The next few classes went by easily enough. PE was PE, and she got sweaty like usual. Computer science was about as much of a waste as it always was - they should just change the name to typing or spreadsheets. Neither had anything extra to do to make up for her missed classes.

When she got to art class, Mr. Clarke was actually pretty attentive and willing to give her a ton of leeway on her art project. She had made the little clay butterfly bodies, but with her extra time away from school they'd gotten so dry and brittle she couldn't carve them anymore. They'd just crumble away when she tried to carve any details into them.

"If you want to start again, that'll be fine," he was saying. "Even if you can't finish after losing a month's work, I know you put the effort in."

"It's really no big deal," said Sarah. She was sweeping the clay into a bucket, it could probably be folded into wet clay and re-used in the future since it hadn't been fired yet.

"I wish I had realized, I could have kept them wet. I really feel sorry, it's bad enough to have something just not turn out, but having a project ruined before you could see it come together really sucks." Mr. Clark picked up the bucket before Sarah could, and together they walked towards the sinks in the back of the room.

"It happens, and thank you," said Sarah. "Stuff happens. Actually, while I was out I got an idea I want to try. I don't know for sure if I can get it all the way done in time, but I'm sure I can make a good start on it."

"Very cool," said Mr. Clarke. He waited while Sarah opened up their supply closet.

"I wouldn't mind some advice first, to get me started." Sarah pulled out a spool of shiny wire and pulled a bit out, testing it in her fingers. While the rest of the class worked on their projects, Sarah and Mr. Clarke talked about wire, leather strips, paracords, and different ways to twist or braid different materials onto various patterns.

Lunch wasn't terrible. Alexa, Jill, and Bri chattered away about romances and fights that were sparking away in the choir. Apparently, some of those romances were steamy enough that Sarah chose to sit in a folding chair instead of one of the old couches that lined the walls. The three really wanted her to come over and hang out at Alexa's place that afternoon, but that felt like too much to Sarah. Alexa agreed with a bit of side eye, but they took it well enough. They did make Sarah promise to show up to their concert on Wednesday and to come out with them after. A week ago, Sarah would have assumed that there wasn't any way her mom would let her stay out so late on a weekday, but she had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn't get any help staying home. Still, even if she had to go to the concert, at least she had a couple of evenings free to get started.

Her math and biology were the only classes with much makeup work. She basically got excused from all her missed work in art, computers, and English; she had some reading to do in history but wasn't concerned about that at all. But the catchup would give her an excuse to do her own thing for at least a few days.

Ever since talking to Mrs. Bianchi, she'd been making some plans. The process would be simple enough, though she was worried she wouldn't have time to finish before the year ended, so she wanted to get started right away. The fact that Cuddles didn't seem like he was decomposing any further complicated her plans. She'd cleaned him pretty thoroughly up back in the woods, and now she couldn't smell any rot from the dead snake, even when she held him right up close to her nose. Even after sitting in the hot garage for a couple of days, he hadn't started smelling again. For that matter, he hadn't fallen apart further, gotten goopy, or even dried out.

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So as soon as Sarah got home she grabbed a few things. She'd thought a lot about how she'd used her fog before and had some ideas, this would be an easy time to check things out without heading up to the hills again. She grabbed her mom's old leather jacket, all the bedding from her room, and what was left of a rotisserie chicken that had been in the fridge a few days too long. She also grabbed a kitchen knife and used it to carve out a bunch of holes in a Tupperware container.

Cuddles had made his way to the back porch while she had been looking for everything. He was curled in a loose spiral right on the corner of the top step when she came outside. She picked him up, looking closely. She hadn't filled him up at all since the drive back from the mountains, but he was glowing just as bright as ever. Sarah stroked her finger along his spine, and blue light trickled out to adhere to her finger.

Sarah smiled at the spreading sensation of warmth. She hadn't been sure that would work, but she was delighted to confirm that she could pull the light directly from him and not just from the fog in the air. She had been pretty confident she could, but if it hadn't worked she would have made Cuddles push a boulder around or something until he was drained all the way. This was a lot more convenient, and faster. She took the light on her finger and dumped it into the old leather coat. It didn't feel as empty as Cuddles did, but it still was a long way from filling up. Sarah took the light from her finger and did it again, and again. In the end, the coat held perhaps half of what she'd already put into the snake. It shone bright, holding far more than most of the objects she'd tried to pour blue into. Once the coat was full, Sarah did the same to her bedding, the sheets and blankets topped off very quickly, but Sarah was surprised by how much her down pillow took. The cooked chicken held the rest. In the end, she only had a tiny bit of light left to put into the chicken, but she could already tell that it wouldn't ever be as strong as cuddles.

Looking at Cuddles, Sarah couldn't help but frown at the carcass. It was far more fragile when he was emptied out like this. Now he really looked dead, his eye sockets were just open cavities instead of glinting points of blue light, what was left of his skin felt thin and crumbly to her fingers. Instead of clinging to her hands and arm, Cuddles just hung limply in her hand. She set him down into the Tupperware and took a moment to arrange him back into a spiral shape.

Frowning, she set the box down and went back to the kitchen. She put a little sugar into a bowl along with just enough water to make a paste. She used the paste to smear around a few of the holes she'd made, and a bit more directly on Cuddles. Then she took the box out into the yard and began looking around. It was too much to hope for an actual anthill, so she just ended up putting it behind some bushes in a more overgrown section of the yard. The neighbors across that corner let their yard get pretty overgrown too, so that would probably be the best place. She put a brick on top of the box, just in case. Now she'd just have to wait. This was the part that was going to take a while. If she was lucky Cuddles would be clean in a week, but Mrs. Bianchi warned her it could take a month or more.

She took the chicken and chucked it into the outside trash. She'd find out what happened when someone ate infused things later, if ever. The thought of eating something like that gave her a shiver, and she thought maybe that was what Alexa felt like when she'd seen Cuddles wriggling around. She threw on the jacket so she'd have free arms and carried her bedding back inside. The coat fit perfectly, with the cuffs rolling up to exactly the length she liked.

She was just about to see if her sheets would fit themselves onto her bed when, with perfect timing, the phone rang.