Archive of Our Own

Flora shook her head, thinking of the lands and what she knew of them.  Rick had been banging on about Beadley, pressing the point of planning their next move against the possibility of leaving or being driven from Bree, and at least one contingency plan should that fail.  She had no idea where his land of Ken Tucky lay, but she understood how much his family had occupied his thoughts and fears for the past two weeks, and could only imagine how much the combination must weigh upon him.

“There be only three places more vile than Mordor⁴², shy Angmar itself: Lothlorien in its hideous beauty, Rivendell and its invisible ways, and the Grey Havens. There one will find the purest evil, the greatest misery, and the deepest depravity, their Ringlords bowing only to one.

“Ancalagon the Black wastes the land to the north, ruling the skies from Thangorodrim, his fires withering all before him. Beyond that lies a land so cold that the very air freezes.

“West of Ered Luindon and the Blue Mountains⁴³ lies only the sea marshes of Beleriand — some two hundred leagues or so of islands and salt marshes, an ever-changing, shifting land destroyed these six thousand years and more, inhabited by Werewolves, Orcs and Wargs, Trolls, and Wraiths.

“I tell you right, Rick. That Beleriand there, and all other lands between, is no place fit for man nor beast. I plans to stay right here, and you would be wise to do the same, mark my words. I guarantees you Beadley will.”

Werewolves and trolls, huh? I can't tell if she's lost it even more, or pulling my leg. Her story'd go great with a campfire in October though. On the other hand, more of this Orcs motorcycle gang.

“Well, alright then, but what about Beadley?” Rick replied, “I don't know how long I'll be here, but I'm not fixing on staying forever; I need to find my family, and I can't do that, knowing that he's a threat to you ladies. No offense to your fighting skills.”

This was met with a mixture of amusement and mild affront.

“Look, I don't mean nothing by that, it's just that he has numbers and they're organized. We don't even know what he's up to, but you can bet he'll make his way around to this area soon enough. Maybe if we could get a decent vantage point...” he glanced to the side, as if looking upward toward the top of the hill.  The view was obstructed by the inner yard, of course, but his thoughts were clear.

“Rick,” Flora replied, “ 'tis a wise idea of its own, but there be no safe place up there what's not a tomb, and the dead would have it no other way. Beadley will be knowing all the same that I does, and he'll be knowing the lay of things of late while I've been gone. You can bet your last button that if he's still here, then he knows not to be elsewhere, and that he knows where we are.”

“I shan't leave the vicinity without that I first will have found Mister Darcy,” Elizabeth said, Rick finding no quarter when he turned to her for the voice of reason.

The conversation had reached yet another impasse, and lightened no one's spirit.

“Ever heard of stone soup?” Rick asked, chasing a thought that left the others puzzled.

Flora shook her head, though Elizabeth's brow raised a fraction of an inch.

“It's a little bland, but pretty good when you know what you're doing.”

Flora waited for him to expand on this, then bobbed her head as if to draw him out when it seemed that this was all of his explanation.

“Well, it's a little hard to describe the flavors, but I guess I could make some. Won't take much but a pot and fire, some water — and a decent soupstone, of course.”

It wasn't long before a decent sized pot of water was set to simmer.  Flora eyed it, then eyed Rick as he went about the yard, picking around for “just the right stone, you see,” inspecting one, discarding another, and all with no rhyme nor reason discernible to her.

“Won't be any too long now, and you'll see just what a good ol' Kentucky boy can cook up with next to nothing,” Rick said, then paused as if considering something, “Of course, the stone will bring out a lot of flavor, but I do have to admit that it just won't be the same without an onion. Two would be better, but even just one would make a fine dish. That's alright, we'll just have to work with what we have.”

Flora considered this.  An onion wasn't too much to ask for, she granted, nor yet even two of them.

“Or even a potato, or a carrot,” he finished with a sigh.

Mulling this over, she stepped into the inn briefly, returning with each of these.

“Oh, now Flora, you didn't have to go and do that,” Rick said as he relieved her of the root and tuber and bulbs.

“This'll come to a fine thing, you just watch,” he continued, “just give me a moment while I go get me a proper kitchen knife for these.

“Just wish I had some spinach, maybe some garlic to go with it...” he said to himself as he headed for the kitchen.

Imagine his surprise when, upon his return, he discovered just these things having found their way to the board by the fire, along with a red bell pepper.  Flora stood by giving a very good impression of not having done a thing, while Elizabeth hid a grin behind her hand.

