Chapter Six

My throat swelled and I couldn't breathe. Did he know about that town? Did he know who I was or who anyone was in the commune? Was he part of the commune and was kicked out? What should I tell him?

"Yeah, I am." Constance, you didn't think! I wanted to slap myself for blurting out this. Now he could go and find it if he is talking about the same town in the woods that I think he was talking about.

He stared at me, analyzing his next move. His eyes shone with a scared but determined look, a stare down of prey against a predator. In this case, the predator was just as confused and scared as the prey, they both stare each other down, loosing themselves in each other's eyes overtime. The fire in their soul only burning brighter with each stare down, once again getting caught in a hypnotic gaze, cursed to get trapped in it every time. In another world, there would have been no hesitation, no fear between us.

I could tell he was scared. The honey eyes that swallowed me whole were harden. They were more like amber that solidifies and traps ants in them. I was an ant that needed to get out but I didn't care, the amber inside was still warm, he still had some heart behind his actions. I hope I was right and wasn't making things up. It was time to be in the real world.

But this was the real world, the help from earlier was real but so is the caution shown right now. Man against itself, let alone whatever else existed. In the real world, even strangers have to protect themselves and the ones they love. Even some random guy that helped a random girl from the goodness of his heart, even he had family and loved ones he needed to protect from the unknowns of the world. Even if that unknown thing is currently me.

Magnus turned around to a fridge, it looked more high maintenance than the one I had at home. It appeared to be one of those that you don't have a salt barrel for meats and fish to sit in and an ice drawer for small things like extra fruit and bread. His needed nothing like that, it was shelves and a light, the food sat there with no care. The only sense of control was the knobs in the back of the whole thing. He pulled out a bright yellow case that looked flimsy and had grooves on the bottom. It was holding something inside.

He sat the box down by the stove top then reached beside it in a cupboard. A pan the size of his head. He threw it on the stove top on one of the burners. The clank of the pan made me jump in my seat for a second, I felt embarrassed to be scared by something so small.

Magnus flicked the fire on the stove top and opened the yellow box, revealing what was inside. There were brown ovals, some that were brown with specks, some were white and some of the ovals were a tan color. I was confused on what they even were.

Mangus picked a random oval from the box and quickly tapped it against the pan, making it crack. From the way he poured the contents of the unknown object into the pan, that was what Mangus wanted to happen. With the broken opened half of the oval, the slimy contents plopped into the pan. He continued this until the container was empty and there was nothing left but the shells inside of the case. They looked like bigger robin eggs, all the baby birds left, leaving behind these big shells.

"Those are eggs?" I blurted out loud, my curiosity catching me before my common sense did.

"Yup." Mangus replied in a dry tone as he poked the sizzling contents of the eggs. A part of my heart ached at this, I didn't want this wedge between us. I wanted it to go away, I needed it to go away.

"They're so big. I've seen robin eggs before but not these. What it is?" I asked, I leaned in my seat some to see if I could peek into the pan. It was to no prevail so I sat back down.

"Chickens, we farm the eggs in our backyard." Magnus sat down the spatula he was using and took out two plates and two forks. He made way to the table, sitting one plate in front of me and one in front of the available seat beside. He sat the forks down. Returning to the stove top, Magnus stayed silent while I picked up my fork and sat in the newfound silence. It was cold unlike our shared silences earlier.

All that broke the silence was the sound of the cooking pan and outside noises like the children playing and people talking. The occasional bird mocking a cat crowed loudly in the background. It was a moment longer than I liked, I patted my lap in boredom. I know I should be more alert but nothing has happened yet.

Magnus finally came over to the table with the pan and a pot holder on. With the big red spatula that was definitely man made, he scooped a white blob that had an orange ball in the middle on my plate. Then three, then there were six of them on both of our plates.

I stared at it and poked the orange part with my fork. It started to run it's insides all over the plate and over the others sitting there. I looked back up from my plate, "These are eggs?" I didn't understand these people more by the second.

"Yeah, that's how they'll come out if you crack the egg into the pan. We eat it with toast."

"Toast?" I felt an eyebrow raise involuntary at this.

"Crunchy bread. I'll make some but first, what do you think about the eggshells on the stove top?" Magnus pointed to the case with the broken eggs in it.

"What do I think about it?" Magnus nodded. "I think that it's odd how some of them are brown while some are white. They're bigger but I'm guessing chickens are bigger than a robin."

"No, what about the eggshells themselves." Magnus clarified, he was looking for a certain answer, I didn't know what it was but I wanted to honest regardless.

"I think that you made six eggs for each of us so that makes twelve?" Magnus's eyes were beautiful, I couldn't hide that thought from myself as we stared, him searching for the truth behind my eyes while I tried to find myself in his.

"Okay, you passed the test, Constance." Magnus got up from his chair and made way to a bread box that sat on his kitchen counter. Pulling out four slices, he slipped them into a metal box with slits on the top, with a push of a button that locked in place, the bread went down and a timer started ticking.

"Test? What test?" I was severely confused at this point.

"To see if you're a changeling." The bread popped up from the metal box all at once. I felt myself jump in my seat. Magnus chuckled at this and grabbed the bread, placing it on a plate he pulled out of a cupboard above his head.

I couldn't help myself from feeling better about his laugh filling the room. It filled my soul as well, the wedge between us disappeared as quickly as it made itself. I hope at the least I thought to myself as I learned how to eat sunny side eggs the right way. For a moment I was distracted from everything, it was pure bliss. I felt like myself for the first time in my life.