Our Saviour, Home Cooked Breakfast
The Dimitrescu Family
[light cursing]
Bela was the first to wake. Her room was not far from her sisters’ or from her mother’s. The floorboards creaked with age under her bare feet as she padded along. Her progress paused when she heard a series of strangled noises of frustration. She backtracked a few paces and put her ear to the door.
A muffled conversation between Alcina and someone could he heard. With the early our Bela could safely assume it was over the phone. And her mother certainly was put into a sour mood. A few seconds later the blonde heard the unmistakable undertone in her mother’s voice. Which struck panic in her.
Wasting no time she ran down the hallway into Cassandra’s room. The brunette was still fast asleep. Enjoying the warmth of her duvet. Which was soon stripped from the poor girl. Startling her awake. In a haze she sat up and manifested her sickle, brandishing it aloft.
“Put that down and get ready,”
“Get out!”
“Get ready you twat!”
In a swarm of flies Bela left the room.
“Close the door!”
Bela didn’t close the door.
~
Daniela stirred at the sound of her own bedroom door being smashed off of its hinges. Grumbling she, ignoring the presence of Bela.
“Dani wake up,” it was a hushed whisper.
Met with a mumbled ‘no’
“Come on, get up,” with more urgency this time.
Out of sheer curiosity Daniela peeked up over the covers at the blonde.
“Why?”
“I’ll explain later,” Bela made to leave, but stopped at the door, “just hurry up, get yourself into the kitchen. And tell Cass too,”
With that Bela went to close the door. But it hung on one hinge and if she moved it then it may just fall on her.
~
Daniela burst through Cassandra’s door just as the brunette finished putting her choker and necklaces on.
“Can I come in?” The redhead asked as she walked into the middle of the room.
Cassandra looked over at her younger sister and sighed.
“What?”
“Bela wants us both in the kitchens,”
“I’m almost ready, give me 5. Oh and close the door!” Her words fell on deaf ears as Daniela rushed from the room in a flurry of flies. Cassandra let out a growl of frustration and shut the door herself. Muttering curses in some ancient tongue.
~
The kitchen was up in the air. It was a mess, as a blonde storm raced around. Daniela was perched on a countertop. Watching.
“Eggs!”
“What about eggs?”
“Where are they!? For the love of Grandmother help me look you oaf!”
“You’ve tore the kitchen apart Bela! If the eggs aren’t here, then we have no eggs,”
“We must have eggs! What kitchen doesn’t have god forsaken eggs!”
Daniela left her sisters words hanging in the air. She hopped off of the counter and headed to the fridge. An item Karl had recommended then, after Alcina’s hesitance, decided to just have installed. The maids were thankful for it.
“Oh look! They’re in here,” Daniela lifted the carton of eggs up like a trophy. Grinning.
“They are!?” In her haste Bela knocked into Daniela who landed on the floor with a grunt. The eggs were sent flying.
~
Cassandra took a deep breath before opening the double doors too the kitchen. Only to be assaulted by a half dozen eggs. The cardboard container fell to the floor with a soft noise.
“Cassandra get up, Cassandra get ready, Cassandra go to the kitchen,” Watching Cassandra was like watching a pressure cooker with no valve, “My door gets left open and now I get covered in egg!?”
“It’s Bela’s fault!”
The blonde slapped the youngest Dimitrescu. Creating a noise that rung through the air.
“I’m going for a shower. When I get back you two better have a bloody explanation for this,” Cassandra sent glares at her sisters, then as an afterthought, “or I’m skinning you both alive,”
“Just hurry up. None of your stupid hour long showers,”
“Bela you take 3 hour long baths sometimes,”
Daniela’s face now had two red handprints on either cheek.
~
With a now clean Cassandra, Bela decided to finally explain herself.
“Mother’s on a business call with someone. And she’s angry,”
“So?”
“Angry angry,” Bela paused for a nice dramatic effect, “like almost throwing a vanity angry,”
“Oh shit,”
“You should have started with that, you dumbass!”
