23
Lexie dragged herself into the house, wrapped in Summer’s quilt. Its mouse piss and mold stink wafted in with her. Jenna was knitting in the living room, a mug of black tea steaming next to her, when Lexie walked in. The sunrise peeked through one small window over Jenna’s shoulder, and she looked so warm and calm it pained Lexie to interrupt the moment.
“Pee-yew!” Jenna said, looking up from her knitting. “What is that?”
Lexie stepped into the living room, prepared to explain, but the tears won out. She was crying before she knew it.
Jenna gave Lexie a soothing shush and then pulled her into a hug.
“We’ll get it cleaned up, sweetie. It’ll be easy.”
Jenna grabbed the quilt and shook it out, the crud gone but the smell clinging fast.
Four holes punctured the surface of the quilt, small rips following the delicate stitching and rows of multicolored fabric.
Jenna examined it carefully, holding it to the light and running her fingers along the stitching.
“It’s salvageable. Handmade things can be unmade and remade. It’s part of their magic. I’ll separate the front piece, where all this detailing is.” She ran her fingers over the crooked stitching. “And I’ll add a new back piece, some patches, and new batting. No problem.”
“It was my mom’s,” Lexie whimpered.
Jenna nodded. “It’ll be fine. We’ll get this piece of your mama back.”
Lexie needed a shower. She plodded up the steps. Mitch was in the bathroom, fiddling with a roll of surgical bandaging.
“Can I?” Lexie asked as she poked her head into the bathroom.
“It’s cool. Come in.”
Lexie took off her clothes at the same time Mitch did. His breasts were shockingly large, especially since Lexie had never really paid much mind to his body. Seeing them now, released of their sports bra and undershirt confines, Lexie had a hard time not staring.
Mitch didn’t notice—or he pretended not to. He wound the bandage around his chest, flattening the pendulous flesh into simulacra of pectoral muscles. Lexie ran the water and stretched.
“How was the woods?” he asked.
Shit, Lexie thought.
“You’re going to have to start expecting that,” he said.
“I guess it’s hard to keep secrets around here.”
Mitch snorted, a half smile digging a dimple into one cheek. “When I can smell everywhere you’ve been for the past two days? Yeah, you can forget about privacy.” He bit his lip and looked away.
“You must miss her a lot,” Mitch said, finally.
Lexie looked askance.
“You go to the cabin to think about Archer, right?”
Lexie fidgeted and shrugged.
“Do you see anything?” Mitch asked.
“Anything?”
Mitch bit harder on his lip, his dimples forming like forehead furrows. “Like of Blythe. Like blood, or fur, or anything.” He forced a casual tone.
Lexie grimaced and shook her head. “No. I think the fire took care of all of that.”
Mitch nodded and returned his attention to the mirror.
Lexie stepped into the shower and moaned at the needle-heat of the water. “I can go back there with you sometime, if you’d like,” Lexie said. “To, I dunno. Say goodbye or something.”
“Maybe,” Mitch said in a grudging tone that made it sound like a no.
“Hey Mitch, can I borrow your hockey stick?” Hazel asked, her voice echoing through the bathroom.
“Why?”
“Professor Rindt is organizing a protest down at the new off ramp and I need to tape my sign to something.”
“Why are you protesting?” Lexie asked, peeking around the shower curtain.
“Because paving a highway through an old-growth forest just to raise the state’s bottom line is bullshit.”
Mitch futzed with his hair in the mirror. “But it’ll tear up the Morloc territory. That’s a good thing.”
“No it’s not,” Hazel said. “It’s just going to squish them into a smaller space, which isn’t going to be good for anyone.”
The three stood still for a moment, contemplating that fact.
“Do you think?” Mitch said.
“That’s why they’re so pissed at Milton all of a sudden?” Hazel said.
Lexie pulled back the curtain so she could participate in the conversation without ending her shower. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a sudsy heap. “That’d piss me off.”
“Do you think Bree … ?” Mitch asked Lexie.
“Oh my god, she was!” Hazel shouted.
“Was what?” Mitch asked.
Hazel nearly leapt as she shouted, and from down the hall, they heard Corwin and Sharmalee shift sleepily in bed. “She was on the board of the environmental club! She’s the one who brought Rindt on as our staff advisor. She was helping organize the protest!”
Lexie dipped her head under the stream. “You seriously just remembered this, just now?” Lexie asked.
“What?” Hazel said. “I was only at one meeting.”
Lexie let the hot water wash away the past few days’ anxiety and dirt. “Does that count as a motive?” she muttered to herself, forgetting the girls could hear her just fine.
“Probably not,” Mitch said, “but it’s a fair bet that someone out there didn’t like her.”