Chapter 11 #2
I realized belatedly that I was barreling down Main Street at ten over the speed limit, the hedge wall around the parsonage already coming into view.
I pumped my brakes and yanked the truck down a side street, trying to collect myself, which was not easy given the hideous thing in my passenger seat.
I needed to get it out of my truck and out of my possession as fast as I could, but if I showed up at the parsonage pale and tremulous as a junkie, the pastor’s wife would never let me in.
I was still going too fast as I turned into the driveway, the truck lurching as one wheel hit the curb.
I stopped, threw the truck in park, and turned off the ignition, forcing myself to move slowly, calmly.
The hex bag chittered and shifted as I reached past it to the glove box; I ignored it and reached inside for the roll of self-adhesive bandage.
It had been bouncing around in there for months and was certainly not sterile, but it hid the worst of the damage to my hand.
Finally, I dumped my usual supply of materials—pouches of dried lavender and valerian, a couple tins of cat food, bandage scissors, cuticle scissors, another roll of bandage—out of my satchel and slid the hex bag inside.
The incessant rattle of the bones faded to a barely perceptible level, but I would have to burn this satchel when I was done.
I slung it over my back, gathered a carrier from the back seat, and strode up the driveway to the porch. Wisps of hair floated free of my braid, and I had a feeling I still looked shaken.
God bless this home, and all who enter here, the sign on the door said. I grimaced and knocked, the impact reverberating through my wounded hand.
The pastor’s wife kept me waiting so long I nearly left. After my second knock, I saw furtive movement through the yellowed lacy curtain, as if she were trying to sneak deeper into the house without being seen. “Mrs. Abdee?” I called.
Rachel came to the door then, opening it just a few inches and standing in the gap like she had something to hide. “Miss Wynne,” she said grimly. “Something I can do for you?”
“Sorry, I should’ve called ahead,” I said, trying to smile and feeling a manic stretch across my face. “I was just driving by, and I remembered that you have a squirrel problem.”
Her protruding eyes narrowed to suspicious little glints. “My husband didn’t say anything about you coming by.”
“Does he need to ask your permission?”
She sucked a breath in through her teeth, and I knew I had her; the last thing she’d want is to undermine her husband’s authority in front of someone like me.
She grudgingly stepped back, opening the door the rest of the way.
“I don’t have much time,” she said. “My women’s Bible study group starts in half an hour. ”
“No worries. I’ll be out of your hair as fast as I can.”
She led me through the stale-smelling house and up to the second floor, the old wooden stairs making great groaning creaks as we ascended. The second floor was mounded in mauve carpet so thick she had to shove the door to the attic open with her narrow shoulder.
“There you go. Funny thing for a woman to spend her time doing, traipsing around in people’s houses looking for rodents. Doesn’t sound very fulfilling.”
“Just part of the job.”
“Yes, I suppose it’s that way for a lot of women now—they’ve been told they’re better off doing something completely mindless than pursuing God’s purpose for them. Sad, really.”
I’d gotten under her skin with the permission comment, I realized; she didn’t like that I knew the rules of her world when she didn’t know mine. “Unless you think it’s God’s plan for you to have squirrel shit in your cupboards, I’ll just go on up,” I said.
I shouldered past her and took the steep stairs two at a time, almost daring her to follow me up, but she didn’t.
The attic was spacious, the A-frame stretching some twelve feet over my head.
It was mostly empty, which at least saved me from traipsing through a maze of junk to look for the nest. There were plenty of signs of squirrels—droppings scattered everywhere, a hole chewed in the insulation by the chimney, black walnut shells crunching under my feet.
On a plastic bin labeled winter clothes sat the discarded packaging from no less than six glue traps.
I had to poke around for about ten minutes before I found the nest tucked into a discarded roll of carpet pad.
I was wary of sticking my hands in, in case the mother had somehow avoided all the pastor’s traps, but there was no hiss or scrabble of clawed feet when I reached inside.
