Page 58 of Shadow Spell

But Colleen rushed out, hands clasped together at her breast as if in prayer.

“Oh, Meara, thank God you’ve come! What will I do? What will I do?”

She threw herself into Meara’s arms, a weeping, trembling bundle of despair.

“You’re not hurt? For certain? Let me see you’re not hurt.”

“I burned my fingers.” Like a child she held up her hand to show the hurt.

And nothing, Meara saw with relief, a bit of salve wouldn’t deal with.

“All right then, all right.” To soothe, Meara brushed a light kiss over the little burn. “That’s the most important thing.”

“It’s terrible!” Colleen insisted. “The kitchen’s a ruin. What will I do? Oh, Meara, what will I do?”

“Let’s have a look, then we’ll see, won’t we?”

It was easy to turn Colleen around and pull her inside. Meara had gotten her height from her long-absent father. Colleen made a pretty little package—a petite, slim, and always perfectly groomed one, a fact of life that often made Meara feel like a hulking bear leading a poodle with a perfect pedigree.

No damage in the front room, another relief, though Meara could smell smoke, and see the thin haze of it.

Smoke, she thought—more relief—not fog.

Three strides took her into the compact, eat-in kitchen where the smoke hung in a thin haze.

Not a ruin, but sure a mess. And not one, she determined immediately, caused by an evil sorcerer, but a careless and inept woman.

Keeping an arm around her weeping mother, she took stock.

The roasting pan with the burned joint, now spilled onto the floor beside a scorched and soaking dish cloth told the tale.

“You burned the joint,” Meara said carefully.

“I thought to roast some lamb, as Donal and his girl were to come to dinner later. I can’t approve him moving in with Sharon before marriage, but I’m his mother all the same.”

“Roasting a joint,” Meara murmured.

“Donal’s fond of a good joint as you know. I’d just gone out the back for a bit. I’ve had slugs in the garden there, and went to change the beer.”

Fluttering in distress, Colleen waved her hands at the kitchen door as if Meara might have forgotten where the garden lay. “They’ve been after the impatiens, so I had to see about it.”

“All right.” Meara stepped over, began to open the windows, as Colleen had failed to do.

“I wasn’t out that long, but I thought since I was, I’d cut some flowers for a nice arrangement on the table. You need fresh flowers for company at dinner.”

“Mmm,” Meara said, and picked up the flowers scattered over the wet floor.

“I came in, and the kitchen was full of smoke.” Still fluttering, Colleen looked tearfully around the room. “I ran to the oven, and the lamb was burning, so I took the cloth there to pull it out.”

“I see.” Meara turned off the oven, found a fresh cloth, picked up the roasting pan, the charcoaled joint.

“And somehow the cloth lit, and was burning. I had to drop everything and take the pan there, where I had water for the potatoes.”

Meara picked up the potatoes while her mother wrung her hands, dumped the lot in the sink to deal with later.

“It’s a ruin, Meara, a ruin! What will I do? What will I do?”

The familiar mix of annoyance, resignation, frustration wound through her. Accepting that as her lot, Meara dried her hands by swiping them on her work pants.

---