Garrett continued, offering: “The only reason I took her away is to make sure she’s okay. She wanted to get out of Tanner’s Corner. She likes it at the beach. I mean, fuck, who wouldn’t? Better than shitty Tanner’s Corner.” Snapping his nails faster now, louder. He was agitated and nervous. With his huge hands he ripped open one of the bags of chips. He ate several handfuls, chewing them sloppily, bits falling from his mouth. He drank down an entire can of Coke at once. Ate more chips.

“This place burned down two years ago,” he said. “I don’t know who did it. You like that sound? The water-wheel? It’s pretty cool. The wheel going round and round. Like, reminds me of this song my father used to sing around the house all the time. ‘Big wheel keep on turning…’” He shoveled more food into his mouth and started speaking. She couldn’t understand him for a moment. He swallowed. “—here a lot. You sit here at night, listen to the cicada and the bloodnouns—you know, the bullfrogs. If I’m going all the way to the ocean—like now—I spend the night here. You’ll like it at night.” He stopped talking and leaned toward her suddenly. Too scared to look directly at him, she kept her eyes downcast but sensed he was studying her closely. Then, in an instant, he leapt up and crouched close beside her.

Lydia winced as she smelled his body odor. She waited for his hands to crawl over her chest, between her legs.

But he wasn’t interested in her, it seemed. Garrett moved aside a rock and lifted something out from underneath.

“A millipede.” He smiled. The creature was long and yellow-green and the sight of it sickened her.

“They feel neat. I like them.” He let it climb over his hand and wrist. “They’re not insects,” he lectured. “They’re like cousins. They’re dangerous if you try to hurt them. Their bite is really bad. The Indians around here used to grind them up and put the poison on arrowheads. When a millipede is scared it shits poison and then escapes. A predator crawls through the gas and dies. That’s pretty wild, huh?”

Garrett grew silent and studied the millipede intently, the way Lydia herself would look at her niece and nephew—with affection, amusement, almost love.

Lydia felt the horror rising in her. She knew she should stay calm, knew she shouldn’t antagonize Garrett, should just play along with him. But seeing that disgusting bug slither over his arm, hearing his fingernails click, watching his blotched skin and wet, red eyes, the flecks of food on his chin, she convulsed in panic.

As the disgust and the fear boiled up in her Lydia imagined she heard a faint voice, urging, “Yes, yes, yes!” A voice that could only belong to a guardian angel.

Yes, yes, yes!