Pit-stop

In the right-hand front window of the shop, the salt-water taffy puller pulled salt-water taffy. With each rotation, the color phased gently from a yellow and green to a delicate seafoam. Small air bubbles gurgled around the spokes of the puller.

Jamie tracked the movement with her wide eyes, her translucent reflection staring half-way passed her towards the ocean. She tucked her small hand into her back pocket. The coins within, allowed by her mother, jangled between her fingers. By quick mental math, she deduced she could buy at least 4 taffies, although she was unsure if the advertised price accounted for tax, and she was unsure if that was the same here as it was at the cornerstores she had been to before.

The bell above the glass door clattered as she entered the store. A scent not unlike the inside of a plastic bag washed over her. The various groups filling the central hall of the store gave the effect of exiting through a gift shop; a father checked his watch, his children filled bags with multi-color taffy by the pail-full for a long return trip, his partner scanned the counter for souvenirs to gift those not present. The store was a waypoint, out of time just like much of the rest of the boardwalk. Plastic prop plane models hung along the walls next to screen-printed maps yellowed with coffee. The only clock was on the store owner's wrist, its hands thinned to invisibility from Jamie's vantage.

With effort and economic use of niceties, Jamie jammed her way between the adolescent masses. "'scuse me ma'am." Hips and thighs created gaps amid the crush of bodies. She hung back from the chests of taffies, watching the tourists devour them. Favorites were distinguished by their empty chests. She had come in the waning moments of the mid-day rush, yet not quite the early afternoon lull that allowed the store owner to re-stock his cash cows. Jamie never particularly cared for watermelon or rootbeer anyways.

Jamie knew she needed more than a cursory glance to make her decision. These treats were to last her through the evening at minimum, and there were few other child-approved snacks in their shabby motel room to accompany her re-watch of The Little Mermaid which she planned to begin around midnight. She hoped to have at least 3 by that point, and thought there may be a few flavors that would pair well. She allowed herself to recede from the crowd, blend into the background of commerce.

In doing so, she noticed the store owner had pulled the same trick. Customers exchanged cash with the counter, speaking with their children while the owner calculated the difference and replaced the bills with change, indicating the customer's exit. He wore shades. A small stand perched on the counter sold shades, like a familiar, although his shades were of a higher quality, and faded with sweat-stains around the ear. He was taller than Jamie, but she could recognize that he was still a small man. His hair was pulled back in a swirl not unlike his taffy. She sensed the swirl's center covered a thinning portion of his skull. He was older than her mom, but she was not yet able to pull adults into separate classes; he was simply older. He was odd, the swiftness with which he thumbed through and discarded money disconcerted a number of customers, yet he did not give off a malicious air. Jamie was a savant beyond her years of malicious airs.

The rays of sun grew closer to parallel with the ground and the customers slowly trickled away to their stationwagons and minivans. The store owner recanted his camouflage and began moving about the store. His hands returned vagrant stock, moving autonomously. He approached the taffy buckets with plastic bags of taffy, origins evidently not of the front puller, and began the slow process of refilling the sweets. Ripping open each bag perfumed the store. Jamie took a deep breath, trying to remember the smells for later. The sound of her exhale brought the store owner's eyes down on her, a sideways glance at this little customer he failed to clock upon entry. He chalked this up to the quirks of afternoon sunlight. He clocked the hand-me-down jelly sandals, flecked equally with chewed asphalt as with sand.

He cleared his throat, "Do you want a sample?" His voice was higher than she expected for an older man and rattled with a friction earned after an early happy hour. He clearly hadn't spoken to a customer in several days, much less anyone else.

"Thank you sir, but I'm still thinking." Her voice was serious with the task of decision-making, although she her thoughts were bound up watching a family arrange in their car's assigned seats. She was accustomed to the custom of faux-consumerism necessary to justify her presence in a store, buying an extra moment or two inside. The store owner shrugged and continued his parade around the store's cramped interior. The linoleum floor creaked in syncopation with his limp, his left leg reverbed slightly. He nonetheless moved with a quickness that implied the injury was a part of a forgotten history.

The troughs of sweets beckoned with their siren song of cavities and stomach aches. A sixth sense alerted Jamie to the watchful eyes of the shop keeper, who was pretending to work while he waited for her decision. She felt like a test market. To potentially subvert his upcoming restocking efforts, she deliberately chose those flavor she felt were forgotten when other people vacationed on the coast: holly berry, apple pie, pumpkin, and candied praline. She placed each confectionary on the glass countertop, as she motioned each coin between her knuckles, firmly within her pocket, to remind her that, yes, she could buy these treats.

"You pick candies like an old lady, you know that?" He ambled behind the counter as he quipped.

"You walk like an old man." Instant regret and embarrassment colored deep Rothko red across her, unsure as always where these words came from. Nonetheless, a deep, wheezy chuckle emerged from the shopkeeper. "You'll only get away with that this time, kid. Otherwise, Martha will have something to say to you." He gestured towards a taxidermied salmon, slackjawed with a camera protruding from its throat, beady eyes that seemed to stare in all directions. A beam from the lens shocked a shiver into Jamie's spine. In a spasm, her hand deposited her many coins on the counter next to her treats. The shopkeeper laid a boney finger on each coin, as if sliding an abacus back and forth. He flicked a quarter back at her, which shot against the flat of her sternum, and then rolled in ellipses on the floor. She felt shabby scrounging along the dust bunnies for her orphan coin.

"Don't do that to people." A command delivered in general upon her exit. The shopkeeper said nothing in response and faded back into the ephemera of sales.

Jamie had taken to walking the same route through the boardwalk each day. First, the fishmonger, where she stopped to smell their wares before the day soured them. The store was run by an old woman whose hair curled into vertical beecombs without the aid of any plastic structure. The young men she employed were Alaskan fishing wash-outs and high school drop-outs. Their steel wool beards crept high up their face, partially concealed by the chunky knit of their matching beanies. From the street, Jamie could see a few of them crammed knee to stocky knee in a row-boat, no fishing rods in hand. They appeared to be feeding a habit.

The fishmonger's warehouse used to take up the whole downtown, as it was the local industry, so says a historical marker along the street; over time, labor moved to the candy factory in the woods, and bit by bit the warehouse got cut up into new shops. At least, the pictures on the marker make it seem that way to Jamie. One way or another, all of them still smell a little like fish.

One of those shops is the screen-printing business. Each morning, no matter how early Jamie began her day, she found a new T-shirt adorning the portly mannequin sitting on a lovechair in the window. This morning, it read "Everybody should have crabs," which Jamie generally agreed with, although she had never eaten one. The store was mostly sustained by making fashionable tie-dye long-sleeves that teenage tourists bought for their friends, although it also provided the uniforms for Norma's Diner, the only restaurant in town.

Norma had passed away a number of years ago, the diner was now operated by her niece Paula, Norma's only relative with any interest in the business. Jamie regularly read the menu posted outside in a plastic-guarded display case. Many items identified their authenticity, like Norma's fish & chips, or Norma's cherry tart. She imagined these being prepared in a kitchen with wood flooring, herself sitting at the kitchen table. She had never set foot in the restaurant, though she had seen the sparkling red vinyl booths from the window, and the red sweat marks it left on the upper thighs of the teenage girls leaving with their gaggle of friends. Jamie had waited in the mud-room one rainy afternoon while her mom shared a cigarette with Paula, the hand-to-mouth cherry glow reflecting across the puddles along the sidewalk. She was bored but kept quiet while her mom jockeyed for a job she wouldn't get.

The candy store was not a typical part of the walk. Before her mom left early that morning, she had kissed Jamie's sleeping temple and left a rattling pile of change on the bedside table. "I'm going to be back late honey, get something for the boredom." Jamie phased halfway between her dream, flying above the mountains and trees, and their musty motel room. "Mom, I'll be okay, keep the change." Her mom sat by her knees and placed a small hand on Jamie's thigh. "We're doing better, we're almost there, get a treat." With that, she rose and exited to the morning fog. Jamie propped herself on an elbow, enough to see her mom's boyfriend's car's brake lights fade away.

Even though they had been there for a few weeks at this point, Jamie was still scared of the sea. No one ever taught her how to swim, and whenever she asked one of the kids around, they told her you can't learn to swim in the Pacific, that your lungs would freeze and the riptide would take you out to China, even on the hottest day. The air was the same temperature as her skin and there was no wind coming off the water. The smallest waves took each other over, pulling more deeply back into the receding midday tide. She'd never felt so invited, and so walked off the wooden front of the candy store, across the cracked asphalt road, down the dusty grasses that bordered the dunes. On normal days, her feet sunk into the sand, her legs grew heavy fighting the beach with each step. Today, it was as if the beach had frozen over, she could glide up the dune, avoiding the footsteps of heavy traffic. The public school down the street had let out an hour or so ago but its students had been at the beach since noon testing the loose grip of June-time authority. Most of them were packing up their picnic baskets and sheathing their umbrellas, the radio playing summer afternoon melancholy. None of them took note of Jamie's approach.

Craggy rock formations taller than the firehouse punched the shoreline. Old water from long-ago tsunamis before filled small pools along the rocks. The constant rain gave them a brackish quality. Jamie was drawn towards them. She jammed her fists deep in her pockets to tamp down the treats and keys, then hitched her jeans above her hips by her belt loops and kicked her sandals to the shadowy corner of the rock. She felt the damp, clay-like sand between her feet, and curled them into fists. With some effort, she pulled herself onto a step a story into the sky. A tide pool set deeply into the rock wallowed below, water murky with detritus from past climbers, its surface reflecting the pale face of the sun and the lone clouds attempting to slice it. Jamie hung her legs over, her toes tingled in the open air, and looked over her shoulder at the beach. The parted heads of the high schoolers continued their exodus, boy hands loose and pinching. A local girl about her age approached the rock, Jamie listened to the soft sounds of body and rock and breathing, and looked to the clearing sky. The local girl levered herself onto Jamie's step, the rock leaving white scratches against her sunburnt thighs.

She wore glasses, narrow and plastic, grimey from the beach. Her jean shorts were patched in multiple spots, and was outshone by her pink t-shirt which reflected sunlight across its foil design, some crest that Jamie did not recognize. The girl awkwardly re-adjusted her pony tail.

"What are you doing?" Such a direct question was impolite among locals, but Jamie found that it worked with other kids. The local girl didn't seem phased anyways, "I didn't recognize you, so I want to show you my favorite pool. I call it the fairy pool." She pointed towards a peak that towered well over the girls, and began climbing. Her movements were natural, subconscious, as each handhold materialized before her hands and feet. Jamie cuffed her jeans and brushed the sand from her feet, which rained into the pool below, disrupting its image. Jamie tried to follow the local girls' path, but found she couldn't flatten against the wet wall as neatly, and so found a zig-zagging pattern between the lower pools. She accidentally stepped in a tide pool, and the shock of the cold and sucking feeling of the murky depth gave her a little death. She jumped out, causing a cloud of muck to fill the pool. She continued, shaking off. The local girl had been waiting for a few minutes, and extended a hand as Jamie approached. They clasped clammy palms and sweat and saltwater squelched between them. Jamie felt a bond she hadn't felt with anyone here before.

The fairy pool was the penultimate step to the rock's peak. The air thinned and Jamie could see the roofs of the boardwalk buildings, sagging with water puddles and discarded McDonald's cups. Jamie sat cross-legged, her pants grew damp from the soft moss that enwreathed the pool. Ferns, still green from the wet spring, created enough shade for frogs, who dove back into the pool on the girls arrival. The local girl kneeled, supporting herself with one arm, prodding at the soft, bulbous bodies of the anemones. The anemones recoiled, kissing the girl's fingers. A kaleidoscopic constellation of starfish interlaced across the bottom of the shallow pool. Hermit crabs hauled their motorhomes from Orion to Sirius. Jamie had never seen a crab before. A group of shore crabs gestured towards each other, discussing their lunch. Jamie motioned towards them with a shaky finger, the water was icey and pulled the sense of touch out of her skin. She didn't get close enough to touch it, her eyes preoccupied with the snapping of its pincers. The local girl took notice and deftly snatched the crab by one of its legs and presented it to Jamie. She looked at it but could not figure out where its eyes were. The girl quickly returned the crab to its home.

"Are you okay? All the tourists kids always like this pool." The local girl spoke without looking towards Jamie, her hands grazing the edges of the pool, trapping frogs. The knowledge that the girl had shown this place to many other girls just like her scared Jamie slightly. "Crabs are just creepy, do you eat them?" The local girl shrugged, "Only when my brother catches them."

Jamie watched the crabs eat their lunch, the smallest ones at first. The local girl hovered narrowly over the pool, she jammed her glasses back against the bridge of her nose when they began to slip. She turned to Jamie, "You're not a tourist. I've seen you a few times now." The girls locked eyes for the first time. Jamie could only make out the brown flecks behind the glare of the glasses. "I don't know. Me and mom have been on the road a long time, but we stopped here when someone offered her a job." The local girl grimaced and offered some advice, "I'd leave here sooner rather than later if I was you, jobs don't last beyond the summer and people get stuck." Jamie had no power over their migration, when they left Des Moines or when the local girl picked up sticks and begun their descent down the side of the rock. They descended in quiet, the teenagers were dispersed along with their radios, and the girls thought about other words they could have shared.

"Anyway, my name's Kitty. I'll see you around if I do." She walked off without gathering for shoes to stroll the town barefoot. Jamie flipped the straps on her sandals around her ankles. Light was falling and shops were closing. Jamie crept into the candy store as the store owner motioned to flip the open sign.

"Store's closed, kid. Turn around." The store keeper curt responses betrayed his fey voice, Jamie knew she could push him over. "What about a sample, for the road?"

He sized her up, noting the deep wad of candies jumbled together in her pocket, conjoined by the baking summer heat. "Dealer's choice," he spoke while turning, opening his posture and unclogging the door. Jamie darted towards the register. The shopkeeper approached the front window and pressed a button, stopping the puller. He revealed a switchblade from a tanned holster and cut a tenderloin from the taffy, now the color of morning dew. He worked delicately at the counter, slicing it into candied form, then wrapping each by hand, four in all. One was reserved on the counter, and he gestured from Jamie to the candy with the knife, pinched between thumb and forefinger. She placed it in the opposite pocket and thanked the man. He popped a sweet in his mouth and spoke while chewing, "Come back tomorrow around this time, I'll keep the rest under the counter." Jamie was on high alert for these offers, and made a mental note to bring Kitty with her to retrieve the sample; nonetheless, the future sweet lodged the event in her schedule. "We'll see, I keep pretty busy."

The man chuckled and regarded her, his right eye nearly visible to Jamie over his shades. When she did not return his look, he silently retired to the back office of the store, illuminating a yellowed lampshade. He walked like someone well accustomed to, and ready to again be, alone. The wall by his desk framed shreds of nylon textile, a drab green tattered with scars and red text. Jamie took her exit and started the walk home.

The sidewalk along the road to her motel was infrequently paved. She had spent the first few days of their stay here walking the side of the road, the dust from the passing cars catching in her hair like spiderwebs and leaving scratches across her pale knees. Before parting, Kitty described a deer trail that cut through the sparse woods populating the curves of the highway. It wasn't any faster, but it was quiet. The sun reflected across the mirror of the sea, so that the pink of twilight casted for an hour longer than intended.

The tinkling of glassware called through the early evening, in harmony with the opening movements of the cricket symphony. Jamie considered these sounds, along with the howls somewhere between wolf and human, and hurried her pace. The clouds were quickly turning from their cotton-candied pink to a lush violet. Jamie had only ever seen the boys that go drinking in the woods during the daylight. They threw each other into the icy embrace of the Pacific, even if their jeans were still on, and looked back to the others before smiling about it. Their long arms and hair swayed like palm trees, towering over her, often politely attempting to move out of the way on the sidewalk, often failing to know where to stand.

The torn concrete of the parking lot was a light in the darkness. Tall stadium lights cast spotlights on Tahoes rusted out from salt and a lost pair of patent leather shoes. Constellations of iridescent light reflected off the rounded toe boxes. Jamie gave one a light kick across the parkling lot. It sailed across two spots before settling into a gravelled pothole. When she was within a few paces of the walk-up door to their room, she unsheathed her keys from within her jacket sleeve. She paused at the door for three beats, listening. When she heard nothing, she turned the lock and flashed the lights.

The room was out of place for the coast in that it looked like every other motel in the country. Beige wallpaper, striped with a pattern that Jamie occasionally ran her fingers through. She imagined reading it like braille and it telling secrets about the people who had been there before, whether they snored or not. A framed painting of Mount Hood hunt aside the TV. Jamie placed her treats on the bedside table between her and her mother's bed. Those from the early afternoon had begun to stick together. It was eight o clock, she could have one or two for the next two hours. The salesman had been strange. He was not a local. Jamie had quickly learned how to peg the locals, primarily by their kitsch and apprehension around non-locals. She was unsure about his entreaties for future sweets. Her mom had taught her the fine line between nice man and scary man and she knew there was something more to this candy. Still, her typically adroit monitor for malicious airs did not buzz for this character. He hadn't seen her until she wanted to be seen, he wasn't a seeker.

Jamie got on all fours and slid a hand under the bed. She returned with the plastic casing of The Little Mermaid. It was embossed with sand-dollars. After snatching a pencil from the table where her mom typically ate late dinners, she rewound the tape, then inserted it in the player. The narration of the opening adverts warbled and hitched, the tape wearing from love. She settled into the rut in her bed, formed by older, bigger bodies; it gave space for her pillow to lay by her side. Her hand motioned for the nearest candy, pumpkin, and unfurled the waxed wrapper. Small tendrils of wax curled off into the bed, to later press into her legs while she slept. She pulled off a small piece and placed it into her mouth, allowing the flavors to melt slowly. It tasted like a holiday, warmth, and sleeping in. A star swept over Cinderella's castle.

Jamie fell asleep at some point around Ariel's soliloquy. The treat had muddled away, filling her dreams with pies. The jingle of keys opened the seams of her groggy eyes. Cold sea air entered with the open door and Jamie nestled further into her bed. A whirl of fabric tore through the room, depositing coats on the backs of chairs, tops on tables, and pants across the floor. Jamie's mom lifted the blankets on the far side of the bed from Jamie and entered, something she hadn't done in many days. Jamie felt her mom's chilled body saddle up behind her, her left arm slid neatly beneath Jamie's head, locking their bodies into place. Jamie listened to her breathing, and could feel her mom's body fall unconscious. She leaned her body backwards, into her mom's chest, and dreamt of flying.

A hostess came by to offer a ginger ale. Her mom answered for her, yes, although Jamie couldn't see her sitting anywhere near her. A wrinkled hand left the sweating tin can on the tray table. The cool of the metal passed to Jamie's fingers, her warmth to the metal. The short man in the aisle seat one row ahead of her stood up and revealed a gun from his inner coat pocket to the hostess. Only Jamie saw as well. They walked to the cockpit. Jamie's vision trailed off, and she was outside of the plane. The sound of the wind was peace and serene. She stood on an invisible box. She saw the forests, and the mountains, and the motel with the parking lot and where the oceanside highway fed into it.

