Over the course of the afternoon, Cassie and her mother freed the rose trellises, untangled the sundial, and rescued the garden gnome, who was then re-homed on the deck. The avocado saplings were nowhere to be found. At last, as the shadows began to lengthen, they sat down on the cleared swingset and admired their handiwork. Rust flakes sprinkled down occasionally as they kicked themselves to and fro. Nobody was going to win a topiary competition, but the bush had at least been planed back to an even six-foot standoff from the fence. There was no tunnel to be seen.
Cassie twisted the swing around to survey the rest of the yard. It looked a little bare, but neat. Ready.
“What do you want to plant next?” she asked.
Mom heaved herself out of the swing with a grunt and turned to look as well. She looked for a long time in silence. “I don’t know,” she said finally. Then she sighed. “Whatever Linda recommends to make the house look good, probably. Something cheap.”
Cassie let the swing untwist around again and stared blankly at the blackberry bush. Her phone buzzed. She ignored it until it buzzed again; they had a taker for the treadmill. Spirits lifted somewhat, they went inside. Matt arrived in time to help huff and puff the treadmill down the stairs with the Craigslist buyer—Mom stood peering up through the banister, repeating that she couldn’t remember how they got it up there in the first place—and load it into his pickup. They used the cash to order food and leave a big tip, and ate in front of the television in the den. There was a Twilight Zone marathon running. Cassie found herself wondering if the ficus had ever seen it.
She had promised to help her mom start looking for apartments that evening, and Matt had decided to stay the night and work remotely tomorrow, but she managed to dash outside with the printer paper and a botany magazine while both her mother and brother were simultaneously occupied in the bathrooms.
The tunnel in the bramble had returned, clear as a cartoon mousehole in the light of the moon.
Cassie slid the paper and magazine inside and ran back just as the toilets flushed. She pretended she had been getting dessert ready for them. Didn’t Cassie want some blackberry pie too?
She demurred.
The three of them huddled around Matt’s laptop on the kitchen table afterwards, looking for apartments for Mom. What neighborhood was she looking at? She didn’t know. What price range? She wasn’t sure. What amenities did she care about? Oh she had no preference, it didn’t matter really. Matt and Cassie prompted her with suggestions: somewhere walkable to church and the library? Something with a garden? She agreed immediately to everything they mentioned; it was impossible to determine whether she was genuinely pleased with the proposals, or just relieved to abdicate the decision-making. Cassie and Matt exchanged a look over their mother’s head while she dithered over a floor-plan comparison.
“We don’t have to decide tonight,” Matt said, patting Mom’s back and easing the laptop away.
“Sleep on it,” Cassie urged. “Think about what you’d like. We can talk more tomorrow.”
“Yes,” Mom agreed. “Yes, that sounds good.” She gave them both a peck on the cheek and went upstairs, leaving Cassie and Matt in the kitchen. Matt foraged for a slice of pie and sat back down at the table, then began idly clicking around on his laptop. Cassie gazed sightlessly into the night. Was the paper still waiting in the tunnel, or was Rubus drawing already? Should she have given him a clipboard or a book or something harder than a magazine as a drawing surface? Could he even see to draw, without light?
“Whatcha thinking?”
Cassie jumped. “Nothing,” she lied. “Just… hoping Mom can find an apartment she likes.”
Matt grunted in agreement and continued his clicking.
“What are you thinking?” Cassie returned.
Matt hesitated. Cassie had the distinct impression he was also about to lie. “Same,” he replied finally. Cassie nodded. The privacy of their mutual falsehoods felt comfortable.
With the treadmill gone, the bedroom felt both more comfortable and more empty. Without the giant apparatus in the middle of everything to draw the eye, the bare walls were stark. Cassie was momentarily tempted to put up some of the non-incriminating artwork from her portfolio, but immediately discarded the idea. Way too many questions if she did that. She stood in the dark for a moment—she hadn’t bothered to replace the lightbulb in the gooseneck lamp—and let her eyes adjust. She stepped to the window and looked out longingly for a while; all was still.
Very deliberately, she turned her back to the window and pulled off her shirt and bra. She slipped off her pants next and sat bare-bottomed on her desk to comb out her hair. It cascaded over her shoulders and down her back, dark against her skin. She half-remembered reading in some childhood novel of girls instructed to apply a hundred strokes to their hair before going to bed, so that is what she did, counting silently. It was far more than was necessary, it turned out, to adequately groom hair even as long and snarl-prone as Cassie’s, but it was soothing. And she hoped Rubus liked what he saw, if he was looking.
She had her answer the next morning: resting on her desk just where the window had been left open a crack was a printer-paper drawing, rendered in black pencil, of Cassie combing her hair. The rough sketch perfectly captured her shifted weight and half-turned face as she reached for another lock. Cassie looked at it for a long time, holding her breath with pleasure, before tenderly transferring it to her hidden portfolio. She floated down the stairs like a balloon.
Tyler loomed over Mom at the kitchen table, pointing at something on his laptop over her shoulder and speaking in a low, urgent voice.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
The balloon popped.
“What’s going on?”
Both of them startled at the sound of her voice. Tyler’s knuckles whitened on the back of Mom’s chair. “We’re just looking at apartments, sweetheart,” said Mom. “Come look; Tyler had some ideas.”
