My adventurer’s persona did not last long; it reminded me too much of my nerdy geologist parents, who wore sporty pants with elastic waists that could be unzipped into shorts, and black all-terrain sandals streaked with yellow, like ugly wasps.

“Penfield Ruth Henderson?” the airport security guard asked with skepticism.

A shame blanket draped over me as the uniformed man uttered the Ruth aloud. Why hadn’t I packed a waterproof document carrier like perfect Aiden?

“Yes?”

“The name printed on your ticket doesn’t match your ID.”

On my ticket, it said Penfield R. Henderson.

“How important is the middle name to national security?”

He ignored me and called for a manager.

A manager wearing cargo khakis came over, adding insult to injury. He asked to see all my credit cards. Blithe started getting agitated, tapping the side of the wheelchair, whispering, “Wallpaper, wallpaper, Ruth, wallpaper.”

After the manager scrawled a series of symbols on my boarding pass, we were waved through to the next embarrassment.

Inside his pain, I hoped Blithe noticed that I, too, had all sorts of problems.

2

The kitchen looked new to me after a few days away, with its dried herbs and animal bones hanging down from the ceiling and the three stools lined up below the counter.

The Witch floated in, wearing layers and layers of shawls and her Melusine skirt with a tailed-woman appliqué.

“Welcome, welcome!” she said, warmer than I’d ever seen her, twirling around in a circle. “Please use this dwelling as you wish, only do not disturb my arrangements. You may cross through to the backyard during my morning chants, from nine to ten; when I’m temping from one to five in the evening; or during the Descension, occurring in the evening from eight to nine in the spring.”

The level of awkwardness was not yet intolerable. I pulled Aiden and Blithe into my room to explain.

“Okay, I know she’s weird, but when I interviewed people to see if they wanted to share this tiny-ass apartment with me, only a few responded.”

It was hard to speak in my room with the door closed because the S-H’s takeout-and-weed residue formed a thick cloud.

“An artist couple, a neuroscience PhD student with a snake, a perfect quiet ceramicist who bailed on me, a cis white str8 guy who used the word hella, and a baby-boomer divorcée. I think my compatibility test scared away most folks. I asked them about condiment usage and how likely they would be to squirt some of my ketchup onto a bun if they’d run out.

“The crazy thing is, I didn’t even care about condiment usage. It was just because of a story I heard about someone threatening to put laxatives in his ketchup if his roommates kept eating it . . . Okay, you really don’t care.”

Blithe had wandered over to my mood board, and Aiden was scrolling on his phone.