Just as soon, she began plummeting, her stomach rose to her throat, before she hitched, now floating. She woke with a start, her legs shook against her mothers thighs, taking long and throaty breaths. Her mom's hand meant for comfort swiped gently across Jamie's mouth, patting her puffed lips before returning to slumber. Morning light peaked in narrow daggers through the gap of the gauzy curtain. Jamie watched the world's shadow puppets play on the ceiling. The dust in the room glowed and twirled. The soft sound of morning waves filled the static in her ears. Jamie watched her mom sleep, the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the small movements of her eyes beneath her eyelids. She held her face over her mom's and watched every pore, the places where powder still sat on her round cheeks, the curve of her hairline and the start of each hair. She doesn't normally sleep this long, and Jamie watched her for an hour, inhaling each of her mom's exhale.

Boredom eventually set in, and Jamie approached the window, observing the slow-moving traffic of the ocean highway. The familiar Corolla peeled off the street and took lazy turns around the parking lot, stopping quietly in front of the door to their room. The sun was rising over the motel, beading directly into the driver's eyes; Jamie could see them and they could not see her. Seated in the driver's seat was a woman. She wore a blue blazer with gold buttons and a red cravat. Her hair was pulled into a finely-coiffed side bun, blonde and full of light. The car door opened and the woman waited a pause, morning air filling the front seat, blushing the windshield. She pressed a creased palm against her forehead before exiting and making the short walk to the door. Jamie shot a look to her mom, still at peace, in dreams. She threw her sandal at her sleeping body and whispered desperately, "Mom, there's someone coming to the door." Her mom shot up, and made eye contact with the advancing woman. In a flash, her disheveled wardrobe returned to her, and she had a semblance of propriety; Jamie crawled and hid in the space between the beds. Before a rap could come, her mom opened the door. Jamie curled up with icy fear.

The woman spoke first, "Mal, I know, I know it's early, but it's also not that early. I just got back from Seattle." She did not get more words in. "Do not 'Mal' me at 7 in the morning. You see my daughter over my shoulder, you see that I'm not ready for next to anything. Take a walk to the beach and you'll get my company when I'm ready to give it." The door swung close and the woman walked off. Mal turned to Jamie and spoke before seeing the question on her face, "That's my boss." She locked stern eyes with Jamie, "But workers get rules, and don't let people cross them on you. Come help me get ready." Jamie folded a blanket twice over and placed it over the cold porcelain toilet lid, cushioning her knees as she made airplanes with her hands and shaded the light for Mal as she needed. Mal cupped water in her hands, bent flat-backed at the hips, and allowed the water to run over, before applying small puddles to her armpits, then dabbing at her stubble with a new towel. She wet her hair and wrapped it with the towel, then wrapped Jamie's head with a towel.

"What'd you do yesterday that had you so tired? You barely moved when I got back, I wanted to check your pulse." Mal placed her thumbs on the tips of Jamie's cheekbones beneath her eyes then pulled against the skin slowly towards her temples, rolling slowly by her hairline. Jamie spoke with an open mouth, "I went to the candy store. All their candy comes from somewhere else but he gave me fresh ones." Mal's fingers paused, "Who's he?"

"He's the candy store guy. He's old, he cut it with a knife." Mal squinted at Jamie, who looked off into space as she spoke. "Bring a friend next time you go. What do we say about old guys?"

Jamie recited her lessons, "They will kill me and throw my body in a dumpster if given the chance."

"Among other things." Noting the anxiety in Jamie's eyes, Mal concluded, "You can still get your candy, just don't get snatched reaching for it."

The mirror reflected their pay-by-the-day domestic life. The hair-dryer attached to the wall. The cheap jail soaps, at least that's what Mal called them. The makeup that brushed Mal and dusted Jamie, snagged from testers at the mall. Jamie motioned to turn on the bathroom fan and Mal swiped at her hand, then mocked a shiver. Jamie wrapped her towel around Mal's shoulders. Her arms only reached to each of Mal's elbows. Jamie braided Mal's hair and Mal cooed praises the whole way through.

As they dressed themselves, Mal produced a silk scarf from the inside of her sleeve, like she could bleed fabric, and wrapped it around Jamie's hair, the knot hanging lazily below her chin. "Pretty girls like you and me get nice things," Mal nodded to the car, "It's from her." Jamie traced the fine edges, laced with snowy threads. It was cool against her ears. It made the air feel cooler. "You be careful with it, there aren't many things in this little town finer." Hands against the side of her head, Jamie nodded an acknowledgement, "Thank you, mom."

Jamie peered outside at the world before choosing her outfit. It had softly rained overnight. The misting lacquered the windows and refilled the drying potholes of the seaside highway. To prepare, she put on her magenta galoshes. They were a half-size big and ended right below her knees. Before Jamie could make it out the door, Mal asked her for her plan for the day. "I'm gonna look at the woods, then go to the candy shop again with my friend Kitty." Mal paused while pulling up her tights, "Go to the library too. Get me a book." She extended her hand, her fingers clasped over her palm, and Jamie approached. She was allowed a buck fifty in various coins. Her brain had its own abacus, she could now automatically combine and reduce any combination of 5, 10, and 25 to make any number you could think of. Mal kissed the top of Jamie's head and held her. Jamie tried to move and Mal resisted her, keeping the extra moment alive between them. When Mal gets like this, Jamie empties her mind and stops moving, breathing in Mal's scent at an even rate. To Jamie, Mal smelled like herself, although her perfume said she smelled like verbena. Mal pressed her nose against the hair of Jamie's head and inhaled, then dropped her arms. Jamie let the door close itself.

On her way out, she inspected the Corolla. Mal never said it was her boyfriend's car, but Jamie had seen cars like this on their road trip. Rust wear around the tires, cigarette smell before you open the door, fast food wrappers in the floor of the backseat that Jamie would shuffle her foot through while they were given a driving tour of their new stop. They had been men, the ending-their-young-time kind that get left behind in these kinds of towns, looking for something before they stop trading in potential. Their gifts were the loose fries Jamie ate while they tried at Mal. A forgotten nausea rose higher and higher, and Jamie massaged it, thumb and forefinger firm against her windpipe, downwards. She took a deep breath and walked back towards the woods to town. The moss ground cover wrung out beneath her rubber shoes like a ripe sponge, to be absorbed again when she left.

The woods were different after the rain. The shadows from the trees get denser due to the water clogged between the fir needles. It smelled like a river and the air is cold even with the hot sun trying to burn through the shade. Toads and slugs sleep aside puddles, called from wherever they go all summer. Jamie was still getting used to this kind of summer, the bright green kind. Summer had been a melange of tan to brown, dead grasses around the playground and dead deer in the road. Without thinking, Jamie followed the path blazed by last evening's teenagers. Her feet narrowly dodged the amber shards of glass, guiding her towards the burnt out bonfire. The forests cleared as she approached, but she detoured, a rock outcropping overlooked the site. The teenagers had set up in the nadir of a small valley, whatever stream had formed there had either rerouted or dried up years ago. The seam now filled with chip dust, ground into the soil from nights of dancing. The outcropping was a family of boulders, each stopping the next from toppling into the pit. Jamie meandered up the sides of the rock. The flecks of morning sun that made it through the edges of the tree line sparkled on the grey-black foundation. She opened her hips wide to stride between two far flung boulders. Over her shoulder she could see into the narrow gap, a few pink flip flops were lost down there. The crest was only fifteen or so feet in the air, but Jamie crawled to its edge on her stomach. Though she thought she could hear it tremble beneath her weight, it was sturdy against years of wind.

From her vantage, Jamie saw a porthole of ocean, down the line of the valley, above the trees by the ocean, below the trees by her. The water was calm after the night's misty storm, such that from a distance, it appeared completely still. It was so immense, it looked to her like a wall of earth, that she could walk into, to the underwater world of fish. She scanned up the valley floor, and within a nearby thicket, spotted two reclined figures. They were near enough that she could tell they were asleep. The boy was half-naked, laying on a gingham picnic blanket, his chest to the world. The girl was cloaked in jackets, turned away from Jamie, clinging to the boy. Their covers were damp, and the woman edged closer whenever a breeze pushed down towards the sea. Her hair had exploded into a mess of curls during the night, throwing beams across their spread. Jamie silently watched them, her breath matching with their breaths.

In their travels, Jamie had met boys her own age. They were brutish. They grabbed her stomach with pinching fingers, and told her about the dirty stains on her jeans and hand-me-down t-shirts. By Utah, she had found that girls made better friends. Still, it was hard to make friends on the road.

Jamie fumbled with the knot below her chin. She laid out the scarf on the rock face in front of her, smoothing the ruffles across its mottled surface. The rock was a hard pillow, though she had known hard pillows. She skillfully rested against the long part of her cheek bone that pushed out from her ear. She closed her right eye and watched the girl rouse first. Her frame propped on her elbow, Jamie could see the ridge of her shoulder blade press against the skin of her back. The girl regarded the boy with a neutral grimace, her open hand roaming over his chest, not touching, but Jamie imagined she would have felt its preternatural heat. The boy did not stir. Jamie imagined him dreaming of the forest, of the night fire suddenly overtaking it, stopped only by the sea. While Jamie day-dreamed for another, the girl rose. Someone had taken their clothes in the night, a sock strewn from the camp the receipt of the damage. Without pausing, the girl stole what wardrobe was left, and dressed in a skirt of the boy's jacket and a top of her own. Satisfied, she nodded then crept carefully towards the tree line. No branches crackled or rocks unsettled, the woods were watching out for her this early morning. Jamie gathered her mock blanket and followed, stealthing down the rocks, peering for pebbles to avoid making a sound. The girl made a weaving pattern through the trees, she appeared to have her own knowledge of an unmarked path. She traveled Northeast towards the housing development most of the families in the town called home; Jamie tried to intersect going Northwest. She increased her speed as she grew further away from the boy's ears. She huffed warming air as she climbed the hill from the bonfire. The girl noticed Jamie's breathing and cast her a look of recognition, then placed a reddened finger against her lips, nodding towards the valley's Northern ridge. They climbed in silence together about 20 paces apart. When they approached the top, the girl sat down on her knees, her heels touching her butt, the boy's jacket below her dirtied with each of her adjustments.

They both watched the boy fumble around his picnic blanket to discover he was alone. The girl told their story briefly as he wrapped himself in the soaking blanket, tearing off Westbound, where the trickle of teenage paraphernalia indicated his friend's nighttime departure towards the sea. Jamie listened to her silently, sitting criss-cross applesauce to her left, their chests facing the valley.

"You know, we'd been talking for a little bit. He's sweet, mostly, James. He'd pull me behind the portables to give me rose petals in exchange for a kiss. I'd kiss him most times, but sometimes he'd have just shaved and would smell old. Those times I'd brush the back of my hands against his jeans, you know, and walk away. One time, he tried to get me to go to the boy's bathroom with him during school, he wanted to do it then. I told him that's gross, people smoke in the bathrooms and I don't want to be pressed up against one of those stalls. I'm not like that, you know—I need things to smell right. One of his friend's invited me to this thing, a bonfire, I told him it'd be boring, and he said someone was going to bring booze and music. But, you know, they only brought beer. What am I supposed to do with that, right? Anyways, I brought a friend too, in case things went sideways. They say you just need to be the faster one when trouble comes, and I've been practicing for the 400 dash. She was really excited, she thinks drunk boys are cuter than regular high school boys. That's how I know she doesn't know much about drunk boys. They were all pretty nice though. That one," her finger traced his path towards the beach, "He cried after a few beers, he was worried I thought he was a loser. I didn't then, I actually thought it was sweet that I could shake him so bad. He didn't know I saw him cry. I didn't, actually, but one of the other girls there told me he did and that one of the other boys shook him around a bit to get him back in the mood. The fire made his eyes dark, I couldn't tell one way or another when he came close to ask me to stay back. I said yes because I had been watching the stars all night, you can't see them the same from where I stay now, the street lights don't shut off. That blanket," Jamie watched it trail behind poor James to gather dirt and critters like a forest bride, "was his friend's, I think they had some deal. Anyways, when the last people left, which took forever by the way, talking about swimming in the ocean which I don't know why you would want to do that and he was kissing my neck sometimes while they talked which I didn't love, but we set up that little blanket a ways away and I made him watch the stars with me for maybe half an hour. He would start grabbing me and I'd tell him to stop for just a little longer, even though I wanted to too. Eventually we fell in together, I was getting tired, and he was sweet. But he kept staring at my face the whole time, like, waiting for me to say good job, or see if it was going alright. I couldn't get out of my head, I couldn't make a face that worked for him and I couldn't really see his eyes in the light. It was like a recital or something. He fell asleep after and I don't know if we'll talk again. We're in different grades so it should be pretty easy, you know?"

Jamie grunted a small, quiet response, "I don't really know things like that. Didn't the rain wake you up though?" The girl smiled, "It did. I slept terribly, do I look crazy?" Jamie regarded the girl. Dirt and small twigs wrapped their way into her kinky hair, her face was splotchy and red, small dots stained her neck and shoulders, the nylon of the jackets reflected the sun into her eyes so she needed to squint when she really thought about the girl's appearance. "Yeah, you look like big foot got you."

"Maybe he was watching like you." Jamie blushed, having not considered the girl knew about her observation. "I didn't ... see anything," She whispered. The girl laughed and pushed on Jamie's shoulder, almost sending her into the valley to be caught by the boulder patch. "You wouldn't have even if you showed up last night. What's your story, anyways, what are you doing here?" Jamie explained that when her mom worked, she found stuff to do, and she was going to go to the library today, but cut through the woods and got lost.

"The libraries on the way, I'll drop you off. Come on." The girl rose and walked off, Jamie could see the stained soles of the girls feet as she high stepped through the ferns. She followed a few paces behind until they found the dirt road that the girl's pickup truck was parked halfway off. "My dad said it could misalign the axel or whatever parking this way, but I don't want to take up the whole road, you know?" The girl unlocked the driver-side door with a scratched key, and dug around in the half-backseat, more of a bench. Jamie knew about those, how you have to slant your knees to one side to fit in, even if you were as small as her. Jamie would always open the little window in the middle and stick her head out, lolling her tongue like a dog. The girl had found a spare set of sweatpants, grey and blackened with grease. "Don't look." Jamie covered her eyes with her small hands and turned as the girl dressed herself. Without Jamie's eyes, the girl stood in the wind for a moment before wrapping herself in dry clothes and popping the passenger door. She called out and the two of them took off without seatbelts, Jamie having followed the girl's lead.

The dirt road rollicked the car and the girl apologized, she was supposed to get the shocks replaced a couple months ago but kept putting it off. Jamie gripped the door handle as the girl made conversation. A tape was playing pop music and the motor ran loud, so they shouted. She introduced herself as Kat. Jamie was surprised by the serendipity, "I met a girl named Kitty at the beach yesterday."

"That must have been my little sister, I took her to the beach where me and everyone met up before the fire. You probably heard our music." Jamie had heard their music, though the distance between their party and her rock gave it a distorted warble by the time it reached Jamie's ears. "Why do they call you Kat and Kitty?"

Kat chuckled, getting to tell a story she had well practiced by this point. "We were street kids real early. We were sleeping in the woods, I don't even remember our parents leaving us, and the neighborhood people would always bring us in for meal time, and we would take off before they could make us stay. At some point, an old lady got tired of the whole come-and-go thing, and told us we were getting too old to stay outside. She was right, and she's been our mom since. She said we were like alley cats, so she called us Kat and Kitty. I don't really remember my first name."

Jamie considered Kat's story against the girl in front of her. Kat talked enough to make up for the nights spent in the woods. Jamie had grown accustomed to those days of interiority, even love them, the way she loved the warmth of a sunbeam through a window in the morning. Long days of solitude melted into memory, sometimes only retaining a single thought by the end of the day, as she lay in her assorted motel twin beds, rewatching the same tape she had for many nights in a row. She imagined being one of those feral girls in the woods, she imagined having somewhere to be.

Jamie used to ask Mal for a sister. When they stopped in Idaho, Mal worked night shifts at a 24-7 truck stop; she'd kiss Jamie on the temple while she left, and Jamie would wake up to the sound of Mal crashing back onto the bed. In those interstitial moments, when Mal was falling asleep and Jamie was waking up, she would whisper into Mal's ear, dripping every thought she had that past day. The road kill she saw on the side of the highway. The couple she watched pull over and go to the bathroom on the shoulder. The mural of the cougar that was rumored to hunt hikers. When Mal started breathing those deep, somnambulant breaths, Jamie would lull her to sleep with her wish for a sister. Mal woke back up during this one time. Jamie thought she looked like a sister in that moment. The next day, Mal quit the night shift, and they kept the journey going.

The drive was short, but before Jamie got back to a place she recognized, she spoke up, "Could I see your place with the old lady?" Kat clicked the blinker, "Sure." The window Jamie's face pressed against rolled down and a breeze passed through her. Kat passed a tanned arm through her left-hand window, gesturing towards the neighborhood. That's where my teacher lives. That's the people who we always asked for money. That's where that boy lives. The home was a ramble. Moles had carved grooves in an almost discernible language into the yard and dandelions outnumber blades of grass. The window was open, and Kitty lept through it. "Welcome back! We thought you were dead! All the other kids got home last night. You look terrible." Kitty shoved her, then pulled her back in, like a tango, and revealed the boys jacket, "I bring spoils," then pointed towards Jamie, "and a friend."

"Hello," Jamie spoke quietly as Kitty's eyes descended on her. She still wore the same clothes as yesterday, though, Kitty appeared to have done the same. "Well, come inside, I want to hear about it." The radio was on, Jamie could hear it through the window, and its volume almost stopped her in her tracks when she crossed the threshold. Not a light was on in the home, Kitty said it was to keep cool. The entryway fed into the living room. The living room featured a couch, backed by the front wall and the window, and a series of large wooden bookshelves. Books spilled from their shelves, and were housed temporarily, for who knows how long, in stacks on the ground, wearing into the plush rug that carpeted the floor and silenced their steps. The rug looked tired from years spent absorbing all of the music and voices. Kitty walked into the kitchen with a beeline to the icebox. The checkered linoleum floor elicited a loud slapping sound from her feet. She dunked her chest into the box, her legs hanging in the air, and produced two otter pops, one grape and one cherry. They hung, splayed in the air, for Jamie to pick. She chose grape.They asked Kat to tear the plastic open for them. She obliged, and grabbed the end by her teeth, tearing away from her face. Small melted droplets fell. The purple mess dotted the already speckled linolium.

