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Which was not often, thankfully. I preferred not to have my peace pierced by people who, almost invariably, brought their own brand of chaos into my relatively quiet life.
That said, the people who did dare to trek all the way out to the foothills of the Death Valley mountains to my little home—especially during the sweltering mid-summer months—usually needed my help.
And my help came at a price.
That price allowed me to continue living my quiet little life.
So I tried to shake off the annoyance that rose in my system as I got up from my small table where I’d been separating dried herbs and flowers into mason jars.
I didn’t bother to take off my deep purple apron as I made my way to the front door, stepping outside into the heat.
The crickets had let me know it was already well over a hundred degrees outside, and the air that hit me as I moved onto the front porch confirmed it.
“How do you live out here like this?” the woman’s voice asked as she fanned her face with her hand, looking at the area I’d been calling home for the better part of five years.
I got asked that question a lot.
Sure, the “tiny house movement” and “living small” and “homesteading” were all buzzwords in the world, but most people never came face-to-face with people who lived like that. Mostly, it was just a dream of people who were sick of the grind, of the work that never ended to pay bills that never stopped coming, only to enjoy a few short hours of peace on the weekends, if they weren’t taken over by chores and errands and functions.
Living small had always been the only option for me.
I learned when I was young that I wasn’t cut out for the kind of rigid structure the modern world demanded of its people. It was evident in how torturous school had been for me as a child. Not because of the academics or the typical schoolyard popularity contest. I struggled to sit still all day in a cold room with stale air. I yearned to be outside with my bare feet in the dirt, with the wind in my hair, soaking up the sun and nature.
I cried when the summer was over and it was time to go back to school, cutting into my little adventures down by the lake near my house where I learned about plants and bugs and animals, getting an education that our ancestors knew, but modern people would never learn.
It only took a few weeks at my high school job to know I was never going to survive the nine-to-five life. Not with my spirit intact, anyway.
So eventually, I’d worked on a plan to save enough money to get myself a tiny house, to get myself some land, and to get a job for myself that didn’t involve needing to be inside all day, every day.
Part of that job, though, involved this.
These people—women, almost always—showing up at my doorstep, questioning my life choices while they came to me to help fix theirs.
“It’s quiet,” I told her, shrugging. “I like quiet.”
“I hope you have air conditioning, at least,” she said, and I watched a bead of sweat trickle down her neck and catch on the light coral material of her tee. “You could have a heat stroke out here in July or August,” she added.
She wasn’t wrong about that.
Which was why I did have a split unit for the days when I truly needed it. But I preferred not to use it if I could help it. To me, there was something to be said about letting my body feel the seasons. Though, yeah, I understood that wasn’t for everyone. And there were absolutely nights in the deepest parts of summer where sleeping naked with a fan on me wouldn’t even provide relief, making me need to turn on the air for a couple hours.
I ignored her comment about the heat, as I always did. This was California. The heat came with the territory.
“Who sent you here?” I asked instead, my need for self-preservation outweighing my knowledge that I was coming off particularly rude.
“Oh, ah, Madison?” she said, looking guilty at saying the name, like she was implicating her in something. And, in a way, she was.
Because no one came to me with good intentions.
People came to me when they wanted revenge.
When they knew someone who needed to learn a lesson.
Which was why I only worked by word-of-mouth. And even then, only when the names mentioned were clients I trusted and got a good feeling about.
Madison was one of those people.
I remember her showing up like it was yesterday. Her tiny frame swallowed up by denim overalls and a giant sweater, even in the warm part of late spring. Her brown hair had been down around her delicate face with these giant, haunted blue eyes.
