ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-THREE: The Thanksgiving

 

173

******

 

One on-stream bite of a grilled bell pepper to satisfy the fans pestering Jeffy for a glimpse of him. One nod at Konstantin, who was at the bottom of the staircase, scraping mashed potatoes and pieces of a broken bowl together while Søren apologized. One loud groan as he glanced at his social media account and saw all the requests for information about the heartwarming thing the teenager with the heartbreaking story was doing.

One piece of origami paper collected from his desk drawer. One shouted conversation out of his bedroom window to the swarm of people who’d gotten involved in cornucopia decorating. He would not be flying that thing to Matadero later unless it shrank by half. They’d been told.

One warning to Haoyu and Lexi about the questionable nature of the potatoes that would soon be arriving. One strong handshake from Mr. Zhang-Demir. And one final flight down to F with a load of supplies for the NesiCard man.

“Even Artonans love pizzzzzzzaaa! Maybe!”

One thought so crazy it would never have crossed his mind on a less ludicrous day. One frown as he stopped and stared at Post Drop #1301— a graduation capstone project gifted to F City by Indah Juliana.

He tried to target it with his skill.

And he felt the pull of it, that little weighted point in the universe that marked the location of his entruster. His sense of it was oddly fragile, like it existed halfway between reality and a fevered hallucination. But there it was.

He pressed his lips together. He watched the Post Drop until his eyes started to burn from dryness.

“I am not prepared for this, and I can’t think through it right now. But thanks for the pizza.”

A toilet flushed.

Not normal, Alden thought, striding away quickly. Not my business. Not today.

He flew fast toward Apex and Boomtown.

 

******

 

Alden parked the Nine-edged Son on the roof of the building where Natalie, Hadiza, and Emilija lived, and tried to tame his hair with one hand while he hurried downstairs. Their dinner party had started twenty minutes ago, and feelings of self-pity were occasionally breaking through the noise in his head.

All the magic food will be gone. I bet there was magic food I could have eaten, and I missed it.

He hurried down an acrid-smelling hall—not that unusual given the neighborhood—and knocked on their door. A moment later, Natalie opened it for him. Warm air hit him and the stench was blown away by a bouquet of food smells that might have wafted in straight from heaven.

Natalie was dressed casually in her pink overalls. Her hair was up in a bun, and she was wearing a pair of tiny earrings shaped like a fork and knife.“You made it!”

“I’m sorry I’m late. And I should only stay for half an hour or so. The chef at Matadero is going to need a hand dealing with all of it.”

“You’re good,” she said, shutting the door behind him. “That’s enough time to eat and meet everybody.”

Alden took in the group that made up “everybody” while he followed her over to the fancy range she’d bought with the money she’d made doing his meal prep. The apartment was decorated for a party, and teenagers were sitting all over the furniture and floor. But it was quiet except for the sounds of spoons scraping bowls and the music coming from the television that hung on the wall opposite the kitchen. The TV was showing a recording from this morning’s Thanksgiving Extravaganza in Atlanta. A high school band was playing on top of an air float that looked like a storm cloud while performers dressed in silver to represent raindrops used the aerial silks hanging from the float’s underside.

It was a cool show, worth watching even if someone had grown up with more Anesidora-level holiday spectacles in Alden’s opinion. But nobody was looking. They were all too busy having sacred experiences with the food in their bowls.

“Everyone seems to like the appetizer course,” Natalie said proudly.

On top of the stove, a large pot held what was left of a velvety golden soup.

“It’s vegan!” she announced.

I know it is. He stuck his face over the pot and took a deeper whiff. “Natalie, it smells like you somehow melted comfort. I know you know that, but—”

“I don’t mind hearing compliments.” She bumped him with her shoulder and reached for the ladle. “I am really glad you came. Emilija was posting threats on your pigeon picture earlier, and she saw your ‘Please No More Food’ message go up. So she stopped talking about how you should be forced to live on bread and water and started snooping on you instead. To see what was going on. Hashtag Matadero Thanksgiving is trending! There was a video of you flying to F a little while ago.”

“How did I look?”

“We couldn’t see you too well. You were hidden by so many supplies. And what about that guy in your program? Emilija found his page. We don’t like him. Is he a Rabbit-hater?”

Alden glanced over at Emilija, who was sitting with her back to the dishwasher and her eyes closed as she licked the back of a spoon. She had a yellow maple leaf pinned to the front of her green dress. Other artificial leaves, looking abnormally lovely, hung from threads attached to the ceiling.

“You good there, Emilija? You know spoons aren’t edible, don’t you?” he said.

She opened her eyes just wide enough to glare at him. <<My fury is only temporarily paused. Hadiza and I both hate you now, Turkey Taker.>>

Alden snorted, then looked back at Natalie. “As far as I can tell, Winston Heelfeather’s mad at me for existing in the same school as him, and he’d sell his soul for fifteen minutes in the spotlight. He says awful stuff sometimes, but I don’t think he’s actually got convictions about Rabbits, ranks, or anything like that. He just obsesses over how his fame level compares to everyone else he meets.”