The cool sugar ice gave Jamie a smile. She took it with her to the window. A shallow bowl of cool water sat on the sill, attended by a tabby cat. "That's Katherine," Kat spoke up from her seat on the couch, "She stays with us sometimes, but she's a neighborhood cat." Jamie offered the back of her knuckles. The cat sniffed her, Jamie could feel the cool air against her skin. Then she was ignored, and the cat continued to watch the neighborhood through the open window. Jamie continued to watch the cat as Kat recounted her night to Kitty, embellishing slightly how much fun she may have had. Her voice lined up with the music, cresscendos and crashes at the big moments. Kat jutted her thumb towards Jamie, "Anyways, she needs to go to the library, can you take her?"

Kitty was halfway recovered from a brain freeze when she was asked the question, "I'd love to, but I've been busy all day trying to remember a food."

Kat scoffed, "How do you try to remember something?"

"Before you rudely interrupted, I was sitting with my eyes closed, counting everything I ever ate."

Jamie waded into the back-and-forth, "I do that on long car rides. I can never remember tastes though. I just think of the packaging."

"This is something home-made. Someone made it for us. Not the old lady." The two of them fell into a reflective silence; Kat watched out the window with the cat, Kitty pinched the drippings of her otter pop down. Jamie sat in the center of ther room. The floor vibrated with music and she laid on her back to feel it. She felt swaddled. The sunlight glinted off framed pictures which sat on the coffee table aside the couch and on the bookshelf and on the counter that half-divided the kitchen and the living-room. It was the sea and the girls, covered in sand and dirt. Their faces showed the kind of smile the finds its way into pictures with newly-met relatives. A pit was forming inside Jamie, she wanted to feel as settled with Mal as she felt in this moment. Like these girls found a way to be settled. Mal had been telling her some day for more days than she could remember now.

The silence felt like it lasted for half an hour, though only a few songs had passed, and Jamie knew they were fairly short songs. Jamie felt she could judge a person by how comfortable a silence was. She didn't feel pressured to say anything right now, and that, to her, reflected well on the sisters. In the meantime, she fiddled with her scarf, ultimately tying it around her neck. The air in the room shifted, perhaps the wind, and a new scent was delivered from the outside world. Something domestic, something hearty, like a tater tot casserole. A realization washed over the sisters. Jamie watched it happen and felt like she was a person sitting at a lookout in her own head. Kat guessed first, "The dumplings."

"YES! The dumplings, the little potato dumplings." Hot tears welled up in the two of them. "I can't believe I forgot the dumplings. Who even made those for us?"

Kat appeared lost, mouth agape. "I don't even know."

"I could find us a recipe at the library," Jamie offered quietly. Kitty turned to Jamie after the suggestion, "Now you're talking, girl. Let's hit the road." To initiate their departure, Kitty approached the icebox and revealed to otter pops, one grape and one cherry, offering Jamie the choice. She chose grape. Kat excused herself on account of her late night and reclined deeper into the couch, her free arm extended above her head blindly changing the radio dial. She found her station as Kitty walked out the door. Jamie paused for a moment to absorb their home. It smelled like the inside of a Kraft mac 'n cheese box. An apron, dusted and hand-printed, hung on a hook in the kitchen. It looked like a ghost wore it, outlining its form, and it seemed to notice Jamie for the interloper she was. A chill, maybe from the breeze, gave her a slight shiver and she turned to the road.

The midday sun had warmed the asphalt. The asphalt gave off a side-winding haze, returning the sun to the ozone. Kitty walked barefoot. Her sandals were hooked by the straps loosely around her first two fingers. The heat began to melt the otter pop that Jamie had been taking delicate bites from. The sugar was a morphine drip of someone else's summer. Beads of plastic sweat dribbled over Jamie's fingers. A small purple ring had formed around her mouth. Kitty pointed and chuckled, then skipped along down the street, crumpling her finished wrapper in one hand and folding it into her pocket. Jamie pinched the packet between her teeth and jogged to keep up with her. Her activity warmed the ice to a purple juice and she slurped it down in a gulp. It was hard to savor the sweetness around Kitty. She had to keep up.

Walking around, Jamie could now place the housing development. Even though the drive felt long, it must have been short, and she must have gotten pretty lost in the woods. It was really only about a five minute walk from the boardwalk, so it only could have been maybe fifteen minutes North of her motel. Still, it didn't look like the boardwalk, or the coast. The ramblers were packed in together. Trucks and four-by-fours were parked on muddied yards. The only trees were shorter than the homes and younger than the cars; they were dwarfed by the streetlights which sprang from the rounded and unpaved street corners. The base of each was speckled with marker graffiti, which grew more sparse towards the sky. The sun shined and the rain fell with authority. It seemed like all the teenagers were asleep, their lullabies playing out the open windows. A few kids their age danced through the ice beams of a sprinkler. The water ran from their bodies into puddles around the road. Kitty said it all spilled into the sea.

To get to the library, they walked along the central boardwalk. The sickeningly sweet aroma of the taffy shop wafted towards them. Jamie turned her head. She looked through the window and caught eyes with the storeowner. It appeared to be a down moment in the shop, even though it was the weekend, and he was counting money, hand to hand. With bills fanned, he waved to Jamie, a half-smile shining through his shades. She smiled back, but quickened her pace. Kitty widened her stride to keep up, "That guy smile at you? He's kind of weird."

"He gave me some taffy from the puller yesterday, I feel like it's different than the stuff he normally sells." Kitty eyed her.

"All his stuff is from the Pearson factory," Kitty gestured towards the concrete spires shadowing the town that Jamie had forgotten she'd noticed on her and Mal's first drive into town, "Everyone works there. Even the smart kids' parents. Most of it gets shipped around, but he buys the leftovers from the cutting room on the cheap. Everyone knows so no one local goes to his place. It's pretty empty in the winter."

"The puller candy seemed different, but I was scared to eat it. He didn't seem mean and anyways he said I could come back for more."

"He's never been mean to me. People say he just showed up one day years ago and bought that store. No one knows where he lives. Some people think he just sleeps in that office he has in the back. I've never seen him leave the store." Jamie silently considered this against her interactions with the man who appeared somewhat frightened by her solo presence.

The early summer sun was in full effect by the time they made it to the library, which sat on a small jetty a few paces from town. The heat rays absorbed deep down into the black asphalt, and each barefoot Kitty step looked to Jamie like she was walking on molten lava. Swinging the glass doors of the library open, the AC jets blasted her hot head, chilling the sweat beaded in their hairs. It was a small library, and reminded Jamie more of the computer lab at the last school she went to than anything. Some adults, aside their bulging bags which spilled food and blankets onto the floor, played online poker and looked for cheap bus tickets. Kitty motioned to approach one of them, hand extended nearly to the quivering neck of one curved deep into the virtual realm, when the librarian called to the two, "Girls! What can I help you find?"

Jamie walked towards her, pulling Kitty along. Kitty was almost lost, the digital light of the computer fading from her eyes with each retreating step, the muted whirring reverberating in her ears. "We're looking for cookbooks and a book for my mom." The librarian leaned real far over the desk onto her elbows to see the girls, heels hovering over her shoulder. "We have plenty of books, cookbooks, everything. What do you want to cook?"

Jamie elbowed Kitty, ripping her from her surrogate stupor. "Something on dumpings, potato dumplings!" A smile lightened the librarians face, and she walked briskly to the corner, where the big print books were. Her glasses hung on a string from her neck and clattered against her large, beaded necklace that circled her neck multiple times. She bent at the hip to survey the stacks. Jamie stood by her side, scanning the colorful spines. She could mostly read. Mal had her read their bills and every road sign and map on their way to the coast. Now, the criss-cross of the interstates resurfaced when she passed her fingers over the pages of a book. The librarian carefully selected a hagard and browned instructional and handed it to the girls, who craddled it in their hands. It seemed that any sudden movements could tear the fragile pages from their stapled binding, that the slow summertime wind might take the pages down the road with them.

"An old man dropped this pamphlet off, maybe 5 years ago," the librarian began. Jamie, eyeing the librarians greying hair, wondered how much older this woman could have been than that old man, and imagined a hunched hermit, his nose the size of Jamie's head, procuring a small arm from his shawl to this librarian. The librarian continued, "He said that it contained every recipe anyone in this little town would ever need. I haven't seen him since. Some people say he was the ghost of Mr. Pearson. Maybe it was him, I never met Mr. Pearson, for as long as I lived here. One way or another, I think he liked that people thought he was a ghost."

The librarian flipped the pages of the pamphlet, dust shooting into the eyes of the girls, until she found a recipe for chicken soup with dumplings. "Anyways, here is the recipe I think you'll like."

She read the directions out loud while down on one knee, the girls sat criss-cross applesauce. To Jamie, whose idea of cooking was microwaving water for cup noodles, the directions were dizzying. She side-eyed Kitty, who appeared to absorb every word. Jamie had never cared about being the type of girl who emerged from the folds of her mother's dress to add salt to the boiling soup, she got that enough when she braided Mal's hair, but she saw in Kitty's eyes the type of girl who made scrambled eggs and ice cream soup for her own good on Saturday mornings when her mom wasn't around. Her head buzzed with the alchemical potential of a grilled cheese sizzling on the pan, filled with Kraft singles that were always ready stocked in the imaginary fridge. With each instruction, Kitty asked for more detail, "How long to mash the taters? Do you separate the yolks or not? Does it have to be chicken? We don't always get chicken, you know?" Each question was answered with agnostic consideration, "She was the type of woman to mash the taters until they were silky, but she wouldn't bother to separate the yolks, even though you should. She would say it's not chicken soup without chicken, but you could probably put the dumplings in something else. And I do know, sometimes it's bologna month."

After Kitty's barrage, the librarian turned to Jamie. "What kind of book does your mom like?" Jamie was dazed for a moment to be re-introduced to the conversation, but attempted to seriously consider the question. Finally, "Something long and boring." Mal was always reading long, complicated books. She would explain them in general terms to Jamie, they were books about rich people, about people from different countries, about long wars that happened a long time ago. She never returned books to the right library. They would borrow from St. Louis and return them to Jackson Hole. Books thicker than the bibles in the bedside tables of their hotel rooms weighed down their fabric bags. Jamie would cut out any illustration she found and paste them into her own book, a composition notebook that carried the story of all the books Mal read. Mal would tell her this story, bridging them together, when the power in their cheap motel cut out. They would sit with their backs against the heating unit underneath the window, the black-and-white illustrations lit by the moonlight. The librarian led the girls down the Adult Fiction aisle, which grew into the low cieling. Kitty cocked her head back to peer at the hidden books, her glasses slid up her nose and squished against her eyes. The librarian reached for a thick volume, a book about a mountain, but a shelf lower stood a cracked, maroon spine. She wanted something worn and used, so the librarian wouldn't be too sad when it came back with holes in a few months. Jamie pulled it out and flipped through the pages. A map of a foreign land started the story, with countries that sounded almost real and shapes too polygonal to be real. "I'll take this." The librarian looked over Jamie's shoulder at the edition, "That's a good one. You'll like that." A warmth filled Jamie, to think this librarian approved of her choice, or even thought that she might have read those first few pages. The librarian granted the books on trust and gifted Kitty a denim tote with a screen-print of the library's image. Kitty crossed her body with the bag, weighed down by Mal's future book, and tucked the pamphlet under her armpit.

Their bodies glowed with the sun's warmth when they stepped outside. They circled the building to the side that faced the sea. The wind ripped their clothes as they approached the West-facing window. Kitty was leading them; her body crossed by the strap which pinned her yellowed t-shirt down, the bag and book flapped against her butt. She stopped below the window and watched the patron's zombie movements: key strokes, mouse clicks, uncapping water bottles, and head rolls to relieve their aching necks. Jamie watched her watch them, she could see the library's mirror image in Kitty's flickering eyes. "Adults don't always let you see them. They're so secretive, doing adult things, but adult things are so dumb, you know? But once they get like this," Kitty gestured generally towards the windows with an open hand, "They'll never catch you watching."

Despite Kitty's attempts at persuasion, Jamie was slightly bored, and sat on the large rocks that kept the sea from the library, clacking her rubber boots together. The shade, doubled by the ocean breeze, brought a cold to her sweaty body. Gulls skimmed the water, eyes cast downwards to see through the surface of the dark water. Small waves crashed against the edge of the rocks and pulled sediment back to the sea. Jamie pulled the pamphlet from Kitty's grasp and flipped through, aided by the wind. There was a recipe for a leek and salmon soup, for corn fritters, for dandelion salad, for a risotto in every season, for olive oil cake with apples. Each recipe came with a hand-drawn depiction. Jamie's fingers paused for a lengthy moment over the cake, her fingers feeling for the pen strokes that depicted the way baking upside down would impress any image against the surface of the cake, in this case of a flattened cornucopia made of apples.

Jamie asked to the air, "Do you think a ghost really wrote this?"

Without turning, for which Jamie was thankful as she knew this meant the answer was truthful, Kitty responded, "I do, of course I do. This whole place is haunted but especially anything from the Mr. Pearson. So, basically everything. The old guy died and gave the factory to a trust, or something, everyone just says trust. So it just runs itself now. People just go in, they don't see any bosses. Some people say he was buried in the parking lot."

From the factory spires above the wooded edge, thin smoke climbed in reeds to mingle with the sparse clouds.

A sharp breeze cut the cold into Jamie's bones. The story frightened her and she needed to feel sunshine again. She grabbed Kitty by the hand and led her back to town. They paused for a moment to view today's T-Shirt, "Don't give in to pier pressure." The afternoon sun had arrived, and it appeared the elderly shopkeep was already printing tomorrow's product. Tourists waited around the exterior of Norma's, while those already sat dallied about their post-meal drinks, squawking loudly about the quality of the service. Half-eaten fried oysters cluttered their abandoned plates. The breeze ruffled the umbrellas that protected the tourists, each panel printed with a separate local beer. The smell of fried batter washed over the pair and Kitty grumbled. A pair of pink gauchos gathered over a storm drain in the street. Dust skittered from the wheels of passing cars and settled on the gauchos. Jamie watched the rhythm with a turning head while they walked into the candy shop.

The bell dinged as they entered. The shop smelled like sweat and fear, a few boys, in factory pull-overs half-sticky with industrial taffy and corn-syrup, were wasting their break pretending to buy candy they didn't want. They were also speaking loudly; the girls eavesdropped and sat on the ledge below the puller. "Yeah man, James showed up naked to the beach. I know, I let him borrow my boxers to get home, but I heard his mom found him sneaking in through the window and chased him back out with one of those big wooden spoons."

The mechanical clicking of the puller chirped in rhythm to the smacking sounds of the boy's dialogue. The smallest boy responded, "No way man, that's crazy. I was there last night and that wild girl was all over him, like this," he swooped towards another with an open mouth, his tongue hung out of his mouth. The other boy narrowly dodged, and shoved the small boy back, who then bumped against one of the cisterns of marshmallow flavored taffy, spilling a few of his stolen sweets onto the floor. He squatted quickly to pick them up, his hands shaky. "No way she just left." The storekeeper had kept quiet through most of this but erupted at the sight of their borrowed wares, "That's enough! You boys, come here and empty out your pockets." The boys ran out of the store, fists unclenching over the counter to drop sweaty treats, their pockets still sagging with what they refused to give up.

Jamie caught their conversation as they escaped the door, "I'm just saying that's what they were saying. They said his mom chased him into the woods, I don't know what happened next." The storeowner sighed and tossed the ruffled sweets into the bin. He then returned to his stool, leaning back on two feet, steadying with his cane.The girls shifted awkwardly, which wrenched his attention, and he shifted back to four legs, "How long have you been sitting here? I would've given you those treats, but they have sticky fingers anyways."

Kitty spoke up, "Is this Pearson taffy?" She pointed to the purple sinews above her head pulled so window pane thin she could see feel the sunlight through them.

The shopkeep scoffed, "That's what they'll tell you. Every so often, I make my own taffy, like you see there, and package it up, mix it in with the Pearson stuff I sell."

Kitty approached the counter and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, "Well I've never noticed a difference." /p>

The shopkeep turned to Jamie, "What about you? Did you try it?"

"Not yet." Jamie winced.

The shopkeep seemed unphased and pulled two wrapped sweets from beneath the counter, depositing one in each girls' hand. "Try these then, tell me what you think, I'm trying to workshop the recipe but no one ever gives me any feedback." Their hands worked quickly to unwrap the treat. Kitty popped the silver-dollar sized taffy in her mouth; Jamie slowly pulled a piece off to chew. The light green threads that formed in her pulling turned scaley, and peeled off emerald threads. The treat was milky and herbacious, the emeralds were salty and melted in her mouth. "It's seaweed flavor, I've been roasting my own for a little while. Seems like a real salt-water flavor, doesn't it? How's it taste?"

Jamie watched Kitty screw up her face. To silence her, Jamie stepped on her toes, and spoke quick, "It's interesting. It'd be better if it was sweeter, like, how it normally is?"

The shopkeep sighed, "I'm tired of sweet taffy. There's a taffy for every fruit, every soda pop, but if I want popcorn with melted butter, I've got to find some jelly beans instead. I'll keep working on it, you girls come back tomorrow and I'll give you a new batch to try." He lifted with a grunt from his stool then froze stock-still. Jamie locked eyes with him as he looked to her from his peripheral vision, locked mid-rising squat, forever almost jumping. Words seemed to catch in his throat. Kitty covered her eyes, then her mouth to keep from screaming. Jamie approached the shopkeep slowly, her hands out like he was a wild animal. He didn't move a muscle. She tucked her shoulders underneath his left shoulder, the damp stains of his armpits pressed against her scarf. With a push, they took a step, then another. Jamie made a grab for his loose cane balanced against the wall, saving her balance by placing the hook end against her waist. She strained her stomach muscles, as the shopkeeps weight shadowed her. Eventually the labored motions gave was to a headlong rush to the back room, their legs a tangled flurry. Jamie was flattened against the door way, her chest scratching on the hinge and shoulder bruising on impact. She let go of the shopkeep. He flew through the room. His spinning office chair caught him, though he landed on his stomach.

This was his study. The wood of the bureau was a deep maroon, dotted with knots and burns, on top of which sat a dense ledger cracked to the day's date and a diet Pepsi. The room was wallpapered with maps of the American West Coast and the Mexican Interior; various x's and paths between them were traced in light pencil. An incense holder in the shape of a hula-girl sat on a book-shelf and leaked soot onto the jute carpet. Just outside the edge of the carpet, Jamie could make out a handle set into the floor, like a trap-door she'd seen in Saturday cartoons. The shopkeep let out a wet cough and flipped himself onto his back, stretching in an arch over the seat of the chair. His shirt fell slightly, revealing his hairy and searing white belly. From upside down, he looked to Jamie, "Thank you, kid. I lock up like that ever since my accident."

