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It had been weeks since Piper had made a manifestation, and I was so grateful. She was starting to eat at my soul. After the nightmares, it would take at least two days to shake her completely. Cricket was a balm to my disturbed spirit.
Cricket still hadn’t given me the sculpture she’d promised me. I wanted to ask her about it, but it felt clumsy between us, and I couldn’t force myself to demand it. Though so many times I wanted to. So many times.
Bridge was about five months along by then and starting to show. Much to my surprise, Jonah wasn’t distancing himself as I had thought. In fact, he was even more attentive which, frankly, shocked me. I had decided the night we had an appearance from my dad’s lackey Dominic that I was going to keep my mouth shut and just let things play out.
Dominic had not made a single attempt at contact. Neither had my father or my mother, which made me think my dad hadn’t told her. The fact that he hadn’t reached out in any capacity left me more than a little nervous, but with each day that passed, my uneasiness subsided more and more. We were fast approaching Bridge’s eighteenth birthday, which also made me more comfortable.
There were also a few serious things going on at the ranch, but any time Bridge and/or myself would walk into the room, the conversation would turn silent. It wasn’t our business, and we decided to respect their wishes. Although it did make us extremely curious.
About mid-February, Emmett assigned Cricket to be my partner because he needed Jonah to work with him more closely as they began to plan their new season, when they would inseminate the cows in April, etc.
On a random Wednesday, as we spread pellets out in the horse stalls, I broke down with Cricket. Ethan continually took her into town for hours at a time, and I was finding myself green with envy. I wanted answers.
“Hey, Cricket,” I began.
“Mmmhmm?” she asked, throwing her rake back and forth with practiced ease.
“Where do you go with Ethan so often?”
She stopped raking and studied her hands a moment before going back to work at a furious pace. “Nowhere really.”
“You’re lying,” I said, knowing her well enough then to know when she was indeed being untruthful.
I stopped and leaned on my rake. She did the same.
“I am not,” she insisted.
“Cricket,” I said, exasperated. “Why won’t you just tell me where you go?”
She pushed her rake back down and avoided looking at me.
“Cricket,” I pushed.
“Jeez, Spencer, can you just let it go?”
“No, I have to know.”
She dropped her rake.
“No, you don’t,” she gritted, wounding me.
She picked her rake back up and we finished the stall, moving on to the next.
“Eugie,” she said out of nowhere.
Instinctively, I opened the gate for him as I usually did when Cricket and I would have our one-word conversations.
“Eugie, come eat,” I ordered into the dark path, knowing what she wanted of me and laying out his food as one of us always did.
We’d perfected those one-worded conversations, really. At night, when she worked, all she had to do was mention one word: “please,” “that,” “here,” etc. and I would know exactly what she meant or wanted. It got so that we were so good at it, Ellie would often tease us because we found ourselves doing it around the group, much to Ethan’s dismay, I might add.
Another thing that infuriated me about Cricket was that she obviously hadn’t told Ethan about our late-night sessions. I found myself constantly frustrated, toggling between wondering if she was ashamed of me, or if she was afraid Ethan would put a stop to them.
When Eugie was done eating, I let him into the stall with us and picked him up as if he was a lapdog, kissing his neck and setting him down. Cricket bent down and kissed the top of his nose then stood and went back to work. I piled a corner with a little bit of hay as usual and he laid on top. I did this in each stall we visited, and he would follow us from stall to stall.
When the pellets were done, we bathed and brushed down the horses, combing out their manes and tails. We’d put them all away for the night except one. We began to shampoo him together, working in sync as we always did, moving together as a cohesive unit.
“Six?” I asked, pointing at the horse we were cleaning.
