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[11.6 10:38] Hey Twig, just wanted to let you know that I’m gonna be on the ground for another three weeks. We had to redo the shift schedule because I’ve taken a lot of time off, so me and Colibri got bumped to a later run. I know you’re busy with the new job, but if you wanna go get dinner or chicory or something, lemme know, I’m around! You’re also welcome to drop by Signy’s shop if you want, I’m there pretty much whenever I don’t have pilot shit
[11.8 16:07] Jeez kid, how hard are they working you? Take a break sometimes, yeah?
[11.10 09:47] Have you forgotten how to answer your phone? Can you text me back? Just one word even?
[11.10 17:21] Seriously just send me a thumbs up
[11.10 23:08] Dipshit, if this is because you lost your phone, I’m gonna be so pissed
[11.11 08:08] Twig, this isn’t cool. If you’re mad at me for something, just say so
[11.12 14:03] Okay, where the fuck are you? I went to your apartment but nobody answered the doorbell and your neighbors were the opposite of helpful
[11.12 14:48] Call me
[11.12 15:05] PICK UP YOUR PHONE
[11.12 15:38] Twig, please
[11.13 07:34] Look, you’re all the way grown and you don’t need my permission for anything. If you want me to fuck off, fine, but I love you and you’re scaring me. I’m this close to calling the cops, and nobody wants that. Please call me back.
Chapter 48 Signy, Fortune
Be grateful, Signy thought, as she dug her bare fingers down into the potting substrate and tore the first plant out. Somebody warned you. The roots were white, thick, healthy. The leaves were strong, and full of precious things. She dropped the plant whole into the incinerator box, a device meant for destroying specimens too diseased to continue. She threw in the foxglove, the periwinkle, the bell pepper that wasn’t. Their stems snapped as she pushed them down to make space for more, fresh sap oozing in an astringent plea her senses couldn’t parse. She bleached their empty pots as they burned, twice over. You were supposed to wear a mask when working with bleach. She let her nostrils singe instead.
Be grateful, she thought, filling vitamin C bottles with her last batches of pills. You helped for a while. The lab reactor had been trashed, its tubes and jam jars pulled apart before being thrown in separate recycling bins around the raft. She’d visited all her customers, one by one, telling them the bad news in person. Most of them hadn’t been angry, at least not with her. And those who had, she didn’t take personally. Or, if she did, she was too numb to have noticed.
Be grateful, she thought, placing Otto’s binoculars in the same drawer as her assortment of good-luck charms. You got to be his friend. He’d left her half his savings account, the bastard. Sam had told her he’d split it between them, after she’d come by. Neither had said much of anything else while she was there. Scrubbing seven years of templates from the seed printer took some doing. Signy appreciated Sam’s thoroughness, even though it made her want to scream.
It was a Monday afternoon, but Signy hadn’t bothered to open the shop. She crawled under the blankets on the cot and curled up facing the wall.
Time had no meaning when the world felt this gray, so there was no knowing how long she’d been there when her phone began to ring. She pulled it from her pocket, otherwise motionless. She saw the name on the screen, and there—there, she felt a spark of color. “Hey, gorgeous,” she answered.
“Hey, um—” Cora’s voice splintered. “I am so sorry to be bothering you with this right now—”
Signy pushed away the blanket and raised her head. “What’s wrong?”
“She moved out,” Cora said. “Three weeks ago.”
“Who?” Signy frowned. “Twig?”
“I just talked to her landlord,” Cora said. Her voice echoed, like she was in a hallway or a lobby, and faintly, Signy could hear the sound of rapid footsteps pacing. “All her shit is gone except a few things she left in a box. She left her phone. She hasn’t gotten any of my fucking messages, and she didn’t leave a new number or an address or—”
“Okay, love, slow down,” Signy said, sitting all the way up. “We’ll figure this out.”
“I don’t understand,” Cora said, brittle and indignant. “Why didn’t she tell me? Where is she?”
Signy shut her eyes and thought. The world was still gray, but Cora needed help, and that cleaved the murk apart. “What did she leave, other than her phone?”
“Uh, random shit—socks, whatever. But she left her computer, too, and like, why leave the expensive stuff? Or why not sell it, if she was hard up for money?” Cora exhaled hotly. “I’m so sorry about this.”
“What?” Signy blinked. “Why are you sorry?”
“Because you don’t need this right now.”
“What, and you do?”
“You’re dealing with so much—”