“Alright now, I'll just get these chopped up about right and toss them in.”

In no time, that step was done and Rick realized something belatedly.

“Dang. Can you just imagine how this would be with a dash of oil, and maybe some cabbage? Well, it'll be fine, just the same, I'm sure...”

And so it was that bit by bit, one thing and another — only a small something in each case, of course — found its way into the cooking pot: peas, celery, tomatoes, sweetcorn, chicken, pork, beef, bacon, milk, butter, salt and pepper, buckwheat, kidney beans, bay leaves.

“Man,” Rick remarked as they added more water to a larger pot than before, replacing the previous one that had grown overly filled, “what I wouldn't give for some 'burgers to go with this. It's the perfect weather, too.”

“ 'burgers?” Flora asked, Elizabeth shaking her head with a look of mystification.

“Now don't you go telling me that y'all don't know what 'burgers are.”

His challenge was met with blank looks.

“A'ight. Well, they're made of beef, chopped fine, unless you can get a meat grinder... they're sort of like meatballs squashed a bit flat — or kind of like a savory sausage filling, instead of spiced sausage slices — and then they get grilled, though you could fry them, and that's OK too, just a different flavor. You toss in some salt and pepper, maybe a little sage, or rosemary, or thyme.”

“And can you speak of their origins, Mister Grimes?” Elizabeth asked, intrigued.

“Well, I don't rightly know, but they come from Germany, I think.”

She and Flora shared a look, Flora torn between curiosity and concern over resource management, Elizabeth's silent conspiracy now engaging her as Rick's secret confederate in his endeavor.

Soon enough, Rick had set up a metal grate on which to grill a few hamburgers, even managing to finagle a little cheese from Flora.

“No American, huh? Well, I guess maybe some cheddar or Colby would work. Y'all don't know Colby, either? Guess I'm not surprised.”

Naturally, this led to lettuce, tomato, onion (“White's about the best for this, but red or yellow are good too,” he'd confessed), pickle, and bacon.  His suggestions of mustard, mayo, and tomato ketchup ended up with small amounts of each being prepared, so that all could compare and contrast their relative points.

It was something of a minor miracle to him, watching these come together as quickly as they did.  He'd never really given it much thought, and so even mayonnaise was just another inscrutable concoction to him — even mustard was, if he were being truthful — but in no time at all, using just some oil, and eggs, and vinegar, Missus Darcy had whipped up a batch that could've come from just about any store that he could name.  They also ended up with two very different mustards, one a cream-based form that Flora produced with flour and cinnamon and reduced wine and pepper and caraway, and the other a more familiar sort (though still more coarse and sharp than he was used to) from Missus Darcy involving water and reduced malted vinegar and salt with some dill and tarragon and a blob of honey and just a little pulped horseradish — it turned out that she had developed quite the penchant for wasabi and curries and chutneys and a number of other things while away studying her art of death.  As they worked their culinary magics, they discussed still other mustards that they were familiar with, comparing notes and making plans for future lessons and experiments.

“These 'burgers're good with sausage seasoning too. You wouldn't believe how they go together when you throw in some eggs and ham and make a breakfast patty, especially with a nice, simple buttermilk biscuit, and maybe some coffee...”

As he went about these, too, at Flora's insistence, one thing led to another, and she cajoled him to show her the mysteries of “French fries,” which meant that he simply had to make onion rings to be fair, which naturally required small bowls of chili and cheese — though he was unsure of their origin when Elizabeth inquired.

Thomas could usually — a euphemism for invariably — be counted upon to show up at meal time (or more accurately: before any meal time) in order to remind everyone of his poor, starving, insufficiently overfed state in his opinion.  The activity today had drawn his attention more than usual, unaccustomed as he was to the current situation and this being their first occasion to barbecue; the inevitable result was the same though, as he continued to beg tidbits, schmooze their legs, and oversee everything.

Rick used the potatoes sparingly, and it looked it.  With the potatoes already there and looking a sorry lot, Flora rummaged for a few eggs — these they could spare, at least, she reasoned — to bake the potatoes to a crisp with a lightly seasoned oil, but intending to add the simple flourish of an egg within each at the end, the balance of the innards to be removed and deviled as dollops of garnish.

“Now, these 'burgers here are usually served with a 'shake or a coke, but I guess that's a bit unlikely...”