“Forget him then! Look at the star of the show before you eat your pumpkin orange soup.” She bent down to peer through the oven door and motioned for him to join her.

Alden’s nose being so close to the vent as he admired the oven’s lone occupant was a blessing and a curse.

“Are you really going to preserve it until the wizards show up at Matadero for dinner?” she asked.

“Of course. This is a Natalie Choir skill debut. I’m not going to let it sit out losing its crispy, juicy glow. Give it to me perfect, and I’ll get it to them perfect. Promise.”

She looked pleased. “It’s heavy.”

<<She’s a big girl. Big enough for me to have a wing before she leaves,>> Emilija muttered.

“I can handle a turkey,” said Alden. “I wouldn’t mind borrowing a bag or something, but I definitely won’t let anything happen to it.”

“Make sure the wizard from Bunker Street has some,” said a voice from behind him.

He straightened and looked around to acknowledge Hadiza. She was on the other side of the kitchen’s island, empty bowl in one hand as she reached up to tap the thread holding one of the leaf decorations. It took on a glimmering quality, like it was catching the light in the room exactly right.

“Ro-den. That guy’s name is Worli Ro-den.” The tattoo on Alden’s chest was gone now except for the concentric triangles. When his arm was down by his side, they weren’t noticeable. “I’ll make sure he gets some. Are you three really all right after what happened to you that night?”

“We’re fine,” said Natalie.

<<We’re the only ones who are fine.>> Emilija climbed to her feet and gazed at their guests with a superior expression. <<Look at them. Weaklings.>>

A few people were staring at their dishes like they couldn’t believe the soup was gone. One boy in a fedora was watching the girl beside him finish hers off so intently that Alden wouldn’t have been surprised to see him reaching over to stick his spoon in her bowl.

<<They aren’t trained like me. Their misfortune. Natalie—another bowl!>>

“No way!” said Alden, blocking the pot as she approached. “Do you know what kind of day I’ve had? Let me have firsts before you get seconds!”

 

******

 

The soup tasted like a trip to a pumpkin patch he’d never been to, on a cool fall afternoon he’d never experienced. Natalie was either improving or she’d put more oomph into this one to make up for the lack of the entree she’d planned. By the time Alden licked his bowl clean, the other guests had recovered from the appetizer glow and started grazing on the side dishes and desserts.

They were all delicious, but not in the magical way.

I guess a room full of people eating in utter silence wouldn’t be much of a party.

The television was louder now. People were milling around and introducing themselves. Alden recognized a few of the guests as fellow Rabbits from intake; the others were an eclectic mixture. It was a group just shy of thirty people, and Alden was the only Talent Development Program student.

But he wasn’t lonely. Everyone here knew he was stopping by on his way to #MataderoThanksgiving.

“So you’re the one who had a teleporter acci—”

“You’re from that video with Aulia Velra and her granddaughter! Man, that was—”

<<You planned a party for wizards? That’s brave.>>

“You’re the globie who’s been inside the cube! And at a time like this. What—”

“Yep,” Alden said in between bites of the few vegan offerings. “That’s me.”

Please. My time is limited. Just let me eat in peace and pretend this is all I have left to do tonight.

Actually, at any other time he would have been interested in this guest list. The people here were different from the students he usually spent his time with as far as interests and ambitions went.

Other than the Rabbits, he talked to a third year Healer Hadiza had befriended who was trying to get her first comic book published, a second year Polar Brute who was stoked about the fact that he’d gotten approval to travel with a university group in Antartica next year, and a Meister who played a giant drum weapon. Her passion was xenocultural studies, not weapons. She and the Brute had met Natalie at a club for people who were extraterrestrial travel and culture enthusiasts. Alden hadn’t even been aware there was such a club on campus. They were all looking forward to a video talk that had been scheduled with a lortch village for next week.

He watched the time he’d allotted himself for a “relaxing” meal tick away while he stood in the corner by a broom and dustpan, shoveling apple pie into his mouth. A pair of Wrights—one of them the fedora guy, who lived next door with his parents and brother—had corralled him here to ask questions about the nonagon. Alden’s answers were less knowledgable than they’d hoped, but they were sticking around to explain their own current projects to him, as if his possession of a magical vehicle made him one of their kind.

“I’m a LEW,” said the fedora. “And so is she. We’re both in our workshops half the time.”

“LEW?” Alden asked after swallowing another mouthful of pie.

“Longterm Earth-based Workers,” said the girl Wright. She was short, and the orange stars on her bobble headband were waving just below Alden’s nose.

“Oh. I hadn’t heard it abbreviated like that. You’re both doing work with your powers already?”

They’d said they were finishing up high school classes and starting uni in January. The fedora was a student at CNH, and the bobble band was at Naya Din on the bayside campus, which was closed at the moment due to water damage.

Alden hadn’t expected them to have Avowed jobs. So far the only high schoolers he’d met who got summoned frequently were Rabbits and Lute.

