After a minute she said, “I don’t like being scared.” Her voice was matter-of-fact.

“I understand,” I said.

“No.” She stood up and looked down at me. I gripped the can opener and looked back, thinking she was going to say something, but she started pacing instead. She went over to the window overlooking the porch and the field beyond. “I was in prison, see.”

I only nodded. Living the sheltered life that I had, I had never known anyone in prison. In the show, I would not have met anyone else who was in prison, either, until Season 6.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” She started gnawing at a thumbnail as she stared out the window. “I got out and now I’m here.”

“What did you do?”

She looked back at me and spit out her hangnail. “To get in or get out?”

I shrugged.

“Whatever they said I did, I did it a long time ago. I wasn’t in my right mind back then. Just a kid. But then I got better. I worked on machines while I was there. I learned a trade. I used to be on pills, I used to smoke cigarettes,” she said, and rubbed her eyes, her whole face, “I used to do so many things. But now I’m out and now I’m here.”

Not knowing what to say, I just kept nodding.

She let out a short, bitter laugh. “That was a long time ago. I’ve been traveling around, looking for somewhere that feels right. I looked and looked and I never fit in, you know? I keep wandering around, seems like forever.”

She suddenly dropped down and sat in front of me on her knees. “But here feels right. I can’t explain it. Something feels right up here, on this mountain.” I stared at her. She took my hands. I was still holding the can of beans and can opener. “Don’t worry, though. I promise no one will bother us while I’m here.”

I stared at her. “How can you promise that?”

“I promise, I won’t let them ruin it. I will kill them if it comes to that.”

The thought of Krystal returning occurred to me. I looked into Rita’s eyes, and darkness floated there, an abyss. I believed her.

“Okay,” I said.

And we resumed our breakfast like nothing had happened.

This new information, along with the general crisis of the larger situation, helped distract me from my usual paranoia. Part of me still felt like I had felt the morning after the storm—that I was being borne along on a wave of uncertainty, each day a widening hole in the reality I had spent three years creating, and Rita was just another part of the scenery I had to give myself over to for the duration. If she could protect me from intruders, from Krystal, so be it. Still, I hesitated to show her my project. I didn’t even risk sneaking off by myself to visit it, in order to avoid the possibility of her discovering my absence—for so long I had been so adamant about protecting it from others, it was my natural instinct to resist sharing it. The more time I spent with her, though, the more the possibility opened, like a pinhole in a camera.