Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

I had Max back in bed. He'd been too sick to complain or even try anything, which meant he was really sick. Those Franzbr?tchen had looked really good. I decided to go hit Ecstasy for breakfast and to bring one back for him. Then I remembered: Selfish Day. I could still get Max the pastry, but what did I want that was selfish, foolhardy, fun.

That damn cottage, of course.

Since it was Saturday, I expected Poppy to sleep in as usual, but when I went down, she was at the table writing in a notebook.

"I have plans," she informed me as I put the kettle on to brew some tea.

"That's great," I said. Plans meant Poppy was back to normal, or at least closer to it.

"The front two rooms," Poppy said. "They're the key to drawing in the street traffic."

I frowned at her. Poppy had lived in Rocky Start all her life. I wondered where she thought street traffic was going to come from.

She went on. "We'll need billboards on the highway to draw in the customers. One in Tennessee, on the west side of Bearton so people might continue on through and stop here instead of there. And one to the east, in North Carolina. And then?—"

"No," I said. "Pike doesn't want strangers in Rocky Start." Poppy started to protest and I added, "I don't want strangers here. Forget foot traffic, figure out a way to sell online that won't tell anybody where we are." Poppy opened her mouth to argue, and I said, "This isn't an argument about your life, like the gap year thing. This is about Rocky Start. And there are good reasons why people don't want strangers here. This is not about you. No argument, just no."

I could see her regrouping and I really wasn't in the mood, so I said, "I'm taking Maggs for our walk. Want to come with?"

"No," Poppy said, sounding annoyed. "I have to change some plans."

"Online," I said. "No address here. Get a post office box in Bearton. And don't post as Oddities, nothing people could look up." It still bothered me how easily Rowan Masters had learned about Ozzie and gotten my name.

She nodded, thinking now, so I poured hot water over a tea bag in Ozzie's old travel mug and put the top on. Then I stuffed trash bags and scrub sponges into my apron pocket and a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle of vinegar and water into a black-and-white-checked backpack Poppy never used, picked up our broom, called Maggs, and went out the back door.

Poppy was so engrossed in her plans, she didn't even ask me why I was loading up on cleaning supplies.

Yes, I know it's dumb cleaning up a place somebody else owned. If I got there and there were people inside, I'd just keep walking. But it looked like there hadn't been people inside for centuries. Okay, maybe just a few years, but still, that place was beautiful and deserved to be set free of the junk and clutter. I'd be helping.

I stopped at Coral's for a bag of pastries including a replacement Franzbr?tchen for Max, but once outside again, Maggs and I headed straight for the bridge and then to the cottage. I stopped at the bottom of the steps to listen, which was dumb, the steps were too far away from the cottage to hear anything, but when Maggs had climbed the steps and disappeared and I didn't hear anybody scream "OH MY GOD A BLACK WOLF!" I followed her up the steps.

Nobody was there, so I picked the lock and went in. It was cloudier today, so the light inside was dimmer, but there was still enough to illuminate the place. I took one of the garbage bags out of my apron pocket and started clearing the table, checking to make sure each of the things I pitched—chipped and broken crockery, empty tin cans, paper wrappers and empty boxes—was really junk.

It was all junk.

When the table was cleared, I scrubbed it down. It took a while because the grime was thick, but eventually I had it done, and the tabletop revealed itself to a 70s Space Age plastic-topped things in red, gray, and black. The chrome on the edges and the legs was pitting, but I could find chrome paint. An art project! I was already ahead of the game. I put the cleaner, the towels, and the trash bags on the table and admired it all, my command central for cleaning.

And then I got serious about it.

I turned on the tap, but there was no water. We were too far out of town and on the other side of the river, so I doubted city water reached this far. Most likely a well. The pump required power and a motor, which was probably as old and rusted as everything else. I'd have to make do with what I'd brought.

An hour later I'd shoved three broken chairs out the door and into the clearing beside the house, dragged the motheaten (and worse) mattress from upstairs out to join them, put all the old, alarmingly rusted appliances (toaster, hot plate, cooler) into one garbage bag and dragged it out to join the rest of the rejects. I was a woman on a mission.

The kitchen shelves were still full of crockery, but that was going to take some time I didn't have today. The other room, which I was calling the living room, had the rickety frame of a camp bed and a small table with plastic legs that I was leaving there in case I happened to come across a mattress that I could bring so I could sit there in the window and read. Maybe some couch pillows. We never used the couch anyway.

It was right about then that Fernanda poked her head through the broken window.

"Careful," I said, which was dumb since I was talking to a llama. I went over and opened the casement slowly, Fernanda pulling her head back as the frame moved and then sticking her head through the opening when I had it clear.

"Please don't spit," I said to her. I wasn't sure what to do. Betty had told me that llamas weren't fond of being patted—"They're not dogs, Rose," she'd said when I tried once—so I just smiled at her, Cheery Boost for Llamas, and then Maggs came in and didn't bark, and I figured they'd worked out some kind of llama-German-Shepherd pact for peace, so I left them to it and looked around at my work.

Look, I wasn't hurting the place; in fact, I was helping it. It wasn't until I was looking at the books on the shelves and wondering whether Poppy could use them that I remembered that this was not my cottage and those were not my books and possibly whoever did own the place might want that furniture that I'd thrown out there, although I maintain anything made of pressed wood and plastic should go regardless.

Still, the fact remained, this was not my house. It was never going to be my house. Cleaning it up did not make it my house.

Get a grip, Rosalie, I told myself and went back to work.