I turn to look at her. Her eyes stay on the road.
“The town will understand. We all know you’ve been lonely since Kyle left. Running that business by yourself, working late, never coming to potlucks.” She pauses, adjusting her grip on the wheel. “A woman gets isolated. Makes mistakes. Tries to find company in a monster.”
The word sits between us like a stone.
“They’ll forgive you,” she continues. “Once it’s contained. Once we’ve handled the situation. No one’s going to hold it against you.”
She glances at me. Her eyes are soft, almost maternal, and that’s worse than anger would be.
“But you can’t be on its side, Maisie.” She turns back to the road. “Not here. Not in Coyote Springs.”
The mountains keep passing. I watch their dark shapes roll by and say nothing.
Chapter 17
Gram Ain't Having It
Oz
Morning finds me through awindow thick with dust and spider silk. The light comes in amber and slow, pooling on the sandstone floor.
I spent the night folded into the corner of the holding cell, my body compressedto fit the space.
The iron bars are old, pitted with rust, and I could easily move through them the way water moves through a sieve.
But I stay, because leaving would confirm every fear Mrs. Pritchett holds and every warning she’ll carry back to town.
Maisie sleeps in a wooden chair three feet from the bars. Her arms are crossed over her chest, her chin tucked toward her shoulder, her breath even and shallow.
She refused to leave.
Said it once, with finality, and then sat down and stopped engaging with any argument to the contrary.
I watched her throughout the night—the set of her jaw, the stubborn angle of her shoulders, the way she positioned her body toward the cell like she could shield me from the room.
Mrs. Pritchett occupies a folding chair by the door. She also refused to leave, though her reasoning differs.
Someone must supervise the creature, she said.
Someone must ensure the town’s safety until proper authorities can be contacted.
She made coffee in a tin pot on a camp stove she keeps in her golf cart for emergencies, and she drank it in measured sips while watching me with the steady attention of a hawk reading a field all throughout the night.
Now the three of us wait in the morning silence.
A fly traces lazy circles near the window.
Somewhere outside, a truck engine turns over and dies.
Maisie shifts in her sleep, her spine popping. The wooden chair has done her no favors.
Mrs. Pritchett’s gaze moves between us.
Cataloging.
Calculating.
“Your grandmother’s going to hear about this,” she says to Maisie’s sleeping form.
