She went back out, got the shovel, and poked the snake a few times to make sure that it was really dead, then scooped it up, looked around to make sure that no roadrunners were watching, and buried it in the compost heap.I know you’re not supposed to compost meat, but if Snake-Eater is going to keep leaving dead rattlers for me, like a cat bringing home dead mice, damned if I’m digging a hole for each of them.
“I hope this isn’t going to be a constant thing,” she muttered. “For the local snake population, if nothing else.” Selena had no particular love of rattlesnakes, but it seemed like a waste. Still, that was one less rattlesnake for Copper to step on. She came inside, gave the Labrador a treat, and washed her hands, then flopped down onto the couch and stared at the ceiling.
I don’t want to go back to the city.
Had she meant what she said?
She had friends in the city. Well, coworkers who she liked. But her old job was probably filled now anyway, and they hadn’t been close friends. Not like Grandma Billy had turned out to be.
My mind has been easier since you’ve been here,Father Aguirre had said. As if maybe she wasn’t completely a burden, even in this strange, isolated place that seemed to exist out of time, so far from the gleaming steel of the city. And if Grandma Billy was right—if she did manage to earn money from selling something as exotic as rare heritage corn smut and chiltepins—maybe she’d be less of a burden yet.
What if she didn’t spend it on a train ticket? What if she bought more dog food and chicken feed for the chickens that Grandma Billy had threatened her with? What if she just ... didn’t go back?
She tried to think of all the things she’d miss. The internet, obviously. Though she’d mostly only gone on social media to admire pictures of people’s pets and put up her own photos of Copper. Probably no one had even noticed that she’d stopped posting.
Movies, definitely. Though the librarian had said that there was a movie night every Friday. And access to the internet too, if she decided she missed it.
It was weird how much she didn’t miss it.
But what did I ever do with it? Get the news, which I mostly couldn’t fix, or look at pictures of people’s dogs. Look things up, sometimes.
She could probably use the library computer if she needed to look anything up, like how to stop roadrunners from leaving dead snakes on your doorstep.I’d want to get my phone sorted out so that I could still take pictures with it, but I’m sure someone in town can help me do that.
Selena closed her eyes, trying to think of other things she’d miss.Good Vietnamese food. Mindless games on my phone. Not having to walk everywhere.
It didn’t seem like much of a list. The fact was that she hadn’t reallydoneanything most days. She worked, she came home, she watched TV or read books, she slept. Get up, rinse, repeat. If she went back, that was what waited for her.
Or she could live here, at least for a while. She didn’t have to decide now, forever. The city wouldn’t go anywhere. But Jackrabbit Hole House might not be waiting when she came back.
She’d told Walter to get rid of her stuff. She wasn’t the sort who kept photo albums and she couldn’t think of anything she wanted enough to give him her new address. She’d brought the good shoes that she could stand in for eight hours at a stretch, and as for the rest, if she hadn’t missed it by now, she probably didn’t need it.
She had stopped buying frivolous things after a while. Walter had a way of looking at them that made them turn ugly. Selena remembered a vase in a deep, gorgeous oxblood red. She saw it in a little boutique shop and fell in love with it at once and it was beautiful all the way home, and then Walter saw it. “Lovely shape,” he said. “Shame they didn’t have it in another color.” And then she looked at it and how it didn’t match anything in the house at all, which was all white pine and sleek chrome. The oxblood color turned garish and embarrassing. She returned it to the shop the next day.
Sitting in her aunt’s house with all the cheerfully mismatched furniture, Selena thought that if she had the vase now, she’d put it on the mantel and let the rich red color glow against the white walls. It would look beautiful there. Maybe where the statue of Snake-Eater was. She hoped that wouldn’t offend him.
Copper yawned and stretched and got to her feet. She scratched at the door and looked expectantly over at Selena.
“You like it here, don’t you?” Selena said, opening the back door for her.
Copper answered with a brief wave of her tail, ambling down the steps to sniff around the garden and find the single correct spot to anoint.
“I like it here,” Selena said, more quietly. At the far end of the garden, the little green god shimmered into existence. “I even like you,” Selena told him, though quietly. She still wasn’t sure about the supposed “thin place” in the garden, but it hadn’t done anything suspicious in the last few weeks, so she was starting to think of it like a septic system—potentially troublesome and expensive, but not an immediate threat.
She didn’t have the money to fix the septic system here, if it went bad, but Grandma had mentioned in passing that historic zones had a fund for any repairs that Samuel’s oldest couldn’t patch up with spackle and a new fuse. Maybe if the thin place went bad, Father Aguirre could do the spiritual equivalent of spackle.
She’d miss Father Aguirre if she went back to the city, and Grandma Billy and everyone at the church potluck and even DJ Raven with their bizarre choice in programming.
A terrible hope was starting to fill her, and the most terrible thing was discovering that she’d been feeling it for a while now.
Don’t,she told herself, trying to forestall it. If she didn’t hope, then the disappointment couldn’t crush her.It can’t be that easy. It’s a historic zone, there’s bound to be mountains of paperwork. They want people who have historic skills to live here, like weaving and gardening and raising sheep. Nobody thinks operating a deli meat slicer is a historic skill.
Selena shook her head. It was better to rip the bandage off quickly. She called Copper in and fetched her leash. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go talk to Mayor Jenny and find out it’s impossible.”
Chapter 15
“Of course it’s possible,” said Mayor Jenny. “I was hoping you’d decide to stay.”
“What?” asked Selena. She had been bracing herself for disappointment and having it yanked away left her suddenly off balance. “How? But this is a historic zone, isn’t it?”