Jamie nodded her head. She looked around the room and felt his eyes burning into her. Her mind emptied to avoid feeling the recognition of her rubber boots, their mud spots, the white scratches on her legs from the rocks, the small holes in her T-shirt that she had worn yesterday, the ratty braid she had tied her hair into on the walk to the library, the layer of salt that had dried onto her when she sat in the shade, or the new sweat spot on her gifted scarf.

"No one's ever helped me out like that, kid. I've not seen you before yesterday, where are you from? I want to thank your parents."

"I'm new in town. I can bring my mom by." Her words were quiet. "Great. I mean, don't be weird about it. Sometimes, it's just stuff like that to remind you there's other people in this world."

The shopkeep twisted his body around the chair. Each wrung cracked with each extra wrench, until he couldn't jerk his body any further. The sound clicked Jamie back into place, "That's great mister. I'm going to go, my friend is waiting." The words fell on him as he massaged his neck with his thumbs. He grunted an acknowledgement and continued his inward twists.

Jamie walked backwards out of the room, copying each detail into her memory. When she emerged from the room, Kitty's hands were plunged in the banana-flavored taffy. Jamie clucked her tongue at her and Kitty released all but what she could hide between her banana-yellow fingers. They walked out in silence, Jamie ahead of Kitty, Kitty sliding her new sweets into her tote bag. Jamie knew she had just seen something no one in this town had before, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to see anymore. His stretches revealed his knobby elbows and poking rib cage, he was skinnier than any person that age she had seen. He was too comfortable around her. Jamie had always found that adults run out of things to talk about when its just the two of them, an effect she enjoyed. She thought that her mom might reset the balance.

The girls walked into a parking lot to the South of the boardwalk. According to Kitty, a small bus delivered tourists to their hotels from here, she said it would be quicker for Jamie than walking. To pass the time, they played. Kitty spied a spider climbing Paula's drooping sunhat. Jamie won a best of three set of chopsticks. They tried to play hopscotch with the spots but found that after the first jump between spots, they had lost all momentum to make it to the third, instead jumping into the ground. Their palms were embedded with small pebbles and asphalt dust. Small caravans passed on the commuter road that hooked up to the highway, families packed to the gills, the youngest stuffed in the caboose with the luggage, the eldest sitting in the front seat for the first time, changing the radio to something loud. A silver pick-up truck passed, hay-bales made seating for a family of six. Kitty turned her head as she watched them pass a gallon jug of orange juice around, "I don't remember ever going some place else. I want to leave almost everyday."

Jamie felt those words like a blow to the chest and held back hot tears, "But you have such a nice home, and it's so nice here with the beach and the trees. You're crazy."

"No, hun, you're crazy. I've been to the beach a million times. I lived in the woods and there's nothing there. No one who lives here wants to stay. Where are you even from?"

The question cornered Jamie, but she felt an obligation to truth to Kitty, "I'm from everywhere, you know. Me and my mom never settled down. But I want to be from somewhere. Once you start going to all these places, everything starts to look the same, and the only thing that's comforting is breakfast at a hotel or Subway." Kitty rested her weight on her back foot, re-evaluating Jamie from head to toe.

"I see you. You're a wild girl," Kitty stuck out an apologetic hand, "Me too, but I need to get back there." Jamie reached out to shake, but Kitty interlaced their fingers and held the bond in front of their faces. Jamie noted the dirt in Kitty's nails, the rugged and bitten edge of her pointer. These were the fingers of a girl who lived a life like hers and kept living. She felt floaty and her stomach felt like it'd been cinched close from the inside. She heard herself laugh, or giggle, and she heard Kitty laught too. They stood like that, until Jamie shifted, her knees got stiff.

"Tell me about some place else." Another corner, but this time, Jamie answered without duress. "Have you ever been to Wisconsin? Or Minnesota, or any of those?" Kitty shook her head no and Jamie continued, "The longest I've stayed anywhere was a few months in Door County, Wisconsin, which isn't saying much. My mom was seeing some guy and he took us out on a lake, but when it was frozen solid. The guy said the ice was three feet thick, and I could hear echos for miles when people drilled in. I helped him put up a tent out there and we fished together. My mom put up christmas lights and lit candles. Eventually it got dark and the guy wanted to leave, but we got him to stay, just in case. My mom put out some blankets and we laid on the ice. The cold gets in you so deep that you don't even feel cold anymore. After laying there a while, the Northern lights started on. It was hazy green and purple, we sat there for hours. As we were walking off the ice, we saw an old lady had fallen towards the edge, she must have just gotten there or was just leaving. My mom started freaking out, the lady wasn't responding, so I carried her head and the guy carried her feet back to his truck. I sat with her in the back while we took her to the hospital. She didn't say anything, we just watched the Northern lights together. When the guy took her in, my mom took me and we left after that. I've never seen her scared like that. We stopped staying at places that long after that too."

Kitty hummed and hawed at every detail, her eyes wide. After Jamie finished, Kitty thanked Jamie her the story. "I want to see something like that one day." They sat on the curb and watched the tide come in until the bus arrived. The exhaust pipe shot and the bus seemed to sag when it stopped. Before leaving, Kitty said, "Come by tomorrow for some potato dumplings, I'll try to learn them tonight." Jamie agreed. The driver pulled a lever and the doors swung open, billowing out AC air, the kind that smelled like a dead animal. As she climbed the short stairs, she felt Kitty's hand grab the edge of her shorts. With a turn, she was confronted by Mal's book, which she nabbed and craddled. They waved goodbye, Kitty said, "Ciao!"

Jamie was the only passenger. Her steps were muted by the water-damaged carpet. Scanning the seats, she selected the one above the back right tire and rested her feet on the hump. The driver made eye contact with her through the rear-view mirror. "The motel off the highway please, sir." He nodded and shifted into drive. The road ground to dust beneath the tires. Jamie rested her head against the window and her teeth buzzed from the engine's vibration. With each pothole, she narrowly avoided chomping off her tongue. Half-asleep, she watched the sun dive beneath the ocean waves and felt cold. The familiar turns of the seaside highway woke her back up. "Please stop here sir, I can walk the rest." He obliged, and came to a quick stop that knocked Jamie's head against the leather row seat in front of her. She thanked him for the ride as she stepped onto the highway's soft shoulder. The asphalt crumbled at its edge and mingled with the sandy dirt. Small blades of grass grew in the cracks. A frontage road split from the highway and could be followed to a private beach; Mal warned Jamie not to go that way.

She waited until the bus was out of sight before crossing the street towards the motel. Someone had moved to the patent leather shoes, or taken them. New cars, all trucks and sedans, parked diagonally in front of their rooms. No one was around, so Jamie approached her room directly and walked in. Mal laid on her back in bed, asleep, her left forearm crossed her eyes to block out the fading outside light. A croissant sat on Jamie's bedside table, with a small note under it, "Wake me after you eat. I love you."

Jamie replaced the croissont with Mal's book and sat with her back to the bed, sweet in her lap, and watched the final beams of day disappear through the blinds. The pastry had a glossy shell that cracked into a spiderweb when she tapped at it with her fingernail. Biting into it, Jamie found a solid beam of chocolate running through its interior, so sweet it tickled her teeth. She took a few careful bites, avoiding crumbs or waste. The flakey dough was tender and slightly sour. She took her time, taking a breath before and after each bite. Her belly grew warm. When she felt a butter film coat her mouth, she put the sweet down. Mal's breathing and the AC unit were the only sounds in the room. Periodically, the approach and retreat of travellers along the highway would wake Jamie from her trance, and she would smack her lips, tasting the memory of her pastry. She turned to Mal and watched the rise and fall of her chest. She had re-painted her nails after Jamie left to a pastel yellow. Mal furrowed her brow and murmured. Jamie moved in close to listen. In her dream, she was hiding. Jamie placed a hand softly on Mal's chest. Suddenly, she awoke and threw her arms up in defense. Jamie narrowly dodged low. She looked upwards and heard Mal cooling her rapid breathing, and heard her speak into the dark, "Jamie? Jamie is that you?" Jamie remained silent. Mal bundled up the blankets in her arms like a readied net and stood up on her knees. In silence, she crawled backwards off the bed, her back to the corner of the room. Then, just as quickly, she bolted to the bathroom and locked the door.

From beneath the door, Jamie could hear Mal scuffling. Jamie moved on all fours to the bathroom. She jangled the handle, and Mal shouted out. Jamie returned, "Let me in! I just want to say hi!" ALl of Mal's movement stopped, "Goddamnit Jamie, is that you?" Jamie keeled over with a smile and quick breathy laughs, "I didn't think you'd freak out like that!"

"That was not nice to do to your mom, even if I was being weird. Announce yourself! You know about my dreams." Jamie did know about Mal's dreams, where someone was always looking for her. Careful instructions were regularly doled out as Mal prepared to lay her head on the pillow: don't touch me unless I'm being weird, let the alarm wake me unless its an emergency, keep an eye out for the man with the balaclava. Nonetheless, Jamie abridged this advice with regularity; Mal wasn't open to touch otherwise. "I know, I know. But once you started army crawling," and Jamie was lost to laugher again. Mal stood stoically in the door frame, arms crossed and backlit, waiting for Jamie to return to neutral. A few moments passed in this way, with Jamie pausing for a moment, only to return to laughter at the absurdity of Mal's serious face.

Finally, Jamie was able to speak normal, "I got your book." She grabbed it and then presented it to Mal, who in turn grabbed it and flipped through the pages. She leaned against the door way as she read the back summary, then the inside flap, the author summary, the table of contents, the copyright date, the map, and the embroidery of the first page. Jamie stood on her tip-toes to peer over Mal's arm. Mal closed the book, "Thank you my sweet, I'm excited to read it, I know it'll be good." She filled a plastic cup with water from the tap, and drank in thirsty gulps, then passed the remainder off to Jamie, who finished for her then turned out the light. Without appearing to step, Mal glided to bed, and laid down without appearing to bend. As she returned to sleep, she spoke, "I'm glad to see you safe and happy, sleep well."

In darkness, Jamie walked the room barefoot. The short hairs scratched at her sole. Moonlight streamed in through the window and illuminated the left-over half of her croissant. Jamie sat beneath the window to watch the world. Two cars, teeming with boys pulled into the parking lot. The parking lot filled with pale bodies. Smoke and flasks passed from hand to hand. They were hushed and spoke in crossing circles. The central node was a slouching boy with shoulder-length hair, black as the night. His brow shaded his eyes, and Jamie recognized him from the forest. A peer glad-handed the boy's shoulder with his right hand, gesticulating with his left, a joint pinched between his pointer and middle-finger. The smoke formed cursive subtitles. Suddenly, the forest boy pulled from his peer's clutch and shot him a punch to the jaw. A punch was returned, and the two grappled, hand to shirt, fingers to hair, fist to rib, teeth to ear, knee to crotch, knee to rib, elbow to back, chest to back, hip to butt. They fell in together on the cracked pavement, rolling like alligators. Their arms crossed, legs knotted, in eternal embrace. They could not separate, or the other would get a punch in. The other boys had been watching with an infrequent jeer rolling in-time with a punch or kick. One of the drivers, who had mostly abstained aside from an occasional hit of smoke, attempted to pull them apart when the fight became infinite. The forest boy moved to bite him, and the driver kicked him in the back in response. Eventually, the spectators got bored and began preparations for lighting fireworks. When the spotlight turned, the grapplers looked to each other and breathed the same air. They released, and helped to set up the base for the explosive. Jamie noted the blood dripping slowly from the forest boy's brow. Another boy pointed it out, and he wiped it with the back of his hand, then wiped his hand against his jeans. A joint appeared for the pain. He took a long drag, his hand then rested at his side while his face filled with a mask of smoke. He lit the fuse with the embers and stumbled away. The explosion rattled the blinds and set off a car alarm. Jamie covered her ears and Mal shifted in bed. A second pop, and a primary red flower colored the sky for a moment. A third pop, a gunshot, fired into the air by a twenty-something resident of the motel, "Bed time, fellas. I need my shut eye." In a flash, the boys piled into their cars, more bodies than seatbelts. The only artifacts left were the spent round, two ground out roaches, dried blood from the scrum, and skidmarks from the fried driver with the lead foot.

Jamie pulled back from the window and blinked her eyes to adjust to the dark room. She tried not to think about her neighbor with the gun or the drunk boys driving around town. She tried to think about the taste of the holly berry taffy she had unwrapped without thinking and bitten halfway into before realizing it and then finished with light guilt. The taste was tart and bitter, like bad canned cranberry sauce. Their last few Christmases were spent in churches, eating with people without family, served by the charity of families so full of love they don't need Christmas morning with each other. Box mashed potatoes, pre-cooked ham, green-bean casserole, and stove-top stuffing; while Jamie had become discerning about what branded can was best, the magic of a stove turned anything into a holiday to her. Mal put cranberry sauce on the ham and the potatoes and the stuffing. Jamie had it in a small bowl on the side. She never ate any of it, but felt that it had to be there for it to be a real plate of food. After eating, they would clean the dishes. Jamie's hands and arms would grow red and raw from the hot water. Thinking about those meals made Jamie feel warm and full. She settled into bed, pillows placed on either side of her, and only thought of the man with a gun once or twice before falling asleep.

The morning announced itself with the shuffling of Mal's fit across the motel room. Jamie opened her eyes and found the light defracted by gauze, Mal had propped her new scarf over her eyes. "Good morning sweet pea. How was your day? How'd you get that scarf so dirty?" Jamie recounted the forest and meeting Kat and all the other oddities of the day. "And I took Kitty to the candy store."

Mal practiced nonchalance and continued to stir her instant coffee, "Yeah? And how was that?" Jamie, uncertain how to proceed, was honest, "He gave us more of his homemade candy. But when he turned to leave, he must have hurt himself because he couldn't walk, so I helped him get to his office." There was a quiet as Jamie tried to think of how best to explain. Mal cut in, "You what?"

"Well, it was just like that. I helped him walk, and he sat down, and I left, and he said you should come by so that he could thank you and me because people in this town don't like him." With each word, Jamie could feel Mal's squint grow thinner, until she needed her fingers to press against her temples. "Yeah, I think you and I do need to talk to this guy, because we can not be having this." A cold twist gripped Jamie's stomach, "Mom, he's nice!"

Immediately, Jamie realized those words could have gotten her killed. Mal almost jumped to the cieling to turn and shout, but she placed a long hand against her own chest, right in the middle, and exhaled. "Jamie, you know, I know, lots of people are nice. The nice people have something behind their smile. I don't trust a guy who lives along and sells candy to kids. So, yeah, we're going to pay him a visit. Grab your coat and croissant." The air around Mal seemed to rise, her hair floated, her eyes burned. Jamie felt shame in her blood and it hurt when it moved through her body. She had only a few moments to rub the sleep out of her eyes and swap out her socks before they were on the road. The cold shocked her awake as she stood on the curb and watched Mal fiddle with the lock to their door. It stuck and unstuck until she was satisfied that it would probably stick on someone else. They walked the broken shoulder back to town. Jamie trailed behind Mal, who was filled with the air of the morning sea and so walked quickly.

The boardwalk was just beginning to wake-up. Steam eddied off the coffee brewing on the counter at Norma's, no one had yet arrived to ask for it. The young men at the fish market poured ice over the late night delivery, all geoduck, which the tourists never bought. Today's shirt: I'm Holding Out for a Gyro. The candy-shop owner was just unlocking his door when they arrived. He stepped from the door and Mal strode in, Jamie trailing behind, not looking in any direction at all. She deeply wanted to be nowhere at all. "Have you been giving free candy to my daughter? And did you walk her into your office?" Jamie had heard this tone, Mal's us-against-the-world voice. It had gotten them this far, but Jamie didn't know if she needed saving. The shop owner didn't seem distressed, "She's been testing out my new batch. I was hoping you would come by, I need to thank you, and you again young miss," He turned to Jamie, then quickly returned to Mal's fiery gaze, "Ever since my accident, my back locks up on me at the damndest times. If she hadn't helped me, I would've been there all day." He grinned, Jamie could see through the gaps in his smile.

"Honestly, sir, I don't like any of this. I'm sorry about your back, but I don't want my daughter around any of this," Mal gestured towards the shop, the store owner, and the taffy puller, and moved to leave, wrapped an arm around Jamie's back to leave. "Wait, wait one second." Mal paused without turning.

"What does two hundred thousand US dollars sound like to you?" Mal stayed still.

"I'm saying I will give you two hundred thousand US dollars."

Mal didn't blink or breath, "Fuck you and the horse you came in on." Her voice was thin, Jamie thought she might need some water. The shop owner continued, unmoored, "I don't know you two or what is going on, but this is the third day this one," He took off his shades and used them to point at Jamie, "Came in wearing the same t-shirt. I've never seen you two before and I know everyone in this town. My guess is you're looking for some luck. This is the luck, the deal is never coming again. All I need is to get off this money, all cash, and all I need from you is to never see you or talk to you ever again." Time stopped for Jamie. She imagined the floor slipping from beneath her; she imagined landing in the backseat of a minivan; she imagined eating McDonald's fries and losing one in the cracks of the seat; she imagined Mal grounding her for that; she imagined sitting in her room and reading and wanting to be outside. Mal spoke very quietly, "How long will you give me to think about it?"

The shopkeep looked out the window. The bags under his eyes seemed to fill with thought. His eyes were soft circles, Jamie had thought he would have smaller eyes, but they seemed kind enough. "Give me a ring before the end of business tomorrow. I'm getting out of dodge. Anyways, do you want a free sample?"

"No, thank you." The bell rattled as they walked outside. Jamie's bones had turned to jelly, so Mal yanked her around by her wrist. They walked silently to the beach. The tide was high. Water covered everything familiar to Jamie except the outcropping she climbed the other day with Kitty. Mal bellowed to the sea. The seagulls which sat on the shore took flight, wing tips tapping the water. Mal yelled and yelled. She could feel herself growing raw. Jamie sat down cross-legged and noted the seaping wet of the damp sand against her pant seat. Any dreams had left her head. In fact, as she had learned to do, everything left her head, which allowed her mother's screams to pass between her ears without catching. She looked ahead. Her peripheral vision blurred Mal's trembling fists, held in front of her to fight something unviewable, or Mal's hair, which came out of its neat bun and swung like risen seaweed across her face. No one came to check on them, except for the hermit crabs. They approached, circled the two, then burried themselves in small holes next to them. A ring formed of these small holes while the two of them remained in place. Mal fell two her knees and Jamie placed a small hand against the middle of her back. She felt all of Mal's muscles pull breath into her body.

Mal turned to look Jamie in the eyes. Jamie looked towards a crab that had dug its way out from under Mal and climbed over her calf. Mal pulled Jamie's chin up and moved her own face in close, "Don't say anything about this to nobody, you hear me?"

"Are you going to take the money?" Mal had told Jamie it was rude and unhelpful to answer a question with a question, but now felt like the time for an exception. The question was a stumper anyways and was answered by silent contemplation.

