The alternative was to stay at the church or with Grandma Billy. Grandma would take her because she was a friend, and Father Aguirre because he was a priest, but she would still be imposing on them.
For weeks. Maybe months.
Without the garden at Jackrabbit Hole House, she had no way to earn money. If she couldn’t earn money, she couldn’t get a train ticket back to the city. And that meant she’d be staying even longer, taking advantage of other people’s hospitality ...
The thought made her chest knot with shame, even though she hadn’t done anything yet.
No. I’m broken, but I’m not useless.
I definitely need that Hard Worker Fallen on Hard Times card.
Ifthey’dneededherhelp, it would have been different. She’d stayed with her friend Katie once for a month, just after college, before she’d moved in with Walter. Katie’s grandfather had been a hoarder before he died, and it had been a long month of pulling out box after box, making sure that her friend ate and that the parts of the house they were living in were kept spotless. Selena had run errands and done paperwork and priced out cleaning services. It had been ajob, if not the sort of one that you put on your tax forms.
But Grandma Billy and Father Aguirre had their lives very well in order. They didn’t need her. Even if Father Aguirre said he was relieved that she was there, it wasn’t quite the same thing.
And anyway, shehada job. Her job was to take care of the garden. So that meant that she had to face this ... even if it meant staring down a spirit.
She swallowed. “Will you come back to the house with me?”
“’Course,” said Grandma.
“Certainly,” said Father Aguirre.
Selena hadn’t expected the priest to volunteer. “You will?”
Grandma nudged her. “Don’t turn down a priest’s help. Well ... not this one’s, anyhow.”
“I wasn’t, I just thought—well, isn’t he busy?”
Father Aguirre grinned. “There are not too many sick or sorrowful to minister to at the moment, fortunately.”
“You never minister to me,” said Grandma Billy. “I had a cold a coupla months ago and you just showed up to make sure I wasn’t dead. You didn’t sit by my bedside and read or anything.”
“You’d throw a book at my head if I tried to minister to you, Grandma.”
“Yeah, but that woulda cheered me right up.”
“Atanyrate,” he said, turning back to Selena, “there’s little enough I can do but pray. But prayer never hurts anything.”
“Besides,” said Grandma Billy practically, “we can make him push the wheelbarrow.”
Jackrabbit Hole House looked no different than it ever did. Copper went right up the stairs and flopped down with awhumph!
Selena’s heart lifted a little when she saw it—home, I’m home, I can go sleep in my own bed and shut out the world—and then crashed down again, becausemonsters there are monsters.
Someday,she thought wearily,I will know exactly how I feel about something and it will not be complicated and I will not have to keep going back and checking to see if I still feel the same way.
Both Father Aguirre and Grandma Billy looked at her. Selena took a deep breath—my job, this is my job—and opened the front door.
Nothing jumped out at her. The inside was cool and dim as ever.
She took a step inside. Copper’s tail thumped on the floorboards behind her, but the dog clearly didn’t think there was anything worth investigating inside the house.
She went into the bedroom and it was exactly as she had left it: rumpled bed, bathroom door ajar, gloriously tacky toilet.
She heard fierce whispering from the next room.
“Ow! Fine! Er, bless this house in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ... Did you have to poke me so hard?”
