Chapter 12: Supper

That afternoon, as the sun began its slow descent towards the western horizon, Violet began packing her things. She already had her rucksack, tarp and spark lighter, she’d tucked away her electric lantern and rolled some blankets into a tight bundle she hoped would serve as a bedroll. That only left….

Violet padded into the kitchen and lingered at the edge of the room, watching her mother, who was beginning to prepare supper. She looked somewhat more recovered, a bit of color back into her cheeks. A warm sense of relief accompanied the observation, but curling in from underneath was a sour tingle of worry. Violet felt selfish for even acknowledging it.

With her mother out and about it would be much easier for her to get caught. Especially if she left before dark like she wanted to. In her mind Violet had planned on slipping out of the house while there was still at least two hours of light left in the day, but now she was beginning to think that wouldn’t be possible.

If her mother went to say goodnight and found nobody there, Violet knew her exploits would surely be discovered.

Shaking the thought from her head, she tried to think of excuses. She could always pretend to be ill or stricken with a headache, but if she did that there would be a pretty excellent chance of her mother coming in to check on her at some point in the night.

Even contemplating such a deception made Violet feel ill.

“Hello, dear.” Her mother said, taking notice of Violet, who was still standing off in the corner, quiet as a mouse (or a cat, perhaps).

“Hi, mum.” Violet answered.

“You were out for most the day, I couldn’t find you around the house.”

Violet nodded, managing to stifle a little shuffle of unease. She made herself look casual, like this was a normal observation with no hidden pitfalls whatsoever. And it probably wasn’t. If her mother had found anything wrong then she would have gone ahead and said it. Violet had never known her mother to be even slightly deceptive.

“I was with Maud. We were drawing.” She said.

“Oh, you mentioned her the other day.”

Violet nodded, but already her mother was turning around to fetch a sealed tin of flour from its place on the high shelf. She looked to be making biscuits.

Any other time Violet would have felt excited, for freshly made biscuits were a rare treat that she quite enjoyed, but now all she could feel was anxious and guilty.

“Can I help?” She asked at last.

Her mother glanced back and smiled, still showing no teeth. She didn’t have her bonnet on and Violet could see patches of pale, shiny scalp through her thinning hair. There were more now than there had been only a few weeks before, she noticed, and then made herself stop looking.

“Can you fetch the honey from the cabinet?”

Violet went to do so and brought the concentrated milk as well. Her mother scooted a chair over from the dining table while she was doing that and Violet sat down on one side, her mother doing the same. They rested their backs together and got to work performing their own tasks.

Violet mixed in water with a bit of concentrated milk, then stirred until it was thin and smooth as silk, just barely cohesive enough to coat the back of a spoon. Her mother poured honey, added a bit of margarine from a yellow plastic tub and then got to work making the dough.

It was a comfort to watch her mother work, but Violet couldn’t keep her eyes from drifting out the kitchen window and to the forest beyond, its shadows growing ever starker as the evening sun burnt its way towards the treetops.

For a half second she considered telling her mother everything, but that impulse dissolved even before it could come together. The consequences would be terrible. Even if her mother told nobody, Violet knew she’d be forbidden to see the cat ever again. Her planned trek to the Glow would never happen.

All of it would all have to remain a secret, no matter how bad the deception made her feel.

“I’m glad you’re making friends.” Violet’s mother said, breaking the silence.

Violet nodded vaguely but said nothing, just watched as her mother turned the dough, sticky and pale, out onto a countertop dusted with snowy white flour. The oven was already surrounded by shimmers of heat and Violet watched little particles of flour dust being swirled up to the ceiling as they were caught in the updraft.

“It’s good to have someone to talk to.” Violet said.

Her mother’s motions stuttered for a moment, then she was making herself stand straighter, ironing a staticky, sad eyed look of remorse from her face. What she projected instead was confidence, though of a sort that felt the opposite of natural.

“I’m better now,” she said, looking to Violet and offering a reassuring smile. “I really am. Maybe tomorrow we’ll go to the northern part of the village and pick flowers. I think this house could use a little brightening up, don’t you think?”

Violet had heard this sort of thing from her mother before, quite a few times actually. And she always felt the same thing; a great ballooning sense of sadness, fear and pity intermingling with weird underpinnings of guilt, as though the whole thing were her own fault in some unknowable way.

She wanted to open her mouth and let great streamers of words fly free, assurances to her mother that she loved her and always would, that she had no responsibility to try and quash something so dark and dreadful and clearly beyond herself. No matter how the tides came and went, Violet wanted to say, she’d always be a good daughter.

But all of it stuck in her throat and instead she just looked down to the floor, feeling somehow scared, though of what she did not know.

“Okay.” She said at last.

Her mother started to say something else, maybe an assurance, but then she simply nodded and went back to the biscuits, busily dividing the dough into equal portions. It seemed there would be enough for ten or maybe eleven.

