Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3) (35 page)

I turned to prepare the fire. Actually, coals were best for
baking biscuits, and a Dutch oven was best of all. I’d tried earlier to leave
the fire so it would produce good coals, and it had not failed me. The kitchen
had several cast iron ovens, and Mrs. Gardener had kindly let me select what I
wanted.

I’d chosen two small, three-legged ovens, their walls nicely
even and seasoned, their lids tight, their bail wire handles deep and with
heavy rings that rose above the lid on each side. Each fireplace had a set of
long, loose, thick leather gloves for working with Dutch ovens, as well as
tongs, so I was prepared for cooking.

In truth, this wasn’t exactly cooking. I wasn’t sure if the
biscuits would even finish cooking. Would we be able to tell if we’d made
biscuits with teeth? I carefully set the ovens near the fire to warm slightly,
making note of which pot was which. Then I reached out for the apron hanging
over in the corner . . . and paused.

Would the apron burn if a coal exploded? I lifted the apron
from its wrought iron hook, turned in the direction of the wall between
Margaret and myself, and held up the apron.

Wind breathed past my ear. “It is already spelled.” I
clearly heard Margaret’s popping, precise enunciation.

So, I could hear her, which was both good and a little
uncomfortable, but I could work under her eye. As I tied on the apron, the door
opened, and James Smith and Daniel Williams slipped into the room.

There was little prep work. James had already told me how
much sugar he had added to his biscuits. I had reduced the amount for our small
dough, and measured out two containers. Fixing Mr. Williams with a hard eye, I
said: “Do not help, do not suggest, do not interfere unless asked. We want to
recreate what Mr. Smith did last time.”

Daniel nodded, as still as a mouse under a hawk’s eye.

James sprinkled his sugar as he had done earlier, folding
his biscuit dough several times. The dough lumps ended up at opposite ends of
the table. Then he pulled out his wand.

“
Did
you do anything else between adding the sugar, and the spell?” I said quickly.

“
No,
miss. Daniel put lard on the trays to grease them, but that’s all.” He paused,
looking at Daniel.

“
Mr.
Williams, you may take a scoop of lard from that pot for each oven. Place the
lids back on!” The boy jumped to his job, while James and I turned back to the
dough.

“
Perhaps
you should start with the one I did not add yeast to,” I suggested. “So there
is no chance of added yeast getting on the other biscuits?”

Nodding, the boy faced the right-hand lump, balancing
himself carefully on the balls of his feet. “All I did was this . . .
” He touched the tip of his wand directly on the dough. “
Resurge
!
”

The room suddenly felt small. Both boys noticed the change.
Daniel’s dark eyes grew round, and James became motionless. I did not feel
anything threatening about the magic . . . it was simply a lot of spell for such a
small area.

We should have done
this in the ritual dome.

“
It
feels different in such a small room, gentlemen?” I asked.

“Yes. The ceiling is much lower here. That may be some of
it.” He glanced at Daniel. “Daniel and Moira helped me roll balls of dough for
the pan.”

I had brought a biscuit cutter, but it did not surprise me
that it would not be needed. “Daniel, you may go ahead and do what you did
before, while Mr. Smith finishes his spell.”

We left Daniel rolling balls of dough and setting them
inside one Dutch oven. James reached for the other clump of dough, which was
actually showing a slight increase in size. He flicked his wand, wiping the tip
with the towel I’d laid aside, and then touched the last mound of dough. “
Resurge
!
”

Again, the feeling of magical energy filled the room. It
almost made the air tingle, as if lightning was about to strike. They must have
been in a panic to finish cooking, not to notice such magic floating around
them.

“
Load
the ovens, gentlemen, and do not touch the second ball of dough until you have
finished with the first!”

I stepped closer to the wall and whispered: “Did doing the
spell twice strain any protections?”

Margaret answered: “It seems fine. He touched the dough;
that should have kept the spell pointed where he wanted it. Good heavens, he
was so unfocused in his choice of words!”

“
Yes,
he was,” I agreed as James slammed the lid on the second oven.

I lifted my eyebrows at him.

“
The
dough is rising,” he said, looking worried.

“
Did
it start rising before you put it in the oven last time?”

Both boys nodded.

“
Do
you know how to set a Dutch oven in coals for baking?”

Their response was owl-eyed silence, so I showed them how to
arrange a circle of coals beneath and on top of a Dutch oven.

“
Two
more coals go on top, and two less on the bottom,” I said. “There’s a trick to
knowing how much heat to use, but since we won’t dare eat these biscuits, I won’t
tell you about it today. Just remember never to put coals under the center of
the oven. That’s a good way to burn food. If we wanted a crunchy top to the
biscuits, we’d move all the coals to the lid for the last few minutes or so.”

I then gestured to implements hanging on the wall. “A whisk
is to brush away ash so that, when you open the lid, ash doesn’t fall in the
food. Here are tongs for moving coals around, and the pot lifter, and clean
bricks to the side to set the lid on—”

“
Should
we clean up now?” Daniel asked.

I controlled my smile. “Yes, let’s do that now.” I used my
tongs to nudge aside some extra kindling and branches to make sure the wood
would not light, and then we rose to clean up the table.

“
Are
there actually rules for cooking with a Dutch oven?” Daniel asked.

“
Not
many, but there are a few, and they are the difference between tasty food and
sad, tasteless food,” I answered, tightly closing the sugar and setting it back
upon the supply shelves. “Before we get into Dutch oven baking, Mr. Smith, do
you have any questions about what we just did?”

“
What
will we do if nothing happens?”

“
We
will study our notes, and see if we can figure out why,” I replied.

“
And
try again?”

“
I
would like to try again. Another day. If this does not work, we can try letting
the dough rest overnight. But I think something will happen.”

