Page 9 of The Goat Next Door

“Don’t count on a next time,” I say, stepping back out onto the porch. “Keep the truck out of my lane when you back it out. And don’t touch the electrical panel until someone checks the wiring, unless you want to see me show up here in a completely different uniform.”

“Understood,” she says, giving me a mock salute with the broom. “See you around, neighbor!”

I turn my back to her, descending the creaking porch steps and heading toward the gravel driveway where the glittering U-Haul sits.

As I walk back toward my own house, I can hear the rhythmic, desperate sound of her broom hitting the floorboards again.

The quiet, orderly life I had thirty minutes ago is officially dead.

I go back to my hammer, my mind already assessing the structural state of her roof and wondering how much a local contractor is going to charge her to fix that ceiling.

Behind me, I hear a loud crash from inside the house followed by Emmy shouting, “Okay, what is this shelf’s problem!”

I close my eyes for one long second.

I hate this.

I hate that I’m already invested.

I glance one last time at the Gilded Goat.

Something tells me today is just the first day of a very long, very exhausting, and very complicated season.

And God help me, I have a feeling I’m going to end up right in the middle of it.

3

Ember

“Initial reports described her as ‘confident.’

Later corrections replaced this with ‘unstable but charming.’”

— The Local Newspaper

The floorboards are vibrating.

It’s not a subtle, comforting hum like a high-end refrigerator or a well-made car engine. No, this is a deep, shuddering, death-rattle vibration that suggests the Gilded Goat’s entire structural foundation is currently having a localized panic attack.

I’m standing in the center of what the Zillow listing generously referred to as the “grand parlor,” holding a plastic broom like a weapon.

“Optimism,” I say out loud to the peeling wallpaper. “Optimism is a choice, Ember. You can style your way out of this.”

The wallpaper peels a little farther off the wall right in front of me.

Like the house itself disagrees.

I take three steps forward, intending to tackle the mountain of dried leaves in the corner, and immediately stop. A loud, sharp CRACK echoes through the room as my left heel sinks a full inch into a rotting piece of oak flooring.

I freeze, holding my breath, half-expecting to plunge directly through the timber and into whatever terrifying, spider-infested abyss lies in the crawlspace below.

The house doesn’t swallow me. Not yet.

But it feels like it’s thinking about it.

I pull my foot out of the wood with a wet sound and stare at the damage. The floorboards are covered in a dark, fuzzy velvet that I am ninety percent sure is black mold. I look up at the ceiling. The water stain is actually dripping. Drip. Drip. Drip. Every drop lands squarely on the center of one of my heavy cardboard art history boxes with a hollow, mocking thud.

“It’s fine,” I mutter. “It’s a blank canvas. An industrial-chic, rustic-gothic blank canvas.”