Chapter Five - Piece of Paneer

AS A PACK, they lead me toward their cellar, which makes sense. There isn't a lot to see up here. Roq's gone his usual grunting bulldog while Cheddy runs ahead to throw open the door. Cam lingers with a single finger down my arm and Bree…

"Brie!" I shout, the pieces falling into place.

"Yes?" he asks.

"You're Brie."

"I…know?" He blushes, his pale blue eyes blazing like a winter sky.

"No, I mean, I kept thinking you were Bree with two e's, but you're Brie like the cheese…" Holy cow! I spin around, my finger landing on Cheddy. They're cheeses. Their names are cheese. "Cheddy?" I muse, causing him to grin. "Chedward? Ooh, Cheddar!"

"That's it!" he shouts, then gives me double high fives.

"And what of me?" the mysterious, dark-haired Cam asks. He's harder to pin down, unlike the copper-haired, strong, and popular Cheddar, or the soft-spoken and oft-melting Brie.

His lips lift in a smile edging toward a smirk. "Do you need a hint?" He walks his fingertips up my arm and shoulder until his warm breath purrs in my ear, "I'm smooth, cream in the right hand, and melt in your luscious, little mouth."

Cam places the tip of his finger to my lips, teasing towards my cupid's bow when it hits me. "Camembert?"

His dark eyes flare with joy, though he steps back and sighs. "I fear it's too Francés for my tastes, but what can one do?" A lyrical Spanish accent flits through his words, one I hadn't heard before. It vanishes as quickly as it appeared when he cries out, "Ah, and what about our stalwart Roq?"

Dashing to the side of the last man, Cam wraps his hands around Roq's shoulders—though he has to stand on his toes to reach. "Who is he, really? At the core of his pungent, off-putting personality? Let us have a guess."

A cheese like a rock? There are a lot of cheeses around the world. Um, uh…? God, it's on the tip of my tongue.

"Roquefort," he declares, the r's trilling with a heavy French accent.

"Is there any game you will not ruin?" Cam whines.

Roq only stares him down before nodding to the ladder. "This way." Rather than wait for me, he descends, then Cheddy goes after him.

I pause at the top and look back at Cam and Brie. "Is that why his hair's blue?"

In the deep dark, a loud growl echoes up the ladder. Cam and Brie both chuckle.

It doesn't take me long to follow after, but my mind can't cease buzzing. Camembert, Brie… "Do you taste like cheese?"

"Let us slip away to somewhere private so you may discover that answer for yourself." Cam's whisper echoes off of the bricks like a shot. I burn hotter at the idea while he smiles as if I'm going to take him up on his offer.

Though, he didn't answer my question.

My feet hit the ground, and I nervously rub my wrists. They're not used to so much climbing. "Can you hear while a cheese? Feel? If someone were to sit on you would it hurt?"

Cheddy tips his head back in thought while Cam and Brie both shrug. I don't anticipate the loud snarl of, "We were cursed."

Slamming his feet to the ground, Roq appears from the darkness. An oil lamp sways from his hand. "We cannot see. We cannot feel. We are not alive when we are cheese. It is a living hell, not existing in the waking world, but—when alive—fearing that at any moment an ignorant fool could devour us whole. Do you understand?"

The dim lamplight scours his granite features into a gnarled monster and I cower. He looks like a statue come to life to judge me for my sins. "Mm-hm," I mumble, wishing he would walk away.

Roq sneers once, then he and the lantern turn. I take a breath of fresh air before realizing the only light in the cellar is next to him. I didn't realize how many weird drafts and dripping sounds are down here. Is that scrabbling sound a rat or a ghost?

"Wait up," I cry and rush to join him. My flailing limbs misjudge the distance and I plow right into Roq's back. Steel muscles bounce me off of him like a skipping stone. He doesn't say anything as I stop just behind and rub my nose to make sure I didn't break it. He's a damn hard cheese.

Playing leader, Roq takes us around the big vats and deeper into the cellar. Hiding behind the first row are empty tables and racks stretching to the ceiling. They're all empty now, but I can picture big wheels of cheese resting on them for a few months of aging. Is this where they sleep during the day?

"So—" I lean back toward the other amenable three—"you guys were cheese that got cursed into being human?"

"Ah…" Cam says.

"We were men," Roq grumbles. "Proud, accomplished men who were cursed into this living hell of being a man by night and cheese by day. Why is this so difficult for you to understand?"

"It's just…you're all named after cheeses so… Oh, was that what cursed you?" Had they been turning into cheese since birth? A little wedge of Brie in a crib with a diaper? That sounds kinda adorable actually.

The lantern stops swinging. Roq tosses his head back, and I feel the others brace themselves behind me. Wincing, I bite my lip for the worst tongue-lashing of them all.

With a weary sigh, Roq says, "That isn't why," and begins walking.

"The—"

Two different hands press to my mouth to stop me from asking why. Both Cam and Cheddy hold fingers to their lips and shake their heads. I nod, telling them I understand. None of us want to anger the big blue cheese man.

Firelight bounces off the final brick wall as we reach the end of the basement. At last, Roq pauses and turns, the lantern swinging in his grip. "This is our greatest treasure."

A brick wall?

"Close your eyes."

"Uh…?" My entire body becomes blisteringly aware of the four imposing men looming around me.

"Cam?"

