Feed the Dragon Something New or Be Dinner novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Equinox Door
Daigo lays out the rules: the Midwinter Feast in eighty-nine days, and a hearth door that opens only at the equinox. Riko cooks the second dish and the dragon stands behind her to take down a pot. Daigo: 'He's never asked for a thing by name before.'
Riko woke on a pallet in the pantry loft with a sore back and a clear head.
It was not a dream.
The beams over her face were black with three hundred years of smoke, and somewhere below, a copper pot clanged.
She went down the ladder, found her bandana, and made the rice balls first, because the rice came first.
She salted her palms and pressed the triangles, and she ran a thin line of tare across each one.
Kagiro was already waiting on his stool at the pass.
He took the plate without a word and ate with his eyes shut, one rice ball after another.
When he finished, he set the plate down very softly, nodded once, and left.
"He didn't say it was good," Riko said.
"He never says," said Daigo.
He was sweeping the flagstones with a broom.
"Come. You should know what you are cooking for."
He showed her the mountain between chopping and stirring, because he said the work did not stop for talk.
There were nine peaks in that range, each one held by a dragon lord, and the nine lords made up the Council.
Kurosumi was the black one, and its lord was Kagiro.
Every year one lord hosted the Midwinter Feast, and this year it was Kurosumi's turn.
The host sat at the long table in front of the other eight and ate nine courses.
"Nine dragons," said Riko. "Watching him eat."
"Watching him enjoy it," Daigo said. "That is the custom."
"A lord who cannot enjoy his own table is called hollow."
"And a hollow lord can lose his mountain."
"To who?"
"To whoever the Council votes. Most likely the White Peak."
"And the village at the bottom?"
"Three hundred people who farm his slopes and have never been hungry."
Daigo thumped the broom.
"The White Peak would tax them to the bone. I would rather not see it."
When he finished with the feast, she asked about the door.
The steward took her to the base of the range.
There an iron hatch the size of a bread oven stood shut, cold and rimmed with soot.
"The hearth that brought you," he said.
"It opens twice a year, on the night of each equinox."
"And never on any other night."
"The equinox was last night."
"Yes."
"So the next one is spring."
"A hundred and seventy-nine days from your arrival."
Riko stared at the hatch.
She had a mother in Saitama who would call the shop about her missing shifts.
She had a boss who would be furious.
She had three hundred skewers marinating in a cooler.
"Fine," she said. "Then I'll cook for a hundred and seventy-nine days."
"And eighty-nine of them for the feast."
"Fine. Where's the egg pan?"
That evening she made rolled omelet.
She made a broth from kelp and dried river fish and whisked it into the eggs.
She poured the eggs into a long copper pan in thin layers.
She rolled each layer onto the last.
It was the sort of dish she could make asleep.
It still needed a long-handled spatula, and the spatula was on a hook near the ceiling.
She dragged over a stool.
"Do not climb on that," said a voice at her back.
Kagiro had come in without a sound, as he always seemed to.
He stepped up behind her and reached over her head for the hook.
His chest pressed against her shoulder blades.
His arm passed beside her ear, and the scales on it gave off heat.
Riko forgot what she was doing.
He did not move away.
The spatula came down into her hand, and his fingers lingered, a long moment, on her knuckles.
"The egg is burning," Kagiro said into her hair.
It was.
She swore and snatched the pan from the flame, and he stepped back, and she heard him breathe out through his nose.
The omelet was golden and a little scorched on one corner.
She cut a slice and laid it on a plate.
"Go on," she said. "I'm not going to explain it."
He took a bite and chewed with his eyes closed.
"I have not had this," he said.
"You said that yesterday. You'll say it tomorrow. I'd like an opinion."
"I am not a critic."
"Everybody is a critic."
"Then I will tell you when I have one."
He finished the slice, and the second, and put the plate down.
Riko had the strong feeling she had just been dodged by a master.
Still, he stayed on the stool for a while after he had eaten, watching her scrub the pan.
"Tell me what it is you do at that fire in your world," he said.
So she told him.
She told him about the grill and the skewers, and the shouting boss, and the Friday rush.
She told him about her mother's ramen counter in Saitama and the smell of it.
She had not talked that much to anyone in a year.
He listened without a single question, and when she turned around, he was looking at her.
"Go to bed, cook," Kagiro said, quietly, and left.
She lay awake a long time on the pallet.
Around midnight she crept down the ladder for a drink of water.
The kitchen was dark, except for a little red glow from the range.
Kagiro was sitting alone on the stool at the pass, with her breakfast plate in front of him.
There was one cold rice ball left on it, which she had not seen him save.
He was licking the salt from his thumb, slowly, with his eyes shut.
He did not look at all like a man who was planning to eat anyone.
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