"I don't know. But I'll know before the end of the day tomorrow, and don't go telling people, because they might change my mind."

This seemed to satisfy Jamie, who stood firmly and pulled Mal up by her wrist. She showed her where to wait for the bus to the motel. They stood in the broken parking lot. A single church bell rang and rolled from one side of the beach to the next, there weren't any bodies on the boardwalk to soak up the sound. Mal spoke without turniing, "I used to go to church."

"You've never said anything about church. Did grandma and grandpa take you?" Mal laughed at Jamie's question. "Of course not. I know you haven't seen them in a long time, but they aren't, I guess you could say, church-y people. No, I went with a friend when I was just starting to leave the house. I'd go with her because it meant I could sleep over the night before. She lived right on the woods, and we'd go exploring every night, sometimes we'd bring a pack and camp out there. Then we'd come to church smelling like dirt, and steal from the tithes. No, I haven't been back since. Did you ever want to go?"

"I don't know. You never asked." This seemed to surprise Mal, who nodded at the response but didn’t speak. Jamie sat quietly too, reflecting on what Mal’s life might have been like before she was born; nothing she imagined seemed like it could be real. She never though about church, and she couldn’t imagine Mal thinking about it. The sun burned off the morning fog, and slowly leant some warm reality to their bones. The town was waking up, Jamie could tell primarily by the echoing music from the car radios that now filled the streets.

Without having to ask, Mal carried Jamie piggyback style down the sidewalk. Jamie called out each crack, and Mal extended long steps to avoid them. Dust skittered by their feet as cars buzzed by, spitting into the leafy stalks of the dandelions that divided the road for people and machines. When Mal grew tired, which only took half a block, Jamie returned to the ground to pick one of the flowers up. The early summer time meant the seed pod had expanded into its full bouquet. Jamie blew and blew, and got red in the face by the time all of the seeds flew into the wind. Jamie wished for more days together like this. Mal watched them float by, “I don’t think it counts if you have to take extra breaths.” Jamie shrugged and tried again with the next dandelion on the next craggy square of sidewalk. She did worse this time and thought that she should practice holding her breath. She didn’t want to overdo it with the wishing.

They walked to the bus stop, where Mal got on the bus back to the motel. “Don’t do anything crazy, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She moved the hair from Jamie’s face and laid a wet smooch on her forehead. Jamie didn’t even pretend to be unhappy about it. She felt the pressure on her shoulder as Mal squeezed a good bye. “I love you, Mom.” Mal smiled with her eyes at her, “I love you too.” The bus rollicked and sputtered and Jamie watched Mal’s hair take off into the morning air.

Unsure what to do next, Jamie sat on the curb of the parking lot and watched the seagulls return to their portion of the beach. They had murmured to a nearby set of maple trees along the boardwalk that were planted by local businesses. Their flight attempted a V-shape, but undulated as they neared the ground. Some pecked at the holes where the crabs had settled. Others approached the crows which lay napping on the beach. In general, they went about their business, and didn’t seem to notice Jamie’s eyes on them. Jamie didn’t notice the pack of boys walking along the sidewalk across the street who watched her.

Jangly music announced the approach of Kat’s pick-up. In the cab, Kitty stood, legs spread and feet braced against the low walls, holding onto the bar fastened to the short roof. She stopped singing along to the summertime song when she spotted Jamie and called to her. “Hey girl! What’s up?”

Rising to her feet, Jamie shouted to be audible over the engine’s purr and the radio’s growl, “Just sitting. Where are you going?”

Cranking the window down, Kat answered, “Off to Cooper’s, the old lady’s favorite market. Soup’s up tonight, you in?”

Jamie nodded an assent. Kitty kicked the trunk-door open and Jamie scrambled in. Caked-on gunk greased her shorts and slid her in. Kitty held her by the waist band so she didn’t fall out when Kat punched the ignition. Like most her age, she had a lead foot. Kitty showed her how to hold onto the truck so that you could stand and watch the world. With every bump of the beaten road, Jamie’s grip faltered and legs wobbled, and each time Kitty placed a small yet firm hand against her back to return her to the bar. The metal burned her fingers, the black paint had spent the morning soaking up the rising sun, but slowly cooled as it levelled with her own temperature. The pain made Jamie feel strong.

Jeers came from the gaggle of boys who had watched this unfold from the sidewalk. It appeared they were refused entry to Norma’s and were in search of something to do. Kat’s forest boy hung back from them, leaning against the windowed French doors of the diner.

They bellowed, “Let’s see a kiss, ladies,” and, “Dance for us, huh?” and, “You ever get bored without a boyfriend.” Hot fear boiled at Jamie’s hairline, and spilled into shivers down her body.

The car jolted to the left, Kat double-parked on the wrong side of the street and pointed a long finger at the group. “James, tell your friends to shut the fuck up before I run you all over. As if I could care less about turning you all into paste.” Two or three of the boys ooh-ed, but most were quieted. Kat continued, “You creeps want to watch my little sister shake her ass? Get a life before you wind up in prison. Pervs!” The bass rumble of the engine roared as Kat whipped back into the street, pulling the drifting back end around just narrowly enough not to side-swipe Paula’s little green car she always parked across the street from the diner. Jamie turned to watch the boys. Some were chuckling, light jab to the upper arm, return jab to the stomach. Some had cornered James, hand to shoulder, haranguing him, and James looked through the diner windows to the sea.

The world looked like a spinning fan. If Jamie focused on one tree, the roof of one motorhome, the group of deer trawling the edge of the road, she could make out every detail. When her eyes softened, the world blurred into evergreen. She allowed her eyes to soften. The breeze whipped her hair back and hurt her ears and made her tear up. The tears streamed sideways past her temples and soaked into her hair. Whatever warmth the sun meant to give her disappeared into the wind as well. Her leftover sweat was ice against her body and she shivered into a half-squat just to feel that her muscles work. Kitty stood with her hands to the sky. Seagulls gliding along the oceanside windstream stalled to watch the girls glittering orbit up the coast.

The windstream altered course and joined up with the road. The driving wheel wiggled and tossed Jamie and Kitty into each other. They braced each other with their inside arms, braced the care with their outside arms. Kitty was slick with sweat that rubbed into Jamie's dirty clothes. Kat firmed into an iron grip on the wheel, and the ride was jolted suddenly into rigidity. That new change too was disrupting for the girls in the truck, who fell back into the bed, and Kat called out, "Sorry about that ladies." Before Jamie could accept her apology, the scarf gifted to her by her mother came loose from its knot around her neck. Her arms spasmed out, followed by Kitty's, trying to grab it from the wind, but the pull towards the woods was stronger. The silk sparkled like a comit in reverse towards the sun. More clothes for the road.

The turn into the parking lot seemed to materialize from nowhere and Jamie’s knees slammed into the back window as Kat slammed the brakes. The back wheels slipped out of control and then snapped back as Kat reversed her steering, perfectly rounding into the parking spot in front of the store. Jamie looked up. Like the Hollywood sign, Cooper’s stood against the sky, colored white with streaky paint, discolored by years of disrepair. The store itself was short, with a lumbered board-walk and walls paneled with dark and warped wood. Kitty told her the building was really a cement box with all of this stuff pasted on, and all this old wood was from the building they knocked down to build this thing, and that Cooper was too cheap to throw anything away. When she felt the hollow of the boardwalk in front of the store, Jamie did a little jig, to feel the reverberation and make a song with her heels. As she did, Kat and Kitty clapped and stomped their feet. A patron exited the store and whistled a tune on the way to their four-by-four. The three linked to each other by their elbows and spun and spun. Laughter filled the world. They released and the world tilted back and forth along its axis. Jamie leaned against the wood post holding the awning until enough deep breaths brought her to the real world.

The chirp of a bell announced the girls’ entrance. Jamie thought she had seen every convenience store there was to see, but Cooper’s held delights previously unknown. Beneath the counter, worms wiggled in viscous liquid, waiting to be placed on hooks. Jars of floating pickles and pickled pigs ears lined the back-wall, the name of their owner hole-punched into the tip. The front-rack, normally reserved for truck magazines and post-cards, held architecture digest and fashion magazines from foreign countries. Cheese with mold, the fancy kind, perspired in the fridge, next to store-brand strawberry milk. Kitty stood inquisitively in the chip aisle, the plastic bags reflected the fluorescent lights. They had abstract flavors like summertime voodoo. Before Jamie could ask what that meant, Kitty had split one open; she used that silent trick, pulling from the middle on either end until the smallest of slivers formed, and then prying open from this wound. She chewed quietly with small lips. Of course, Jamie had shoplifted before, but was never so brazen to eat her wares in the store. She shook her head when Kitty gestured towards her with the bag in offering. Her stomach grumbled and against her better judgement, her hand forced her reconsideration. The chip was thickly cut with ochre edges and a dijon melange dusting. Try as she might, her bites echoed throughout the store, more like chomps. The girls locked side eyes with each other, and shared secret smiles with each other. The rap of the cashiers sandals approached, and Kitty stashed her stolen snack in the depths of the shelving unit. Jamie scraped her tongue with her nails. They feigned interest in the far refrigerators while the clerk finished their rounds, Jamie staring at the ingredients of a yogurt drink from Korea and Kitty staring into space. From the squeak of the clerk's leather stool, and the unfurling of her Italian fashion magazine, the girls knew to relax. They buzzed with the shared secret of having gotten away with it.

After spending a moment convincing Kitty not to go back for more chips, Jamie led the search for Kat. Upon entry, she had immediately busied herself with her curled flipbook, and turned down a criss-crossing set of aisles. As they grew more aware of their surroundings, it seemed that the shelves grew towards the cieling. Jamie's vision filled with commodities, that blurred in interchangeability with each turn of her head. The flourescent lights blinked and yogurt covered pretzals were replaced by teryaki turkey jerky. The hum of the refrigerators harmonized with the buzz of the lights, in a fashion that seemed to block out all outside sound.

Jamie stopped walking, and found her reflection in the frosty glass doors. She breathed. Her mind became blank, and she observed the world. The coolness of the freezer aisle was calming on a hot day. She realized Kitty had walked off a few minutes ago, Jamie could hear her rubber soles against the linoleum floor. She also heard the scratch of writing, and the plastic rattle as Kat searched for more ink somewhere in her pen. They were only two aisles away. She walked slowly and began to appreciate the subtle distinctions between pink sno-balls, orange left-over Halloween sno-balls, and white chocolate sno-balls. Each package pressed firmly against the wire rack shelving, the gelatin flesh bulging between the grates, and threatened to snow dried coconut onto the floor. Jamie had tried one on the road between Missoula and Blaine. She tried to remember how dry her mouth was as she ate it, even having sipped bottled water between each bite. As she began to fog back into memory, she found her friends again, gazing at chicken.

Kat stood, list crumpled in one hand, other fist propped at her hip; Kitty slouched and lolled her head back and forth. Kat seemed lost, "She didn't say what kind of chicken we need?" In response, Kitty rifled through the pamphlet, pointing at sections for Kat to read off to her: "Dish Soap ... pads slash tampons ... cereal Kitty's choice ... nothing about what chicken we need." Jamie's face hovered over the rows of chickens, her face reflected in their taut, plastic packaging. The skin of each breast was pimpled where the feathers were ripped out. There were parts of the chicken she had never seen before, the gizzard, the neck, the foot, and she imagined pulling the tiny shreds of flesh from their bones as steam poured out. She commented, "I think, if you're shredding it, it doesn't really matter what part it is, right?" She had adopted the upward lilt of the other girls, and they nodded in agreement.

They filled the cart with chicken thighs with the skin on, the cheapest cut per pound they could find. "Wait, you guys, look at this thing," Kitty pointed towards the whole chickens, "It's cheaper per pound?" The three of them looked at the chicken front and center, its wings crossed over its breast as if embarassed. The hole where its head should be was black. A shiver passed through them. "Maybe not," and so they carted off towards the cashier.

The girls hid behind Kat like chicks behind a mother hen. Kat laid out a few bills and coins down with a clatter. The counter was covered with taped over scratch-offs. While the clerk and Kat chatted, the girls could hear the unmistakable crackle of potato chips and the bag's plastic ripple. The clerk had pocketed their stolen valor for her own. Each girl looked out from beyond Kat's hips. The clerk tipped her cowboy hat to the girls and wished them well. She spit salt and debris with each syllable, and her toothy grin was pock-marked yellow by the leftovers. Each speck found a fold in Jamie's mind.

Exiting the store, Jamie immediately broke a sweat that ran in a single trickle down her back. She shivered. It had gotten hotter. Kat slid the key into the lock, swung the door open, and pulled the front seat forward. The girls then piled into the cramped back bench. The ignition's start produced a rumble and the crackling start of the radio. The engine vibrated Jamie's seat. Her and Kitty buzzed with laughter that the clerk had taken their chips. She rested her head against the window, her head bounced against the glass as she tried to find comfort. The sun burned comfortably against her thighs. She tried not to think about the grime of the car seats.

Each girl fell into a post-public quiet of their own. The cracked driver window streamed wind through Jamie's hair, sending it wildly over her eyes, lightly obfuscating the light. She closed her eyes and watched her pink eyelids turn new shades. Comfortable, she drew into a soft nap. She willed herself into dreaming that Mal had bought a house next to her new friends with the candy money. The two of them went to a department store and laid about in big leather chairs and lawn furniture, and Mal let Jamie pick a few. Afterwards, they shared a soft pretzal covered in cinnamon, and watched people. Mal pointed at boys and asked if girls thought that that was cute. Jamie tore off a piece of pretzal and threw it at her mom. Cinnamon-sugar skittered across the linoluem floor. She was roused from her dream by the change in road from the ocean highway to the ragged asphalt of the girl's neighborhood. She was slowly becoming familiar with the rhythms of this new town.

Kitty had fallen asleep against her shoulder. Delicately, Jamie passed a hand in front of Kitty's breathing. "Helloo, good morning. We're here." In a jolt, Kitty's eyes snapped open wide, then faded back into half-lidded sombambulism. Her lips smacked to excise the sleep and breath in some fresh air. In such a short nap, Kitty had managed to produce toe-curling morning breath that now fogged over Jamie's face, and Jamie resisted the urge to push her away. "Lady, don't breath all over me like that."

Still half-asleep, Kitty murmured, "I'm sorry friend. We can't all be pretty-perfect," before falling into feint sleep. No one had ever called Jamie pretty before, at least anyone besides Mal. A tickle waved out from the nape of her neck. Normally, she was afraid of recognition. This was the third day of the same clothes, and now she felt like a million bucks. The car rolled to a stop along the ditch outside their home and Kat kicked open the doors. They popped open, then flicked on their hitch and cracked back at her shoulder. She grunted and slammed the door shut before running wide-legged towards home. Dry dirt kicked into the air.

From her vantage peering over the half-cocked driver side window, the ditch loomed low beyond Jamie's sight. Kitty gave her a light shove between the shoulder blades, which was just enough to send Jamie tumbling into the gravel. She was okay. Small rocks bit into her palms, though no blood was drawn. They popped back to the earth in satisfying rhythm, though they left a red, bulging pain. Jamie was more concerned that her knees came out unscathed and that there were no new holes in her clothes, which there were not, and she brushed off dust that did not exist from her shorts. Kitty ran past, placing a hand on Jamie's shoulder. She let it slide away along her path.

The sounds of old country music streamed through the windows. A woman's voice, organic, harmonized with the classic singer. Crossing the threshold, Jamie saw the old lady. In the dusty, lightbulb-less midday light, she swayed, basking in her homemade gospel. Her gown twirled opposite her movements, a gauzy chemtrail. As the bridge began, her dying grey hair fell over her eyes. Jamie could feel them land on her, even if she couldn't see them. "Are you there new girl these two have chattered about?"

"I am who I am, Ma'am."

This elicited a chuckle from the old lady, who took Jamie's right hand between both her wrinkled palms. "Indeed you are. Stay for dinner and whatever else too dear. Ask if you need anything, just don't ask to change the dial." She pulled the hair from her eyes to inspect Jamie, and to look this young person in the eyes. Jamie watched the floor until the old lady gently nudged her chin, and she gazed back. The old lady's face had crows feet and big hairy mole on her chin; these things made Jamie trust her, they also made her face make sense. With her eyes, the old lady tried to communicate safety and tranquility. Jamie saw a squint and reflected a squint back. The old lady's hand, warm and dry, dropped from Jamie's chin. With a polite slowness, Jamie walked over to the kitchen. The old lady returned to her gentle swaying in time with the soft banjo plucking. As soon as Jamie felt free from other eyes, she let out a small shudder.

Jamie only ever saw old people out the car window and standing in line for the bathroom at gas stations. Mal would give her a light elbow to the shoulder, to remind her to stand up straight and introduce herself nicely when spoken to. The screen of niceties tended to catch any wisdom these people could have shared before it reached Jamie. More than any of their words, she remembered the scent of old people. Something like rose hip and prescription ointment that filled whatever sized room they were in. Jamie had yet to find a smell of herself, but after long car rides between motel rooms, the first thing Mal needed was for Jamie to hop in the shower. That only started a few months ago.

All of the cabinets hung open. Painted seafoam many years ago, their insides revealed the toll of the years of sea air on the wood, the shrinking and warping produced knots and warbles that Kitty said looked like faces if you squinted, and Kat said meant the doors swung open on breezy summer nights. Kitty danced her own ballet while Kat sashayed around her, depositing each new commodity in its new home. Jamie never really got to see the inside of stocked cabinets. The pantry was color coordinated, red nabisco boxes and red onions and paprika, then brown rice and yellow peeps and corn pops, then green tea and chives and dried split peas. Kitty later told her that Kat was the only person who could make any sense of it, she didn't know all of the boxes like that for sure.

A pouch of fruit snacks materialized before Jamie, hanging by Kat's pinched fingers. "You ever have these?"

The package was shiny and stamped with an unknown logo. Some TV show Jamie never got to watch. She just got whatever adult channel the motel provided and whatever tape Mal let her pluck from the library. Ripping the foil edge open, the gummies were matte, smooth to the touch, not sticky, cool, not runny on the hot day, all giving the impression of small clay totems. Jamie shook her head no. Kat smirked, "Well, anyways, they're the best ones."

Jamie nodded along like she had any point of comparison. Kitty had already dumped out her entire pouch into her small hand, then stuffed it into her mouth. Her wet, smack-chewing made Jamie wince. When Kitty smiled, her teeth were glued together by brown sludge; Jamie socked her in the shoulder, Kitty pretended to spit it out onto Jamie's head. The girls moved to wrestle in the kitchen, at which point, the old lady cast them out to the back yard.

The summer sun had passed its apex. The dawning anxiety of another summer day mid-passing rippled through Jamie. She smiled at her new friends to try and put the thought out of her mind. Kat smiled back, eyes smart with a plan, "Are you a trampoline girl?"

"Honestly, I've only ever jumped once or twice."

