Kingfisher(67)

Pierce sighed. “Honestly? I don’t know. You should ask her that. You should find her. You should talk.”

Leith, his gaze shifting toward the sea, said nothing; after a moment, he gave a short nod.

They had walked halfway down the long drive from the sorceress’s house when they saw the limo pull up at the end of it.





20


There were knights everywhere, suddenly, in Chimera Bay. Carrie, shopping for Stillwater’s, saw them strolling down streets, eating lunch in the brew-pub, getting their bikes and cars looked at in the local garages, roaming through antique stores and the flea market, even appearing at weekend garage sales. They were hunting, Carrie learned from Jayne and Bek, who paid attention to lunchtime gossip. The knights were in pursuit of something inexplicable, indescribable, that might resemble a mixing bowl, or a wine goblet, or a flowerpot made of gold. They would know it when they saw it.

They didn’t stay long, overnight at the most, though it was hard to tell when they all dressed alike. Chimera Bay, a serviceable wayside along the highway between greater, more complex cities, presented a friendly and ingenuous face to strangers passing through. No one would stay long to look for wonders there. A few found Stillwater’s restaurant, though, busy as she was in the kitchen, Carrie rarely knew until after who had eaten her cooking.

Some workdays were longer than others: when she cooked for lunch at Stillwater’s, then dinner at the Kingfisher. She scarcely saw Zed on those days, much less her father, who, after his amazing shape-changing dance in the moonlight, had vanished again. She thought, after that vision, nothing else could surprise her. But, on one of the long days, which started early when she bought groceries for Stillwater’s before lunch, she walked in hauling bags and found Sage Stillwater on a stool at the bar eating a sandwich.

Carrie nearly dropped the groceries.

“Is that tuna?” she asked incredulously, catching a whiff of it.

Sage nodded, making a little face. “Out of a can, even. Todd’s funny that way. He gives me such ordinary food now and then. I have no idea why. Maybe he just gets tired and runs out of ideas. And he is so hurt if I don’t eat it.” She lifted the thick, graceless slabs of bread with the grayish ooze of tuna salad between them, gazed at the concoction reluctantly, and forced herself to take another bite. “Pickles,” she said, grimacing again after she swallowed. “Mayonnaise from a jar. Celery. Onions.”

“Sounds like something on the Kingfisher menu,” Carrie said with disbelief.

“Capers.”

“Well, maybe not.” She noted the salad beside the sandwich plate: tomatoes that looked exactly like themselves, undisguised red onion and pepper, a mass of greens for all the world to see. “Does he eat that, too?”

“No,” Sage said, laughing. “Never. He wouldn’t be caught dead eating anything less than beautiful.” She had another face-off with the unlovely sandwich. “It hasn’t killed me yet, and it makes him happy.” She sighed, and bit into it again.

Carrie, mystified, took the groceries into the kitchen and began to prep for lunch.

When Stillwater came in later, she was turning truffle oil into a mist to give a delicate, subtle flavor to thin diamonds of raw beef for the bottom layer of a lunch bite. He tasted one, grunted something approving, and passed on before she remembered the tuna sandwich. She went on to the Kingfisher Grill with the scent of truffles in her hair. By the time she helped Ella replenish the dessert tray and started cooking suppers, the homey smells of banana cream pie and frying fish overpowered any lingering mementos from Stillwater’s kitchen.

But Ella kept giving her little fretful glances whenever she was between whirlwinds of this or that.

“You’re getting too thin,” she commented as she finished making up half a dozen salads and put them on a tray for Marjorie.

“Am I?” Carrie said, surprised.

“Have you been eating?”

“Of course. All the time.”

Ella gave her one of those narrow-eyed looks of pure perception, the last thing Carrie wanted to inspire. “Are you working another job?”

“No,” Carrie said, shoveling halibut over to sizzle on its other side. She felt cold, hollow with the lie; she peppered the fish, not meeting Ella’s eyes. “I have been looking,” she temporized. “Just for a part-time, something mindless and easy, to make a little more money. But I don’t want to change my hours here. I’m fine with here.” She paused to test the silence, the weight of Ella’s regard. “I’m worried about my father. We seem to be at odds, these days. We can’t agree on things, and most of the time I never know where he is. When I do see him, he doesn’t talk to me.”

“Ah.” Ella went back to bustling, spooning green beans, garlic mash on a plate for Carrie’s halibut, then filling bowls, two chowders and a split pea ham for one of Bek’s tables. “You want to leave him. Like your mother did. No wonder he’s balking.”

Carrie laughed a little, inhaled a pepper flake, and turned away quickly to cough. “Can you blame us? He doesn’t exactly make things easy.”

Bek backed into the door, arms lined with salad plates; he slid them into the sink, picked up the two chowders, and vanished again.

“Busy tonight,” Ella commented. “Strangers all over town, I hear.” She grated some carrot curls on top of the split pea bowl, and handed it to Bek as he reappeared. Then she stopped moving again, standing in the middle of the floor, staring down at the ancient linoleum as though it were expressing something profound, or just revealing old memories.