Page 21 of Darro

“Thank you, and please, call me Esme.” She shook her hand. “Would you have some time to talk to me later? I’d like to interview all the people from my time while I’m here, so I can take their stories back with me.”

“Of course.” Olivia glanced at Ava before she said, “The thing is, ah, you do realize that you may never, ah…”

“Leave this place, sure. Agent Travars gave me the bad news.” She spread her hands. “You never know, maybe I’m the one who can find the way out of here. Either way I’ll do whatever I can to help. What do we outsiders do here, anyway?”

“Why don’t you have some breakfast first?” the laird’s wife suggested. “Then we can put you to work.”

Joining Ava and Grace, she sat down beside Olivia and surveyed the unusual foods that had been set out on the table. Fruit and cheese had been mounded on platters beside rounded oat cakes and sliced bread loaves, and a small vat of porridge laced with cream and berries steamed by a stack of smaller bowls. Several crocks held butter, honey and a variety of jams.

“If you’d prefer something more substantial, I can have one of the maids bring a platter of sausage and smoked fish,” Ava said. “The ladies and I don’t eat much in the way of meat. There’s also a kind of vegetable soup called pottage that the clan enjoys.”

“What, no breakfast burritos?” As the former FBI agent chuckled, Esme made a face. “Honestly, I usually have a pack of breakfast cookies, or drink a smoothie if I’m in a hurry.”

“We have no cows here, but the milk and cream pans refill themselves every morning,” Ava said. “If you don’t mind a limited variety of fruit, Doon can probably come up with a reasonable substitute for smoothies.” She held up one of the oat cakes. “These are our breakfast cookies. They’re pretty good, too.”

Esme ended up trying a little of everything, and discovered the food was all delicious. “I think I’m going to weigh two hundred pounds by next month.”

“We don’t seem to gain weight here,” Olivia mentioned.

“I’m still trying to figure out how to make yogurt without a starter,” Grace put in. “I love it, and I used to make it myself when I lived in New York. But what did people do before there was starter? Someone had to make the first batch, right?”

“Do you have lemons or vinegar?” Esme asked. When the supermodel nodded, she said, “Add one of them to boiled milk to curdle it into curds, then use the curds as your starter.” As she saw the other women gaping at her she grinned. “My abuela was the best cook in the world. She also made Mexican yogurt and fruit drinks at home for me, and she always made her own starter.”

“I love you,” the supermodel said with a reverent note in her voice now. “If you ever need anything, come and see me first.”

“So you’re the pushover. Good to know.” She sipped her brew, which was a pleasant floral tea with spicy notes. “Once you make the yogurt, share some with me. I still miss those drinks.”

That began a discussion about all the things they craved from their time, and what they had done to try and reproduce them at the castle. Ava, who had sensitive skin, had refined the clan’s method for soap-making, and produced a small amount of lard-based, low-lye bars scented with lavender and roses that were gentler for bathing. Olivia was teaching the cook a number of recipes using potatoes, which the clan had begun growing in their gardens, and had already introduced homemade mayonnaise to the clan. Along with her failed attempts at making yogurt, Grace had begun dehydrating fruit slices to make apple and pear chips for snacking, and had even dried corn and popped it in a special pan the armorer had made for her.

“No one will touch the popcorn but us,” the supermodel admitted. “The medieval minds around here think it explodes because it’s possessed by teeny tiny demons.”

“Hey, more for us,” Esme said, winking at her. “No coffee or chocolate, huh?” When the other women sighed in unison she smiled. “Could be worse. What about visits from our monthly friend?” Hers was due in a few days, she recalled.

Ava shook her head. “Since coming here we’ve all stopped menstruating, and no living thing here has ever become pregnant. It’s the ultimate birth control.”

“That answers why there aren’t any kids around here.” She’d never planned to have children, so why was that depressing her?

“There are some baby animals who were conceived outside the spell trap but born inside it,” Olivia said, and told her about the otter’s forever tiny offspring. “The only eggs are those that were in the cold pantry when the clan was cursed, which aren’t many. Fortunately like the other foods we use, they’re replaced every morning, too.”

“If nothing dies here, then you can’t butcher any of the animals,” she guessed, and saw Ava grimace and nod. “So you’re living off whatever foods were stored at the time of the curse.”

“Fortunately before the curse most of the clan’s crops had just been harvested, and their food animals processed,” the laird’s wife told her. “The enchantment replaces everything just as it was, and removes nothing we use in cooking, so there is plenty to eat. The water that’s available from the river and the underground spring never runs dry, either.”

She wasn’t saying something, and Esme thought for a moment about what she had been told.

“But things are changing here, and not for the better.” She scanned the other women’s faces and noted their dismay. “Okay, so if a change comes that makes the water dry up, or stops replacing the food, then everyone here will die of thirst or starve.”

“We can’t die that way,” Ava told her. “Our bodies are restored every morning no matter what damage we do to them. We just have to live long enough to go through the reset at dawn.”

Esme rested her chin on her fist. “I don’t want to doubt you, but that seems so far-fetched, even for a magical time trap. I think I’d have to see it to believe it.”

“Believe it,” Grace said, looking grim. “I jumped into a blazing fire to rescue my grandmother. There were serious burns all over my body and face. When the next dawn came I healed as if nothing had happened to me. Even my hair grew back in a matter of moments. I think if my grandmother had survived until then, the enchantment would have healed her, too.”

“Her injuries were far worse than yours, honey,” Olivia said, touching the model’s hand. “We know that a severe burning can kill us, but nothing else does.”

“That you know,” Esme tacked on. “Has anyone tried, ah…?”

“We are not encouraging suicide attempts of any kind, or experimenting in any way on humans, immortals or animals,” Ava said firmly. “Let’s instead focus on what we can do to escape the trap.”