Ava socked them in the arm and stomped away.

* * *

Jules knew her well enough to give Ava some time and space. Maybe they had, against all odds, developed a sense of self-preservation. If they had, they could surely tell that she was ready to toss their ungrateful ass into the waiting maw of one of those flytrap chairs. Ava closed her eyes and took deep breaths, trying to will away the tremors and slow her heartbeat. She flinched at a sudden loud clapping sound, opening her eyes and scrambling backward.

It was just Jules, though, sitting a safe distance from the carnivorous wingback chair, and poking at the hairs with a stick.

At Ava’s glare, they dropped the stick. “Sorry,” they said. Ava turned her back on Jules, grabbed the leather purse, and started going through it.

It was a true grandma bag, roomy and full of all kinds of junk. Ava dug through cough drops, reading glasses, tissues, hand sanitizer, perfume, and several bottles of hand cream before she found a pocketbook. She opened it up: the driver’s license read Ursula Nouri, and Ava recognized the woman in the photo from the young woman’s selfie.

“It’s hers,” Ava called out. “Ursula’s.”

She started flipping through the rest of the pocketbook, mostly out of morbid curiosity. About thirty dollars in cash, some crumpled receipts, a well-used library card, a half-dozen memberships for big box stores like Hearths and Crafts, Hammer City, and, of course, LitenVärld. Tucked into the same clear plastic sleeve that held Ursula’s driver’s license, facing the opposite side, was a picture of her with a teenage girl. The young woman at the customer service desk, but years younger. Middle or high school maybe, judging by the acne and the awkward emo outfit that screamed trying too hard.

Ava could easily imagine this Ursula dropping some commentary about the skinny plaid pants barely hanging on her granddaughter’s hips, and how much eyeliner was too much. Ursula looked a little judgmental, but her arm around the girl was protective, comforting. Ava smiled, then remembered the woman staring at the selfie and saying that her grandmother knew how worried she got.

God, this job sucked.

Jules, never able to leave well enough alone, had progressed to balling up wads of grass and tossing them at the chair. It seemed to be getting wise to their tricks, only half closing when the grass hit the sensitive hairs on what Ava couldn’t help but think of as its tongue. “So she got eaten?” they asked.

Ava looked over at the curled-up plant. The lump was definitely human-sized. “Something is in there. I’m not sure I’m willing to pry it open and find out.”

“Yeah,” Jules agreed sadly. “That’s above our pay grade.”