Yesterwary

“Is everything all right?” Kraus asked, face dripping as he looked up from his onions.

“Fine,” Demi mumbled, distracted by the excessive heap of carrots she had been julienning.

But everything was not fine. She’d had time to think about the last few days, and her conclusions were not overly pleasant. She had started to feel the slightest hint of guilt about the way she’d treated her father, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. She still didn’t think he deserved her forgiveness, but, at the very least, she thought he deserved not to be alone. She couldn’t imagine how she would have coped with her arrival to Yesterwary, if not for the uncommon interest of her guide, which led her to her next thought: She was quite fond of Bastian, but the idea of staying in a place where she couldn’t love someone for whom she had grown to care so deeply made her innards churn and boil, so much so that she was nearly certain she would rather risk dying than spend the rest of her life in such a place.

“You seem distracted,” Kraus said.

“I am dis—”

Demi was interrupted by a loud bang at the kitchen door.

“What the hell…” Kraus muttered. “Who is it?”

“Gendarmerie,” a man’s voice said from the other side. Demi recognized it instantly from the night when the officer had stopped her on the road.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” Demi whispered, looking around for a place to hide. They hadn’t exactly thought out a proper action plan for if this specific type of situation were ever to arise, and the kitchen was not anyone’s best bet for winning at Hide and Seek, unless that person were exceptionally small, or a slab of beef.

Kraus’ eyes were wide under his creased brow. He pointed to the oven with uncertainty. Demi glared at him, but she knew it was her only option. She held her breath, instantly met by a wave of suffocating heat as she opened the oven door. She climbed inside and ignored the unnerving sound of sizzling as her skin met the hot metal around her. Kraus closed her in and turned to open the door.

Demi couldn’t see anything from inside her scorching hideaway; the oven door was solid metal, but the dim, red glow of the coils above and below her allowed dull glimpses of the boils that were already beginning to speckle the surface of her body.

“Mr. Kraus?” the officer asked, eyeing the kitchen thoroughly.

“Yes? How I can help you?” Kraus said, drying his hands on a dirty dishcloth.

“I’m Gendarme Collet. From what I understand, your restaurant has recently started serving food that is, well… rather unlike the norm.”

“Ah, yes!” Kraus nodded. “The food, it has taste, now,” he said, perfectly mimicking the innocence of someone who wasn’t broiling a young women in the oven.

“Can you explain how that came to be?”

“I cannot. One day, I cook omelette, yes?” Kraus said, pointing to a skillet on the stove. “Then, I taste, and my mouth explode! It not literally explode. I obviously still have mouth.”

Even as her flesh was trying its hardest to melt away from her bones, Demi had trouble suppressing her amusement at Kraus’ sense of humor.

“You taste?” Kraus said, raising the skillet to the officer’s face.

“No… thank you. So, you were just cooking one day. Did you do anything differently? Add anything new, perhaps?” Collet asked, face expressionless as he tried to assess Kraus’ behavior.

“No, nothing new with me.” Kraus shrugged and shook his head innocently. “Anything new with you?”

Demi clasped a hand to her mouth to subdue her snort, and her eyes grew wide at the sight of the glossy, red and black labyrinth that was creeping across her skin.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to observe your process. From start to finish,” Collet said, lips pursed knowingly.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Kraus said, voice beginning to shake with panic. “I make you… uh… quick-broil stir-fry.”

Demi sighed with relief. It took her only a fraction of a second to understand the Chef’s plan, and she hoped it would work.

Kraus threw a handful of random ingredients into a cast-iron skillet, glancing back happily as Collet watched over his shoulder. As he was about to place the dish in the oven, he said, “You get grated cheese from refrigerator, please?”

Collet obliged, but by the time he’d returned, Kraus had already handed Demi the dish and closed the oven. “Sorry, I forget. This recipe not need cheese.”

From within the torturous confines of the oven, Demi rearranged the ingredients in the skillet, doing her best not to drip sweat or molten skin into the food. A timer dinged after a few minutes, and just in time, as her clothes were beginning to smoke.

Kraus retrieved the dish from the oven with the utmost skill, cracking the door only enough to reach in. He dropped the pan on the stove, scooped a spoonful of various steaming vegetables onto a plate, and handed it to Collet with a fork. He watched nervously as the man took a bite, and relaxed against the counter at the sign that the food was, indeed, delicious.

