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searchingwardrobes · 7 years ago

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Hope is the Thing With Feathers: Ch 2/3

Yes, this will officially have three parts. Part three is where everything will come together and all the action will take place. Chapter two is where the romance happens . . . enjoy, Krystal! It was so fun to write this for your birthday! Much thanks to @hollyethecurious for the banner, the brainstorming, and co-writing chapter one.

Summary: Emma and her son Henry move to the tiny, quirky town of Hopeful, Maine for a fresh start. Emma isn’t expecting her son to get obsessed with a haunted castle or for her to get involved with the mysterious, handsome man who lives in the cabin behind it. Emma soon discovers that both the castle and the man have secrets that she could never have imagined. For @kmomof4 on her birthday.

Rating: M (yes, I upped the rating. This isn’t smut, but I definitely flirted with the line. All for you, Krystal!)

Words: A lot. Sorry if tumblr eats the cut on mobile. I tried.

Can also be read on Ao3

Trigger warnings: none unless you're afraid of spiders. Oh, and Captain Cobra in case that messes with your ovaries ;)

@bethacaciakay @teamhook @artistic-writer @whimsicallyenchantedrose @snowbellewells @kday426 @snidgetsafan @delirious-latenight-laughs @jennjenn615

Chapter Two: That Sings the Tune Without the Words

Hope is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words-

And never stops – at all

Henry paused in his reading. “You know, Emily Dickinson was a lot like you.”

Killian looked up from the spindle he was examining. “How so?”

The boy was perched on a stool in the corner with his literature textbook open on his lap. He rolled his eyes, looking for all the world like his mother. “Isn’t it obvious? She was a recluse.”

Killian’s eyebrows rose slightly. “That’s a big word for a ten year old.”

Now Henry scowled openly. “I hate when people say that. It’s not a big word at all; only seven letters.”

Killian chuckled at that. “You are not only incredibly bright, lad, but perhaps my kindred spirit.”

Henry seemed pleased even as he focused again on his textbook. “Mom does say I’m an old soul.”

“Oh ho! Now you’re calling me old!”

Henry laughed freely. Killian gestured towards the book in his lap.

“You didn’t finish the poem. It goes on to say, And sweetest – in the gale – is heard, and sore must be the storm – That could abash the little bird that kept so many warm – I’ve heard it in the chilliest land and on the strangest sea – Yet, never, in Extremity, it asked a crumb of me.”

“You know that by heart?” Henry exclaimed.

Killian shrugged. “I have a book of Dickinson poems. They’ve always spoken to me I guess, and it’s not as if they are difficult to memorize.”

Henry picked at the binding of the thick book in his lap. “My teacher thinks studying Dickinson is cool for Halloween. I don’t get it.”

“Maybe Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me, but if she wanted Halloween poetry, she should have gone with Edgar Allan Poe.”

Henry’s brow furrowed. “Who?”

Killian clapped his palm to his heart. “You’ve never heard of Poe? Quothe the Raven, nevermore?”

Henry shook his head. “Nope.”

“A tragedy, truly.”

“I figured you must read a lot,” Henry commented, “since Belle’s always bringing you big stacks of books. Why don’t you just go to the library?”

“I’m a recluse, remember?” Killian cleared his throat nervously and scratched behind his ear. “Why don’t you come over here, and I’ll show you how to use this lathe?”

“Cool!” Henry exclaimed, tossing aside the book and jumping up from his stool. But he hesitated before coming closer. “But Mom only let me stay if I promised to finish my homework, and you said you’d help me with those lit questions. There are more questions than there are words in the poem!”

Killian clapped his hand on Henry’s shoulder. “But I’ve also got to get this banister finished. The faster I get this last spindle done, the sooner I can help you with that poem.” He leaned closer to the boy and cocked an eyebrow at him. “And isn’t making a mess and using a loud machine more fun anyway?”

“It sure is!” Henry agreed excitedly as he donned the safety glasses Killian handed him.

Killian stood next to enry

Henry and handed him the final post of wood. “Put the wood on the spindle here,” he instructed, then he handed Henry the chisel. “Do you see this narrow part here?”

“Yeah,” Henry said with a nod.

“It doesn’t match the others, so I need to trim it just a bit. So I’ll turn on the machine, and you’ll run the chisel along this spot right here,” he shifted the chisel and lined it up properly.

“But what if I trim it too much?”

“I’ll be guiding you through it,” Killian assured him.

“Do you have like a measurement or something? I mean, do you mark the wood? I . . . I don’t want to mess it up.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Killian assured him, stilling the slight tremor of the boy’s hand. “But to answer your question, yes, many carpenters use specific measurements. But for me, it’s art. Do you do any type of art, Henry?”

The boy gnawed on his bottom lip. “Does writing stories count?”

Killian grinned at him. “Aye, my boy, it sure does. So crafting these spindles is like crafting a story. I have an idea in my head, but as I work, sometimes it turns out differently than I expected. Better, even.”

Henry narrowed his eyes, then nodded. “I think I get it.”

“Okay then, ready?” Henry gave a nod, and Killian turned on the machine. The boy leaned in concentration over his work, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Killian once again though of his mother, for he had noticed the same look of concentration come over her face yesterday when she was carefully cleaning the paintings they had found throughout the house. He guided Henry’s hand when it drifted, but he was impressed with how steadily he worked. He couldn’t believe the warmth he felt in his long cold heart whenever this boy and his mother were near.

Killian stopped the lathe and lifted the spindle to examine it, then ran a square of sandpaper across the newly trimmed wood. He looked at Henry with a smile upon his face. “Good job, my boy!”

He grinned broadly “Really? But how do we know it matches the other ones? If you don’t measure, I mean?”

“Well, after a while, it’s kind of instinct. But more than that, the slight variations add character. It would look odd if this old house had perfectly matched, machine made spindles on the banister, wouldn’t it?”

Henry tilted his head to think about it. “Yeah, I guess that’s a good point.” He looked down at the floor and ground his toe into the sawdust covered floor.

“What is it, Henry?”

“I don’t know . . . I was just thinking . . . At school, being a little different doesn’t mean you have character. It means you’re just . . . weird. Especially when you’re the littlest kid in seventh grade.”

Killian’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. Now the Dickinson poetry and those algebra problems in the boy’s homework made a bit more sense. “Henry, you are a bright boy. That is something to be proud of.”

Henry’s chin only sank lower. “Being smart isn’t cool, believe me.”

Killian sighed and set aside the spindle. “I don’t know that I was ever as intelligent as you, Henry, but I was small for my age. Smaller than my brother was at that age too. Liam was built broader than I was, and I wanted nothing more than to be as strong and good as he was.”

Henry finally met his gaze. “So what did you do?”

Killian chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “There wasn’t much I could do except wait to grow up.”

“Were you ever as big and strong as Liam?”

Killian rubbed his chin in thought, but in the end couldn’t lie to the boy. “No, but I did work hard when we joined the Royal Navy. And soon, I had callouses and muscles, and could hold my own with a swo- a weapon. I was never as good as Liam either, but I tried. And learning Greek came easier for me than Liam.” He chuckled again and gave Henry a light punch in the shoulder. “I always liked to rub that in just a bit.” Killian grew serious then and grasped Henry by both shoulders. “But listen, this is very important. Never, never be less than you are just to get people to accept you. Understood?”

Henry nodded, then gave a tiny smile. “Mom says girls like smart guys.”

“I sure do.”

Killian straightened to find Emma Swan herself leaning against a post in the entryway from the foyer, her arms crossed over her chest. There was a smile on her face he hadn’t yet seen, a light in her eyes he couldn’t read. He liked the look on her, though, and he hoped in some small way it was because of him.

“Mom, look!” Henry cried. “I got to use the – what’s it called again?” He turned to look up at Killian

“A lathe.”

“A lathe! I got to use the lathe!”

“That’s awesome, kid,” Emma said, walking up to rub her son’s head. Henry wrinkled his nose and reached his hand up to fix his mussed hair.

“I promise the lad finished all of his schoolwork except for his literature assignment,” Killian assured, both hands raised.

Emma tilted her head as she gazed up at him. “I trust you.”

No three words could have flooded Killian with more elation. The sparkle hadn’t left her eyes, and he had the strongest desire to trace that dimple in her chin. Instead, he gave his head a slight shake and took a step backwards.

“I did promise to help him with Emily Dickinson, though. After . . . we . . .uh . . . finished the spindle.” He cleared his throat, wanting to curse himself. He hadn’t been tongue tied around a woman since . . . He pushed the thought away, unwilling to complete it.

Emma quickly lowered her gaze from his, taking a step back herself. “Right, well, you two get to it. I’ll . . . just . . . start sweeping out this room and the foyer, then get to work in the library.”

“Of course.”

He watched her go, unable to help himself from admiring the way her tight jeans hugged her figure. He rubbed at that hollow place in his chest also unable to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he was able to make her tongue-tied. Of course, thinking of her tongue made his mind race further into inappropriate territory, and he was once again cursing himself.

Bloody hell, Jones, her son is in the room!

****************************************************

Emma sneezed as she set the next stack of books onto the desk in the library. Dust billowed up from the leather bindings and yellowed pages, causing her eyes to water. She ran her now dirty cloth over the cover of the one on top; a book called Her Handsome Hero by an author she’d never heard of. She set it in the stack destined for the thrift store. She had learned in her research on the house that after Baelfire Gold died with no heirs, ownership of the entire property had been granted to the city of Hopeful. The house itself had been sold and used as a boarding school for wealthy boys until World War II. That meant the library was full of possibilities for their haunted museum.

“Henry’s finished his homework.”

Emma looked up as Killian entered the room. “Let me guess, he’s now playing video games.”

“No, he’s actually sanding the fireplace mantel.” Killian said as he idly picked up a book from one of her piles.

Emma raised her eyebrows. “Wow. He’s really into this project.”

Killian simply nodded in reply as he continued to shuffle through the books. “I take it this is your discard pile?”

“Well, donation pile. We’re only holding on to books of literary or historical value.”

Killian chuckled at her imitation of Belle’s accent. He lifted a book from the donation pile. “This one was written by a Frenchmen in 1773. His only novel; and it barely sold any copies. A shame, really, because it’s quite good.”

Emma’s brow furrowed when she saw he was holding Her Handsome Hero. “And you know this because . . . “

He gestured around the room. “I’ve read many books in this library.”

Emma put down the book she was dusting and crossed her arms. “When? Shortly after the first moon landing? There’s fifty years’ worth of dust on these books.”

“Well, um,” he stammered, scratching behind his ear, “I didn’t mean these books exactly. I’ve taken copies from here, you know. No one else cared about them . . . ”

He trailed off, flashing her a disarming grin, and she knew he was lying. But why would he lie about where he got a copy of an 18th century French novel?

“You don’t have to justify anything to me,” Emma assured him. “We can’t be sure who bought all these books, so it’s not like they can be returned to their rightful owners.”