Shuffling breaks out behind me but I step away. "You don't need to blindfold me. Here." I place both of my palms over my eyes. A few things happen at once. I can see the lantern's light swinging past my fingers and nothing more. Its cast reflects off of the bricks, then a small metal sound breaks the air followed by a longer one of dragging cement blocks. The once-strong lantern light fades.

A cold vastness stretches before me. I feel like a princess standing before the gaping maw of a dragon. My trembling fingers slip and hands clamp over the back of them.

"Not yet, my dear," Cam whispers in my ear. "He's quite protective of his stash."

I can't make out anything aside from the shuffle of clothing and feet. "All right," Roq declares.

Cam pulls down my fingers. I blink rapidly, trying to focus on what's before me. Where there had been a blank brick wall is now a second secret cellar crammed to the roof with cheese.

"Thirty-six-pound wheels of cheddar aged for over twenty years," Roq declares with the first real smile I've seen on him. I know I should be looking at the huge stockpile of cheese, but I'm distracted by the appearance of two tiny dimples at the top of his smile lines.

"Wow. Let me at it!" Cheddy shouts.

At the last second, Roq snatches onto his naked shoulder and tugs him back. "The tasting wheel is over there." He points to a much smaller chunk that's been unwrapped from the cloth. A few slivers are already shaved off.

"I am impressed it's still here," Cam says. "I'd have expected Mateo to employ some dynamite or a team of mules to break inside."

Roq raises his nose high. "He knew better."

"Because nothing causes fear to swell in a man's breast like four inert cheeses." Cam sweeps a hand just above the wheels as he walks down one long row. "Three of us would make a decadent pasta sauce. Then the last would spoil it."

"God's wounds, Brie, you've got to try this!" Cheddy tosses a hunk of sawed-off cheddar at the man. He catches it and takes a small nibble.

"Mmm, yes. Very good. Thank you, Cheddy."

"Cam?"

"I'll enjoy the fruits of Roq's arrogance later," he calls back, already lost in the labyrinth of cheese.

Roq answers with a small grunt, but his focus is on the wheels. He tenderly checks the rinds of two on different shelves. "Twenty years. I've never had them age this long."

"Aside from Marseilles," Cheddy adds. He gulps the second the word leaves his mouth, but he's too late. Roq spins on him with a venom that'd terrify a cobra. Both Cheddy and Brie refuse to meet his eyes and I do the same.

Whatever Marseilles means to all of them goes unexplained. What matters is that there are a lot of cheeses in the basement of an ex-cheese shop. How does this help me?

"I'm glad you still have your work." I gesture toward the rack of wheels. "But I don't know what to do with it."

"You sell it," Roq says. "Twenty-year-old cheddar will fetch a high price."

Will it? While I was a whiz at guessing the types of cheeses I ate, I had no idea what was or wasn't expensive. All my kid heart cared about was what tasted good. Putting on airs I've never had, I walk over to try to inspect the cheese. It's wrapped in a tight cloth which is probably good. "Is it all natural? Organic?"

"It's cheese, not metal," Roq fumes as if my question makes no sense. "Of course it's organic."

"Okay, okay." Nodding, I walk back from the not-metal cheese. "Here's the thing." I clasp my hands together and tap my fingers to my lips because I've seen business people do it in movies.

All of the men gather around me. Even Cam returns with his sleeves rolled up. Taking a deep breath, I say, "I don't know how to run a cheese shop. Or any shop…at all."

I can work a mop and trash can, so my skills end in getting the place cleaned up to sell.

"We can help you," Roq says.

"I happen to be renowned for parting people from their coin." Cam places a foot on the rack and leans against it with a cheeky grin.

"The place is a mess."

"I could maybe freshen it up," Brie offers before he mumbles, "if you would want me to."

"And I can carry things!" Cheddy shouts while half hugging Brie. "See!" He hefts the shocked man into the air, laughing the whole time.

"Well, Miss Violette?" Roq asks.

I'm only supposed to be here for a week tops. If I stay one day more my mother will go into a nuclear meltdown. "It's just that, this realtor really wants me to sell…um."

It hurts to watch their faces fall. No one rushes over to beg or demand I help them. Threaten me with being tossed into a vat if I don't. They seem to accept their lot without question, which hurts my heart worse than if they had.

"What if…?" I rush forward, then flush at the sudden focus. "What if we open the shop long enough to sell off those cheeses? That would give you time to—"

"Make more!" Cheddy declares.

"Find a new home," I say. "I'm sorry, it's just that, I live across the country, and if I stay too long then my—"

"Say no more," Roq cuts me off, but for once it's with a soft tone. "What you offer is more than fair. We shall help you to refurbish the store, sell off the last of our hard work, then find a new home."

"Because another vaunted cheese shop with a hidden cellar will just fall into our laps," Cam complains.

Silencing him with a shush, Roq extends his hand. "Do we have a deal?"

What am I doing? I don't really believe they're cheese people…do I?

No, of course not. But if I honor their lunacy then maybe they'll leave without hurting me or the store. Then again, this is going to piss off my mother, Jeremy, probably the lawyers, and especially my mom.

Back out. Refuse. Tell them to leave now and take their cheese with them.

Taking a deep breath, I look into the hopeful eyes of the four delusional men. I clasp Roq's hand and shake it. "Let's do it."