Carrot Cake Muffins

Chapter 42: Dragon Suspicion

Everett came home from his travels as a slightly different young man. He stood a little taller, he laughed a little louder, and he insisted on describing Gregory as “actually really fun,” which Svend found so unbelievable that he made Everett repeat it three times.

But Everett had also come home with fresh eyes, and fresh eyes noticed things. Like how unbearably hot Mirabel and Svend kept their little cottage, even on the warmest days of summer. (Svend spent all day sweating at the forge, surely he didn’t need the house to be a forge too?) Or how Mirabel would sit beside the egg in the evenings, humming to it in a strange, hissing language that didn’t sound like any song Everett had ever heard. Or how the egg itself had begun to glow faintly in the dark, like a coal that refused to go out.

Then came the morning he let himself in early and found Svend on his hands and knees in front of the fireplace, cheeks puffed out, blowing very gently on the egg. A thin curl of smoke drifted from Svend’s lips. At least, Everett was fairly sure it came from Svend’s lips.

“What,” Everett asked slowly, “are you doing?”

Svend froze. “Blowing on the coals,” he said. “To get the fire going.”

Everett looked at the egg. Then at the fireplace, a good two feet away. Then back at Svend. “There are no coals there, Svend. That’s the egg.”

“Yes. Well. Exactly. There are no coals there now because I… blew them. Away.” Svend nodded, as if this settled the matter, and stood up so quickly he smacked his head on the mantle.

Everett opened his mouth to ask the very next, very obvious question, but before he could, Mirabel swept in from the kitchen with a tray in her hands and a smile that was perhaps a touch too bright. “Carrot cake muffins!” she announced. “Fresh from the oven, with cream cheese frosting. Ev, you have to try one and tell me if the spice is right.”

Now, Everett was suspicious, but he was also seventeen, and seventeen year old boys can be distracted by carrot cake muffins much more easily than they would care to admit. He took a bite. They were moist and warmly spiced, with little flecks of carrot and a thick swirl of tangy frosting on top. By the time he had finished his second one, he had almost forgotten what he was going to ask.

Almost.

“Mir, about the egg—”

“Oh! Svend, tell him the news!” Mirabel interrupted, nudging her husband hard in the ribs.

“Right! The news! We picked a spot for your cottage!” Svend declared, recovering admirably. “That clearing by the stream, just past the old oak. Gregory has agreed to help. Well, agreed is a strong word. He has been informed that he is helping. We start today!”

Everett’s face lit up so brightly that all thoughts of eggs flew straight out of his head. A home. His very own home, close to Mirabel’s kitchen and the woods he loved. He was out the door before Svend could finish his sentence.

The building began that very afternoon. Gregory showed up grumbling about being “conscripted,” but he and Everett shared a secret little grin that Mirabel and Svend did not understand at all. (It was about pot pie. It was always about pot pie.) Svend measured and Gregory hauled while Everett ran back and forth between them, and Mirabel kept everyone fed.

It was only later, sitting on the first row of logs and licking frosting from his fingers, that Everett noticed Gregory had just carried an entire tree trunk across the clearing. By himself. On one shoulder. Without breaking a sweat.

Everett narrowed his eyes. Something very strange was going on with these people. But the muffins were very good, and his house was very much in progress, so for now, he let it go. These are the muffins that she made.