“Well, Mr. Kraus. This is certainly a very odd situation,” Collet said, clearing off his plate completely before handing it back. “Pleasant, at least. But I’m afraid that makes it even odder. If you happen to think of anything that could have started this, I’d like for you to come to me.”

“Yes, of course. Here! You take with you,” Kraus said, bagging up the rest of the food. “Is on house.”

“Thank you,” Collet said, looking over the kitchen one last time. He stopped just before he reached the door. “What is that smell?”

Kraus glanced at the oven, and waved his hand nonchalantly. “My oven, she is old, you know.”

Collet nodded suspiciously, and Kraus closed and locked the door behind him, before rushing to pull Demi from the oven.

“Oh, dear,” he said, extra careful not to touch her skin.

Every inch of her was bright red and shining, covered in burns and boils. Her clothes had begun to blacken, and he patted out a few embers that had sprung up on her shoulder. Her hair had coiled up into singed tufts, and her eyebrows had all but turned to ash. She held her arms out to her sides, doing her best to keep her skin from falling off.

“It’s bad,” she whispered, throat dry as sand.

“Real fucking bad,” Kraus said, voice low in case the officer was trying to eavesdrop through the door.

For the first time since her arrival in Yesterwary, Demi was grateful that feeling was one of the many things she had left behind.

With no explanation to offer, Kraus had sent one of the waitresses to find Bastian, who showed up inhumanly fast, short of breath and face contorted in concern. At the sight of Demi’s burnt and broken appearance, he nearly collapsed to his knees, but held his strength almost as well as she held hers.

“Oh, Demi,” he whispered, wanting to touch her, but keeping his distance from her skin. “I don’t think vodka and paper towels are going to cut it, this time.”

Demi felt the already-tight skin on her face pull as she tried to force a grin. “Take me to the fog,” she rasped. “Please.”

Bastian nodded and helped her through the door. She hobbled along the dark sidewalk, leaning against him weakly and grasping his shoulder as if she were grasping life itself. After hours—a walk that normally would have only taken twenty minutes—Bastian helped her through the house and into the back yard. The rain was cool against Demi’s ruined skin. Even though she couldn’t feel the burns, her skin felt wrong—less like skin, more like overstuffed sausage casing.

She looked up to him, almost asking for permission, and he nodded with teary eyes. She held her breath as she jutted her arms into the fog, and pulled them out moments later, completely healed, as if she’d never spent an unacceptable amount of time inside of an oven. Bastian turned her to face himself and took hold of her freshly repaired hands, nearly crushing them in his worried grip.

“Don’t let go,” he said forcefully, as if he was concerned she actually might.

She nodded, holding on as tightly as possible, and closed her eyes as she backed into the enveloping whiteness.

“Demetria,” a soft voice called from somewhere within the cloud.

Demi opened her eyes, staring at the solid, white wall through which Bastian’s hands held her tightly. It felt as if she were being pulled backward by some unseen force, so strongly that her feet nearly lifted from the ground.

“Demetria,” the voice called again.

Demi turned her head as best she could, but her vision was almost completely obscured by the fog. However, just as Bastian began to tug on her arms, she caught sight of something in the haze, only for a moment. A great, flowering willow loomed behind her, branches reaching out for her like wispy arms.

“Demetria,” it sang once more, and this time she recognized it: Margo’s voice, calling out to her from the tree.

In seconds, Bastian’s arms were wrapped around her. He held her close and kissed her frantically, hands on either side of her face as he examined her non-existent wounds.

Demi looked down to her chest, and her body sank as hope drained from her. Her skin was still cracked and her heart was still silent. But at least her burns were gone.

“What did you see?” Bastian asked, quietly tracing shapes onto Demi’s palm, as she stared up at the ceiling from his bed.

“Nothing,” she whispered. It wasn’t that she was worried he would think her insane if she told him. She simply didn’t understand what she’d seen. And she wasn’t entirely certain that she would have told him, if she did. “Just fog.”

“This was too close,” he said. “I don’t think you should go back to the restaurant. I’m sure Kraus will understand.”

“No,” she said absentmindedly, “I want to. I need something to do.”

“If they catch you—”

“I know.” She rolled away from him, and buried her face in the pillow. “I’ll ask Kraus what he wants to do. But if he’ll let me, I want to keep working.”

“Okay,” Bastian conceded, curling a protective arm over her. “Whatever you want.”