“Yeah if it weren’t for me then we’d all be in the deep end. Now shut up and help me make a decent breakfast!”
With that all three girls went about brainstorming food ideas that they could make.
In the end they settled for pancakes with syrup. And bacon, with their customary blood. Got to keep their mother healthy.
Their issue was that…
“There’s no eggs,” Daniela was stood at the fridge again.
“What do you mean, we had 6,” Bela muttered as she poured over the recipe book. Wanting to make sure it was perfect. No mistake was allowed.
“Yeah, we had six, which are down the drain,” Cassandra hissed, whilst standing atop a chair to reach a mixing bowl, “because someone decided egging Cassandra would be fun,”
“There’s no more eggs then? Not a single one?”
“I mean, unless eggs look like a block of cheese, no. None,”
“Fuck!”
“What!?” Cassandra and Daniela shared a look.
“We need eggs!”
“What’s with today and goddamn eggs?”
“We can just go get some. We can get to the village in time,” Daniela spoke up.
~
Three cloaked figures stood looking up at the grandfather clock in the main hall. Whispering to each other.
“We won’t have time to get there and back…” one spoke.
“But we need to make pancakes,” another replied.
“Ma’s in a bad mood, I want to cheer her up,” a third chipped in.
“Me too,”
“Hey! So do I! I’m just being realistic,”
“Sourpuss,”
“Stop being an ass,”
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For having a face like that,”
“We could always drive? There’s a delivery van. The delivery man won’t miss it,” Daniela suggested.
“You son of a gun!” Bela squished Daniela’s cheeks and swelled with pride.
~
After a lot of bustling the three Dimitrescu daughters settled into a white van. Cassandra sat in the passenger, sweet Dani squished in the middle, and Bela sat behind the wheel. The blonde was fiddling with a plastic panel in the footwell. The series of wires confusing her.
“Dani you said hot wiring the car would be child’s play,” She whispered.
“It is, you’re just stupid. Move,” Daniela jostled her sister out of the way, “I said move! Let me see,”
“Give me a chance to move!”
Cassandra hummed a tune as she inspected her nails with boredom. Her other hand held her face, elbow resting on the armrest built into the inside of the door.
“I can’t hot wire this… it’s one of the newer cars,”
“What do you mean? It’s a car. It has wires. Do you need a heat source?”
“No, heat up the wires you ruin them? Why would we need that?”
“We’re hot wiring a car!”
“You’re a tool!”
With a suddenness Cassandra opened her door and left the van. The youngest and eldest shared a look. A shrug then continued their bickering.
“New car, schmew car,” Cassandra sang. Dangling a set of keys on her finger.
Bela and Daniela paused their assaults on each other.
“Oh,”
Bela grabbed the keys, mumbling something that wasn’t quite a thanks but was as close to a a thanks as Cassandra would get.
Bela went to insert the key into the ignition.
“Wrong key… also wrong key,”
“Shut up, I’ll smack you again,”
“Bela girly, that’s a wrong key too,” Cassandra spoke up with a grin. Just to grate on Bela’s nerves.
“Wait no, that’s the right key!” Daniela manhandled Bela’s arm and rammed the key in.
“Okay now turn the key and press the cl- other way,”
“Dani how do you know how to drive?”
“Uncle,”
“Ah, I see,”
~
The van lurched forward and made grinding noises that had all three girls wincing. Bela had been banished to the passenger seat, as a consequence now in a huff, Cassandra sat in the middle with Dani at the wheel.
Once Daniela had managed to get the vehicle moving faster than the legal limit then it was all smooth riding. If one overlooked the redhead’s steering. They had caused many cars to swerve into the roadside but that was besides the issue. This was much faster than if they went in their swarms. And Dani was loving every second.
The journey to the village took just over an hour. And the car did come to a stop. With many jittery jumps from the engine, and the front bumper getting crushed into a wall slightly. Nonetheless. A parking job was a parking job.