He turned from her and grabbed another stack of books from the shelf. Emma watched him until he turned back towards her. Then she quickly lowered her gaze to the next book in her hand.

“This one’s a keeper,” she said, “Tom Sawyer.”

Killian smiled fondly. “Ah, yes, about the mischievous orphan boy. I always identified with him.”

“Which part? Being mischievous I assume?” Emma teased.

“Both actually.” The grin he gave her was one she knew quite well. It was the kind that hid pain behind a mask of indifference.

“Oh,” she said softly, setting the book aside in the too keep pile. The last thing she wanted to do was bond with this man over past experiences. She was already on dangerous ground with him. She had frozen in place when she walked in to find him patiently instructing Henry with the woodworking. And then Henry had actually opened up to him about his struggles at school, and Killian had encouraged him to be proud of his intelligence. It was something Emma had told him a thousand times, but she knew hearing it from a male, especially one he obviously looked up to, would make a world of difference to her son. The entire thing made her heart ache in a way she had never experienced before. Henry had never bonded with any of the men she had dated, not even Graham, who had actually tried to connect with him.

“Have I said something to offend you, Swan?”

Emma looked up into Killian’s concerned gaze and realized she had fallen silent for several minutes. “Oh, um, I just . . . “ she shrugged as she turned to get another stack of books, “I know what you mean, that’s all.”

“You’re an orphan too?” He didn’t say it with sympathy or pity, just matter-of-factly, one orphan to another.

“Yeah,” she sighed, “look, can we change the subject?”

“Of course,” he told her softly, then swiftly changed gears. “That’s quite a lad you’ve got there, Swan.”

“Yeah,” Emma said, a contented smile quirking her lips, “he’s pretty great. Thanks for spending time with him.”

Killian rested his hand atop hers. “It’s no trouble. I enjoy his company.”

“Hey, mom,” Henry’s voice echoed down the corridor. Emma quickly snatched her hand away from Killian’s as they both turned to the doorway.

“Yeah, kid?” Emma hated how nervous her voice sounded. For God’s sake, all the man had done was touch her hand!

“I think I sanded the mantel pretty good, and I’m starving.”

Emma gasped as she pulled out her phone and checked the time. “Henry, I’m so sorry, it’s almost seven! Let’s head to Granny’s and get some burgers.”

“Awesome!” Henry cheered, then he turned to Killian. “You should come eat with us! Right, Mom? I mean, he helped a lot with my homework.”

Emma tilted her head at Killian and smiled, “I agree. I think he’s earned a bit of a reward.”

She expected him to tease her or lean close and murmur an innuendo under his breath that Henry couldn’t catch. She didn’t know why she enjoyed flirting with him so much, but she did. Instead, Killian looked like a deer caught in the headlights, his eyes wide and his normally flushed cheeks suddenly pale.

“I would love to,” he stammered, “but I really can’t.”

Emma elbowed him gently in the ribs, “Come on Jones, everyone’s gotta eat.”

“Yeah,” Henry put in, “please!”

Killian’s eyes darted between the two, and then he leaned close to Emma. His eyes pleaded with her to understand as he said in a low voice, “I really can’t Swan.”

Emma’s brow furrowed, and just like she knew he was lying about the book earlier, she now knew he was telling her the truth. She gave him a slight nod of understanding, then turned to her son.

“Killian’s had a long day, Henry, let’s get out of his hair.”

“Awww,” Henry pouted.

“Sorry, my boy, I’m old remember?” Killian told him, ruffling his hair affectionately.

“See you tomorrow, Killian!” Henry called as they headed out the door. Emma smiled at Killian over her shoulder, her arm flung around her son’s shoulder.

It was all so strange. Emma’s gut told her she could trust this man, and her gut rarely went straight to “trust.” Yet he had lied to her about the book, something that should have been inconsequential. Then when he told her he couldn’t join them for dinner, he was being absolutely truthful. Not that he didn’t want to; he couldn’t. Emma somehow knew the distinction was important. Killian Jones was a mystery for sure; one that she was determined to solve.

*****************************************************

The pungent aroma of wood stain flooded Killian’s senses and made a slight headache pound at his temple. Despite that, his thoughts continued to wander in the same direction, leading him right back to Emma Swan. He rubbed wearily at his forehead with the back of his hand before rubbing at the post in front of him once again. The feelings that were stirring inside of him were those he thought he was no longer capable of; things he hadn’t felt since Milah.

For three centuries, he had watched the world pass before him, ever changing. Yet he was stuck as a mere spectator, forced to hide in the shadows lest suspicions be roused about a man who never aged. That was the reason that female company, or any company for that matter, had been rare in his life. Occasionally he would take a woman back to his cabin simply as a way to release his pent up frustrations and physical loneliness. He always chose those carefully; grifters who were just passing through, or a tourist who was up for a no-strings-attached tryst while she was on vacation. Of course, the more Hopeful deteriorated into a ghost town (pun completely intended), the more he found himself alone for long stretches of time. Until he woke up one day and realized it had been years, not months, since he last interacted with another human being. His voice was rough from misuse, and he startled to discover that he not only conversed with animals and inanimate objects, but himself. It had been a startling and frightening revelation.

That had to be why Emma Swan consumed his every thought, awake and in his dreams. He had gone from being that recluse Henry had mentioned to being in her lovely presence on an almost daily basis.

You don’t dwell on thoughts of Belle or Henry all day long. His mind argued. He sighed as he dipped the rag into the dark stain once again. And now here he was talking to himself again.

Everything had changed the day he had literally run into Belle French poking around the castle. Like Henry, she had been curious about the old place rumored to be haunted. Not to mention she was the most adventurous and curious woman he had ever encountered. She had already done extensive research in her beloved library on Gold Manor, and had recognized him immediately, gasping out his name as she dropped her flashlight. Never for one second had she found his story unbelievable. Another way she was like Henry. And now she was determined to find a way to free him from his curse.

In three hundred years he hadn’t had a single friend, and now he had three. Though if he were completely honest, his fantasies about Emma Swan were far outside the realm of mere friendship.

“Ugh, it reeks in here! How have you not passed out?”

Killian turned to find Emma Swan herself standing below the ladder he was perched on, the sunlight streaming through the brand new glass on the French doors illuminating her hair. The way she wrinkled her nose was adorable while her wide stance and hands braced on her hips shouted feisty strength. She was a contradiction in softness and strength, dark and light, and he found her absolutely mesmerizing.

“I find it clears my head,” he replied dryly.

She rolled her eyes. “Liar.” She reached down for another container of stain and a rag. “This looks tedious. I’ll start down here, and we’ll meet in the middle.” She knelt down at the bottom of the staircase, prying the lid off the stain can with a screw driver. He kept his mouth shut about messing with his tools; she hadn’t exactly been making a suggestion. More like an order.

They worked on the banister in silence for several moment before he heard Emma make a little sighing noise. He glanced down at her to see her brow furrowed and her teeth worrying her bottom lip. Whatever she was contemplating, he had a feeling it wasn’t the banister in front of her.

“You’re a mystery, Killian Jones.”

He almost lost his balance on the ladder.

“I’ve asked about you around town,” she continued, still not tilting her gaze up to his.

Killian swallowed, unsure what to say as she paused. He should have expected as much. She was the town deputy, and Killian was spending a lot of time with her son.

She calmly got more stain on her rag before continuing. His heart thudded in his chest.

“The only people who’ve ever seen you around are the postmaster and the employees at the market.” She cut her eyes up to him. “You love to read, yet you never go to the library.”

“Why do that when I have a lovely librarian who makes house calls?” he quipped with his most charming grin.

Emma frowned as she turned her gaze back to the banister. Was she jealous? God, he hoped so.

“Speaking of Belle, she’s the only one who seems to know your name. And she’s definitely the only one who ever comes out to see you.” She made a funny sound in the back of her throat. “Except for me and Henry now I guess.”

“Belle is just a friend, if that’s what you’re beating around the bush for.”

Emma snorted through her nose. “Don’t really care about your social life, Jones.”

Killian made his way down the ladder. “So you say, Swan, and yet you’ve evidently spent a great deal of time looking into just that.”

She huffed as she stood to reach the next part of the banister. Killian moved the ladder down a bit. “Please, don’t flatter yourself. You are an employee of the city, so I have every right to look into your background.”

Killian couldn’t help scratching behind his ear. “I – uh – thought Belle handled my paperwork.”

“She did.”

It was all Emma said on the matter, but Killian couldn’t help but wonder. She certainly sounded suspicious. He rubbed his forehead wearily.

“You know, this stain is giving me a bit of a headache. Do you mind finishing here while I install the new doors on the curio?”

“Sure,” Emma replied, “but leave the ladder. I can barely reach where I’m staining now.”

“It’s okay, Swan, I find vertically challenged women quite fetching.”

Emma tossed her rag at him, shooting him a withering glare that held little heat. He laughed, pleased to see the spot of pink in her cheeks and the twinkle in her eye. God, he loved teasing her!

They fell into a companionable silence again as they worked, only the sound of his drill bit and the occasional scraping of the ladder breaking the quiet of the room.

“Shit, come on!” he heard Emma complain after about thirty minutes of working. He turned to see her atop the ladder, straining to wipe the last spindle in the center of the banister. She was standing on the very top rung, the one that was clearly labeled “not a step” in bright yellow. On her tip toes was more like it.

“Emma,” he warned as he set aside his drill and came closer.

“I’ve . . . almost . . . got it . . . “

The ladder rocked as she reached up, and Killian surged forward as Emma lost her balance. She let out a sharp scream as she fell backwards. It was cut off when she collided with Killian’s chest. The rag she was holding hit him in the face before fluttering to the floor, and the can of stain wobbled before tipping over, sending the dark brown liquid streaming like a waterfall down the rungs of the ladder.

He shook his face and blinked to get the dust from the rag out of his nose and eyes. When his vision cleared, he was practically nose to nose with Emma. Her green eyes widened as they stared at one another. Every cell in Killian’s body was keenly aware of Emma in his arms. The slight weight of her legs draped over his left arm, her skin beneath his calloused fingers where her shirt had ridden up, the curve of her breast against his chest, and the arms that were wrapped tightly around his neck. A smile hitched at one corner of his mouth as she continued to gaze at him, her fingertips idly toying with the hairs at the nape of his neck. It sent shockwaves all the way down his spine.

“Um,” Emma finally spoke, “why are you still holding me?”

“Oh . . . right,” he muttered, his face burning as he quickly put her down. He rubbed at the back of his neck as she straightened the bottom of her shirt. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug. She stepped close, invading his space. His heart was beating so loud, he wondered if she could feel it beneath her palm when she laid it upon his chest. “Don’t try to distract me with flirting, Killian Jones. I’ll figure out your secrets.”

He quirked a brow at her, then leaned close, swiping his lower lip with his tongue. “Who’s flirting, Swan? I just saved you from a broken neck. You’re the one who was fiddling with my hair just now.”

