“You would share your recipes with an outsider?” he asked. Jean’s eyes widened in surprise. His mother was willing to share her knowledge freely, without even asking if they belonged to the world of man. If they were his recipes that Cerise and Jacqueline had asked for, he might have been reluctant to share until knowing who else would see them.
Jean nibbled on the end of the pastry. The recipes could easily be altered. He had become skilled in the making of sauces and stocks of blood. The spiderlings hummed with activity, earning a sharp side-eye from him. Those little eight-legged ruiners of secrets! He loved them, but not when they knew of things he wasn’t ready to share.
“If you trust me with them, maman,” he said. “That would be kind.”
The question genuinely takes her aback, the pastry in her hand dropping a few inches away from her mouth. "Outsider?" the word sounds almost hollow in her lilting accent, despite the shaking of her head in disapproval she retorts in a soft voice "zer is no such theeng as an outsider. Zer are only bad people and good people. I trust zat your friend ees a good person, so I trust zey would benefit from a leetle 'elp in a place where zsey may not be so confident." She laments that even after such a long time, Jean-Jacques was still so distrusting of those who did not come from the wildwoods. But she didn't begrudge him for it. She remembered all too clearly the fear in his eyes when the mob came, she remembered how he cried ever days after the siege upon their home had ended. How fearful he had been when they'd ventued so deep into the woods to find their new home. He'd endured his own kind of pain and she wouldn't lecture him on how to handle it. "Of course, mon cher. Just tell me what dishes zey like and I will write some for you to deliver." She takes a final sip of tea, before reaching for the thermos to pour herself more.
