Chapter Thirty-One
I looked at my hands as they pressed the cookie cutter into the dough, realizing that I'd been making cookies for quite a while-but not consciously aware of it. It was as if I'd been sleepwalking. Maybe I still was. A pleasant sense of lassitude lay heavily on me, and I used a pancake turner to carefully set the cut cookie, smelling like milk, onto the baking tray. I was making trees, but it didn't feel like the solstice. It was too warm.
Setting the cutter down, I shifted a second cookie to the tray, then hesitated. The one I'd just put there was gone. My head came up, and I calmly looked at the sink. The light beyond the window was too bright to see anything. The ceiling, too, was a hazy white, as well as the floor. I didn't see my feet down there, but it didn't bother me.
"How odd," I said, going to look out the window, but it was as if the sun had washed out the world. I turned, unafraid as I realized that the wall against which Ivy had her big farm table pushed was gone, too. The table was there, but the wall was a hazy white mist.
That didn't bother me, either. It had been like that for a long time-I'd just now noticed, was all. Even the sight of the unmarked circle of cookie dough and the empty cookie tray was okay. I'd been making cookies forever. Unconcerned, I went to the center counter and cut out another. It didn't matter.
I hummed as I moved cookies to an empty tray, the same tune going around and around in my head. Ta na shay, cooreen na da. It spun over and over, and I moved to it, feeling good with it in my head. I didn't know what it meant, but it didn't hurt, and not hurting was good.
It was awfully quiet for my kitchen, though, so often full of pixy chatter, and after setting another cookie on the empty tray, I looked back at the hazy wall. There was a dark spot on it, about eight inches tall, a few inches wide, at chest height. I squinted, trying to decide if it was getting closer.
Kisten? I thought, and it took on a masculine outline, wavering like a heat mirage, but the shoulders weren't broad enough for him.
Maybe it was Jenks? But there was no sparkle of pixy dust. And besides, Jenks wasn't that tall. The figure's arms moved as it paced forward, becoming my size. Taking on a sudden flash of color, it stepped into my kitchen.
"Trent?" I said in surprise as he shook off the mist, looking refreshed and collected in a pair of black slacks and a lightweight short-sleeved shirt, clean and bright and well pressed.
"Not really," he said, and I wiped the flour from my hands on an apron I hadn't realized I was wearing. "Well, sort of?" he amended, then shrugged. "You tell me. I'm your subconscious."
My lips parted, and I looked again at the floor that wasn't there and the ceiling that wasn't there, either. "You put my soul in a bottle," I said, surprised I wasn't scared.
Trent sat on Ivy's table and leaned forward to snatch a bit of cookie dough from the perfect circle waiting to be cut. "I didn't. I'm just a figment of your imagination. Your mind, not me, is creating all of this to cushion itself."
Frowning, I focused on him. "So I could imagine Ivy standing there instead?" I said, thinking of her, and Trent chuckled, licking the last of the sweetness from his fingers.
"No. Trent is trying to reach you. That's why I'm here. Bits of him are getting through, just not enough."
But I already knew that, seeing as he was simply a part of my subconscious, voicing what I was figuring out the instant I was realizing it. It was a weird way to have a conversation.
Trent slid from the table and came around to me. His hands were outstretched, and I backed up when he got too close. "What the hell are you doing?" I said, giving him a shove, and Trent rocked back, his arms dropping.
"Trying to kiss you," he said.
"Why?" I said, peeved. God, dreams were weird.
"Trent is trying to get your soul back in your body," Trent said, looking mildly embarrassed. "He can't do it unless you agree."
Oh yeah. Elven magic. It worked by persuasion and trickery. Sounded about right. "And a kiss is the only way to show agreement?" I mocked, putting the center counter between us. The floor had shown up, looking faded and scratched. My soul was starting to put things together. "Hey, how long have I been in here?" I asked, and Trent shrugged. Apparently my subconscious didn't know.
Looking unconcerned, Trent picked up the cookie cutter. "You want to leave, right?"
I eyed him standing in my kitchen, and I wondered if he really looked that good or if my subconscious was adding to his sex appeal. "Yes," I said, coming closer.
He handed me the spatula. "We have to work together."
I figured he meant more than making cookies, but I slid the spatula under the cut dough and moved it to the tray. "I want to leave. Isn't that enough?"
A second cookie joined the first, and my eyebrows rose. The first one hadn't vanished this time. "Now you're getting it," Trent said, then seemed to shudder. "You've been in here three days," he said, his visage losing its clean, pressed look and becoming haggard. His hand working the cookie cutter was swollen, and he was missing two digits on his right hand, a very white bandage hiding the damage. I hadn't imagined him looking like that. It was something outside-impinging on me.
"Trent?" I said, backing up in alarm, and his posture slumped. His eyes were red rimmed and tired, and his hair was limp and straggly. He was still wearing his black slacks and black shirt, but they were wrinkled, as if he'd been wearing them for days.
"Yes," he said, his gaze rising to the ceiling. "It's me."
I didn't think I was talking to my subconscious anymore, and I set the spatula down, my alarm turned into fear. "What's happening?"
His eyes landed on me, and I clasped my arms around my middle. "I'm trying to get you out, but I've run into an unexpected snag."
"You said you could do this!" I exclaimed, and he took a breath, his expression a mix of irritation and embarrassment. "Oh my God, is my body dead?" I squeaked, and he shook his head, raising a hand in protest.