Red crept up her neck as she blinked rapidly. “You – you are such a – a,” she stuttered, “a . . . “

“Dashing rapscallion?” he teased with a pout.

She narrowed her eyes. “An arrogant jerk,” she finished with satisfaction. He only chuckled as she marched over to grab some rags from the floor. “Oh, and by the way,” she added as she began to rub vigorously at the wood stain still dripping down the ladder, “I’ve never heard of a cocky recluse.”

His mouth fell open at that. She glanced over her shoulder at him with a smirk.

“I don’t know why you’re hiding out here, Jones, but I will find out. I’m not taking my eyes off you for a second.”

Killian threw her smirk right back at her as he sauntered into her space. He leaned close and winked at her. “I would despair if you did.”

****************************************************

The music had been Killian’s idea, and despite the fact that he was humming a tune by The Cure under his breath as he made even strokes with the paint roller, Emma couldn’t help wondering if it was a subtle way of avoiding her. Or something.

She chose to focus instead on the fireplace mantel so she wouldn’t accidently paint it “cranberry sunrise.” God, why did paint colors have such ridiculous names? She sat back on her heels, brushing at a stray hair with the back of her hand. Only half of the room was painted, but it really was a great color. For a “haunted house” anyway. The dark wood stains and deep reds would create the gothic ambience they were going for. It would look even better once they put up the gilded wallpaper and the heavy brocade curtains.

Emma glanced over at Killian and smiled when she saw him swaying his hips slightly to the music. She sighed and carefully set the brush down on the drip pan. Then she rose from her position on the floor and walked cautiously over to him.

“Um, Killian?”

He didn’t stop with the paint roller, simply looked at her and winked, still swaying a little to the music. “Like what you see, Swan?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “No, we, uh . . . need to talk.”

He wearily lowered the paint roller. “In my experience, it’s never a good thing when a woman says that.”

Emma grimaced. Of course he assumed she was about to give him a hard time again. When hadn’t she? Pulling her gun on him, calling him arrogant, insinuating that the time he spent with her son was anything less than innocent and kind. He rescued Henry from the barbed wire, and even saved her from a broken neck when she fell from that later. Yet how did she thank him?

“Look, about my . . . asking around about you . . .”

He came incredibly close, causing her to lose her train of thought. He reached up and began to rub his thumb gently over her cheek. She literally felt herself sway as the breath rushed from her lungs. He smiled softly at her.

“You had a bit of paint there.”

“Oh.”

His thumbed stopped rubbing gentle circles, yet his hand didn’t leave her face. His fingers gently caressed her jaw line, his thumb hovering over the dimple in her chin.

“And as for your little investigation,” Killian said in a low voice, “try something new, darling. It’s called trust.”

Her eyes widened as he lowered his hand. “I do trust you! That’s what I’m trying to say.”

His brow furrowed in confusion as he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket. Who carried a handkerchief anymore? He wet it with his tongue, an act that she found fascinating. Then he tilted her chin up with the tips of his fingers and dabbed at the same spot on her cheek again.

“Uh, are you wiping spit on me?”

He chuckled. “Aye. I didn’t quite get that paint off. You were saying?”

Emma swallowed thickly. It was really hard to concentrate when he was staring at her face that way. Her skin tingled where his fingers brushed.

“I just know what it’s like to screw up big time. To want to start over, and not have your stupid decisions come back to bite you in the ass.”

He smiled again, brushing his knuckles down her cheek. “There, all gone.”

Emma shook her head. “Do you know what I’m trying to say?”

He tilted his head at her, both eyebrows raising. “Perhaps.”

She let out a long breath of exasperation. “What I’m saying is I don’t care why you’re a loner or what you’re running from. Because . . . you and I . . . we understand one another.”

Killian nodded as he shoved the dirty handkerchief back into his pocket. “Aye, love, I believe we do.”

**********************************************

Emma couldn’t believe how everything was coming together. The new staircase was complete, not only with the beautiful stained banister, but with patched and sanded steps. They were waiting for a runner to be delivered, and she couldn’t wait to see the rich crimson against the dark stain of the wood. Killian had picked it from the sample book she and Belle had brought form the hardware store, the same way he had chosen the paint and wallpaper.

Emma shook her head to clear such thoughts and chose instead to admire the new coat of stain on the fireplace mantel and on the hardwood floors. The house was coming together, that was what mattered. Not Killian Jones and his reclusive tendencies.

“So what are we doing today?” she asked him.

His back was to her as he hoisted a large, rolled up oriental rug off his shoulder. It caused his shirt to ride up in the back, exposing the hard muscles there. The ones Emma couldn’t deny that she had fantasized about digging her fingernails into. Why did he have to be so damn hot?

Killian leaned the rug against several others that were nestled in the corner of the room. He turned to her, flashing that easy grin of his.

“Well, the room is incomplete without rugs, not to mention historically inaccurate. I found these in the attic. They were probably stored up there after the school closed in the forties, so they aren’t period accurate, but better than brand new.”

Emma tilted her head and frowned. “They’re disgusting.”

Killian chuckled. “Aye. But Belle rented a steam cleaner. It’s out on the veranda. We need to go through all of these, clean them up, make sure they’re in good enough shape, then figure out where they should go.”

She nodded, “Okay, sounds good. We’ll need one in the foyer, two probably in the parlor, and one in the library. Think we’ll have enough?”

Killian patted the rugs. “I brought six down, and left four more on the second floor. Hopefully the rodents didn’t nibble on too many of them.”

Emma wrinkled her nose as she thought of the disgusting things they might find as they unrolled them, and Killian laughed. She pulled on the first one and grunted. “How did you lug these down from the attic all by yourself?”

“Emma,” Killian suddenly said, voice low, “don’t move.”

A shot of fear made her spine go cold as she thought of rats, snakes, and –

“It’s a spider,” Killian continued.

She had to force herself not to scream and do a ridiculous dance around the room. On her list of things that freaked her out, spiders were at the top. Without turning her head, she cut her eyes to her left and saw a black spider slowly descending from a thread of web from the top of one of the rugs. As it spun, dangling just over her shoulder, she saw a distinctive red hourglass marking on its underbelly.

“Killian,” she hissed, her fear increasing ten-fold.

“It’s a black widow, I know, just be still –“

But before either of them could figure out what to do, the spider dropped to Emma’s shoulder and then crawled more quickly than Emma could have anticipated down the front of her shirt. All calm flew out of her mind then. She screamed, trembling all over, and without thinking, she pulled her shirt over her head and flung it aside.

*************************************************************

Killian should have been thinking about the poisonous spider if he was a decent man at all. But instead, he was distracted by the smooth porcelain of Emma’s skin, the curve of her waist just begging to be grabbed, and the way her breasts bounced as she brushed at imaginary spiders. Her bra was a tiny thing that dipped low on the swell of her breasts, and as she bent over, brushing at her arms, they almost burst free of their confines.

“Killian, where is it!” she screamed, startling him out of his inappropriate ogling.

He forced himself to examine her torso in a more clinical way and didn’t see anything. He strode quickly over to the t shirt she had tossed upon the floor, and there, crawling calmly over the wrinkled fabric, was the spider. Killian quickly brought his boot down on the creature, leaving a nasty smear of spider guts on Emma’s shirt.

“Sorry, love,” he apologized, “I didn’t want to risk losing sight of it again.”

“Thank you,” she shuddered, placing her hand to her chest. Which was heaving in a very distracting way, he couldn’t help noticing. “Did it get me?”

She pulled her hair up and off her neck, turning her back to him. Killian’s own heart was thudding now, as he gazed at what she was offering up for his perusal. He noted every freckle; one on her collarbone, a smattering around the clasp of her bra, and one large one begging to be kissed at the small of her back.

“Um, no, I don’t see anything.”

She turned to face him, her cheeks pale and her lower lip trembling. He didn’t blame her; black widow spiders were nothing to mess with. He once again scanned her frame, this time trying (and failing) to be more clinical.

He let out a relieved sigh. “No, Swan. It didn’t get you.”

Color returned to Emma’s cheeks as she lifted her gaze to meet his. She was still holding her hair in a messy heap atop her head. The atmosphere was suddenly charged, and he noted that her chest was heaving again, but in a different way. This wasn’t fear; it was desire. She dropped her hair, and it went tumbling over her shoulder, resting between her breasts in a teasing way. He couldn’t help that his eyes drifted from her eyes to watch the tresses brush against her cleavage. When he tore his gaze away, he was relieved to see a slight smirk upon her lips. She took several steps forward, reaching for him with her palms out. Her gaze never leaving his, she slipped them up his shirt, dragging her fingernails through his chest hair.

He couldn’t take it anymore; he grabbed her bare waist as he had been longing to do, and captured her lips. Emma’s hands snaked around to his back, her fingernails scratching in an intoxicating way. They both groaned as they deepened the kiss. Emma pressed herself flush against him, and his only thought was that there was too much fabric separating their skin. Emma seemed to have the same thought as she began to push up his shirt.

They parted just long enough for Killian to get his shirt over his head, then they surged together again. If possible, Emma was pressing herself even closer to him. His hands trailed along her spine, then back up again, pausing at the clasp of her bra. He unhooked it, and relished the feel of her completely bare back under his palms.

He practically growled against her lips as he realized how few surfaces were available to them in this room. He pivoted, pressing her back against the nearest wall as he tugged her bra straps free of her shoulders. Emma broke their kiss to tilt her head back, a moan escaping her lips. He sucked at her neck as he ran his thumbs over her breasts, then he trailed kisses down to the valley between them. Emma arched her back, and he needed no further encouragement as he worshiped each breast with his tongue.

Once he had her crying his name, he fumbled with the button and zipper of her jeans. Then he sank to his knees in front of her as he yanked them over her hips. He trailed kisses teasingly up her inner thigh until he felt her tugging at his hair.

“Killian,” she gasped.

He simply looked up and grinned.

**********************************************************

Emma hooked her bra, then reached down to retrieve her t shirt from the floor. She frowned and turned to Killian, who was pulling his own shirt over his head. Watching the muscles in his arms as he performed that simple task made her think of the way she had gripped his biceps just moments ago as he had thrust into her. She shook her head to clear it. This man was like a drug!

“I . . . um . . . can’t wear this shirt,” she told him lamely. Why was this so awkward? They had been far from awkward five minutes ago. Or maybe that was easier because they hadn’t been thinking then.

“Oh, right,” he said, scratching behind his ear. “Come on out to the cabin, and I’ll find you something.”

“Yeah,” she continued, “then we can get back to these rugs.”

“Um . . .aye.”

Yes, definitely awkward.

Emma followed him out of the back of the house, through the gardens, and out of the door in the hedge. She had come to find out that he was the one who had installed the door, which was why it was so much newer than everything else. They made their way through the trees and to Killian’s cabin, the cool October air making goosebumps rise up on Emma’s bare skin. The inside of the cabin held welcomed warmth, and Killian made his way quickly to one of the two doors off the kitchen. He stepped inside and began rummaging through the drawers of a dresser in the corner of the room. Emma stood in the doorway, clutching her dirty shirt self-consciously to her chest. The bed seemed to loom large against the far wall, invitingly soft with a homey quilt draped across it.