The sisters craned their necks in at Jamie. In unison, "What!?"

Without further explanation, the sisters marched towards the fence. Kat kicked a loose plank, which swung open into the adjacent plot. The sisters ran through, Jamie gingerly poked her head through. In terse whisper, Kitty bellowed, "Be quick lady!"

Just as soon, or perhaps because of Kitty's fortepiano, a tan blur ripped along the side path of the neighbor's home. Dark animal howls followed. Jamie pushed foot after foot in a race to catch her friends, and not be eaten. Her lungs swelled, she felt the muscles in her legs wiggle. The sisters cheered her on, already having climbed the top of the next fence. The rabid breathing grew closer, Jamie thought she felt hot breath on her neck. Unable to take any more, she leapt from both feet. She was received by sweaty hands, then pain in her shoulders from the pull sky-ways. In peace, seated perilously on top of the narrow fence, she witnessed her tormentor: a twenty-pound, barrel-chested chihuahua, eyes so black she wasn't sure there were eyes in its head at all.

Kitty filled her in, "That's Mighty. He gets everyone, eventually. But not today poochie! Go fetch!" She tossed a stick in a lopping arch that landed dumbly between Mighty's eyes. He yelped and scurried back to a shaded spot for an afternoon nap. The girls laughed together, the force of which pushed them off the fence and into the next yard. The heap they landed in seemed to protect everyone from injury. Rising, they zig-zagged through fences in various states of disrepair and overgrown, undeveloped squares, until Jamie could see the trampoline in the next home over. "Do you know the people who own that?"

"I know that they're not home. Don't worry so much, we'll just leave if there's any trouble." Kat fumbled with the zipper to the trampoline, Kitty and Jamie waddled side-to-side in impatient excitement. The harsh metal rip of the opening began the festivities. The black nylon seared their feet, so they ran in skipping high steps. Notwithstanding the pain, the sisters made Jamie lay in the center of the trampoline, then curl her knees into her chest and hold her arms tight across them. The sisters lept on opposite beats, each push flung half of Jamie into the air, with just enough time to knock her back up when the other girl jumped. She felt light, all of gravity's hold evaporated. After no real time at all, she was shot 5 feet in the air, and cold-sweat fear set in. Her arms opened wide and her legs stepped down to the floor from the air on their own. Kitty laughed so hard she nearly snorted, "That's how you crack an egg."

They spent an hour teaching Jamie knew games. Dead man dead man, and light as a feather, and double-bouncing. Her legs wobbled, and the floor was slick with their sweat, that now was shared between them all. The tickle of her flipping stomach fled to her inner thighs, and she felt like she might pee or throw-up. Her muscles ached and burned, Jamie was proud of that. The air was hot, so her breath was hot; turning and flipping, she got light-headed breathing in her old air that was smushed against the ground by the summer heat. When she would go to sit down on the padded edge, the mesh netting marking her back, one of the sisters would grab her by the hand to pull her back into the fray. Energy seemed to pass from their hands into each other.

Eventually, the sisters relented, and allowed Jamie a moments rest, while Kitty and Kat competed to see who had the best backflip. Jamie was the judge. She was to rule on categories such as form, style, and sportsmanship. First was Kat. Her curly hair had been wrangled into a bun over an hour ago, and now threatened to explode. As she pushed off the ground, finding the supple assistance of the coils friendly, the scrunchy maintaining order flew loose. The twists and curves of her body were completely obscured by her hair. When she landed, it was in a deep squat, balanced by her finger tips that pressed lightly against the floor. Applause from the audience. Jamie rated it a seven out of ten, excellent style and sportsmanship, middling form.

Kitty's performance was more perfunctory. A standard squat, jump, flip, and land. Nonetheless, Jamie acknowledged the mastery within the simplicity, and rated it a seven and a quarter out of ten. General uproar from the audience. "Okay, miss lady, miss judge, miss know-it-all. I'm gonna need to see your flip." Kat goaded her along with a light-hearted sneer.

Jamie considered her options. To jump, and fall because she didn't know how, and maybe get hurt. To not jump, and be boring. She quieted the crowd with an open palm towards the ground, to say, attention all. Pulling her body straight, like a marionette waiting to start the show, she considered first her arms then her thighs, and last, the tiny muscles in her feet. From her calves, she produced a small jump, then, on the rebound, squated so deep her butt touched the ground, then, soared. The force pushed her legs over her chest, then over again, so fast Jamie couldn't hold them in. She remembered to breath as the air around her rushed away. Gravity reversed. She straightened her legs, and received the earth with the slightest bend of the knee. Perfect form, style, and sportsmanship. Kitty said, "Ten outta ten!" Kat said, "Nine and three quarters out of ten." And the three of them fell onto their backs in tittering laughter and exhaustion.

The sun's glowering rays baked them into near sub-consciousness. Thoughts leaked out of their ears and mingled with sweat. Jamie found the overall sensation quite soothing. She observed the home with an invaders eyes for the first time. A rusted grill sat half-open on the concrete porch, a bag of charcoal briquettes spilled into the dead-brown grass. The glass door to the home had been left open, a tabby cat rested with its posterior to the sun, its head in the home's shade. The roof missed shingles, the walls needed new paint, and the fence was half-falling over. It seemed like a good home. Kat interrupted the sticky silence.

"Okay, you guys wanna know whose place this is?" Nods all around, "It's James' place, that boy, you know..." She trailed off, unsure what the two young girls were supposed to know. Regardless, Kitty spewed a lengthy and loud note of disgust, and motioned to run away, but not before Kat yanked her back to the trampoline by her ponytail, the kind of pull only a sister could get away with.

"Why do you like this creep anyway?"

"It's not, like, him. The person. You know? I wanted a boy. They always want to kiss you and run, but I wanted one to tease. They're so funny when they don't get what they want."

Jamie wasn't entirely sure what Kat meant by that, but offered up some borrowed wisdom from Mal. "My mom says if a guy gets too, uh, like if he doesn't get what he wants quick enough, he'll kill you. Or something bad at least." The sisters chewed on that diversion in silence.

Kat cleared her throat, "Right. I mean she's right. But you gotta find the right guy, I think at least. James, he probably wouldn't kill me. I look for the one's who slouch, or who pretend they aren't looking at you. Not the ones who look right at you. Because I want some control. It's like, mind-control, you know? I'd get him to think what I was thinking, and then let him say it." Jamie felt like she should be taking notes. The closest she ever got to a boy was when one of them held open the door for her to at the Texaco convenience store; the other ones would tease the poor sucker left standing with the handle after she walked by.

Kitty protested more, "But he's ugly. You're pretty, Kat! You don't need to go to stupid parties and act like a dumb girl. You could point at any boy and they'd fall all over themselves."

Kat nodded, "I know that. But I like the extra stuff, waiting, thinking about it. It's no fun to rush in. Pretty boys rush in, they know they're pretty. James waits. I decide when. Anyways, I'm not gonna marry the guy. I'm probably never talking to him again. I just wanted someone in my pants, you know?" Kat grinned, and the younger girls were quiet for a time. Even though they were soaked in each other's sweat, it seemed that a canyon-sized divide had just split between them, that only time could fjord.

Jamie spoke up, "What's it like?" There was silence for a moment, and she felt the sudden urge to cry. Then Kat started giggling.

"I don't even know. It's like, a part of my brain clicks on, a bossy cavewoman girl. I like her ..." She seemed lost in thought, before catching back on the loop, "But your body, it gets hot, a little sweaty. There's a smell. Kind of like BO, but good? And it scratches an itch you can't just scratch like normal, I guess, is the best way I'd describe it to you guys."

Before any follow-up questions could erupt, the sound of tires crunching gravel in the driveway and an engine dying and a door flying open cut through their conversation. Quick as a flash, they gathered themselves up and ran out of the trampoline and towards the fence again, hooting and hollering like bandits. Kat paused at the fence's apex, one leg straddled on either side, and looked back as James walked along the side of his home to watch the girls get away.

"Hey! There's another bonfire tomorrow, if you wanna go?" His voice shook just a hair.

Kat just blew him a kiss and ran off. Jamie could hear him faintly exhale, "Fuck," and then ran along with the other girls.

The afternoon had seeped into everything. Mighty slept so deeply he didn't bother to turn his head as they ran home. Neighbors sat in lawn chairs, too tired and hot to fan themselves. The hot asphalt looked like it would melt tires and definitely flip-flops. So, they made it home safely. Katherine, the neighborhood cat, was cat napping in the tall grass of the old lady's back yard, her belly to the world. Kitty gave her a pet, and promptly received a scratch on her hand for her trouble, and Katherine trotted off the property to find some space.

The house was peaceful, in the malaise of afternoon. Like everyone else in the world, the old lady was napping away the heat. She had left a note on the counter, 'Kool-aid popsicles in the ice box.'

The freezer spilled fog when Kitty wrenched it open. She hopped the treats between her hands, the ice painful to the touch. The old lady had gone with bright red tropical punch. Not that Jamie really knew enough about Kool-aid to have preferences. Popping the sticks out from the mold, they began to melt immediately. Each girl munch and slurped, one hand craddled beneath the other to catch any stray drips. Jamie could feel her insides cooling, slowing. She wondered what treats Mal might know how to make, if she ever had something like this growing up. As the younger two nibbled, Kat prepared the kitchen for the evening's main event.

The recipe book now was stuffed with sticky notes. Questions Kat had, answered by the old lady, or definitions of the almost ancient language of the recipe book. Kat said it read like a sailor had written it. Jamie wondered if Mr. Pearson came to Oregon by the sea. Kat splayed the cook book open across the linoleum floor. Jamie crouched down and hugged her knees as Kat read out each step, tracing the sentences with her middle finger, then pointing at the corresponding ingredient on the counter. For something as simple as potato dumplings, Jamie's head got soupy with complexity. Kat clocked the glazed look on her eyes, and placed a hand over Jamie's knee, "Don't worry lady, it'll make sense as we go."

She then pushed Jamie onto her butt on the floor, and handed her a pairing knife, a plastic bowl, and a bag of potatoes. Their earthy scent felt so foreign to Jamie, and dirt got on her nails as she peeled them. She had never handled a knife before. Though it was small, it still felt awkward in her hand. Kat demonstrated how to peel away from you so you don't cut yourself. The potatoes were big in her hand though, and she found it was easier to hug them and scrape inwards. She worked slowly and stopped well before her body. The skins lined the floor and Jamie felt like she was at a vegetable barbershop. Kitty was on sweeping duty, and tickled Jamie with the brush as she passed by.

The heavy-lidded pot on the stove began to gurgle and spit steam. With two hands, Kat cranked the lid off, and the girls plopped the potatoes in. After each sacrifice, they would jump back giggling, to dodge the boiling water spit back at them. Kat returned the lid.

The old lady returned from her nap, arms outstretched and yawning. Her eyes grew wide at the sight of peels, the wobbling pot, and the stained red lips of the girls. She commeanded them to wash up and then scrub the floor. Each girl saluted her with faux seriousness, and got to scrubbing with rough sponges and soapy water. Even with the window open, the kitchen grew hot from the steam. Jamie spoke up mid-scrub, "How often did you guys eat this stuff?"

Kat responded, "Normally, people left food out for us if they remembered to think about it. But there was this one person. I know it was just one because there was just the car and you never saw anyone else leave or come by the home." Kitty chimed in, "I stood watch one time, she's right! No one ever came by." Kat nodded, "Right. Anyways, he would leave out those, you know, those throw away aluminum trays. He'd write whatever it was in red sharpie on the top. Normally, by the time we got to it, the steam washed away her note. His best dish was the dumplings."

The old lady's ears perked up, she had otherwise been sitting on the couch listening to the radio gospel. "Are you all talking about the Pearson boy? That's why you're all making the dumplings?"

The sisters teased, "Pearson boy? That man was so old. No way he was cooking."

"You're talking about the rambler with the red metal roof right?" The girls nodded, and the old lady smiled a wry smile, "Before you all showed up, we called him the Pearson boy. Even though he was older than all of us. He showed up one day, in his jallopy, pots and pans and big metal spoons poking out of the trunk he'd strapped to the back. Before he even got here, he'd squeezed enough money out of some two-bit investors in Kansas or somewhere to buy up that land in the woods and build just one-floor of his building. That's just what he did. We all thought he was crazy. We were all fishers back then, the men went to sea, the women stayed and butchered. But, really, I loved his candies. I don't know if I'd ever seen pink like that before. I ate one and I knew he'd be a millionare."

The old lady paused to take a breath, she didn't hold court like this often. "He could cook alright. You must have been the only people he ever saw in those final days. He died right before I took you in."

The act of goodwill by that ghost warmed the room. The alarm for the potatoes went off, and, with the help of the old lady, Kat strained them into the sink. Plumes of steam curled into the air, and left a dew on the counter and everyone's skin. They let them cool, before returning them to the pot, along with a stick of butter, and three egg yolks. The old lady had supervised Kat as she allowed gravity to rip the whites away from the yolk, falling away into a tupperware for later. Kitty had picked up the tupperware and inspected it from below, rotating the base to watch the viscuous liquid suck on the plastic sides. After several furtive dashings of flour, and secretive finger-grabbed tastings, the potato dough was declared ready. The pot was placed on a trivet on the floor, and the three of them sat in a ring.

A small plastic bowl sat aside Jamie, to be filled with dumplings. She scooped a tablespoon's worth between a pinched hand and began to handle it. The dough was pillowy and smooth. Pinching one corner to thin the dough into window panes, she closed one eye to wink the other at Kitty; the dough snapped and fell into her bowl before it got thin enough. Without asking, Kat explained it had something to do with gluten, and Jamie didn't really ask any other questions. Nonetheless, Kat explained what she had learned about baking, how long to knead then when to or not to open the over door to peak then how much raw cookie dough you actually can eat, all the while Jamie rolled the dough into balls.

As Kat continued to chatter, Jamie looked over their halfway made meal. The dough sagging in the pot, the piles of ready-to-boil dumplings. It was as if they pulled food from the clouds. She hadn't really made things before. She felt a melancholy pride. A warmth from her creation, but a creeping dread that, if she lived the lives she wanted to copy off these girls, she would have to do this everyday, and she could feel domestic exhaustion creeping into her bones. In times past, when Mal would get too close to settling with some guy Jamie didn't trust, she would run, and when Mal found her, they'd already be off to somewhere else. That response was readying like a bow pulled back into position, whether Jamie wanted it or not, and she wasn't sure how to stop it.

The final dumpling rounded into shape between Kitty's inelegant hands, and the sisters swooped up each bowl, then took turns dropping dumplings into a simmering pot. Kitty read from the instructions, now dusted with floor and wetted with yolk and water. She gave Kitty a step-stool and taught her to watch for the dumplings to float and when to flip them over for even cooking. In this quiet moment, where the water's sizzle and the soft choir's static harmonized, the old lady pinched Jamie by the elbow and nodded to the couches. Jamie sat criss-cross on the carpet, and allowed her hands to roam openly. Hotel carpets are always trimmed so short to the point of catscratch; this carpet was long and to Jamie that was luxurious. As she fanned out about the carpet, small crumbs and pieces of dirt sprinkled the air.

"What's your story, little miss 'I am who I am,'?" The old lady spoke through an extended wheeze as she sat into the pillowy couch with its back to the window.

Before speaking, Jamie thought about Mal's coaching. She had been taught not to tell adults that they live in a motel or that they have been on the road for as long as they have, but she was never sure what to say instead. "Me and mom are on a road trip."

"That's very nice, dear. Where are you going?"

Jamie knew questions would be the end of her, and tried to steer the conversation, "Up to Mount Rainier. Do you like mountains?"

"I sure do. We've got Mount Hood here and Crater Lake. Did you guys get to see those?"

"Oh, no. We've been busy along the coast, I'd never seen the ocean before." She paused just long enough that the old lady opened her mouth to speak, but Jamie returned to fill the silence, "Say, ma'am, this music is great, what station is this?"

The old lady's face had grown increasingly stormy during their short conversation, but she brightened up a bit when talking about her music. "That's just the pirate radio that the busboy at Norma's runs while he washes dishes. The town had a whole stink about it, especially when it slowed down his sanitizing capabilities, but sometimes a melody is undeniable. It's right past where the dial ends on the left. That's what he says too, 'I'll see you before the dial,' and then Paula normally runs in cussing at him to get back to work. What a hoot!"

Partway through the old lady's explanation, the timer for the dumplings went off. Jamie wrenched her neck over to watch the sisters scoop them out into a shallow serving platter with an enameled sunflower on its face. The lumpy circles slowly blotted out the flower. The old lady chuckled at the skittering sight of them. She watched Jamie rise and Jamie felt her eyes. "Anyways, dear, if you ever need a place to stay, we can find an extra bed." Jamie nodded without absorbing the words.

The meal was served family style. Jamie served herself just a few dumplings. The sisters walked away from the platter with mountains. Their home had no table, so the girls sat with their backs against the feet of the couch. Before Jamie could lever one dumpling into her mouth, Kitty spoke quietly, "For Mr. Pearson."

The rest of the party agreed in solemnity, "For Mr. Pearson.

Biting into the dumpling was like catching a cloud. The boiling water had leeched much of the flavor, what was left was the essence of warmth and comfort, like sitting by a fire after playing on a snow day. Even though she was slick with sweat from the summer afternoon heat and kitchen steam, the dumplings transported her there. For the first time in several days, Jamie felt full.

Kat began to talk, "Sometimes, it doesn't even feel real that I lived that way, you know? It's like, I'll have these daydreams about breaking into people's homes, snagging food, or trapping rabbits and cooking them up, or knocking on that retired nurse's door when Kitty got sick. And then I'll wake up and be in homeroom, and look out at these faces who have no idea about any of that stuff. When we lived out there, I used to dream about being at home, with mom and dad, but those were hazier. Just sunshine through a window, or Ritz cracker crumbs in bed. Eating these guys," She was snacking with her hands and held up a half-eaten dumpling, "It brings everything back." Her concluding thoughts had become misty with emotion, and she nibbled at the remainder of the dumpling to avoid falling into tears.

Jamie spoke, "My mom says that it's harder to remember when you're always on the move because you don't have a schedule. Or maybe it's easier because everything is new. I can't remember."

Kitty nodded and spoke with food in her mouth, "Sometimes, it's like everytime I close my eyes, I see the outside and its dark and Kat is gone. My chest gets tight, it hurts. The old lady taught me to leave your eyes open but let your imagination take you somewhere else. I take myself to the beach; I'm outside, but it's safe." Jamie reflected on the wild girl she met just a few days ago on the beach. who was kind and who was seemed bold in the face of anything, but especially heights. The thought made her feel like the side-character to Kitty's store. She hopes she is interesting.

The sisters had grown pensive and Jamie had grown curious, "Would you guys show me where you slept?"

