Grouse only stared, not moving a muscle, not breathing deep enough to see.

Rose tried again. The sooner this was sorted in the old kook’s head, the sooner she’d move her naked ass from the foot of the bed. “Aren’t there just as many things to be found as things that are lost?”

Grouse laughed, short and stuttered, through her nose. “Silly. Then there wouldn’t be the turtle’s back of tragedy for beauty to ride on.”

Rose stared back. The woman blinked once, hard, robotic. The Plague had turned her mechanical.

“Time to go,” she quipped, then turned on a heel and marched out of the room.

“Indeed,” Rose agreed, knowing she had reached the end of putting up with this place. “It is time to go.”

But it was too late. They had missed the opportunity for an easy departure.

✦✦✦ ✦✦✦ ✦✦✦

The next day, the Wives and the house were as clean as Rose had ever seen them. They shone. Everyone was in a better mood, even Nam, who relaxed on the couch with an old comic about an awkward redheaded boy with two attractive girls inexplicably fawning all over him.

The Chief sauntered in, and the Wives sat up straight like buds seeking the sun. He pointed to Rose, who had been reading over Nam’s shoulder.

“I am going to check the garden, and I would like for you to keep me company.”

Rose put her finger to her chest. “Me?”

“Yes, yes. Please, if you will.” He swept his arm out beside him like a gentleman. But that was a lie—there was nothing gentle about him, just a soft malice that she could almost smell, like fire in the distance. Nam’s comic trembled a bit like a rattle. Rose stood and followed the Chief out the front door, ignoring the glares of the Wives as she passed them.

The garden was a small plot of mismatched plants surrounded by a border of tall weeds. There was no order, no sense to the patch. Pumpkins spiraled around cornstalks, beans withered under drying tomatoes leaves.

“You really need to organize better. The three sisters should be together,” she pointed out. “That’s squash, co—”

“There is nothing forced about this garden. It is exactly as the Creator wants it to be. Who am I to tell him how to grow his gifts?” the Chief cut her off to pontificate.

“Well, uh, maybe she gave us specific teachings so we could do things right instead of just all willy-nilly.” Rose hated this kind of man, this kind of overexplaining, condescending man. She’d been so long with men like Miig and Chi Boy that she had almost forgot this type of broken man existed. Every day she was realizing just how lucky she had been, even while running for her life. She also remembered that there were indeed gentlemen still left…just not any here.

The Chief laughed. “Oh, you are a firecracker, aren’t you?”

How was she supposed to answer that? Oh right, she wasn’t. She walked the perimeter of the patch to kill some time. It did bug her that they would be lucky to get even one third of what this yield could be, but as a firecracker, she supposed her only role was to pop off—bang!—and not to offer any useful advice.