“This should work,” Killian said as he turned to her, but when their eyes met, his expression went soft. He tossed the flannel shirt on the end of the bed before striding to her. He cupped her face with his hands and searched her face. The blue of his eyes were bright. “Oh Emma,” he breathed out, and then they were kissing again.

Emma wasn’t surprised in the least when they tumbled down to Killian’s bed for round too. Somehow, she had known all along this was why she had followed him here.

*************************************************

Killian pulled Emma close, pressing soft kisses to her shoulder blade, her back against his chest. He marveled at how perfectly she seemed to fit against him. She turned in his arms, and he was relieved to see a relaxed smile upon her face. She reached out and traced his jaw slowly, her fingers then drifting to trace the scar on his cheek. He held his breath, partly at her tender touch, and partly from fear that she would ask about the scar. The last thing he wanted to do was lie to her directly. Lies of omission weighed on him heavily enough.

“This feels strangely right, doesn’t it?” she finally said.

He arched his brow at her. “Are you calling me strange, Swan?”

She rolled her eyes and smacked him lightly in the chest. “You know what I mean.”

He pulled her closer, pressing kisses to her hair. “If you mean this feels like exactly where we’re supposed to be, then yes.”

He felt her lips curl into a smile against his collar bone “Exactly.”

He swallowed hard, then pushed her shoulders gently so he could look into her eyes. He cupped her face again, this time kissing her forehead gently. He murmured against her skin, “There’s something I want to say, but I’m afraid you don’t want to hear it.”

“Then don’t say it,” she whispered back, “please.”

He nodded, deflating somewhat, but he had been expecting her to react that way. She startled him though, when she shoved him onto his back and straddled him. She grinned down at him, pinning his arms over his head.

“I prefer we not talk at all.”

She kissed him roughly, almost desperately. “Emma,” he groaned, sitting up so he could gather her in his arms. He broke the kiss, brushing her hair away from her face. She looked almost panicked as she pressed her fingers to his lips.

“Please, Killian.”

He sighed as he let strands of her hair slip between his fingers. “I need to at least tell you that this isn’t just –“

She wouldn’t let him finish, but brushed his lips with a chaste kiss. “I know.”

For now, it would have to be enough.

***********************************************************

“Belle?” Emma called as she stepped into the Hopeful Public Library.

“Over here!” the brunette called, waving her hand from behind a study cubicle in the back of the room.

Emma headed that way and found Belle surrounded by books and papers, all of which looked hundreds of years old. Emma smiled as she propped her arms on the edge of the cubicle’s partition. “I’m glad you love this part because that looks incredibly boring to me.”

Belle shrugged. “I can’t lie, I’m a total nerd. Plus, if I’m going to lead part of the ghost tours, I need to know all the facts backwards and forwards.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear in an almost nervous gesture, then quickly slammed the book in front of her shut like she had been caught at something. Before Emma could give her actions too much thought, the little bell at the circulation desk dinged, and the librarian hurried to her feet.

“Coming!” she called to her new patron.

After she left, Emma sat down in the cubicle, suddenly curious what had Belle so jumpy. An extremely old and yellowed paper, covered in a plastic sleeve, poked out from beneath the pile of books. Emma slid it out and gasped at the face she saw sketched there. The resemblance was uncanny, the slightly mussed hair, the scruffy jawline, the thick eyebrows. And even though they weren’t blue, the intensity in the eyes was the same.

It looked exactly like Killian.

In the bottom corner, the artist had scrawled her name: Milah. Emma sat back, her mind reeling. Was there a deeper reason why Killian seemed to know so much about Milah Gold and the estate? Was he a descendant of the man in this picture? And if so, why hide it?

Emma glanced over the edge of the cubicle, but Belle was guiding the elderly visitor to the arts and crafts section. Emma turned back to the stack of dusty books and opened the one Belle had shut so quickly when she arrived. Luckily, the brunette had left a slip of paper inside to mark her place. Emma scanned the words, their old-fashioned phrasing tripping her up a time or two. It was a recounting of Milah Gold’s affair with her pirate lover, that much she could comprehend. And two words stood out starkly on the page: the pirate’s name, Killian Jones.

Emma suddenly felt the air leave her lungs as she looked between what she had just read and the drawing before her. Her mind struggled to make sense of it.

“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.”

Emma jumped to find Belle standing next to her, an intense expression on her face. Emma shook her head. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what you mean.”

“That’s him,” Belle said simply, gesturing to the drawing, “that’s Killian, the one we both know.”

Emma closed her eyes tightly. “That can’t be . . . it isn’t . . . possible,” she breathed out the last word.

“He’s cursed, you see. He can’t leave the manor grounds. He tried to save Milah, but he didn’t understand the magic he was dabbling in –“

“Magic?” Emma interrupted incredulously. She stood quickly, shoving Belle aside. “I – I – have to go.”

She dashed from the library, her breaths coming out in gasps. She raced down the sidewalk, not slowing down until she found herself at the docks. She leaned forward on her knees, waiting for the world to stop spinning. Part of her brain told her it was crazy, but another part started to process all the little signs. How he turned down Henry’s invitation to dinner at Granny’s. How he never went to the hardware store. How Belle brought him books from the library. The way he reacted to the painting of Milah and Emma’s suggestion that her grave could be a tourist attraction.

Then there was the drawing made by Milah Gold herself. It was clearly drawn by a woman who knew every inch of her lover’s face. A face Emma herself knew so well, down to the scar Emma had traced with her finger just yesterday.

Shit, was she sleeping with a three hundred year old pirate?

#cs ff #modern au #but with magic #Halloween fic #steamy not smutty #hollyethecurious #cs art #searchingwardrobes #dark curses

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stainyourhands · 7 years ago

Text

Next in this series

Lovett takes his time choosing between the Keebler chocolate chip cookies and the Hostess cakes with marshmallow in the middle, before taking one of each and heading to the front of the community center meeting room, placing the paper plate on the edge of the podium with a flourish.

"I'm good," Dan says, absently, without looking up from his notecards.

Lovett shakes the plate. "You have to eat one, or I'll look like an asshole."

"And that's my problem, how?" Dan asks, but he does look up just long enough to take the cookie. It crunches as he takes a bite and Lovett knows from experience that it tastes like sawdust, irregardless of the nerves Dan's always gotten before public speaking. A crumb clings abstinently from Dan's lower lip, and Lovett reaches out to wipe it off, before stopping.

The last few weeks have been strange. In some ways, it's felt like the earliest days in the White House. When Dan's hair wasn't flecked through with grey and the skin around his eyes was smooth, when the worst thing either of them could imagine was an unfavorable NY Times Op Ed or a no vote from a Democratic Senator, when Lovett had thought maybe- possibly- improbably-

But Trump is President-turned-despot and Lovett's worst thing has deepened and expanded to include three days in a state-run holding cell with no cameras and no guards and no lights at the ends of any tunnels. When he sleeps, he dreams of a clammy hand on his shoulder and a fist against his eye socket. When he wakes, he remembers Jon standing in their living room urging him to leave, to leave him, to leave Tommy, to leave the life they've built together. To leave behind the certainty he'd so painstakingly earned, brick by wobbly brick; a certainty that they want him, that they need him, that they chose him.

That wall crumbled a hell of a lot faster than it took to build it.

Dan tilts his head, eyes narrowing at Lovett's frozen hand, and Lovett shakes himself out of it. He brushes the crumb from Dan's lip and reaches for the Hostess Cake, shoving it into his mouth in one bite.

"Hostess is the cockroach of processed sugar," Lovett jokes then, when Dan doesn't look up from his notecards, explains, "marshmallow cakes will be the only thing left at the end of the world."

"I understood the joke," Dan rolls his eyes, because of course he did. Dan's always been able to keep up with him. That's never been their problem.

Lovett scoffs. "Did the end of the world eat your sense of humor?"

Dan reaches the end of his notes and finally looks up. His eyes are blue in the dim afternoon light. "Don't accept the premise of the question."

"Yeah, yeah." Lovett sighs, but he feels a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. It feels foreign against his cheeks, unused muscles creaking and rusty after weeks of disuse. He's been oiling them, slowly, over the past few weeks since Dan unplugged the television set and unplugged Lovett's brain, knocking him, forcibly, out of the self-destructive loop he'd been stuck in.

Dan nervously taps his notecards against the edge of the podium. "Should we start without him?"

Lovett glances at the thin glass doors. The room is full to bursting, members of Dan's SF chapter of the resistance filling every chipping plastic seat and lining every wall, but the doors stopped swinging at least ten minutes ago and over twenty minutes after the meeting was supposed to start.

Lovett shrugs, offers, "BART is unreliable these days," as he tries not to let his heart sink. He thinks about Tommy, lost in the middle of the last legal protest they may ever organize. He thinks about the stories he's heard out of Chicago, about the raid on Axe's University of Chicago office and the way Cody's wife had cried as the Nationalized Police Force tore apart their apartment. He thinks about the pictures Alyssa's been posting to Dark Twitter, of the New York library burning and the subway trains stuttering through the black smoke.

Dan nods, tapping his fingers against the podium and twisting his feet behind it. Lovett ignores the nervous energy he's always exuded before a live performance and pulls his phone out of his pocket, playing the PODSA theme music loud enough to get the attention of the crowd.

"Thanks," Dan deadpans, before turning to the crowd. Lovett shrugs and heads to his seat in the front row. "Thank you all for coming on this foggy July morning. I can see we have more than enough for a quorum, so I'm calling this meeting of the resistance to session. On the docket today, we have Jon Lovett in from the LA chapter and -"

The glass doors bang open, slamming against the wall and shivering on their hinges. Lovett looks up from his seat to see Plouff strolling purposefully through the crowd. He looks uncharacteristically disheveled, the sleeves of his grey zip-up hanging over his fingers and his glasses bent around his nose. There's an unattended cut on his hairline.

The room has sucked in a collective breath, and Dan reaches out to steady Plouff's elbow as he gets close enough. Instinctively, Lovett rises out of his chair, overcoming months of wallowing on the sidelines in favor of supporting Plouff's other elbow as he catches his breath.

"The blacklist," Plouff says, pulling out of their hands and leaning against the podium. "Assange leaked the blacklist."

The room lets out its breath. The community center fills with chatter and exclamations.

Plouff drops his voice, just loud enough for Dan and Lovett to hear. There's blood dripping down his forehead. "It's on resistance stationary. It came from one of us."

Lovett's stomach drops. He holds out a napkin with shaking fingers.

Plouff holds the napkin to his cut. "We have a mole."

