Page 15 of Recipe for a Curse

It was. But it was also sort of his personality. I nodded. “Let me get dinner finished up. I’ll set up in the formal dining room.” We only used the smaller space when there were no guests, or the party at the house was small, since it fit a dozen at best.

Taking up the task of setting out dinner helped take my mind off worrying about the storm. Ana arrived to set out plates, and began moving bread baskets and silverware. Wind whipped hard enough around the house that I could hear it battering the walls and couldn’t help but shiver.

The smell of fresh bread and hot soup gave a little comfort. Everyone began to appear in ones and twos to fill their plates with Zach and Sean arriving last. I ate in silence, listening to everyone talk around me. Zach and Sean didn’t say much either, though Zach asked about the storm.

“Is this a normal thing? Like happens every year?” Zach asked Mona, one of the cleaning staff who had been at the manor over ten years. Not all the staff lived on-site, but a handful of us did. Several in the above garage apartments, and another group in a small set of servant rooms on the far side between the garage and main living space. The servant rooms didn’t have much more than their own bedroom and a shared bathroom. I was thrilled to have more space than that. Zach had bantered the idea of changing them into a more independent space, but no one wanted that. They thought of the manor as their home, and their rooms were their space in that home, almost a home within a home. That made sense, though sometimes I really liked to get away from the job long enough to recharge. But that was just me.

“We get storms, but usually only a few inches of snow. Can’t remember having this much before.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not here. When I lived in Cleveland, we got this sort of thing. Lake effect.”

Only we weren’t anywhere near a lake. Well there was the small lake out back, which was sort of nestled in the trees. But I hardly thought that could stir up this sort of weather.

“It’s been an odd weather year,” Rico said. He was part of the cleaning staff too, but had only been around two or three years. “First those storms over the summer making all this weird damage, now these snowstorms. What’s next? A hurricane?”

An expression crossed Zach’s face that I couldn’t read and he glanced at Sean, but Sean was focused on his soup, which he was eating with chopsticks. Sometimes I felt like those two were hiding something. I took another sip of soup, enjoying the rich flavor and the warmth of it, hoping that Rio was either somewhere safe, or headed in our direction so we could keep him safe.

“Maybe the curse isn’t broken,” Ana said. “Sometimes years would pass before it would show up again.”

“The curse is broken,” Zach said firmly. “It’s more likely this storm is part of the mess of climate change. Or just a really bad nor’easter. I’ve heard of it happening before.”

“I just hope Rio is okay,” I said. “Everyone, really.” I looked up to find Sean’s gaze on me, assessing, but expressionless. He looked away and I felt as though a weight had been taken off me, but I was also done with people for the night. Normally watching everyone eat and enjoy my food energized me. Right now, it made me want to scream that Rio was out there in the cold while everyone else sat here eating and laughing in warmth and comfort.

I picked up my bowl and returned it to the kitchen, beginning cleanup. Ana could finish the rest. I had the strong desire to find the warmest pair of pajamas I owned, and curl up with some cocoa away from everyone. Was I feeling ill? I didn’t think so. Just a bit mentally run-down. Not the first time since the pandemic had hit. At the manor we’d isolated enough that right now, with no one visiting, it was almost like normal. No masks, social distance wasn’t a big deal, and no one was sick. But out in the world, every time I left the house it was with a handful of masks, hand sanitizer, and a lot of anxiety about the selfishness of other people.

Ana appeared in the kitchen and took over cleanup, shooing me away to rest. I took her up on it and headed to my place, enjoying the quiet warmth of the space. But even after I got into my jammies and slippers with thick socks on my feet, I still didn’t feel completely warm. The wind whipped so hard outside that I could almost feel it in my bones. The edge of the chill lingered and I shivered a few times peering out the different windows of my tiny apartment to see if I could glimpse the light, or perhaps Rio on the way to the house. But much like the other side of the house where the kitchen was, my view was of thick trees and not much else.

I tried to watch some things to distract myself. The latest episodes ofChoppedwere unsatisfying. All the holiday baking shows were repeats, and the cycle of fun movies had ended at the beginning of the new year. Reading didn’t work either, so I ended up in my tiny kitchen, pulling apart my cupboard to try to inspire something new to cook. I set to making some fancy breads which would require some proofing, but were more than the norm of sourdough. Maybe some French toast would be in order. I had plenty of fresh maple syrup.

In that vein I decided to make a batch of apple cider donuts and snickerdoodles too. Not that anyone at the manor had much of a sweet tooth other than me. I could bring it to the shelter. And on that note, I decided a batch of moon cakes would be a nice addition to our snack plate. Sean had given me a handful of recipes, which I’d spent some time perfecting and now had a dozen little molds to make the tasty red bean or lotus seed cakes. Food could distract me better than most anything else. Even if it wasn’t all about eating it for me, but watching others enjoy.