"Your body is fine," he said, looking at his hand and the missing digits. "It's in a private room and I'm sitting right next to it. It's just..."
My foreboding grew deeper. "What?" I said flatly.
He looked up, grimacing as if in distaste. "It's a very old charm," he said. "I didn't have much choice. You were dying. All I had with me was one very stressed young gargoyle and the ancient texts I'd been playing with. I've been studying them for the last six months, trying to find the truth in the, uh, fairy tale."
"What is the problem, Trent?" I said. I could smell him now, sort of a sour wine, maybe vinegar scent.
"Ah, I think it would help if you kissed me," he said, not embarrassed, but irritated.
I dropped back a step. "Excuse me?"
He turned away and cut out another cookie. "You know...the kiss that breaks the spell and wakes the, uh, girl? It's elven magic. There's no figuring these things out."
"Whoa! Hold up!" I exclaimed as it suddenly made sense. "You mean like love's first kiss? That isn't going to happen! I don't love you!"
He frowned, seeing that the cookie he had moved onto the tray had vanished. The two I'd placed were still there, though. "It doesn't have to be love's first kiss," he said. "That was someone trying to write a good story. But it does have to be an honest one." Almost angry, he spun back to me, the pancake turner in his new, awkward grip. "My God, Rachel. Am I so distasteful to you that you can't tolerate one kiss to save your life?"
"No," I said, taken aback. "But I don't love you, and I couldn't fake that." Did I? No, I didn't. I was really sure about that.
He took a breath and held it as he thought about that for all of three seconds. "Good," he said, handing me the spatula. "Good. So if you just kiss me, we can get you out of here."
I took the spatula as he held it out, edging closer to move a third cookie to the tray. "Kiss you, huh?" I said, and he sighed.
"Here in your subconscious," he said. "No one will ever know. Except us." His eyes met mine, and a small smirk started. "You've been doing it in your dreams since you were ten."
I frowned, setting a fourth cookie on the tray. "Have not. Grow up."
He set the cookie cutter down, facing me in expectation, and a nervous thrill spun through me. Kiss Trent? Okay, maybe the thought had occurred to me once or twice, but not as anything that I'd ever do apart from curiosity maybe. Because he looked good, maybe more so with the stubble and the heavy weariness on him. There was no way...I mean, he was Trent, and I hated him. Okay, not hated anymore, but a kiss?
Stop it, Rachel, I thought, wiping my hands on my apron and turning to him.
He was too close, and I shivered when his hands slid around my waist. "I suppose a peck on the cheek won't do?" I said as he started to lean in. He was just a shade taller than me, and I was suddenly a hundred times more nervous. He practiced wild magic, and he could sing his enemies to death or my soul into a bottle. He was dangerous now, tantalizingly dangerous, whereas before he'd been simply annoying, and my pulse increased.
I stiffened, and his motion toward me hesitated. "Sorry," he said, and he pulled me close. I was as nervous as all hell, and I didn't know what to do with my hands. They felt funny at his hips, but I left them there-the best of a bad situation. My eyes closed when he got too close, and the smell of cinnamon and wine hit me.
It pulled my head up, and with a startled brush, our lips met.
His touch was light on mine, as if afraid or, more likely, reluctant. A bare hint of pressure, and then he leaned in, his hands on me, pulling me to him. His lips moved against mine, and I still stood there, my heart pounding as I tasted him-oak and leaf, sun on moving water. The prick of wild magic raced over my skin like a shimmer of electricity, enticing, warning me even as I felt it pull a response from me. Breath held, I relaxed my grip on him, finding my hands moving, shaping to him, becoming natural.
Okay, this wasn't so bad.
Encouraged, my head tilted, pulling away from him with the unsaid language of lovers that demanded he follow. And he did, spinning a thrill through me from his lips to my toes. My pulse jumped, and I pushed against him, my body molding itself to him. Breath catching, he responded, his good hand lifted to touch my face, his fingers light on my jaw, but hinting for more. A slip of tongue touched mine, and a thought rose like a bubble.
Oh my God. I'm kissing Trent.
Making a small noise, I pulled back, heart pounding as I looked at him. "This isn't working," I said, my lips cool where he had been. I was tingling everywhere, and wild magic was making his eyes flash in anger.
"Because I'm the one doing everything here," he said, reaching forward.
"Hey!" I yelped, but he'd grabbed my arm and pulled me back to him.
"It's like the cookies," he said as his bandaged hand encircled my waist. "You're not helping. Give me something back to show your agreement."
"What the hell do I have to do? Rip your clothes off?" I snapped, then gasped as he yanked my hip right into him. "Trent!" I protested, but the word was muffled as he found my mouth. Wild magic lit through me, burning not with fire but warmth. It raced like flash paper, flowing to my chi, overflowing and tingling to my fingertips.
"Oh my God," I mumbled, and my hands, once splayed behind me for balance, reached to find his hair. I wanted to touch its silky smoothness. I'd been dying to do so for years. His body was against my entire length, and I pushed from the counter, slamming his back into the fridge.
Our lips parted upon impact, and my eyes opened. He was inches away, watching me, daring me. He'd pulled passion from me, and now I'd have to own up to it.
"No one will know?" I said, and blood pounded through me when he nodded.
"I won't tell anyone," he said, a smile lifting his lips.