#the resistance #danlo #sort of #ot3 #this series needs some editing when it goes to AO3 - ignore the part where the blacklist has already leaked #it's just leaked now #my fic #podsa

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cathcacen · 7 years ago

Text

Put a ring on it

“Would you mind pretending to be my date?” for MaeLars, requested by @phylophe hurhurhur.

I love these two bakas okay.

Only a few weeks have passed since Urzael’s defeat, but already, the rebuilding has begun in the ruins of Westmarch. Bit by bit, colour returns to the gloomy city. She sees it in fresh wildflowers, re-planted and growing in the windowsills of her neighbours. She sees it in the bright, pink faces of the survivors, smiling women and their laughing men. She sees it in Mae’s eyes, the vibrant gold brightening each time he takes her arm to drag her out exploring in the surrounding woods and swamps.

The invitation arrives at the manor one rainy morning. She’s been working in the front courtyard all morning, putting together a new table for the dining room and polishing rocks to rebuild the collapsed oven.

“Miss Cethlion?” The messenger bears General Haile’s coat of arms, the sigil etched into his deep blue robes. “An invitation from Master Haile, for the young lady’s wedding next weekend.”

“Oh.” She shakes the sawdust off her hands before reaching to take the card. Careful cursive within denotes the date, time, and location. “Thanks.”

She spends the rest of the day finishing off the table. On impulse, she cracks open one of her master’s precious paint jars, and uses the soft sky-blue pigment to colour the table. She’s just finishing drawing bluebells and daisies onto the legs when Mae arrives home, fresh from a day’s work with the Horadrim in the half-restored library.

“That’s pretty,” He tells her, sitting down on the stairs by her side and handing her a bun. It’s from the bakery down the street; the father had been killed in the sacking of Westmarch, but last she’d heard, the son had been looking to continue in the family business in honour of the man. “Oh, did you hear? Haile’s youngest daughter’s getting married.”

She’s just taken a bite of the bun – it’s delicious, a fluffy flower bun filled with honey cream that makes her think of happier days. “I got the invitation earlier, too. Did General Haile invite you in person?”

Mae chuckles lightly, rubbing at the back of his head and toussling his hair. He looks a little sheepish, half embarrassed. “He asked if Niall and I would both be bringing dates, and mentioned there would be dancing.”

“Oh, wow. I guess they’re really going all out, huh?” She licks a bit of cream off her lip, then reaches into her pocket for the invitation, flipping it open to look it over. “Remember when Cel and Ceth got married? It was a good time, wasn’t it?”

It had been a good time, in a time before the war. They’d spent the day getting Cel ready, preparing food for the reception, and entertaining the Valdels’ family from Scosglen. The sight of his sister walking down the aisle to Ceth had brought Mae to near-tears at the altar. She’d teased him for it afterwards, and they’d danced long into the night, laughing with, and at one another.

Part of her thinks it’s fitting that it’s still Mae at her side after all this time. The other part – the part prone to melancholy wonders if this is all they’ll ever be. Just friends. Best friends.

“It was a much better time than Lut Gholein.”

She snorts. The would-be prince of Lut Gholein had suffered quite a bit at the hands of the city’s elders in their attempt to find him a suitable bride. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think General Haile is looking to find you a royal wife.”

Mae mutters something under his breath, bumping his shoulder into hers. “Remember that Westmarch princess? She’s going to be at the wedding, too.”

The memory of a pretty blonde girl in flowing silk surfaces in her mind. An elegant dancer, tall and slender, with a broad, bright smile and a sharp nose. “That’s nice. She pretty and blonde, and she seemed to like you.”

Mae frowns at her. “You’re pretty and blonde, and I like you. So would you mind pretending to be my date? I don’t want to give anyone any ideas, and this way, we can have fun together like we always do.”

She raises a brow. “What makes you think I don’t already have a date?”

His jaw drops, preceding a pregnant pause. She’s just biting back a laugh when he reaches out to her, half-horrified and half-anxious. “Do you? You’re just messing with me, aren’t you, Lars?”

“I am,” She admits, shaking her head. Her cheeks feel warm, but then again, she’s grown used to it. “As it is, I was actually going to ask you the same thing.” She finishes off the bun, then brushes the crumbs off her lap. “Lady Haile keeps asking me to have tea with her last unmarried son, and I know for a fact that he prefers… not me, so it’d be good to put that to rest.” And it’d be good for Serrah to see that I’m not stealing her master away, too.

Mae sits up, and his eyes brighten in the way that turns her heart to warm, mushy oatmeal. She looks down as he grabs her hands – because personal space with Amaethon Valdel has never existed between them – and sighs, half exasperated and half-resigned, as he squeezes her fingers. “I’ll do you one better, Lars. Let’s actually go as each other’s dates! After all, we’re best friends, and best friends can date, right?”

He laughs when she shoves him off the stairs, and they spend the rest of the day rebuilding the stone oven, eating meat pies, and working on their detailed map of the swamplands. The days go on, and they don’t discuss the wedding again; by the time the day arrives, she’s certain he’s forgotten about their plans, so she’s more than surprised to find him at the front door, dressed in rust-coloured robes and holding up a woven corsage of brilliant-purple heather.

“Ceth used to make Cel corsages like this, and I know you liked the heather crown I made you back in Scosglen.” He pushes the floral band up her wrist, grinning, and she has to remind herself that it’s just Mae, and Mae is an unwitting romantic who likely has no idea that she can barely breathe at present.

Still, she can’t help herself – and so she unwinds the ribbons from her hair, bright blue and soft pinks and pale purples – and ties them about his wrist. And when he looks up at her and meets her eyes, the bright smile on his face tells her that he remembers; ribbons on his wrist in lieu of gold bracelets, a night on their own, far from prying eyes and enriched by one another’s company.

That had been enough, she thinks. And as Mae takes her hand to lead her to the street, she thinks that maybe this would be enough, too.

#emmbot writes #maelars #amaethon valdel #laori cethlion #raindrop pendants westmarch

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pestfreezoneae · 11 months ago

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canaliculi · 8 years ago

Text

Who throws away the fruit cake?

It’s just that, the Cake has been sitting on the same shelf in their refrigerator for months. Centered in the white expanse of a ceramic dish that seems appallingly normal for Night Vale, ringed by delicately painted flowers and eyes and with the same three pieces missing from it. It has a thin, crinkled layer of cling wrap over it. Thick crumbs lie in the wedge that has been taken out of it, crumbs which had once been moist and succulent and cinnamon-y and are now small and hard and vaguely ominous.

It’s just that... none of them have touched it. For months.

It’s also just that, it hadn’t been that good in the first place. When Carlos had come home to it baking, mild and innocuous in the oven, the house had been perfused with the cake’s sweet, cloying scent. His mouth had even watered. It was like melting, browning sugar in the air, thick with the seeping sap of natural fruits. He’d found Earl in the kitchen, eyes glazed over as though the Glow Cloud was overhead or, as was more often the case, Earl had found a particularly virulent recipe.

There was flour on the red head’s cheeks and a butcher’s knife clenched in one trembling, white knuckled hand. Carlos had tried to coax him into a response until the microwave’s jarring timer went off – a sound that he was assured was different to all that heard it, and only sounded to Carlos like his mother weeping and asking why he never called – upon which Earl shuddered violently and dry-heaved over the sink, and then calmly turned off the timer and the oven and told Carlos the Cake would have to sit in the ambient heat of the oven for a few minutes before it was ready.

Keeps your hands off, you eager beaver! Cute and lame, much like the former scoutmaster himself, except for the butcher knife and the splatters of a red substance across the white of his apron. Which, to be fair, were also much like the former scoutmaster, as despite what experience and Cecil’s assurances told him, Carlos always felt an ambiguous sort of menace radiating from the man. Not even the kind of menace that would ring bells here in Night Vale; nothing more than the remnants of his base instincts, numbed and useless and reminding him at the worst of times that Earl had a least thirty different Scout badges that translated directly into ways to murder other humans and hide their bodies.

(It was even worse to think of Cecil - dear, sweet, sinister Cecil - holding those same badges, or helping Earl earn his. Also, some of the ones he’d spied on Cecil’s own sash had the most implicative names.)

The Cake had smelled delicious, and had sat cooling on the stove until the last of Cecil’s broadcast had curled into the air between them, and then had sat forgotten once Cecil himself came home. Cecil, who looked as awe-struck as ever to find their cramped kitchen and limited counter space filled up with Carlos and Earl and their respective messes. Beakers holding colorful, congealing liquids that Carlos still hadn’t given up on quite yet and the bloodied pieces and residue of the various fruits Earl had (maybe literally) sacrificed for tonight’s dinner.

Carlos always found it fascinating to watch Earl and Cecil, his own private sociological microcosm to study and observe. Cecil shot him a glance, amused and long-suffering and at least a hundred other things that Carlos couldn’t quantify properly, but which all together sent a slow flood of warmth through his chest. He watched Cecil step close to the chef, two long-fingered hands sweeping over Earl’s cheeks to brush the flour off. A shudder quaked the red head’s frame, and Carlos watched tension he hadn’t even noticed melt out of Earl’s stance.

They tilted their foreheads together. They leant in towards one another. Cecil’s hands cupped the sides of Earl’s face and slid down the sloping lines of his neck. Earl’s hands hooked onto Cecil’s hips, and Carlos could see his fingers kneading into his flesh. It was such a quiet, tender moment. And then Cecil pulled away, and within the span of a few strides had his arms around Carlos’ shoulders, murmuring sweet nothings and asking about his day.

At some point after that the three of them had had dinner and drinks and had exhausted most of the major points of their day – a piece of Carlos’ lab equipment had blown up after printing out a 62-page suicide note, one of Earl’s assistants had suffered a macaron-induced fit of hysteria, and Cecil had celebrated Intern Janine’s two month anniversary (an event that ended in tragedy; our hearts go out to the friends and family of Intern Janine) – and they were arrayed in a rough scatterplot about the kitchen table. Earl’s knee was bumping against his own, and one of Cecil’s hands kept creeping onto his thigh.

Three small plates sat before them, adorned with three towering slices of darkly brown cake. It smelled wonderful. Earl and Cecil had their free hands resting on the table, their fingers casually interlocked. It was cute. It inspired thoughts like what of Cecil’s is touching my thigh right now. Carlos picked up his own fork, surprised at how… sturdy the cake was. Thick. Dense. It felt like wet concrete in his mouth, fast on its way to drying, and it tasted like a rum-soaked cacophony of fruits and savory root vegetables that were never meant to be in the same room as one another, let alone occupying the same dish.

Carlos swallowed his bite down, and he could feel it crawl all the way down his esophagus. It settled into his stomach like a dying star. He snuck a glance at Earl and Cecil. Cecil was chatting away, eating the cake without issue. Earl was poking at his own slice, apparently laboring under the impression that tearing it down to its base components would disguise the fact that he hadn’t actually consumed any of it. This cake clung to his insides, apparently suction-cupped to the hollow, wriggly walls of his stomach, and Carlos had never felt so full, so fast.

