The Wizard's Herbarium: The Wolf Child

Part 15

Colt watched the ingredients he bought rot away before his eyes. The skins of the bell peppers loosened and wrinkled, the green onions became limp and discoloured, and the potatoes grew spots and sprouted. The anxiety that rose up each time he laid out his knives began to affect him differently now. Instead of getting better, it was getting worse. He was becoming anxious about being anxious. Colt didn't have to touch his knives for his palms to break out in a sweat, or his heart to race.

It was stupid.

He was wasting time. In any other restaurant - in his own restaurant - this behaviour wouldn't have been tolerated.

One afternoon, Colt's frustration hit a high point and the muscles in his arms strained with the urge not to throw his knives from the counter and onto the floor. He settled for bringing his hands down onto the counter, giving a cry to release some of the awful feeling. Then, his body no longer had the strength to hold him up, and he slumped onto the counter, sobbing like a child.

"Is everything okay?"

Colt recognized the youth's voice and he straightened his spine, wiping his face. Abigail stood in the kitchen doorway. There was fear on her face, not that Colt blamed her. He was a strange man in her house. She shouldn't have to feel afraid.

"I'm sorry," Colt said, sniffing and wiping at his eyes. "I didn't want you to see that. I'm okay."

Abigail moved over to his knives, laid out in their case. "They're pretty," she said.

Colt had expected to feel a bitterness when he looked at the knives, but instead, he smiled. "Yeah. The young chef in me was convinced that handmade was better. I spent money I didn't have to buy these, and they were much more than I needed at the time."

The difference between handcrafted blades and machine-made were in the look. Machine-made blades were perfectly smooth, like water, but his handcrafted knives had scratches and flaws in them, along with some Japanese characters engraved onto the blade, indicating the person who made them. For a chef just starting out, there was no reason to buy such knives except out of pride.

Colt watched Abigail look over the rotten vegetables that were on the counter.

"Do you want some help?" she asked. "I help my mom cook all the time."

They walked to the grocery store together. The ingredients Colt could have access to there were limited, the majority of them not even local. The grocer obviously got a better deal from major suppliers, shipping ingredients from the United States and Mexico rather than selling local produce.

Colt taught Abigail how to pick the best ingredients. She knew much of the basic rules already, but Colt still managed to teach her a thing or two.

When they got what they needed, they exited the store and went back to Chuck's house. In the kitchen, Colt instructed Abigail how to hold a knife properly. She learned quickly and he taught her how he needed everything cut up, using his knives, of course.

Colt focused on preparing the sauces and everything else. When he held out his hand, asking for the vegetables, with his gaze on the pot bubbling on the stove, Colt was about to dump the contents of the cuttings board into the pot when he paused. Looking down, Colt laughed.

"What?" He heard Abigail behind him.

"Nothing." Colt was still holding in his laughter as he added the vegetables. "This meal is just going to be rustic."

When was the last time he'd worked with such an inexperienced cook? Even the cooks that had worked for him at the restaurant had basic knife skills from culinary school. Abigail was green, reflective of her background as a home cook, rather than a professional.

"But that's perfect," he mumbled to himself.

News traveled quickly around town that someone new was going to be cooking at the restaurant. Colt wasn't paying attention. For endless hours each day, he tested his recipes.

Lorayne seemed happy with the arrangement. She worked in the home office for much of the day, doing whatever administration work needed for their logging business. In the afternoon, Lorayne left to visit family over 40 minutes away. She always came home to have dinner with her husband and daughter, telling Colt that it was nice not to worry about having to make it herself.

Colt became aware that people were noticing him when he bought a chalkboard, and complete strangers struck up a conversation around him at the checkout. An item such as that needed to be special ordered, and it caused a bit of excitement. 

"Is that for the menu?" the clerk behind the register asked him, and before Colt could answer, a woman behind him was speaking for him.

"Of course it is!" she said, but she sounded more excited than angry. "It's going to be so wonderful to eat food from a famous chef. What will you be serving?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Colt replied, paying for his board. "Now, if you'll excuse me."

Before Colt could do any more prep, he needed to make it back to the city. He packed a light bag and bought a bus ticket.

"I'm leaving my knives here with you," Colt told Abigail. "Be sure to practice, okay? I'll need your skills soon."

"What are you talking about?" she said with a smile. "You already told me that my skills are perfect."

Colt waited for the bus at the lone bus stop in town. He was the only one there, and he brought along the zombie book he'd never finished for the trip.

As he sat there, still, except for the occasional turn of the page, Colt caught a flash of white at the corner of his eye. At the edge of the forest, he saw the white wolf who had attacked him while he had been working with Chuck, and on its back was the child he saw at the B&B. Colt stared, appearing to anyone who may have been watching, like a cat. He sat still, spine rigid as he tried to puzzle the vision out.

They were clear, the child and the wolf. There was no wavering around the edges, indicating a mirage that he'd read about in so many books. Colt wasn't even sure if someone could see a mirage outside of the desert. It felt... almost normal to see them. Expected. Yet, the vision was so unreal, so removed from everything he knew, that Colt still couldn't guarantee that he wasn't losing his mind.

He got the sense that, as he was leaving the town, he was leaving them behind too.

"Take care while I'm gone," he mumbled, turning back to his book. "Wolf Child."