In short order, they concocted some water flavored with some bark from sassafras root, and a sweetened cream with vanilla and mint in a bucket that Rick placed into a larger bucket with cold water and salt.  He didn't think that it would be quite the same as ice cream and milk, but the result might be slushy enough to approximate that.

“It's just too bad that we don't have any hot dogs.”

“Dog meat?” Elizabeth gasped.

Flora took on an uneasy look at this, though whether it was from consternation over the thought of dog meat or confusion over Elizabeth's revulsion at the thought she didn't say.

“No! No, no — no siree. They're beef or pork, sometimes other meat, kind of smeared into a paste with some salt and onion powder and garlic powder and things, though they're a little bland, and stuffed into a sausage casing. I think they get smoked after that. For the actual cooking, you just boil them with some seasonings — salt and dill, maybe a spoon or two of ketchup, some vinegar, stuff like that — if it's just for dinner, but they get grilled for barbecues or put on a forked stick over an open fire if you're camping. They get ketchup and mustard, pickle relish, onion relish, maybe melted cheese, or chili.”

“They sound remarkably like Frankfurter Würstchen, Mister Grimes.”

“That's exactly it! They're frankfurters!”

“Well, then, we'll need a little paprika, nutmeg, cloves, coriander... perhaps just a dash of red pepper, black and white as well... some starch to bind it all together, and perhaps some ground celery — and mace and ginger wouldn't go amiss... a touch of cinnamon, a little cumin, allspice, a dash of sugar...”

Flora's look improved considerably as she listened to Elizabeth's display of knowledge regarding the mysteries of this sausage.

As the meal shaped up, the forest lost for each of the individual trees along the way, Rick managed to talk Flora into cornbread, then some of Elizabeth's sausages for corn dogs (conceding the possibility of pickle relish and sautéed onions as possible condiments).  That led to barbecued ribs and a secret sauce with tomatoes and molasses and a dash of whiskey and a few other things, along with grilled chicken, which led in turn to a creamy chipotle sauce (cherry tomatoes, baby spinach, cream cheese, a few minced chipotles, garlic, onion, paprika, salt, pepper, lemon zest, white wine, butter, a little adobo sauce, crème fraîche, lime, curled parsley, a little cornstarch in cold water to thicken it⁴⁴).  Naturally, barbecued chicken simply demanded some fried chicken, and no picnic would ever really be complete without that anyway.  What with one thing and another, somehow Rick found himself talked into showing them shish kebab, using thin roasting skewers that Flora hastened to provide from the kitchen, and threading these with chunks of various meats and bits of one vegetable and another.

“I wonder, Mister Grimes, if they hail from Araby. It's only that the name has a feel somewhat of the Near East,” Elizabeth said.

“I don't know about Araby, but these here are Turkish, I think,” he replied.

While this was going on, Flora revealed a heavy red Marsala sauce with beef broth, sun dried tomatoes, figs and shallots, and just a little tarragon, prompted as she was by the chicken.

Looking a little abashed, she offered “It's only that I was thinking of how it might be needed is all.”

At his idle mention of fried pies, they talked in detail, and Elizabeth set to work to introduce them to the joys of Cornish pasties.

Caught up in it all, Flora added prawns with a garlic shallot mayonnaise to the menu.

“If only we had some catfish...” Rick sighed to himself just within Flora's earshot.

Flora smiled, a sly gleam in her eye as she disappeared.  Less than a minute later, she was back with what looked like wood planks — whatever they were, they were certainly wooden.  Rick wasn't sure of what he was looking at.

“Catfish,” she announced, “salted and smoked, but hung to dry as clipfish. Last forever, these do!”

And onto the grill they went, after a little hammering and soaking.⁴⁵

Coleslaw, potato salad, macaroni salad, and butter-boiled corn all soon followed.

“Dang, I can't believe this, but I almost forgot beans! And apple pie.”

With these, the whole finally came together — it needed something though, and so it was that in very short order, Flora added raspberry tarts with thin chunks of Roquefort.  Then peach cobbler à la mode, with chopped pineapple and a side of blueberries, the crust thick and crunchy and sprinkled with sugar crystals to lend it a certain film of sweet crispness that approached that of crème brûlée.

“You know the best part of all this?” Rick asked, as the frenzy of cooking subsided, a table having been brought out earlier to hold it all, with a smaller one where they intended to sit and eat, “no need to worry about setting off any smoke detectors!”