The night ended, eventually, as all nights must, even when time is broken and the sun sometimes hiccups on its way below the horizon. And none of them – not even Cecil, who had eaten his entire slice (how?) and some of Earl’s (why?) – had broached the subject of the Cake since. It had been shoved to a back corner of the refrigerator, and before it had accumulated various left-overs and half-finished cartons of milk and a juice that was orange, but did not taste like oranges. A fourth of Cecil’s cucumber-gravy-sawdust sandwich, that the radio host kept insisting he would finish, sat mild and festering before the Cake. Carlos shoved it out of the way, deliberately. Deliberately, he grabbed the fine edges of the china. With deliberate determination, he pulled the Cake free from its resting place and held it aloft in the empty kitchen.

It seemed wasteful. Carlos stalked over to the garbage can. It felt a little unappreciative. He rested his foot on the pedal at the bottom, the lid sliding open. None of them wanted it, he reminded himself. Carlos had to physically push the Cake off, from where its sickly-sweet secretions had nearly glued it to the plate. He washed the plate and set it to drying in the rack, and as he sat at the table, reviewing his notes for the day and comparing them to past results, he felt his gaze being drawn again and again to the plate. As if it were a murder weapon. As if it sitting there, innocuous, was condemning him.

Cecil came home first. It was 42 minutes before he caught sight of the incriminating dish, eyes widening in a dramatic caricature of shock, but the radio host said nothing. He merely pursed his lips for a moment and quirked up an eyebrow, and a few moments later, gave Carlos a rather vigorous kiss.

“We could put the dishes away,” Cecil whispered. He was close enough that his lips caught against Carlos’ with each syllable.

“No,” Carlos answered, and then they were distracted for a while.

Earl noticed the moment he stepped into the kitchen. A cocked eyebrow – very different, somehow, from a quirked one – and he turned to Cecil, who shrugged, and then to Carlos. Carlos had convinced himself he would stay firm, but under Earl’s strangely intense gaze he found himself fidgeting, carding a hand through his hair self-consciously (even distracted, he couldn’t miss the swoon this action caused Cecil).

It wasn’t like he was afraid of Earl, it was just that he didn’t know Earl like he knew Cecil. Cecil wore his heart on his sleeve, as well as every other item of clothing he possessed. Earl kept his cards clutched closer to his chest. Where Cecil was a landslide, sudden and uprooting and overwhelming, Earl was the steady grinding of a continent. A mountain climbing higher and higher over decades, moving so carefully and slowing that, if one was not watching on a timescale of centuries, one would see no movement at all.

Carlos couldn’t find the will to twitch, or even to look away as Earl came closer. The red head tugged his hand down from where it had been roughly twining in his own thick dark hair. Then, the chef smiled, and touched only the tips of his fingers to Carlos’ jawline, and guided him forward into a lingering kiss. Earl licked over his lips as they pulled apart.

“It wasn’t very good, was it?”

“Well, uh, scientifically speaking- that is, when considering the objectivity of taste and the chemistry of-”

Earl silenced him with another kiss.

“Thank you, Carlos.”

Carlos flushed, and grimaced, and fidgeted.

“Uh, right, yeah. You’re- You’re welcome.”

#cecearlos #f!tag: WTNV #meme response

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jipgeven · 7 years ago

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10.06.18

Bread is an object constantly in the process of becoming something else - grain to flour, flour to dough, dough to loaf, loaf to crumb. This holds true even for bread’s symbolic existence: while people have historically gathered to ‘break bread together,’ bread has also driven social conflicts, from ‘bread riots’ to its divisive role as an ethnic, religious, and class signifier.

Some other books that could be really interesting: - Brother Juniper’s Bread Book; Slow Rise as Method and Metaphor by Peter Reinhart. As well as books about baking bread by the same author.

In any case, what captivates me most is not so much bread as a product, nor even an idea, but as a process and an experience.

One might say that bread is both quite difficult to make. On the other hand, simple breads can be made by anyone in an average home kitchen, and with only a modest investment of time and effort will equal or surpass, in nutritional value and eating pleasure, anything you can buy wrapped in plastic at the grocery store. On the other hand, the finest artisanal breads are the product of an extraordinary and intricate craft that one learns only gradually, and perhaps never masters absolutely. For an amateur like myself, to watch a professional baker at work is as humbling as it is enthralling. Yet even the very finest of bakers will sometimes acknowledge that the process of baking is not exactly, or not simply, one of mastery: for one does not so much make bread as work with it.

In a great many other ways as well, bread - which ‘appears at first sight to be an extremely obvious, trivial thing’ - can be shown to be ‘a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.’

For of course it is finally because bread does present itself, quite literall, as the master of so many - the ‘staff of life,’ the ultimate staple commodity, an object marking the very line of survival itself - that bread as either an object or an idea has accumulated such overwhelming symbolic power. This is obviously why the word and image ‘bread’ often signifies value itself, and refers metaphorically either to food in general, or to something like ‘livelihood,’ in expressions such as ‘breadwinner,’ ‘taking the bread out of his mouth,’ and so forth. Similarly, both ‘bread’ and ‘dough’ have been used as slang words for money. And no wonder, because it is precisely in societies like ours, societies radically divided along lines of wealth and poverty, that bread becomes (as Piero Camporesi writes), a ‘polyvalent object on which life, death and dreams depend... the culminating point and instrument, real and symbolic, of existence itself.’ To think of bread at all is therefore necessarily also to dream of what the utopian socialist Peter Kropotkin calls, in the title of his most famous text, The Conquest of Bread: the unappeasable demand for a world in which there is not single man who lacks bread, not a single woman compelled to stand with the wearied crowd outside the bakehouse-door, that haply a coarse loaf may be thrown to her in charity, not a single child pining for want of food.

Even for those of us who have never known real privation, our individual and collective experience of bread can never be entirely separated from violence and scarcity, from famine and dearth. Yet if bread thus necessarily serves as the very symbol, figure, or instance of the ‘iron law’ of economy (what Marx calls the realm of Necessity), by the same token it also figures the realm of Freedom. The medieval peasants in France known as the Jacquerie revolted against their masters with the slogan le pain se love - the bread rises. As Kropotkin writes, all ‘utopian dreamers,’ first and last, ‘shall have to consider the question of daily bread.’

Bogost suggests that the figure of the ‘alien’ should not apply merely to the literal extraterrestrial or ‘space-alien’ - nor even, as one might venture to add, to the noncitizen, the migrant or ‘illegal alien.’ - Which people fall outside of the system of ‘our daily bread’? Homeless people, (refused) refugees, people with an gluqenallergy. How can I use this as a metaphor/system? How can you express this practically?

(Or perhaps, much more simply and personally, I just cannot force myself to think in terms of ‘withdrawal’ with regard to objects such as flour, yeast, dough, and bread - things that literally coexist with me, things that have filled my hand, my mouth, my time and my space, things that metabolize for me even as I later metabolize them, things I have digested in every possible sense of the word.

This time, I have in mind a simple fact about the making of many kinds of bread whose radical strangeness cannot quite be extinguished even by our scientific and practical familiarity with all of its mechanisms and details. The most familiar kind of bread - the kind made of nothing more than flour, water, salt and yeast, which are mixed, fermented, shaped and baked - is the product of a remarkable cooperation or symbiosis between human beings and a variety of microorganisms. This so-called ‘leavened’ bread has been given its shape and appealing lightness by a combination of certain peculiar properties of the starch and protein molecules in the wheat, and by the microbial action of yeast (a fungus) and lacto-bacteria, who themselves cooperate symbiotically in the process known as ‘fermentation.’ Making bread thus quite literally involves a deliberate manipulation of organic processes otherwise associated with decay and decomposition. Accordingly, across a long tradition of discourse and social practice, fermentation has been seen almost as often as a vaguely frightening form of contamination as it has a benevolent miracle.

The development of an industrial model of mass-produced bread in the twentieth century (something commonly deplored by practically everyone who writes about bread today) was, at least in part, designed specifically to shield from the senses of the consumer all traces of the messy biological details of bread making. Can we by showing the messy details of bread making also show the messy details about money or not having money?

In our times, another current of thought has emegered that regards bread as fundamental human mistake. An even larger group of people, estimated to be as many as one third of Americans, avoid bread because they have been convinced that of one of its distinctive ingredients, the protein gluten, is bad for them - notwithstanding a scientific consensus that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with gluten for the vast majority of human beings. Today a veritable industry of cookbooks and ‘gluten-free’ products has developed to confirm the new nutritional creed and fulfill its self-formulated requirements.

It turns out, on the contrary, that at least in some people’s eyes, I am in love with a monster, and indigestible poison, the number on culprit for cancer and capitalism, obesity and war, and pretty much everything else that has ever gone wrong in the whole human adventure.

At most, I will suggest that this new rejection of bread partakes of a familiar cultural nostalgia about the irretrievable past. Perhaps it even echoes the ancient association of yeast and corruption and expresses an unconscious distaste for this dangerous familiar: the literally alien being who live, work, and die with us in our homes, our bakeries, and our bodies.

It is, rather, that the thought of bread is so often, and in so many ways, a thought of the Self and the Other. As I have suggested, the simple act of eating or making bread finally links us to all those who have been or are deprived of it. At another level, bread also involves an intimate interaction between human beings and various examples of what we might call, following Donna Haraway, ‘companion species.’

Yet, Haraway and many others have observed, the very word ‘companion’ derives from the Latin cum panis, ‘with bread’. This Latin phrase and its modern English derivate seem to indicate a small shift of meaning from the object at issue to the human subjects who will consume it. The being-with designated is not so much a relation of human beings to bread, but the sharing of it by ‘companions’ who will, in the conventional phrase, ‘break bread’ together. Just as bread has often been a collective thing in its practical conditions (the grain ground by the neighborhood miller, the bread baked in communal ovens, the loaves themselves usually large enough to invite or require sharing), so bread in its very idea commonly serves as the very token, rubric, or occasion for the ‘with’ of companionship itself.

Even in itself bread is also the ultimate transformational food, something always in process of changing from one thing to another. As the great contemporary baker and baking teacher Peter Reinhart writes, among the myriad varieties of bread in the world, the one universal thing is ‘transformation’ - a process by which ‘a tasteless pile of flour, like sawdust on the tongue, is miraculously transformed into a multilayered series of flavors and textures.’

- Bread - Scott Cutler Shershow

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theliterateape · 7 years ago

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Fat Louie the Butcher

By Paul Teodo & Tom Myers

Fat Louie the butcher had thick arms. Short and covered with hair. A bloody apron draped over his barrel chest. And a large stomach. His gnarled fingers couldn’t decide which way to go snaking out of his leathery hands. A nose that went about three different ways before it came to a purple veined bulbous stop. I never saw him without an unlit cigar lodged in the corner of his mouth. Maybe 5’8” 230–240. A fucking gorilla. “Spent time in the ring” was the word on the street. In the Bronx before he got to Chicago.