A sticky reticence exuded from Kitty, but Kat spoke up, "Yeah, we could do that, if we could find it. It's like, you have to find the path right away, or else you just wander the woods all night." Jamie nodded at this knowledge, then rose and rinsed her plate out in the sink. The water on ceramic sound broke the contemplation in the room and the sisters rose too.

Kitty and Jamie stood aside each other as Kat washed the dishes with pink rubber gloves and a scrubber wand. She shooed the girls away, "Kitty, you go show Jamie old home, I'll catch up with you guys later." Kitty nodded a small assent. With a shrug towards the backdoor, Kitty led, then opened the sliding glass door with her shoulder. The old lady called out to them as they went, Girls, be careful and bring back a memory."

Kitty strode quickly through the dried grasses. Jamie had only had enough time to grab her boots, and held them in hand as she walked behind. Each dainty step through the parched backyard stabbed into her soft soles. She lagged behind, while Kitty walked on. Jamie was discomforted by Kitty's storm, and wished to release the pressure, "Are you okay?"

The answer came in a curt sigh. "It's just ... that, Kat likes being at home. She like cereal boxes and doing dishes. I hate that stuff, I can't even read it. But, when I think about outside, I get so scared," tearfully, she turns to Jamie, "I have to be somewhere but I'd rather be nowhere, just me and some of old lady's singing music."

As if possessed, Jamie found herself wrapping her arms around Kitty. Pointed bone stabbed into Jamie's chest, and she held on. Subterranean memories of Mal brushing her hair guided Jamie's hands, she ran them lightly up and down Kitty's back. Each vertebrae a mountain. The rapid rise and fall of Kitty's chest swelled, she gasped for air. After a minute or two, her whimpers crested, then receded. When they separated, Jamie felt a hollow. A puddle had formed on the shoulder of Jamie's t-shirt where Kitty had rested, and she apologized meekly for her work. Words came slow and croaky, her fists rubbing at her eyes, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to freak out on you there. It's just, been a few years and it's all still weird. You know what I mean."

Jamie knew what she meant, "All my dreams are about living in a home with my mom. It's like my head is getting ready. Or giving up on everything else."

"You're going to miss it. It sounds stupid, it is stupid, but you'll miss it. Being so close with your mom, seeing things no one else sees, making afternoons last forever. I wake up and I blink and I fall asleep without thinking. And it's good, not to think, I'm safe and so is Kat. It just feels like I wasn't made for this, my brain is always looking for something that you'd never find in a pantry, and now it's too late to go back to whatever was."

This time, Jamie shook her head, unwilling to accept the idea that home wouldn't feel right, "Yeah, but things change. Things will change for me too." She hesitated to explain why, the gold in the candy store and the home Mal had promised like she always had before, and Kitty saw it on her face. Before Kitty could speak, Jamie tried to fill the space, "I just want something like you guys. Not everyone gets that, what you have. It just seems ... happy, easy. Sometimes things are easy for me, but it gets complicated with mom. I want it to be easy with her."

"I want you to have it too. It comes, something easy. Just ... the parts in you that make days like now easy. They stick around too."

The clipped syncopation of the neighbor sprinkler provided rhythm to the late afternoon bird calls. An older couple across the street smoked cigarettes on their porch. Periodically, the man dozed off in the primary red camping chair left out over summer nights. Limp hands folded over his belly, hot ash hopped onto his white tanktop, rousing him from his slumber. The wire-haired dog that roamed their yard yipped at the girls, stopped only by the sprinkler clipping him in the butt with a jet of water. The presence of adults made Jamie uncomfortable. Something felt elicit about slipping into the woods where there was no path. Kitty assuaged, "Really though, trust me, this is probably the way to go."

People on TV always warned about poison ivy or oak. Jamie was never sure which and never knew what to look for, though walking through the thorns and brush into the woods, she felt now would be a good time to learn. As Kitty walked along, she picked blackberries and other berries that Jamie had never heard of before. A clearing materialized, and Kitty paused, her hands filled with berries. She shook the treasure towards Jamie, who declined. Kitty shrugged and continued snacking."How do you know it's not poisonous?"

"Why would the plants poison us for eating their seeds? Just pay them back and poo in the woods," This answer didn't seem to satisfy Jamie, and Kitty elaborated, "Some things we tried ourselves. Other things," She paused, "People would give out 'Ancient Indian Wisdom,' you know, eat this, not that, this is okay, this you have to boil, this kills bugs, that stuff."

Jamie looked around the woods in a new light, "Are there Indians here?"

"None I've ever seen. But they were here. Before all these houses and stuff." Kitty trailed off, her lips smacking with syrupy berry juice. Jamie had seen Indians before on the road. Everywhere she went, people talked about them, but only how people talk about magic. It's like they're everywhere and nowhere.

The old trees around her loomed, their bark dense with ancient folds of bark, thick with hardened sap. A few had thin scratch marks dashed across their base. Before she could even vocalize the question, she noticed the neighborhood cat watching them, head half-cocked, from a low branch just out of reach. Neither meowed nor commented, Jamie decided to leave Katherine in peace. Katherine seemed to appreciate the gesture.

The sun slowly tucked away beneath the sea. Its last pink rays dyed the tips of the trees. The understory and shubbery around the girls grew dense, dark. Kitty smacked the flashlight a few times with her open palm and a beam of light shot across the forest floor, thick with bugs and kicked up dirt. Somehow, everything else seemed darker, and Kitty doused the light for the time being. "Heh, I'm not sure where we are," and before Jamie could grumble, she added, "But I know how to get back there! Kat just never listened to my ideas..." Jamie grumbled nonetheless.

Kitty snapped off a dead branch from a fir with a bend, then laid her opposite hand where the scar was and said thank you. Holding the branch out in front of her with both hands, one in front of the other like a putter's grip, she stepped across the rooted dirt path with her eyes closed. Jamie's apprehension was immediately met with a shush as Kitty divined. The branch quivered, tending East, mostly. A preternatural sense took over Kitty, she walked quicker than Jamie could keep up with, bounding over roots, and sliding by thick patches of thorned bushes. Running through the darkness frightened Jamie. She stepped anxiously, lifting her foot right back off the ground, avoiding the world. Sweat beaded up on Jamie's upper lip and a salty sting crept into her eyes, she rubbed them with the back of her sweaty hand. Blinded for a moment, she toppled over the dense roots of an ancient tree. She knocked her knees, and scraped her ankle against some loose rocks. Sap coated her legs, sticky and fragrant, and critters skittered into parts unknown. The air was fresher down here, in a bed of pinecones and dead needles, and she took a deep breath to avoid crying. Then she yelled. "Kitty! Stop! I can't keep going."

Opening her eyes, Kitty was back home, or, this was at least one of her homes. "We're here!" She had acclimated to the dark, and shielded her eyes from the evening moonlight to find Jamie, who appraised this home from her low perspective. A small, girl-made clearing appeared where the canopy opened and the moonlight cast a milky glow; the dirt was rich with old charcoal dust and decomposed food drippings. A creek just beyond gurgled in harmony with the croak of early summer frogs. A small hole had been dug out beneath the roots which ensnared Jamie, just enough for a little girl to make her evening bed. A striped beach towel had been left behind down there, critters had eaten small holes, and the pastels had leeched into the soil from the seasons of rain.

"Pretty nice, huh!?"

Jamie didn't respond. A small smile hung on her face that betrayed the small ache around her heart. She imagined two little sisters sleeping, curled up like naked mole rats at a science museum, the comfort of huddling for warmth, the terror of needing to do so. Kitty had kicked off her shoes the second she recognized her encampment, and now waded into the water, inviting Jamie with a back-turned hand-wave. She rose from the roots and picked pine needles out of her palms as she walked towards the water.

It was cool on her. Kitty had waded in to her thighs and splashed around to watch the light sparkle and dance in the ripples. Jamie stood, and felt her body become equal with the passing water. It felt like a little bit of her drifted away with the soft current; she couldn't tell if it was the parts she wanted to let go or not. She closed her eyes and felt the air enter her body, the scent of the forest coated her lungs.

The sloshing of water from Kitty's incoming steps opened Jamie's eyes. She handed an oval stone to Jamie and pointed upstream, where the creek unfurled in a straight line. "We used to spend all night just skipping stones. Talking sometimes. Give this one a try, it's a good one."

As natural as can be, Jamie looped her elbow and flicked her wrist. The stone skimmed the water twice, three times, before slowing and descending into the murk. Kitty clapped as it went, and hugged Jamie's side on the final skip. Their sweaty torsos stuck together in the latent night heat, and unstuck as Jamie pulled away. She didn't know why, her body asked her to. She played it off by searching for rocks along the tide for Kitty. She found rocks flat and wide as a plate and handed them over. Kitty shrugged with a smile, to say, 'It's whatever, man.' Kitty crouched low, her arm out wide and near parallel with the surface of the water. Her fingers snapped when she gifted the slab to the air. It kissed the water over and over, before sliding along its lip to the farthest shore, where the creek bends to somewhere unseen. Jamie exploded, "Oh! My god! How did you do that? What the heck? What!?" Kitty just blushed.

Fireflies blinked into existence. Their glow illuminated the dragonflies skimming around the water. In this quiet moment, Jamie wiggled her toes, minnows traveled by, mud lifted and resettled. Kitty said nothing; she appeared comfortable in silence for the first time that Jamie had known her. They sat at the edge of the creek on a wide rock, allowing their feet to remain in, their thighs resisting the flowing water's entropy. Flexing her leg muscles, feeling the salty sweat dry against her as the night cooled, Jamie felt sturdy. "What was it like? All this?"

"Yeah." Kitty didn't say much more than that for a while. Jamie gave her time to think, and instead focused on the small grasses growing along the edge of the rock, and how they raised ticklish goosebumps on her arm when she brushed herself with them.

"It was scary. And cold. And I was hungry all the time. And Kat was always trying to teach me things, because she thought I was getting dumb, but got mad when she couldn't remember the stuff to teach me. And ... " Kitty trailed off, then exhaled, "Yeah, so there's all that part, right? But, it's like, it got to be that, I only knew how to be scared, cold, and hungry. So now, I'm just always kind of waiting around, to be like that again. It feels more ... I don't know. Normal that way? You know?"

"Yeah," Jamie nodded small without turning her head back to Kitty, "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Kitty slid over so their two sets of arms, behind them to brace their seated positions, crossed, their shoulders touched. Jamie felt the stringy tension in Kitty's muscles, then she felt it leave. "Were there good times?"

"Of course. There's always good times, to me at least. Nights kind of like this. A little hot a little cool. Seems like the whole world is falling asleep with you. That was the good part. Feeling like an animal, like I was part of all this."

Jamie had never felt that way. When Mal pulled the starched motel curtains close at night, it felt like the whole world was inside that pre-paid room. Sometimes it came with AC, and sometimes it didn't. "I don't know if I need all that. But this," She looked at the night sky, and saw the texture of the universe, before the image was slashed by a robin, crashing through the air, in search of a new branch for the evening, "It's pretty nice."

Kitty smiled and punched Jamie in the thigh, "I told you! Pretty nice, yeah!"

The spot on Jamie's thigh where the punch landed hurt, but not that bad. It made her conscious of the bone in her leg. It felt like her body was coming off the bone, she could feel the exhaustion setting in. She always fell asleep quick, staying up just until her body couldn't take it anymore, but she always slept right beneath sleep, always ready to come back to the world when the world asks for it. She adjusted and put her head on Kitty's shoulder. Kitty brushed Jamie's hair with her fingers, from her forehead to the base of her neck. She found a way to do it where she avoided all the knots. Jamie was too tired to think about how amazing that was.

Kitty led them to the make-shift shelter. They made make-shift pillows and used each other as make-shift blankets. Sleep came for them both without hassle. Birds chirped a lullaby, crickets and toads intoned the night's peace.

Jamie did not dream.

Rustling sounds, talking, roused her, though she did not open her eyes.

"Jamie said you guys were just passing through, is that the plan?" The old lady's voice. Inquisitive, with something behind it.

"Yeah, that was the plan. She got off school early, so I thought a roadtrip would be fun, see the world. But things have changed a little bit, it's time to head home." Mal's voice, both coming closer. A light nauseau swept Jamie, that she fell asleep out here, and that she lost that scarf.

A hum, "Hm. And where's home?"

"That's the question, huh? You think these little girls know?" Mal's tone turned mean, sounding foreign.

"They have a home. It's got beds, with pink princess sheets, and wardrobes, with training bras. Home stuff." Their steps got slower as they got closer. Jamie could the rustling of the forest floor as the mothers stepped through the small plants.

"Right." Their steps slowed as they grew closer. Jamie felt a tired pain behind her eyes, waiting for them. "I just think ... Ah, whatever."

"Jamie could have a home too. What were you going to say, dear?" A pregnant pause followed the word dear.

"Don't do that, alright? We both know what's going on. With the dirty kid, the busy mom, the motel room ... You think you can needle me about my girl needing a home, like I'm dumb? I know! I can always tell when she's tired, even if she's still trying to play. That's when we go again." Mal's strained whisper cracked, with the snotty dripping of held-up tears, "So help me out, look out for my kid, let her talk to your beautiful daughters; I love her stories at night about the things they do. Or just mind your business. This in-between bullshit, letting her sleep in the middle of the woods then implying I'm some negligent mother, you can keep that."

There was silence, then Mal shouted, authoratative, but not unkind, "Girls! Time to wake up!" Kitty rubbed the newly formed sleep from her eyes. Jamie pushed her out of their burrow before she could ask questions. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, pulling at their t-shirts to turn them right-side-forward, adjusting their braids, wiping the dirt out of their shorts with the backs of their hands. Mal was struck by how young Jamie looked with mud streaked across her cheek. "We can't be doing this. Let's go home."

Jamie knew better than to protest. They walked two aside, Mal and Jamie then the old lady and Kitty. Mal held Jamie tight by the wrist; she didn't yank her along, and she didn't drive her nails in, the way Jamie would sometimes hear other girls complain about. It was like Mal was more of Jamie, and they walked as one. Still, the way the moonlight glanced off Mal, she glowed unreal.

There was a night, kind of like this, a year ago in Wyoming. It was earlier in the night, too, with that kind of dusk where the moon is brighter than normal, out earlier, so there's no pause in seeing the world. They were camping, Mal called it a vacation. She had gotten up in the middle of the night to pee. Jamie roused, and watched her mother through a mesh flap in the tent. A conversation had started between Mal and two older guys in the next campsite over, their faces leather and shadow in the fire like baseball mitts. Tobacco smoke floated from the men's site to Mal and Jamie's. In the moonlight, Mal looked like a different person. When she laughed at the men's jokes, her back arched, her hair covered her face in light whisps, in ways Jamie had never seen. Mal didn't pee and Jamie pretended to be asleep when Mal unzipped and rezipped the tent flap. Mal was rigid. Deep breaths poured in and out of her as she tried to slow herself down, one hand to her chest, the back of the other against her forehead. Neither of them spoke, neither of them slept that night.

"Mom, I'm sorry, I..."

"Not just yet." They continued their walk in silence. The infrequent crackling of branches from nocturnal creatures chilled Jamie. Sniffling from Kitty carried through the night, the song of adolescent guilt. The night had gotten cold and damp, Jamie was all shivers and icy sweat; she nearly slipped loose of Mal on that alone. Mal shook with her.

As they walked their path, charting the girls' reverse narrow footfalls, Jamie noticed a familiar cliff. She gently walked Mal over, and her suspicion was confirmed, this is the tip of the valley she first found Kat in, and the boy. "Hey, if we cut through here," Then she was shushed. They walked a few steps, then Mal spoke, "What happens if we cut through there?"

"It's a straight shot home."

Mal nodded, "Okay ladies. We're going to turn off here. Have a nice night."

The two girls caught eyes. Jamie smiled. Kitty smiled too, small. They each produced small waves at hip level. The old lady gave a small wave too. Mal turned them towards the valley.

They found it easier to crawl down backwards than to walk down normal. Jamie felt like an animal. Dirt got deep into her nails. Ferns tickled her wrists as she went by. Pausing for a moment to look over her shoulder, she saw the tips of the firs that grew along the valley floor. They looked snowy at night. Mal noticed and paused too. "You know, some of the birds that live up there, they just stay there. They don't go to the forest floor. They just spend all their time, flying between the tips of the trees. What do you think about that?"

At first, Jamie thought that sounded boring, living in one place like that. But, she reconsidered, and said, "If you like a place, or it's pretty like that, I guess you just stay."

"Yeah, I guess."

Mal placed a hand on Jamie's elbow, and didn't apply any pressure. "I didn't come out here because you shouldn't have friends, or sleepovers. You should! And I like, uh, Kitty, is that her name? Her mom a little less but that's what other girl's mom's are for. I just... falling asleep in a forest Jamie?" She laughed as she finished her words. Jamie laughed a little too, scared, though, that she might be in trouble.

"It's where Kitty and Kat slept for a little bit. I asked to see it. I didn't think we'd sleep, we just got tired."

Mal's forehead creased as she listened to Jamie. Not quite a frown, just listening. "It's alright to make mistakes, but you know I gotta know where you are. Just give me a call." She pressed her fist, pinky and thumb extended, against her ear.

"I was okay, though."

"You're right. And I trust you. But the world isn't. So we're going home."

The valley in the dark didn't look at all how Jamie remembered it. She couldn't spot the bed that Kat and James had made. The mountain of boulders cast deep shadows over the fire pit so none of the ash could be seen. She was careful in her walk, worried about scattered glass that she could no longer see. Nonetheless, she was leading Mal through. They held hands and Mal stayed a half-step back. Mal bent her right arm at the elbow, ready to punch or pick-up Jamie and run at a moments notice, though that notice never and where she would run, she didn't know. In her addrenaline, she struggled to appreciate the beauty of the fireflies who lit their way out of the woods. Jamie would remember the fireflies whenever she would think about this night.

The deer trail they followed petered out by the edge of the parking lot. Their steps were quiet, the leaves and branches were gone, and dirt mixed with sand and broken-off asphalt. The man with the gun was smoking cigarettes outside of his room. There was no breeze and the entire parking lot smelled like his habit. Mal sent Jamie inside, then asked if she could borrow a cig and a light. The man sparked for her, then provided some advice, "Go smoke alone, lady, and watch the stars. You shouldn't talk to men like me."

Mal had always been told to believe someone when they tell you who they are, so she went and smoked outside of their room. Jamie cracked the window and spoke through the screen, "Are you gonna take the money?"

Through the screen, with the far away street light behind her, the faint light of the bedside lamp in front of her, the narrow glow of her cigarette, Mal bordered on invisibility. She didn't move either, or breath. "Yeah. Whatever comes of it, I suppose."

"Are you gonna buy a house?"

"You want a home?"

Mal knew the answer to that question, but sometimes, she needed to hurt herself by hearing it. Jamie spoke small, "Yeah. I need to sleep for a while."