Violet watched her mother put the biscuits into the oven, then stood and slunk back to her room, feeling hollow.

Even as she shut the door a sudden shuffling scuffle sounded from behind her. Violet whirled around, just in time to see the cat slip from behind a shadow cast by a fold of the rumpled quilt on her bed.

Violet jolted back, startled by the cat’s sudden appearance, and barely stifled a little squeak.

“What are you doing here?” She hissed, looking wildly around, wondering how the cat had even gotten into her room in the first place. The window was tightly shut, and…

It took her a moment to notice a little sigil carefully daubed in red, right at the edge of the glass. The mark of a gateway.

“I wanted to check in,” the cat said as it settled atop the quilt. “You should get a move on if you want to set camp before dark.

Violet gave the cat a helpless look, but her eyes had already begun to slide back to the sigil. The color was….

“Is that blood?” She asked incredulously.

“It was available,” the cat said, slightly defensive. “And don’t worry, I washed my paws very thoroughly before coming in.” It held them up to demonstrate, claws flashing free for a moment before being retracted neatly into their sheathes.

Violet sighed.

“I’m having supper with my mother.” She muttered.

“…Hmm.” The cat vocalized. There was a careful quality to the noise, like it didn’t want to convey even the vaguest hint of judgement. Still, Violet could see a faint sort of misgiving lingering just behind its eyes, as though it couldn’t truly grasp the reasoning behind what she was saying.

“What?” She asked.

“Oh, nothing,” the cat looked politely away. “I suppose there’s not too great a chance of you refusing to venture out into the woods after dark.”

Even through the instinctive prickle of fear that rose within her, Violet still bristled at the cat’s words.

“I said I’d go.” She insisted, voice kept to a low whisper. Her ears remained perked, listening for her mother.

Yet the bustle from the kitchen continued, uninterrupted.

“I did come for another reason,” the cat said after a moment. “Namely, there’s a flight of herons who seem keen on spending the night by the riverbank. I was wondering if you’d like to see them.”

“Herons?” Violet asked.

“I suspect they’re on their way south.” The cat said.

Though Violet’s notion of what a heron even was remained hazy she still found herself cautiously nodding. The cat grinned, clearly pleased.

“Might be better seeing them after dark.” It said, but before Violet could ask what that meant, the cat had turned and pushed itself back into the dark shadows cast by the rumpled folds of her quilt. From her perspective it was as though the cat had slipped neatly into her mattress, in amongst the feathers, but of course when Violet smoothed the quilt down to investigate she found uninterrupted fabric.

She stared hard at the faded patterns on the quilt. They had once been sunflowers, embroidered upon sky blue satin, but that had been many years ago and it was all beginning to turn monochromatic, one long stretch of dusty gray.

The cat was probably back outside, Violet figured, and found herself wondering what sort of surprises (or tricks, a more cautious part of her mind insisted) it would have in store.

A moment later there came a firm knock at her door. Violet jumped.

“Would you like to help with the potatoes, dear?” Her mother asked through the door.

Violet glanced from her quilt to the bedroom window. Through the glass she thought she saw a little black shape flow through the gathering dimness and then pass neatly under the bottom rail of her garden fence.

She had to tear herself away, blinking hard. Helping with the potatoes meant peeling them, which Violet had never been very fond of, but she still went to the door.

“I’ll be out in a minute.” She promised, and again looked out past her garden and into the depths of the forest.

Herons…

For supper Violet sat alongside her mother, caught in the warm, flickery glow of a few beeswax candles. The table was crowded with dishes, more food than Violet had seen in a while.

There were potatoes cooked in oil and salt until golden and crisp, a salad made from greens picked out of the garden, a can of diced meat in a rich brown sauce served steaming from where it had been heated over the stove…

At the center of it all were the biscuits. They had come out of the oven somewhat uneven in shape and size, but none were burnt and each one was capped with a pleasant spread of golden brown crust.

They looked almost like little ridges, striations running along their sides where flaky, buttery dough had risen in paper thin folds. Violet took one, pulled it in half with a pleasantly gratifying puff of fragrant steam, and then carefully placed a pat of margarine on top of each hunk.

She could feel her mother’s eyes on her but didn’t look back, not until her plate was full. Violet expected her mother to eat as well, but her plate remained mostly empty, only a few scatterings of each dish placed atop the polished ceramic, as though by obligation.

“You’re quiet today.” Her mother noted.

Violet shrugged.

“I’m tired.” She said, not untruthfully.

Her mother ruffled her hair and Violet shook her head away, like a horse shooing flies. But even as she smoothed her hair back down she was smiling.

“I promise I won’t leave you alone ever again.” Her mother said.

Violet’s smile faltered but she made herself nod. It would cheer her mother, she knew.

“…I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.” Violet said after a moment.

Her mother smiled.

“You must’ve had a big day.” She said.

Violet could only nod and offer what she hoped was an easy smile. Her mind swirled with thoughts of birds.