At about 30 he showed up in Grand Crossing where I lived. He opened the shop at 77th and Greenwood. Butcher block tables, saw dust on the floor. Bloody meat hanging off hooks. The whole thing.

He had the cleanest windows I ever seen. Fucking sparkled. Huge pieces of meat hung in those pristine windows and everybody bought from Louie. The smell of garlic, rosemary, and fresh basil drifted onto the street. It lured you in like an herbal specter gently taking your hand guiding you through his doorway. A bell hung over its cracked wooden frame that jingled whenever a customer walked in.

Open at 6, closed at 9. Every fucking day. Except for Sunday. “I go to the Church at 11, eat the pasta at noon, come back, open again at 2.”

He lived alone over the store. A small apartment with a kitchen, a bathroom. a closet for a bedroom, and a tiny room where he balanced an 18 inch Philco on top of a milk crate. Four channels, 2,5,7, and sometimes 9.

His voice sounded like it was dragged through an alley, raspy with a thick accent. His eyes were sunk deep into his face, dark almost black. His eyebrows looked phony. Like they were balls of white and black cotton glued to his forehead aimlessly searching for a place to rest.

His meaty paws were always wrapped around his cleaver. His clothes smelled of recently slaughtered animal. And his black boots crunched the sawdust floor as he moved among the carcasses of cows, lambs, and pigs.

It was 1959. The Sox were in the World Series. Playing the Dodgers. I was 10. My old man was going, I wasn’t. I was pissed, pouty. We owned a deli right off 79th Street and one or our regulars was Daley’s secretary. She had an extra ticket. She asked the old man. Not me.

I wouldn’t go to school that day. Made up a story about a bad gut. The runs. Poured water into the toilet making it sound for real. The old man didn’t buy it. But I got to stay home anyway. Watched the game on TV. Black and white. Brickhouse announcing on the radio. Big Klu our first baseman hit two bombs, and Early Wynn, the Indian, threw a shutout. We smoked em 11-zip.

I deserved to go. The old man went, I shoulda. I was a kid but I knew the score. Daley’s secretary coulda copped a ticket for me. No problem.

So I’m sulking and shit after the game even though we won. My ma had the heart of a lion and the wisdom of a fox. “Pauly, here is $3 go to Louie’s. Get me some flank steak.”

“Ma, I whined.

“Go.”

“I don’t wanna.” I was gonna make her and the old man pay, I’d be a shit, their penance.

“I feel like braciole.” My mother was so fucking smart.

“Braciole?” My eyes lit up. Tender beef pounded paper thin, braised in wine and olive oil, lovingly embracing garlic, cheese, parsley, pancetta, and bread crumbs, simmered in red sauce.

“Now.” She pointed to the door, “Your father will be home soon.”

She won. My foul mood vanished and my stomach rumbled joyfully.

I started walking to Louie’s to get the meat. Through the park, and up Greenwood.

When I got close, I saw Georgie cleaning Louie’s front window talking to himself. In the ’50s Georgie was called the neighborhood retard. He stuttered and drooled. Had a red pockmarked face. Wore baggy pee stained green pants and a white t-shirt two sizes too small. At first you thought he was 13, maybe 14, but when you looked close it was more like 23, maybe 24.

Georgie spotted me coming up the street and he got all happy. I never gave Georgie shit, but the big kids in the neighborhood did. Bullies, assholes. “Pauly, Pauly, my friend!” Georgie shouted. I wanted to crawl under a rock. I mean I’m 10 years old and this kid, even though he never hurt nobody was screamin my name like, well, like a retard.

I didn’t respond. I just wanted to get my flank steak and disappear. Again” Pauly, Pauly, my friend.”

Fuck! He’s talking to me. What if people heard?

Just then outa the corner of my eye I saw the three of them. The bullies. Assholes. “The retard’s friend?!” They screamed.

Shit.

“Georgie’s buddy!” Screaming.

“Come on guys, he ain’t botherin' nobody,” I said, scared and embarrassed.

“He bothers us, with his piss pants and drool. Bothers us a lot.”

“Just leave him...” I felt the warm liquid run down my face and searing hot pain shoot through my skull from just below my eye socket. The crack sounded like it came from across the street. I dropped to my knees spotting the rock on the ground. It had hit me square in the face. Stars floated in the bright afternoon sun. Georgie terrified. The assholes laughing, “Retard’s buddy, his friend.”

The door to the store swung open. Filling the doorway was Fat Louie, cleaver in hand, bloody apron draping his stomach. Unlit cigar crammed in the side of his mouth.

“You,” he pointed at the bullies with his cigar.” Get the hell out of here.” He stepped towards them. They scattered like flies.

Georgie bent over me, his breath making me nauseous. “Pauly, my friend, are you OK?

I felt a thick fingered hand pulling me up. The smell of meat filled my nose. Without saying a word Louie guided me into his store.

He lifted me onto his butcher block counter, and slapped a piece of cold raw meat onto my face. “This help. Boys, they bullies. I find later. Press.” He grasped my hand in his pressing the raw bloody meat into my eye. Its damp coolness felt like heaven.

In raspy broken English he spoke. “Pauly, you did a good thing. The bully boys no do good thing,”

“They nailed me Louie.” I sobbed.

“Face will heal. They need to live with what they do. You did good. Them, if no change, bad things will happen.” He pressed his hand on mine again, the steak still doing its job. “You see when older. No good to bully.”

“No good to get my face smashed.” I argued, trying to be strong.

He gently pulled my hand from my face. The meat slithered down my shirt. I could feel my eye swell as it closed. He took my bloody face in his hands. “You did a good thing. Georgie needs help sometimes, you give, that is good.” His breath was heavy. His voice solemn. “Now why you come to my store?”

What? I tried to remember. The Sox. The Dodgers. The World Series. Braciole. That’s it. Flank steak. “I came for some flank streak.”

“Ah,” he pulled the cigar from his mouth, “you Momma, she make the braciole?”

“Yeah, my favorite.” Trying to cover my whimpering.

What I could see of his face through my swollen eye broke into a huge smile. He walked slowly to his butcher block table, his feet crunching on his sawdust covered floor. He slammed a piece of meat onto his table and pounded it thin with his mallet. The banging made my head throb. Finished, he methodically wrapped it in brown paper and tied it with white twine.

I reached into my pocket for the $3. He held his hand up. “No bring me a braciole. That is payment.”

“ I will.”

I walked back up Greenwood through the park. I carried our flank steak in the blood stained brown paper that Louie had given me. When I opened the door to our store, my mother was finishing with a customer. Her eyes riveted on my swollen face. She rushed to me. “What happened?”

I could hear Louie’s voice. The voice that sounded like it had been dragged through a fucking alley. I looked at her and smiled handing her the meat.

“I did a good thing.”

#World Series

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taanzd · 8 years ago

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In honour of the Vegan Month of Food, I’ve finally published my award-winning recipe for chocolate-chip cookies! This week is all about changing vegan perceptions. If you thought vegan cookies were dry, stiff, and flavourless, with a texture resembling that of sawdust, I will change your mind with these cookies. I have a very specific set of requirements when it comes to the perfect chocolate-chip cookie: it needs to be soft, chewy, and moist on the inside, with an ever-so-delicate golden crust on the outside. The cookie crumbs need to melt on my tongue. The flavour needs to be buttery and sweet with a hint of vanilla and a punch of bittersweet chocolate. Ok, the truth is that these cookies have won no awards, but it sounds like they should, right? I promise they are really good. Like really, really good. Just ask all my omnivorous friends.

I spent a long time perfecting this recipe, and I’m proud to say that I’ve finally gotten it right. The aquafaba (bean water) is absolutely essential to achieve that chewiness we all crave in a cookie. Chocolate extract, while sometimes difficult to track down, was the final touch the cookies needed to take them from really great to totally unreal. These cookies are incredibly delicious and unbelievably easy to make. You might even find yourself unwittingly committing the recipe to memory. Make them once, and you’ll never turn to another chocolate-chip cookie recipe ever again.

Recipe (Makes about 24 cookies)

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup vegan margarine (I use Becel Vegan)

3 tbsp aquafaba (water from a can of chickpeas)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp chocolate extract or more vanilla extract

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2-1 cup semi-sweet vegan chocolate chips

Method

Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 350F.

Add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, and margarine to a large mixing bowl or to the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat on medium speed to cream the sugar and margarine until no large clumps of sugar remain.

Add the aquafaba, extracts, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix on medium speed until just combined.

Add 1 cup of the flour to the bowl and mix until just combined. Add half of the remaining flour (2 tbsp) and continue mixing until the dough comes together. Test a small bit of the dough between your fingers; if it is very sticky, the dough is too wet and your cookies will fall flat. Add the remaining flour in 1 tbsp increments until the dough is moist and no longer sticky, but not dry and crumbly. You don’t necessarily have to add the full 1/4 cup of remaining flour. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Form the dough into balls (about 2 tbsp each) and space 1 inch apart on the baking sheet, but do not flatten the balls. You should have 24 altogether.

Bake for 9-12 minutes depending on the texture you prefer. The shorter baking time will yield softer, chewier cookies, while the longer baking time will yield crunchy cookies.

Cool cookies on the baking sheet for five minutes, then transfer to a wire rack until completely cool before storing. You can eat the cookies hot out of the oven, of course. Just try not to burn yourself. Store the cookies at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Chewy Chocolate-Chip Cookies! In honour of the Vegan Month of Food, I've finally published my award-winning recipe for chocolate-chip cookies!