Towed forward by dread, Cassie looked. Beige popcorn ceilings, vertical blinds, and a pool deck of concrete interrupted only by a metal handrail with rust stains at the bottom. “Look at how affordable it is! There’s even a little deck for plants off the bedroom.” Mom clicked through to an image of a strip of sill even smaller than Cassie’s miniature balcony. Cassie stared at Tyler. He glared back defiantly. Without another word, Cassie turned on her heel and marched back upstairs.
“Matt.” He was sound asleep in his bedroom, spilling over the edge of his twin bed, mouth open on his pillow. “Matt, wake up. Tyler’s trying to put Mom in a rathole.”
“What?” He sat up and looked at the floor blearily. “Rats?”
“No. Tyler’s downstairs, picking out apartments for Mom.”
“Oh shit.” Matt instantly became more alert. His hair stuck out at funny angles, but he was still an imposing figure as he lumbered down the hallway in his boxers and t-shirt. Cassie followed at a distance, and arrived in the kitchen just in time to hear Tyler snap, “Oh for fuck’s sake—”
“Kids—” Mom started.
Matt threw up his hands defensively. “I have seen nothing, and I shall judge nothing until I’ve seen it.”
“Cassie runs crying to your room—”
“Do I look like I’m crying, Tyler?” Cassie pointed to her face. “Does this look like crying to you?”
“—and you just assume I’m screwing something up—”
“I just want to be part of the process,” Matt said placatingly. “I’m not assuming anything.”
“—like I’m not trusted to have a modicum of competence—”
Cassie and her mother locked eyes and reached a wordless accord. As one, they moved to the back door and exited to the deck, closing the door on the argument behind them. Cassie hissed the breath she had been holding out between her teeth.
“Mom—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Cassie,” she said, uncharacteristically sharp. Cassie fell silent in surprise, waiting for more, but Mom just frowned. “Where’s the gnome?”
“What?” Cassie looked around. “What do you mean?”
“The gnome that we pulled out of the bushes yesterday—didn’t we move it up here?”
Cassie developed a sneaking suspicion. “Did we?”
“How odd.” Mom stepped off the deck and peered underneath. “Could it have rolled off, do you think? Knocked over by a raccoon maybe?”
“Maybe.” Cassie instinctively turned to escape back inside but remembered she didn’t want to be in there, either, as she saw her brothers gesticulating behind the glass. “I have to run some errands today, I’ll be gone for a bit. Want me to pick anything up while I’m out?”
“Milk, please. And eggs, if you don’t mind.”
“Milk and eggs.” Cassie pulled open the door.
“Oh and black beans! We can make tacos tonight, I already have everything else.”
“Milk, eggs, beans, got it.” Cassie hurried through the kitchen and up the stairs. Matt and Tyler were no longer gesticulating; Matt was pinching the bridge of his nose as Tyler continued, evidently as part of the same run-on sentence as before: “—and this is the exact same bullshit that I have to deal with at work, so to have to deal with it from my own goddamn family is just absolutely unnecessary—” She dressed as quickly as possible and snuck out the front door.
Cassie’s car looked comical parked between her brothers’. It had been her undergraduate roommate’s family wagon over a decade ago; she had bought it for $750 and a promise not to ask about the stains in the back seat, which was easily accomplished when a bottle of liquid fertilizer leaked all over it during the second day it was in her possession, obliterating anything that might have come before. The corroded paint on the hood was reflected in the mirror-bright finish of Tyler’s black Escalade. Even Matt’s reserved sedan seemed a little offended by the proximity. The engine started on the second try.
Cassie rattled to the art store and bought several pads of sketch paper, a small palette of watercolors, graphite pencils, colored pencils, a kneaded eraser, a pencil sharpener, a fine-tip pen, and acrylic sealer. She had only meant to buy the paper and sharpener, but here she was at the checkout counter, spending her stipend on art supplies for a paranormal entity living in a bush. She told herself it was justified because the only groceries she’d have to buy in two weeks were milk, eggs, and beans. The real justification was hidden under her bed.
The supermarket had been completely rearranged since the last time she was there. Cassie wandered the aisles with milk and eggs in her hand basket, looking for beans, when she found herself in the pharmacy section. She drifted to a halt in front of the condoms.
Did she need to buy any?
What an unusually complex question. She stared through the wall of boxes as she thought. There were layers to this.
First of all, did she have any already handy? No. No, she had not brought condoms to her father’s funeral. It was possible she had some ancient emergency condom stashed in her tampon bag or glove compartment, but it would be well past its expiry by now.
Second, could she be impregnated by a dryad? According to mythology, probably. According to her IUD, probably not.
Third, could she catch an STI from a dryad? Cassie started shaking with silent laughter. What could she possibly catch from him? Aphids?
“Cassie?”
Cassie jumped so badly she thought she might have cracked an egg in the carton. A pair of enormous oblate eyes blinked at her from behind coke-bottle glasses. Mom’s photo-taking church friend from the funeral stood beside her, wearing a vest and a nametag. She must work here. Oh my god.
“Hiiiiiiii!” Cassie quavered. Her face began to grow hot.
“Cassie!” she repeated. “I thought I recognized you, my dear. How’s your mother?”
“She’s doing well, all things considered. Thank you.”
“I pray for her every day.”
“Thank you.” Cassie tried to sidle away from the condoms, face burning. “I’ll let her know that, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”
The huge eyes blinked owlishly. “Can I help you find anything?”
“Beans!” Cassie brayed. “I got lost looking for the beans!”
Cassie’s face radiated all the way through the checkout line and into the parking lot, and didn’t begin to cool until after she’d spent five minutes in the car resting her forehead on the steering wheel in defeat.
Fucking beans.