I pulled out the mass of chewed-up carpet, insulation, twigs, grass, and what looked like a few bits of Christmas tinsel, and pushed back the top layer.
One of the other kits, like the unfortunate sibling David had brought me, was already dead, its body ice-cold to the touch and kicked as far from its siblings as the cramped space of the nest allowed.
The three remaining began to squeak hungrily as I dragged the nest from the roll of padding, nosing at the air in search of their mother.
They were about the same age as the litter I already had—eyes still closed, thin velvet fuzz just covering their pink-tinged skin, bones not yet hard.
I placed the dead one in a plastic baggie for disposal and maneuvered the nest into the carrier, grateful that at least I didn’t have to spend half an hour wrangling it out of the rafters with my pole net.
The hex bag felt like it was burning a hole in my satchel, so I tucked the carrier under my arm and rushed back down the stairs.
Rachel was waiting for me at the base of the staircase, her large, bulbous eyes staring up at me like a toad at the bottom of a bucket.
The tension of our earlier exchange had only thickened, and despite the fact that I was already a head taller than her, I found myself pausing at the second step, purposely forcing her to crane her head back to look at me.
“You’ll handle the disposal?” she asked, her upper lip curling.
“I’ll handle their rehabilitation,” I snapped.
The hex bag was making me even more bad-tempered than I’d normally be in this situation; every time I swallowed I tasted bile at the back of my throat, and my teeth and the skin beneath my fingernails felt like they were crawling with grime.
I descended the last two stairs and tried to smile pleasantly.
“Would you mind if I checked the basement real quick? Usually when you have one rodent problem, there’s bound to be another. Unlike the attic, there’s a lot in the basement that really shouldn’t be chewed, water lines and stuff.”
I was up to my knees in bullshit here, and Rachel’s willingness to entertain me was fraying. “Squirrels don’t go in the basement.”
“Not squirrels, necessarily, but rats, moles, voles, they all dig and chew. Besides, I’d hate for you to have to call me back for another issue when I could nip it in the bud now.”
She didn’t want me back in her house either, so she gave a heavy sigh and motioned me to follow her to the back of the house. “Be quick, please,” she repeated.
The basement door was a narrow thing that had been painted so many times it didn’t quite fit in the frame.
It shrieked as Rachel opened it, and a cold draft of air wafted up.
I hesitated ever so briefly; I didn’t want to take the carrier down into the basement’s cool, damp air, but I didn’t trust Rachel enough to leave it up here.
Then the hex bag gave a pulse like it was trying to eat its way out of my satchel, and I careened down the stairs.
“I’ll be back up in just a minute,” I called over my shoulder, my voice shaking.
The basement was barely tall enough for me to stand, as dim and cobwebbed as my own cellar but sealed in concrete.
There was nothing down here—no foosball table, no boxes, no gardening supplies, not even laundry machines.
For a moment I spun around frantically, clutching the carrier to my chest as if I could block the draft, but there was nowhere to bury the bag, and nothing I could hide it beneath.
Finally, my eyes lit on the water heater.
It was bolted to the floor, but one of the corner brackets had rusted and bent, the thick screw gaping inches above the concrete.
I set the carrier down and swung the satchel off my back; the heater was hot to the touch but not scalding, and I was able to set my shoulder against it and get another inch of space.
The door at the top of the stair screamed open again, and there was a heavy footfall on the top step. I reached into the satchel and flung the hex bag beneath the heater, my fingertips briefly sizzling black at the tips, and straightened up, pretending to inspect the water lines.
Zeke descended the stairs, stooping at the shoulders to avoid scraping his head on the ceiling. “Miss Wynne,” he said. “What a surprise.”
I left off my pretend inspection and flashed what I hoped was a confident smile. “Yes, well, I thought I’d take care of your squirrel problem.”
He glanced at the carrier; he was standing a few feet away, and he could so easily kick it, step on it. “I believe I took care of the squirrels myself.”