#aquafaba #baking #cruelty free #plant based #Recipes #sugar

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bobnorthway · 8 years ago

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SEARCH SEARCHABOUTPRODUCTSSERVICESCOURSESBLOGCONTACTHOMESUBSCRIBE Humus Gardening – Healthy Soils, Hardy People, Happy Planet (Part 1) 02 AUGUST 2017 What drives a love of gardening? Perhaps we garden for the simple pleasure of communing with the natural. Perhaps we become weekend warriors to assuage our workaholic ways, or to soothe our creative souls. Whatever your driver, I'm betting you didn't know that "minding your own patch" may be your single greatest contribution to both the health of your family and the health of your planet. Most of us have no awareness of the seriousness of the climate change challenge. We live in our bubble of denial, where Facebook, television and sport are the opiates, softening the harsh reality of meeting the mortgage. We hear the increasing reports of drought, storms, famine and floods and they wash over us like the empty promises of politics. I meet with climate change specialists at conferences around the world and it is rare to hear a positive prognosis for the planet. In fact, the dire warnings are now flowing freely. Professor Guy McPherson, from Arizona State University, is a leading climate change expert. During his speaking tour of NZ last November, he shocked a prime time television audience with the announcement that there would be no humans remaining on the planet within ten years. He advised viewers to begin ticking off their bucket list dreams immediately, because the hard times will begin way before that final date. In my recent seminar tour of the UK, a Professor who had attended my course shared that he was part of a scientific think tank that embodied the finest science brains in that region. He confided that one in five of his group believes there will be no people remaining by 2030 (just 3 years beyond Guy's grim prediction). climate change I have visited over 30 countries in the past year and the reason for this frantic globetrot is not a love of travel. Three years back, a prediction from the world's leading climate change scientist, NASA legend Professor James Hansen, ended my inertia. James has an unparalleled record. In decades of work, in a science awash with prediction, he has never been wrong. Three years back, James informed us that we had five years left, so now it is down to just two years. This is not a timeframe for extinction but rather a point at which we can no longer reclaim what we have lost. The damage at that point is irreversible and our children are destined to live in a world that will be a shadow of its former self. James is not suggesting that a complete game change is required within that limited window. Instead, he believes that we need to have completed a paradigm shift (mindset change) within that time. The majority of us need to at least get to the point that we recognise the mistakes and the urgent need for change. Thankfully, I am seeing that awakening everywhere I travel and I remain optimistic. I do not subscribe to the alarming predictions of some of the experts, because I know there is a solution. This is a pretty serious start to a feel-good gardening article, but please hang in there. The news gets much better, because there is something very real that you can do about it. This contribution will not only help save the planet, it may also improve the health, happiness and longevity of yourself and your family. Here’s how it works… Humus Saves Your World The blanket of greenhouse gases traps the heat that warms the world, and we would not have a livable environment without it. However, that blanket has thickened in recent decades, as human enterprise (and the energy required to fuel it) has exploded. We have quadrupled our numbers in just 70 years and carbon from coal, oil and humus has billowed into the blanket. Carbon is stored in three places: the soil, living things, and the atmosphere (where it is stored as CO2). It moves between these three storage vehicles as part of the carbon cycle. We have lost two thirds of the largest storehouse (the soil) to the atmosphere, through faulty farming and gardening practices. Organic matter (humus) has dropped globally, from an average of 5% to just 1.5%, and this carbon is the lion's share of the offending CO2 that is changing our world and threatening our very existence. The good news is that it can be fixed! gardening family When we change the way we farm and garden, we build, rather than lose, humus in our soils. This is direct sequestration of carbon that would otherwise have returned to the atmosphere as part of the carbon cycle. The 4 in 1000 initiative, announced by the French government at the recent Paris Climate Change conference, was a recognition of this potential. 22 countries have now agreed to incentivise the building of 0.4% (4 in 1000) organic matter each year. The science supports the fact that we can reverse climate change, if we return the carbon to the soil from where most of it came. If you can step up to the plate and nurture your backyard in the right way, your personal contribution is far more profound than putting in solar panels and turning off lights. In fact, if you sit down with a calculator, you will realise that this is the greatest strategy you can possibly adopt to help save the day! The Ultimate Win/Win The other good news relates to the human health role of your garden. The home food garden is your ultimate wellness tool. If you can build humus and address mineral requirements in your own patch, then you can produce chemical-free, nutrient-dense food with forgotten flavours and enhanced medicinal qualities. The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, famously said, "Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food". A flood of studies now confirm that fresh, whole foods are replete with a remarkable range of protective nutrients and come equipped with the co-factors that optimise the uptake of that nutrition. As Hippocrates so aptly noted, there is no comparison between nutrients in bottles and those found in well-grown, fresh food. There is a problem with this recognition, however, because our demand for cheap food and the super-efficient food producing machine that delivers on demand is not necessarily producing this "medicine". It is a fact that many fruit and vegetable farmers will not eat their own produce. They have their patch out the back to produce clean food for their family. This contaminant factor is compounded by the nutrient losses associated with transporting and storing fresh food. A snow pea, for example, loses 50% of its vitamin C lode within 12 hours of harvest. The vitamins are the worst affected. Vitamin A, the B group and vitamin C are particularly fragile, but the phytonutrients that make food "medicinal", are also seriously impacted. When you have your own healthy, chemical-free garden, the trick is to harvest your food in the evening, directly before it is eaten. If you can compound that benefit by growing heirloom fruit and vegetables, you will be consuming champagne food and your garden becomes a profound health tool. heirloom vegetables Hybridisation invariably involves loss of nutrition because, when plant breeders rearrange the genes in the gene pool to profit from their creations, something always suffers. The capacity for mineral uptake is most often impacted. The original heirloom varieties are far more flavorsome, because taste correlates directly to nutrition and medicinal value. Five Tips to Garden for Humus and Health 1) Compost, compost, compost! Humus is the sweet-smelling, chocolate-coloured substance that is produced by microorganisms and serves as their home base and support system. Composting involves our intervention in the natural process of decomposition. Here we can improve and hasten the creation of humus. Compost provides stable humus and complexed minerals to our soil, along with and an invaluable army of new recruits to the soil workforce. However, there are other major benefits to embracing compost. Compost is a major key to sequestering carbon and countering climate change. Compost effectively restores the capacity of your soil to build humus. It replaces or regenerates the key organisms responsible for humus building. For example, compost stimulates earthworms and mycorrhizal fungi, two of the most important carbon building players in the soil. It also reintroduces a group of organisms called cellulose-digesting fungi. These humus creators are missing in many soils due to chemicals, chlorinated water, overcultivation and lack of food. Plants pump sugars out from their roots to feed the surrounding soil-life, as part of a "give and you will receive" relationship. Part of this glucose gift can be converted to humus. Compost restores the key creatures performing this role. In one recent US study, the application of compost created nine times more humus, according to soil tests, than what was physically applied to those soils. The compost was the triggering mechanism for carbon sequestration. The creation of a compost pile simply involves making a layer cake. You start with a carbon layer involving straw, dead leaves, sawdust or council green waste. You apply the additives described below to that layer, wet it down thoroughly, and then apply your nitrogen layer. This involves, lawn clippings, animal manure or green weeds. You repeat the same additions on that layer and then add another carbon layer (alternating, until the pile is complete). compost Here are some composting tips for the home gardener: Add a clay stabiliser – if you can include some friable clay-based soil to each layer of your compost pile or bin, there is a remarkable benefit. The fungal component of your compost will bind that clay to humus, to create a clay/humus crumb. The stable humus you have now produced will remain in the soil for a minimum of 35 years. This contrasts with active humus produced by bacteria (lawn clipping compost), which will only remain in your soil (and out of the atmosphere) for 12 months. The best super-fine and highly available form of clay for this purpose is NTS Soft Rock™. This natural source of phosphate, calcium, silica and trace minerals is actually a colloidal clay, so you get all of these minerals and the long-term humus, all-in-one. Include a paramagnetic boost – the addition of 6% basalt crusher dust to your compost can seriously improve the composting process. The paramagnetic effect from basalt involves the measurable release of light particles called biophotons into the compost. This light stimulation multiplies the activity of the microbe workforce. There is also a broad spectrum mineral release associated with the finer particles of the crusher dust. Don't discard your ash – the ash from your fire contains very high levels of the mineral, potassium (potash). Potassium is responsible for stem strength, photosynthesis and sizing up fruit and vegetables. It is in a highly leachable form, as fire ash, but it is completely stabilised by humus when used to enhance the fertilising value of your compost. Add lime to each layer – a heavy sprinkle of lime is added to each layer, in all popular commercial composting processes. This practice serves three purposes. It ensures that the pH is optimal for decomposition, it ensures that calcium is present for the microbes and it eventually provides some plant-available calcium, the most important of all minerals, to your garden. Include previous compost and manure – manure contains good levels of nitrogen and many other minerals to ensure a nutrient-rich compost. The nitrogen component is essential to achieve a good carbon to nitrogen ratio in your compost. A couple of shovelfuls of your previous compost, added to each layer of your emerging heap, serves as an inoculum to speed the decomposition of the new pile. 2) Mulch like your life depended upon it Mulching is a critically important, core strategy for every square centimetre of bare ground in your garden. There should always be plant cover, or mulch cover, or a combination of both, because there is no food for soil-life on bare ground. Gardening is about looking after soil-life, so that they will look after you. This is how you make for stress-free pleasure during your communion with nature. A mulch cover warms and protects the soil, while nourishing its legions of inhabitants. Most importantly, mulch is converted to stable humus, which will keep carbon from returning to the atmosphere for most of your lifetime. mulch Here are some mulching tips: Claim your free council mulch – in most areas of Australia, you can fill a trailer with ground-up green waste, free-of-charge, at your local recycling depot. This rich, brown mulch is perfect to feed the fungal component of your soil to sponsor the production of stable humus. You can pile this mulch 100 cm thick to discourage weeds, and the life beneath will delight. The earthworms arrive to party shortly thereafter and you should rejoice at their arrival. Earthworms decompose raw organic matter four times faster than any other humus-builders. Their castings are a remarkable fertiliser and they aerate your soil better than a spiked roller. Earthworms incubate a unique range of beneficial organisms in their gut and they inject this protective and productive inoculum throughout your soil. 12 months after applying this mulch, you can dig down and observe the thick layer of rich brown humus you have created. Consider a fertilising mulch – lucerne hay is the best performing of all mulches because it fertilises your soil while protecting and feeding. A perfect compost has a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 30:1. Lucerne mulch has that perfect ratio. It is well known as a protein-rich, nutrient dense animal feed, but it offers similar benefits to the invisible livestock beneath your feet. Lucerne mulch has a secondary benefit. It is teeming with organisms called protozoa. These creatures are the favourite food of earthworms. These wonderful workers arrive in force when the word goes out that it is feeding time at the lucerne lunch-house. Plant a chop-and-drop living mulch – ideally, your garden should feature plantings of fast-growing leguminous plants and shrubs that can be cut and dropped on a regular basis to cover and feed the soil. These plants offer several other benefits. For example, it is a great idea to plant lucerne plants throughout your garden. The leaves are a wonderful, nutrient-dense, alkalising additive to green smoothies, the flowers are amongst the most delicious of taste treats, but it is below ground that the magic happens. Lucerne and other chop-and-drop plants, like pigeon pea, house nitrogen-fixing organisms called Rhizobia in their root nodules. In this manner, they can help supplement surrounding plants with nitrogen, the mineral found most abundantly in plants. However, legumes offer more than free nitrogen. Their roots exude acids into the soil that serve to break the bond between locked-up phosphorus and calcium in your soil. In this manner, the two most important minerals for photosynthesis are made constantly available to surrounding plants. Finally, the exudates from the roots of legumes tend to feed the beneficial fungal component in your soil. It is these creatures who bind together the soil particles to create crumb structure, the most desirable of all soil conditions. In the next installment we will look at several other key strategies to make your garden your ultimate wellness tool. Until then, enjoy your soil! nts soft rock Sign up to our e-newsletter to receive the latest articles, product updates and exclusive offers from NTS. Every new subscription receives a free digital copy of Graeme Sait's book, 'Nutrition Rules!'. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE Graeme Sait Author of hundreds of articles and a popular book, 'Nutrition Rules!'. Travels the world educating and inspiring growers and often consults at a government level. CEO of Nutri-Tech Solutions (NTS

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