
had a meltdown. Maybe I did, my mind whispered, reminding me of the
abomination of dried fruit, cocoa, and mint essence on my bench.
Lucky was waiting, eyebrows lifted, smile firmly in place. He wasstubborn, and I knew arguing would only escalate the situation and make him
worry more. I took a sharp breath through my nose and grudgingly sat. He
peeled the tea towel away from my hand and grimaced. The cloth had
become saturated with blood.
“It was such a stupid mistake.” I spoke quickly, desperate to convince
Lucky that I wasn’t crazy or dangerous. “I was just waiting for the cake to
cook, and I fell asleep. Good thing you arrived before it burnt any worse.”
He dabbed antiseptic over the finger. Fire spread through the cuts, and I
clamped my teeth together to keep silent. When he spoke, his voice still held
that awful, kind patience. “What sort of cake were you making?”
“An experiment.” I prayed he wouldn’t notice that the marks in my finger
hadn’t come from a single blade slice. “You know how chefs have started
mixing spices into sweet foods? Chili chocolate and stuff like that? I wanted
to try that in a cake. But it’s probably a good thing it burnt. I bet it would
have tasted awful.”
I was talking too quickly and too much. I shut my mouth. The cut
continued to bleed, so Lucky wrapped a clean patch of the towel over it and
applied pressure. The doorbell rang, and I flinched. “Oh, who now? ”
“I’ll get it. Keep pressing on that.” Lucky disappeared down the hall.
I lifted the cloth. The cuts didn’t look so bad, I decided. I grabbed a
plaster out of the kit and covered the cut to prevent Lucky fussing over my
finger any longer.
He appeared in the kitchen entryway and shrugged. “It’s your neighbour.
She saw the smoke and got worried.”
Ruby trailed behind him. She kept her head down so that her long hair
shielded her face, and kept sneaking wide-eyed glances at Lucky’s back. I
realised she had to be frightened of strange men—especially tall ones.
I jumped around the bench to offer her some security. “Sorry for
worrying you. I fell asleep. Everything’s fine now.”