Page 26 of The Unknown

The mood having grown somber, we decided to return to our cottages. While the rest of us put our shoes back on, Katrina’s eyes went wide and her entire body stilled. Although she sat paralyzed like that for only a few seconds, I could tell she had just experienced one of her visions.

“What did you see?” I said.

“Come on,” Jonquil urged when Katrina said nothing. “You can tell us.”

“I saw—” Katrina paused, clearly reluctant to reveal more. “I saw Daisy’s cottage.”

This was a surprise. Since Katrina didn’t seem to like me very much, I never expected to be the focus of one of her visions. “Was I there?”

“I think so, yes,” Katrina said. “I could only see the outside. It was night and something was at your door.”

“Don’t you meansomeone, dear?” Mrs. Minafer nervously asked.

Katrina gave an uncertain shake of her head. “It–it didn’t seem human. I couldn’t see a face. Just a figure dressed in a cloak that was completely black. Darkness personified. And it was waiting right outside your door, Daisy. Waiting for you!”

She began laughing then, a torrent of giggles she tried to hide behind her hand. “You’re so gullible, Daisy,” she said.

“So you didn’t have a vision?” I said.

“Not ofyou.”

Jonquil looped her arm through mine and said, “I told you so. It’s all bunk.”

That might have been true, but as we left the lakeshore, I noticed a nervous look cross Katrina’s face, giving me the sense that she hadn’t made it up at all—and that whatever she did see in her vision frightened her to death.

Six

Before I can resume reading the diary, my grumbling stomach reminds me that dinnertime came and went hours ago. Now that we’re living like the women of New Avalon, we apparently must fend for ourselves. And even though in Daisy’s diary, it was Mrs. Semple who kept the others fed, I highly doubt someone like Violet Wright is going to be making all of us dinner.

Since the cottage has no kitchen, I grab one of the lamps and venture outdoors like a pioneer woman in search of sustenance. The obvious place to go is the main house and the kitchen Brad had pointed out earlier. He, by the way, is nowhere to be found. Likely because he, Ronan, and Loretta are off enjoying a secret five-course meal in one of the upstairs rooms.

Not knowing what else to do, I explore the kitchen. Brad was correct. It’s truly terrifying.

Because there’s no electricity here, either, the kitchen hasn’t received a groovy seventies update like the bathroom in my cottage. Everything here entered antique status decades ago. The oven is a cast-iron monstrosity that seems as big as a locomotive. It and the open-hearthfireplace nearby are both wood-burning, so I toss a few logs into each one and light them up.

Remembering Brad’s warning about not drinking the lake water, I then haul a giant pot onto the stove and start boiling water for drinking and brushing my teeth. From the emptiness of the kitchen and lack of other containers of water, I assume I’m the first person to think of this. Either that, or they’re holding out on the newbie.

Even though I was—and, let’s face it, likely still am—a waitress and not a chef, I’ve spent enough time in restaurants to know how to whip up a meal. A search of the kitchen yields a variety of old-timey foods stored in old-timey ways. A pantry full of flour, sugar, rice, and beans. A spice rack. A larder bearing potatoes, onions, and carrots. An icebox with an actual block of ice inside, which does a decent job of chilling a glass bottle of milk, a stick of butter under a ceramic lid, and a dozen brown eggs. There’s even some bacon wrapped in butcher paper and a smoked ham dangling from a hook on the pantry door.

I decide to dice several potatoes and toss them into a cast-iron skillet with some onions, carrots, and cubes of the smoked ham. Despite there being yeast in the pantry, making bread this late is out of the question. Instead, I mix some flour, salt, and butter together to create a batter for drop biscuits that go into a separate skillet.

As the food cooks, I find an ice pick and start breaking off chunks from the block of ice. This should cool down the water after it’s done boiling and make it halfway drinkable.

The whole time, I try to convince myself that all this effort will be good for the movie. That toiling in this oppressively hot kitchen will connect me to the women of New Avalon, if not Daisy herself. That I’ll be able to channel this moment when the cameras are rolling, giving my performance extra authenticity. In truth, all it really does is make me miss my microwave.

Still, the result of all this work is a halfway decent dinner of hash andbiscuits, the scent of which travels from the open kitchen windows to the cottages outside. Within minutes, Heather, Julianne, and Susie have drifted inside, staring hungrily at the food I’m piling onto a plate. The only cast member missing is Violet Wright. Disappointing but not surprising, given her stature. She’s probably getting her meals flown in by drone.

“You didn’t need to make us dinner, Marin,” Heather says.

I want to tell her that I didn’t. That I made it for me. But then I think about Daisy and what she’d do or say in this situation. Smile, probably, while claiming it was her pleasure. Even though I feel the opposite as Susie, the woman who only hours earlier assumed I must be sleeping with the director, loads up her plate.

“Is this keto?” she asks, sniffing the food like a finicky cat.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, some of us have dietary restrictions.”

And that makes it official. I hate Susie Hutchinson.