“There have been way more Wright assignments than usual,” said the fedora. “I don’t mind as long as it doesn’t last forever. I make equipment storage cases. Not the most exciting thing, but I do have to customize each one for the object going inside it. A lot of unusual tools and weapons end up in my hands for a little while.”

“And I make automated process panels for drudgery chests,” said the girl.

“Those are…?”

“Amazing!” said Natalie. “They’re amazing.”

She’d somehow gotten away from a group that was trying to persuade her to use her skill while smearing jam on a buttermilk biscuit, for the purpose of creating a super biscuit they could use as a prize for the limbo game they had going on.

She helpfully grabbed Alden’s paper plate and tossed it toward the trashcan. It was the most evil thing he’d ever seen her do. He’d been planning to get that last crumb.

“Drudgery chests are like little factories you can teach to do repetitive jobs for you. Like if I had one—”

“There is no way I can get you one,” said the Wright girl.

“—and I wanted to chop a thousand onions, which is a horrible job that makes a person cry—”

“Even if you cry for days, I can’t get you one.”

Natalie’s smile was so sunny Alden was surprised the onions didn’t chop themselves for her. “I would only have to chop three onions inside the drudgery chest—”

“More like twenty.”

“And then all I’d have to do is keep giving it piles of onions and it would be an onion-chopping professional!”

“They’re really not for cooking,” the Wright said, keeping her eyes on Alden like she was afraid to look too hard at Natalie. “Of course they could be; but there’s only one I know of being used that way, and adding onto it has been my mother’s hobby since she was my age. She’ll probably sell it to the Artonans eventually. They’re highly sought after. Not because they’re the best at every automated task, but because you can re-instruct them to do whatever you need at the moment.”

“You mean have the same device chopping onions in the morning and then frosting cupcakes in the afternoon?” asked Alden.

“See! He thinks it’s a kitchen tool, too!”

“You’ll have to take it up with the Artonans if you want a drudgery chest, Natalie. There’s low supply for one of the components. I’m on a waiting list just so I can put one together for my own personal use. They provide me with everything I need to fulfill orders for them, but otherwise…”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“I’m not making any personal projects right now either,” said her friend. “Not because I can’t get supplies, but because I’m getting sick of making cases. The last thing I want to do in my free time is make another one.”

When Alden left them, they were arguing about the Wright who’d made the bomb that the SAL boat had been smuggling off the island and whether or not he had known where it was going when he created it.

He stood across the kitchen island from Natalie, watching her garnish the turkey. It was resting on a glazed platter that was such a biteable candy apple shade, he was sure Hadiza had hit it with her skill. “Thank you so much again for doing this. If everything else is ruined, at least we’ll still have the traditional dish.”

She didn’t answer, and he realized her eyes weren’t closed in momentary thought. She was actively using her power on the citrus wedges she was nestling around the bird. He watched her lips move as she mouthed a word.

Laughter, he decided.

She’d said before that Cook of the Moment required her to focus on her own memories. Her own moments. As the skill developed, she’d get more control over the flavors and the feelings her food evoked.

Maybe laughter always tasted a little like cake batter in Natalie’s head, and she would be able to inject a hint of that into a lemon if she wanted.

I would absolutely eat a cake and laughter flavored lemon.

She was taking a while with each piece of fruit.

He reached into one of his back pockets and pulled out his piece of origami paper from earlier. It was currently a diamond with a couple of protruding triangles. He’d stopped folding here, since this was the last part of the design that wasn’t easily ruined. While Natalie focused on a kumquat, he pulled up the instructional video he’d been watching in brief bursts this afternoon and finished his inadequate contribution to her holiday.

“Okay,” she said a couple of minutes later, opening her eyes.

“It’s done?” The turkey looked glorious, but it had looked glorious even before she’d started on the garnish.

“It’s done.” She stared down at it. “What if they don’t like it?”

“I’ll snatch it away from them and bring it back here to appease the beasts you live with.” He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with scent. Emilija’s right. Taking it away from them after they smelled it cooking all day is a crime.

“The Artonans are going to love it,” he assured her. “And here. I made a replacement for you.”

He set the origami turkey on the countertop beside its more edible relative. It was a perky looking little thing with an upturned beak. And just as Alden felt a flash of pleasure at how neat the paper animal looked, it slowly tipped over onto its back.

“Oops.” Before he could reach over to set it upright, Natalie grabbed it.

“Oh my god! He’s precious! I love him.” She held the turkey in her palm, and it tipped over again.

Alden scratched his head. “Sorry. He must be heavy in the rear. I’ll make you a better—”

Natalie glared at him and cradled the turkey to her chest. “No. Take it back. He’s perfect.”

“He’s got a tail so big he can’t stand up straight.”

“He grew those giant feathers to impress the other turkeys. He’s doing his best.” She righted the turkey again on its tiny paper feet and watched it fall over once more.

They both looked at it for a second and then burst out laughing.

“I’m going to name him,” Natalie said breathlessly when she’d recovered enough to speak. “I’m going to name him something!”

“You should name him Big Butt.”

“He wants a noble name.”

“King Big Butt.”