“
Oh,
yes,” James said, his voice fervent.

“Is anything different from the first time you did this, Mr.
Smith? Other than the Dutch ovens, and our actually adding a pinch of yeast to
one ball of dough?”

“
I
don’t know if we should feed these to the pigs,” Daniel said, frowning. “I don’t
think the others ended up in the slops, either.”

“
The
older students did something with them in class,” James said, his expression
less harried. “Perhaps we could look inside one? Sinjin said that they had
large holes from expanding. I wondered if they actually had insides like an
animal, but Sinjin said no.”

Did everyone call Mr. St. John that except me?

Before I could respond, a muffled sound startled us, like
the echo of an animal growling in a cave.

“
How
long did your biscuits take to bake, Mr. Smith?” I asked.
Why hadn’t I
thought to ask him that question?

James grew thoughtful. “A quarter hour or so?”

That was too fast for normal biscuits, and this was even
quicker. “Perhaps we should check and see what is happening—”

And then the lid on the left-hand pot tilted upwards,
shedding coals, as a tremendous roar burst from the Dutch oven.

Cantamen dissolvatur . . .

No. This wasn’t an emergency. Yet.

I
grabbed the loose leather gloves from the corner of the table and hauled them
on. The pot lid rose into the air, like a plate balanced on someone’s head,
revealing the elastic stretch of dough that suggested teeth, with deep pits
that could be eyes.

The hair on the back of my neck rose, and I wanted to look
away. There were no pupils, so why was the biscuit face so awful?

I slammed the lid back onto the Dutch oven and flipped up
the handle with one hand. “Quickly! A stick that will thread the rings!” The
lid strained beneath my gloved hand, trying to fly off into the room.

The
boys crashed into each other as they fumbled with the kindling, but they each
pulled out a thick stick and handed it my way. I grabbed the one with smoother
sides and shoved it through the rings. Then I lifted the pot off the coals and
set it on the hearth as snarling emerged from the Dutch oven, first echoing,
and then muffled. The dough was still expanding, the mouth swallowed by more dough?
This was the pot holding the biscuits that I had added yeast to before the boys
arrived. As yet, the second container remained silent.

I
might never feel quite the same way again about yeast.

“
Gentlemen,” I said, my heart racing like a thoroughbred on
the straightaway. “Last time, did any of your rolls ooze back together to form
a loaf with teeth?”

Both
boys stared, motionless, at the snarling Dutch oven. Finally Daniel shook his
head slowly. James’s expression was appalled.

“
Any ideas on why we have a loaf with teeth instead of
biscuits with teeth?” I asked, stepping back to the fireplace and taking Daniel’s
stick from his hands. I snapped the remnants of twigs off it. Then I lifted the
rings on the second Dutch oven and slid the stick through them.

We
could always replace the stick if it burned through.

“
It . . . was swelling so quickly,” James
finally said. “I was afraid of what was going to happen with the dough. So . . .
I just dropped the entire thing into the pot.”

Ah.

“
Not quite the same experiment, was it?”

He
looked crestfallen. “No.”

“
But we have determined that a pinch of added yeast does
give us roaring biscuits,” I said. “Why that happens might require several
different investigations. Perhaps you could interest some of the senior
students in that question.”

A
squeak came from the second Dutch oven, followed by a growl and a soft snarl.
Both boys turned their heads, looking at the squat, three-legged pot nestled in
hot coals.

“
Is this more like what happened in the kitchen?” I asked
them, looking down at them. They nodded in unison.

“
This suggests that there is enough wild yeast around to
stir up biscuit dough with magic. At least sweet biscuit dough,” I added. “Let’s
clean up so we can be ready for the biscuits.”

Never
has a cooking area been scoured so quickly. Once the boys grasped that I still
intended to pull out a few biscuits, they had the area so clean I had nothing
to do but praise their efforts and set several plates and a honey pot out.

By
the time they finished, the biscuits had begun to chorus in their pots, the
loaf with teeth a deep bass note to their twittering.

“
What shall we do next with them?” I asked as I moved the
second pot to the brick hearth.

“
We should examine them,” Daniel said eagerly. “May we look
at the loaf?”

“
No. We need a teacher or more experienced students here to
examine the loaf,” I said, facing down their disappointment. “But we may each
take out a biscuit and see what we find.” I handed James the leather gloves.

James
pulled on the gloves, removed the stick, and promptly stuck his hand in the
second pot. He gave us a startled glance as he yanked his right hand out of the
Dutch oven with a growling, snarling biscuit attached, gumming him thoroughly.

As I’d
hoped, the biscuits could not actually bite. Their soft, stretchy teeth were
much more frightening than dangerous.

“Set
it on the table, Mr. Smith. Be sure to keep an eye on it!”

o0o

Biscuits with teeth turned out to be great fun, when
adults weren’t there to spoil things. When Daniel opened the lid, the biscuits
rushed for freedom, so he had to push them back into the big kettle. Our
biscuits had turned out more square than round, thanks to Daniel’s shaping of
them, so they could not roll. But they did hop up and down on their toasted
bottoms, chipping themselves in their fury and excitement.

Yeast, it appeared, had one goal in life. Food.

It did not take the boys long to determine that the biscuits
would actually throw themselves backwards, balancing on edge, if it would get
them a dribble of honey. One biscuit clamped onto a spoon, trying to tug it
away from Daniel. I had to laugh; it was just too silly.

“
Could
we have a race?” James asked. “Do you think we could get them to hop toward us,
if we had honey on a plate?”

“
I
think the problem would be that several of them would take the course in one
hop,” I replied, rapping my biscuit on the head with a dry spoon to make it
stop nibbling at my fingers. “If you can keep them alive until tomorrow, maybe
we could have a biscuit race right after breakfast! It’s very dark now, and we
should not be outside.”