ARRvol34 master reduced - Flipbook - Page 40
pot from the cabinet and placed it carefully on the stove, using a
chair as a stepping stool.
He froze. It was his pot, his mother’s pot from before. She always
used to make him soup from that pot during storms. He crept up
close behind Lucy to get a better look.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, his voice sharp.
Lucy jumped. When she looked back at him, her eyes were wide
with fear.
“Sorry,” he said, placing two light fingers on her shoulder. His skin
bristled at the touch, not unpleasantly. She was so soft, so malleable.
It had been a while since he had felt something like that.
“It’s funny,” he reached over her to brush the handle of the pot
with his fingers. “My mom always used to make me soup during
storms. She had a red pot exactly like that one. And a knife with a
red rubber handle.”
Lucy blinked, clearly indifferent.
“You can melt the butter,” she said after a pause, hopping down
from her chair. “I’ll chop up the vegetables.”
“Okay. Where’s the butter?”
She pointed over at the counter, where a tin of butter sat nestled
in the corner. Most likely it was melted. As far as he could tell, there
wasn’t a place to keep anything cold in this house. None at all.
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Something was wrong. As he grabbed the tin and unscrewed the
lid to look inside, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the metallic surface. Slowly, his lower lip turned frighteningly white. In the