The three piled out of the van and bee lined to the nearest grocery store with carnage surrounding them. Early morning shoppers where startled by the sight of 3 blood stained women in gothic Victorian era clothing muttering about eggs.
~
“Is that everything for you ladies?”
Two voices replied, “Yes!”
“Wait no, so you sell cars?” Daniela motioned for her sisters to shut up.
“Uh…. like Hotwheels?”
“Hotwheels…? Yes, we’ll take 4!”
The cashier nodded slowly, called a colleague to collect the items and rang them up. Whisky the girls went into a huddle to discuss something.
“That’ll be 57 leu,”
“Here. Thank you!”
~
“They’re not actually wheels!? I thought they’d put wheels in the van to make us go faster… they said hot,”
“Yeah well, hot wiring doesn’t mean heating up the wires so get over it,”
“They said hot wheels tho,” Cassandra sounded upset as she inspected the small toy car in her hand.
“Come on! Let’s go. We have eggs,”
~
The van was sitting against a tree. Completely totalled as the trunk of the tree folded the bonnet into a ‘v’ shape. Both doors swung on their hinges. And tyre marks littered the pathway.
Inside the castle kitchens the girls had managed to make several pancakes of a suitable size for their mother. They even managed to plate it up nicely with blood drizzled on as a sauce alongside the syrup. It was Cassandra’s idea to use pork steaks instead bacon.
“I think it’s ready!”
“Yes, let’s go present it to mama,”
“Oh, I do hope she likes it,”
~
A knock at the door took Alcina’s attention from the book she had open on her lap. The phone all had ended a while ago. And she had finished some urgent paperwork, she had chosen to spend some time reading in bed before seeing if her daughters had woken yet.
It seems they had beaten her to it.
“Come in my darlings,” she cooed. Setting the book down and sitting up properly.
Daniela’s head peaked around the door and in an instant a huge smile took up her face.
“Good morning mam!” She rushed over and clambered onto the bed to hug her mother.
Cassandra followed in and followed suit, scrambling over Daniela and across her mother. Cuddling into Alcina’s other side. The countess smiled and kissed both daughters in the forehead.
“Bela?”
“We made you breakfast,” Bela’s air of confidence and authority had washed away the second she was in her mother’s presence. The once confident-about-their-cooking blonde was replaced with an anxious girl who stood at the door holding a plate.
“You’re so kind, did you all cook it?”
“Hmmm, no. Dani kept eating the batter,” Cassandra gave a smug look at Dani.
“And Cass ate the pork steaks we were gonna put with the pancakes!”
Alcina beckoned Bela over onto the bed.
“Let’s have a taste then my sweetheart,”
Alcina took the gold gilded plate and set it on her lap. Cassandra was the one to hand her cutlery whistle Daniela wiggled under the covers. Practically purring at the warmth.
With bated breath the three waited for the verdict as their mother chewed on the pancake. The woman’s face was a perfect poker face. Neither daughter could figure out what their mother was thinking.
“It’s wonderful, it’s almost as sweet as my three little flowers,” Alcina set down the cutlery and moved the plate further down so she could scoop all three daughters into her arm. A symphony of giggles and squeals of delight filled the air as Alcina coddled them.
“That’s because we put extra sugar in!” Cassandra exclaimed with vigour.
“I don’t think so,” Alcina paused, looking at each daughter in turn, “I think it’s all the love you put into it,”
In the midst of the laughter Alcina caught Bela’s eye and silently mouthed ‘thank you’ to the blonde. When the countess’ eyes landed on the plate that she had only taken one bite of, she decided not to mention that they had used salt instead of sugar. She doubted her stomach could handle the amount of sodium.
“Girls, may I ask what is with the small toy cars you seem to all have?”
“Oh! That’s a story for later!”
“There’s one for you too mama!” Cassandra thrust the fourth Hotwheels car they’d got at their mother.
“Oh, why thank?”
Alcina stared, console you miffed at this small plastic toy vehicle.
“Why it hot? And why just the wheels specifically?”
“We don’t know,”