He just waved them off when he saw the looks that confronted him.  There was no call to go down that particular rabbit hole at the moment.

The icing on the cake, though, as it were, was the crayfish.  Flora had gotten them out of her own accord when Rick had mentioned grilled shrimp, and even mixed up a cherry and pineapple glaze.

 

“So I never did get to telling you the story of stone soup, now did I?” Rick asked as they at last sat staring at the remains of the feast.

As he went on with the tale of three soldiers making their way through the countryside one cold and blustery afternoon, and of the distrusting villagers who shut their doors and windows, and of the simple soup that they asked to make, begging only a pot of water and some firewood, and of the curious villagers coming out in ones and twos to watch this miraculous soup be made, and of how one soldier had remarked to another in passing of how much better it would be with even so little as a single shriveled carrot or a scrap of fat, Flora listened, her eyes widening slowly, the entire village being brought together to share in the poor soldiers' stone soup.

Soon she laughed long and hardily as she packed another bowl of pipe-weed and brought a stick to it, eyeing the barbecue remnants and nodding at having been rooked, offering her pipe around to Rick and Elizabeth, who each declined politely.

Rick smiled at it all, though his mind was on Lori and Carl.  He just hoped that they were alright too, and eating enough.

 

The talk turned to planting after a while, as they kicked around ideas: dirt boxes could be placed into all of the rooms, rainwater caches set up just in case, seeds, hydroponics and rags.  There wasn't even any need to dig up the stable yard: there was plenty of good soil around back, easily accessible on the northwest side.

“I don't know, Flora. I'm not sure I like the thought of any of us being out there so close to the infected without call for it.”

“How about if we pop out the windows above the stable and onto the roof, kill whatever dead as might be about on the hillside nearby, I use a ladder or some kind of ramp, and gather any dirt we need right there? There are even blackberry brambles to be had in the bargain, as long as I'm mindful of the poison ivy and poison oak!”

Rick chewed his lip some.

Missus Darcy might not stick around for long once her husband were to arrive, but Flora seemed unlikely to go anywhere else, and so would need something done about a more stable food situation if he couldn't talk her into coming with him to find Lori and Carl when the time came.

“The Unmentionables in this town have so far shown no inclination to use weapons or even the ability to use a door. As well, armor seems only to be by the accident of having been wearing such at their first death. My own surmise is that they would present relatively little danger in Flora's suggestion, especially with us both standing watch against any that might stray near.”

“And speaking of, y'all never did say why you think the shin armor's so all-fired important,” Rick observed.

Elizabeth gave him an amused look, replying with only two words.

“Ankle biters,” she said, and let him think about it.

As conversation turned to calmer matters, Elizabeth relaxed a little, revealing some small part of herself.

“It is but a daydream, but I do find myself fond of the thought of writing some tale of events in a world without the Dead. Something simple, no real drama to speak of, just people living somewhere quiet, a small village somewhere — Steventon maybe, or Winchester⁴⁶ — sipping tea and discussing the size of marriage prospects' purses, and I being worried about nothing more than what sort of mildly angst-ridden plot twist to throw at some protagonist in their imagined village's goings-on.”

“England?” Rick prompted.

“Well, to be sure, there are a few other locations that offer themselves — Bath even, though also Godmersham, Worthing, Southampton, Chawton; a few others occupy a tertiary list, of course. I admit that there is the climate to recommend the South of France, or some of the more solid bastions of Germany, as only a truly reliable wall and remote access can offer reliable defense, but Albion does tend to come to the forefront of my mind.”

“I'll say this for them Dwarves,” Flora remarked, fishing around for morsels as she puffed away on her pipe, “can't tell the men from the women what with beards⁴⁷ all about, but they knows their construction. Speaking of...”

She whisked away for a minute or two, returning with a triumphant grin on her face, and a touch of wicked anticipation.

“Who's man enough then, hey?” she asked, waving her bottle of recently acquired Dwarven Bierschnaps as if it were a challenge.

It was a challenge that Elizabeth took up, having found value in maintaining discipline under all circumstances, and her training hadn't left this out: one never knew if such a thing might be required, and she was hardly of a nature to let a challenge go unanswered.

Rick eyed the thimble-sized glasses leerily, that sixth sense piping up that this probably wasn't a good idea.

Well, that's alright, he decided, with glasses that small, how bad could it possibly be?