The littleness of this want broke Mal. A tear or two escaped her, and she dragged away on her cigarette with her breathing. She had never loved anyone like Jamie; often, her mind felt like a waypoint between her heart and her hands brushing Jamie's hair, no other reason to live. But she had failed this girl, she felt it every morning now.

How many late nights, red-eyed and searching for sleep in the back of a borrowed Honda Civic, Jamie warmed by the radiant heat of the slumbering tires, did Mal console herself that it was enough to be alive? She would dart her eyes, bleary, and mistake a deer, lost in the K-Mart parking lot, for a burglar, and to be glad she was safe was enough to make it to the next day. And now, through the hard-fought, rough-scrable years, starving her daughter and herself so they could just barely make it to the next molded motel room, now providence, or, at least, a break. She had learned to ask questions, to question every gift horse, but that had all gone on too long. She would collapse into the arms of the taffy puller when the time came.

The night air burned the cigarette up to Mal's fingertips. She let it drop and stamped at it once or twice. The soles of her running shoes were slick with cigarette burns. She rapped lightly at the door. Jamie undid the latches, not before peeking up at her mother. In the yellowed light, Mal looked like a memory. Jamie swung the door open and hugged Mal. Mal, still returning from her nicotine fugue, paused. Then, the warmth of Jamie's little body melting her, she wrapped her arms over Jamie's shoulder like the great boughs of a willow tree.

A shower sounded nice, so Mal ran the water. She sat on the toilet seat and rested in a slouch against the tank, then noticed Jamie poking her head around the door frame. "You first, girl. You look like a little forest sprite."

Jamie smiled and peeled her clothing off. It felt like ripping off a second skin. Little bumps, bug bites, littered her legs. Mal commanded her to stop and walk backwards towards her. Jamie did as she was told. Mal held Jamie in place with her left hand on Jamie's hip, and pinched her shoulder with the right, then had Jamie turn around. A small tick squirmed in between Mal's thumb and pointer finger. She placed it in Jamie's palm, who then crushed her hand into a fist. "Get it between your fingers, then rip it up with your nails."

Jamie opened her hand. The tick ambled about, looking for something to hold on to. She pinched it, then brought it up at eye level. Legs wiggled in all directions, but it was otherwise just a spot. She felt her nails connect and the thing rip apart and the legs paused their movement. A deep shiver coursed through Jamie's body, like an atonement. The dead thing made her fingers feel dead, her own blood painted her skin. Jamie became frightened of herself, of the thing; the more scared she was, the more shivers that came. She flicked it away into the sink and washed her hands. She hummed her ABCs, and felt her chest vibrate.

Hot water zapped Jamie's body and she yelped when she entered the shower. The night air had cooled considerably from the day and Jamie had become accustomed to it. Mal chuckled at her, and reminded her to wash everywhere, soap for her armpits, for her butt, water for her vagina. Jamie burnt up just a bit as her mom called out her nakedness. But, she let it go, as the dirt washed down the drain. Forgotten itches were quelled as she worked her scalp with shampoo. She pasted loose hairs against the slick shower wall, then squiggled small designs with them, a peace sign, a heart. Running the wash cloth along her body, she felt parts of her she often forgot. The back of her knee, her side under her armpit, the tip of her sternum where no muscle or fat hid the bone. She felt her chest, where her body had just begun to pool, and she tried to be brave for the future. For now, her body was a safe place, one that she still trusted.

After a while, her fingers started to shrivel, and her face got puffy from the steam. Mal had begun to doze on her elbow, propped against the top of the toilet. Mal was luminiously beautiful when she left the shower, Jamie would sneak peaks at her, and Mal would always tell her to not be so weird, it's okay to look, she's just her mother. Right now, Mal looked like she needed that shower.

Jamie snagged a towel, polka-dots, and wrapped herself. It was scratchy and bare from years of washing and bleaching; they brought their own everywhere they went. Mal roused from her short nap, rose, and groused her nose into Jamie's wet hair. She breathed deeply. "When we have our home, we'll get you some nice shampoo too."

As Jamie brushed her teeth, salivating foamy mint, Mal undressed for her shower. To Jamie, Mal looked bigger without clothes, like somehow the dressings make her slouch or hide, and now every part of her body takes in light. She otherwise doesn't notice Mal's boobs, or her calves. Plastic shower curtain inhand and one foot in the combo tub, Mal turned to Jamie, her body shook in turn. "There are some clean clothes for you folded on your bed. And some new pajamas."

Jamie nodded. Mal got in and sighed, then half-stepped out again. "Hey, what happened to that scarf?"

Mouthful of spittle, Jamie spoke, "Uh, I lost it."

Mal got back in and sighed. "It's your world, kid, and I'm just living in it."

Jamie cringed, yet felt a weight-lifted from her shoulders. Sometimes, it was those small things, like breaking a glass or losing the scarf, that scared her the most. But Mal always knew what was important and what wasn't, at least Jamie thought so. She put her scarf out of her mind.

The new pajamas were plaid in pink and flannel. Jamie slid into them, and crawled into bed without a shirt, her body still hot from the shower. The bedside clock read some time that Jamie rarely ever was awake for. They didn't celebrate New Years, but sometimes, when they were riding an overnight bus, or leaving someone's home in the middle of the night, Jamie would taste this secret time. She never liked it. Her eyes burned, Mal was grouchy, and the only other waking beings were wolves and vampires. As she lay here now, she found her body punchy with latent energy. Twitches ran along her legs, out through her toes.

Mal had taught her to imagine her whole body filling with sand, bit by bit, until she was so heavy she would sink through the floor. Jamie tried that. But every time a thought about the day leaked out, it pierced a hole in her toes and back where the sand spilled out of. Her breathing came quick and she played the image of Mal screaming at the beach over and over. She tried to step out of the loop, but as she grew more exhausted, it was as if her world collapsed into this memory. Eventually, it lost the cool breeze, then wet sand, then all sound, even of the crashing waves, even of her heart. The memory zoomed in, until Jamie's mind filled with the creases of Mal's eyes.

She fell asleep that way, her body giving in when her mind would not.

The warm imprint of Mal's butt against Jamie's side woke her up. Mal was curled up, book propped on knee, reading in the lamp light. It was dark out still, but Jamie could tell this was blue morning dark not black night dark. Jamie clucked her tongue to shake out the sleep, then rolled over so her face buried into Mal's body. Sleep had faded the scent of whatever dollar soap the motel provided; Mal just smelled like Mal. The lemon sugar warm filled Jamie's every lazy breath, and her body felt light. Mal ran a hand down Jamie's side, allowing her hand to return and brush where seemed needed. Then, she ran a needling fingernail through Jamie's scalp, one wave after the next, slower and slower still, until Jamie's breath felt slow enough. She returned to her book then. Jamie had picked out a good one.

They passed the early morning that way. It couldn't have been more than 5 AM. Mal hadn't meant to be up so early. She had tried to close her eyes to go back to sleep, but her eyes just hopped back open. Accepting the truth, she then split open her book. The words passed through her. She thought singularly of what the day would bring. They had come close to luck before, they'd been at least this close to luck before, but with each passing m.oment, it all felt real, and sometimes too real, to Mal, that a change might come.

Jamie too thought about her day. After last night, she wasn't quite ready to see her friends. She needed some time alone, but wasn't sure where to find it. Then, the perfect thought occurred. The old Mr. Pearson house would be empty. And it didn't seem like many people knew him at all anyways. She planned to walk there and see what happens.

Clocking Jamie's consciousness, Mal began to speak, softly. "You're pushing the limits, huh?"

Groggily, "What ... do you mean?"

"You know, entanglement with somewhat creepy candystore salesman one day, sleeping out without permission the next day. My little girl's growing up. Being bad." Jamie couldn't quite square the shame she felt with the pride in Mal's voice. The soft back of Mal's left hand brushed Jamie's forehead. Mal continued, "Anyways, girl, you know I'm all about that. But I really need you to hold it down, just today, and then we'll figure it all out. Square deal?"

The hand moved from Jamie's forehead to before her eyes. Jamie held Mal's hand loosely, an agreement struck. Mal's hands seemed to dwarf Jamie, and she wondered when she would feel big, or if you just always feel how you are. She resolved to just feel however she felt today. Nonetheless, she was happy to be on the same page as Mal. They melted into each other in the fuzzy red-eyed haze of the morning that comes when you've beaten your alarm by ten minutes. Then, those ten minutes were up. Mal lifted the covers, the cold room brought reality down upon Jamie in air-conditioned waves. Jamie deepened her duvet burrow to reject its call. Mal gave her an extra minute or two of rest. A groggy dream, about food, invaded Jamie's mind. The water-color images washed out when Mal threw the covers to the ground. The invasion of the waking hours was complete.

The new set of clothes brought by Mal were cute and fit well. Mal had a perfect mental image of Jamie's sizes; she knew when she changed from child to adult shoes, and was waiting for her to need a bra, day by day. The clothes were for Mal, not for Jamie, in all the ways that didn't matter. It was a full set. A pack of cotton underwear, not too tight, but not so loose they fell into Jamie's pants as she walked around. The light-wash jean shorts, some regional store-brand Jamie had never heard of, rested comfortably above her waist. They were long enough to be modest but short enough to be cool, a balance Jamie was never sure how to strike on her own. And a tank-top, light pink, barely beyond ecru, the shade Jamie sees when she closes her eyes in the sunshine. Altogether, Jamie felt cute, and spent an extra second observing herself in the full-length mirror attached to the back of the bathroom door.

Mal observed her observing herself. She smiled and continued applying her makeup. Her stolen mall samplers were starting to crack, but she could not yet be thankful for a potential new set. Nothing is promised. This soft moment allowed to them, Mal could be thankful for that. She leaned her butt against the bathroom counter and drank tap water from a plastic cup, taking slow breaths between each gulp. The tap water tasted like earth.

As she sometimes did, Jamie took to laying on the carpet outside of the bathroom. The ground over there had been ground down, so it was soft, or blunt, against Jamie's skin. She felt the entire earth beneath her. Still tired, she began to turn with the world. Her eyes closed themselves.

Quiet breath tickled Jamie's ear, waking her back up. "It's time for the day, here's your toothbrush."

Mal kneeling on the ground, Jamie laying on her side, they brushed their teeth together. In the shush-like rhythm, Jamie felt all the other days where her and Mal brushed their teeth like this all on top of her, and she could feel herself becoming a memory for the next time. Neither a pleasant or unpleasant feeling; more than anything, Jamie felt safe to think there would be another day to brush their teeth together.

They spit into the sink together. The foam circled the drain, small bubbles floated up and away. This was a moment for final inspections. Mal stood with her eyes closed, serene, and Jamie knelt on the counter, examining her makeup, her outfit. A light kiss on the ear was approval that the world could see her now. They dispersed, fumbled awkwardly among their own things, and met at the front door.

Looking over her daughter, Mal noticed that Jamie was standing there with pigeon feet. There was nothing wrong with her knees, she was just doing it. She stifled a goofy smile and settled for a grin; we can't ever really know what they're thinking, you just take your best guess. Today, that thought brought Mal a comfort, some days, a terror. She brought Jamie into her arms and smelled her head, mostly clean, then opened the door.

Standing in the wind, Mal gave a final address, "Whatever happens today, you meet me tonight off the edge of the parking lot, where the sand and dirt and concrete all touch, where we walked in last night, got it?" Jamie nodded, Mal continued, "I want to give you ... well, everything. But I can only promise my end, the world gives everything not me. I'm gonna talk to that weird candy guy, we'll just see how it goes. But I promise to be good, to keep my cool. Can you promise to lay low?" Jamie nodded, Mal continued, "I need to hear you say it, girl."

"I'll lay low," Jamie affected some unknown accent, "'Be chill,' right?"

Mal bust up laughing and covered Jamie's mouth with her hand, kissing her about the side of the head, "Yeah, right." They walked out the door that way.

Even after all their pampering, the sea air chapped their faces. When she's early like this, Mal waits for her ride at the streetside edge of the parking lot, lifted by her tippy-toes off the curb to watch the morning water ebb away. They walked as far as that post, and then each mindlessly waved goodbye, having already done the hard work of a sincere goodbye earlier.

Jamie set off down the road, as she had the first day. The walk seemed infinitely shorter, now that she had the lay of the land. This familiarity also gave rise to surprises. A symphony of fiddlehead ferns she failed to notice, or a dinner jacket tossed into the bushes, holes torn through by its landing. She paused in front of a set of shoes, black in a derby style, that seemed they would fit her. As she leaned down, she observed it had been stuffed with grasses that now yellowed into bedding and that the sole underneath the toe had been warn through, an entryway to some underground tunnel. Just when she began to crane her neck for a closer look, a reddish vole poked its head out. It seemed perfectly circular, still shedding winter fur, certainly too warm for early summer. She squated to become equal, and patted her pockets, and found day-old crumbs from the croissant Mal had gifted her. She deposited them in the heel in a tidy pile. The vole shepherded each crumb carefully into his home and Jamie stayed for a while to watch. When she was certain he was down there now, enjoying his feast, she continued.

She did not continue down the road. The woods had some seductive power over her, so she continued down a poorly established footpath that ducked Northeast from the North bound ocean drive. The early goings were brackish, a mixture of nature and the leftovers of human presence found along roads: McDonald's wrappers, Bible-thumping pamphlets, and used condoms, although Jamie didn't recognize them as such, and wondered if they were the liquified remains of a melted slug.

It was hotter on this day than the prior, the hottest day of the year so far. The branches of the trees looked to recede back into their stump, the stump back into the earth, to avoid the sun's wrath. Jamie could only sweat, which always felt like a shame in new clothes. In the solitude of the woods, she thought about peeling her shirt off and carrying it in a neat square in front of her. Each new bead of sweat tempted her more greatly, but she never did take her shirt off. When she made it through the woods without seeing another soul, she counted out her regret.

Though she'd only been around a few days, the woods had imprinted on her so that she knew her way around. It wasn't just the woods doing. She knew she had a way, like how a screen door keeps it cool, let's the breeze in, she stays open, and let's the world get caught in her head. Mal noticed early on, when Jamie started remembering things she couldn't or didn't. She stepped out into the neighborhood, and looked for the bright red roof of old Mr. Pearson's home.

In the small pond that was this neighborhood's decaying prefabs, Mr. Pearson's glistened alone, stranded off some mislabeled side street, the ship lost furthest from harbor. The window screens were ripped. Grass grew in patches, some up to her hip, and some lay dead over each other. A wasp hive hung from the porch, buzzing lazily in the morning heat.

She looked around, no one in the neighborhood even seemed to be awake. She felt a bloom of courage across her chest quiet the asphyxiation of fear. Her feet seemed to pull her forward. The cool shadow of the porch swallowed her. The door was unlocked, and she ducked into the home without knocking.

Each step kicked up the worn in odor of old people. Something in the perfume was unfamiliar, or at least, uncharacteristic, and Jamie paused for a moment to sniff the air. She realized the peculiar element was a dish of taffy sitting atop the bureau, which looked out the window to the lawn. All the candy had melted into a solid block. The wrappers, discarded in the melting then caught in the freezing, waved like seaweed. When Jamie attempted to pull a piece out, the entire dish came with her, the shock of which caused her to drop it. The musty carpet protected the dish from breaking and Jamie from a sound.

Scanning the room, it appeared to have gone untouched since the old man's passing. Photographs of the town hung on the walls. Norma's back when it was Norma's, and main street filled to the gills with burly fishermen. Above the mantle, an old black and white picture, of a white cinderblock ring, squat in the middle of the forest. The corner was signed in sloppy black ink, the Pearson factory groundbreaking. There was a date too, for some time long ago, Jamie was too impatient to do the math. A dust, thick like oil paint, coated the pane of every picture, the moulding of the mantle's counter, and the books sat in uneven piles aside the bureau.

One sat on its belly, cracked open. Jamie picked it up and ran her finger over the embossed title. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The chocolate bar was as big as the little boys head. The jacket was torn by harsh seasons of reading, Jamie imagined the old man tossing the book against the wall in delight, or fear, maybe anger.

He had left the book on a page filled with illustration. Tiny pipes fed giant vats. Unknown tonics gurgled in the belly of beakers, fuel from an open flame. Boxes, buckets, a machine still under construction, of a purpose absolutely unclear from the sight of it all, for it dwarfed the elf who ran the show. Mr. Wonka stood, hunched, in the background, pouring himself some tea. Perhaps he was offering it to the children. Perhaps not.

The image delighted Jamie, who traced it's skinny lines while she laid on the ground. The carpet was soft, with dense, pillowy threads. Light too, and upon noticing the dirt she tracked in, she kicked off her shoes and popped them by the door.

Knick knacks sat on almost every flat surface, and some angled ones. While she fiddled with ceramic chocolate bar, it occured to her she'd never been in a man's space alone. She had thought it would feel more manly, scary. Instead, frilled doilies girded side tables. Every fabric smelled like someone had just baked chocolate chip cookies. She wondered where men come from, then, if they can have homes like this. Maybe men don't come from homes.

The kitchen was tidy, built out of a narrow sliver. The stove, cast iron, sat sturdy by the wall, opposite the butcher block counter. Along the wall hung peculiar utensils. A small glass tube, a bench scraper, a rubber apron with matching rubber gloves, a arm-length pair of metal scissors, and a miniature puller, that had a clamp to hook on to the counter. Everything the home cook may need to make taffy.

Jamie swung open a cabinet, and was buffeted by the holiday scents of the spice rack. She stood for a moment, then closed and opened the cabinet again. She felt warm, wrapped in cloves and cinnamon. Her mind filled with small cakes. She tried the fridge, which held a chill leaning towards paranormal. Neon green pickles floated, mute, in tinted jars.

As she walked down the hallway to explore, a scratching sound came from the backyard. Any sweat got icy on Jamie's neck. The scratching sounds continued anyways, and filled up the home. Faster and faster, pleading, they came. Nails on glass, a terrible sound and Jamie wasn't sure whether to cover her eyes or her ears. Her body crumbled, down on her knees in the carpet, and the sounds continued, like a can-opener peeling her solitude right open. She was a barnacle, stuck to the arterial walls of the home, too scared to hide somewhere sensible. But she wasn't too scared to confront it head on, and maybe die in the process, or so her brain told her.

Inch by inch, carpet burn building a forest fire against her knees, she squirmed. The terrible sound seemed to tear right into her head. Finally, taking stock of all that was good in her life, she bent up like a sprinter and tore towards the door, crashing into the glass, and frightening the daylights out of Katherine, the neighborhood cat and source of Jamie's momentary terror. Judging by the impetuous gaze Katherine cast on Jamie, it seems the cat had taken to Mr. Pearson's resting spot, just as Jamie had. Feeling apologetic, Jamie slid the door open for the beast, who purred an acceptance and walked into the kitchen.

Her chest still tight, breath still short, Jamie took a moment to lock the doors and windows. Dust rattled with each latch. The front window was the stickiest, tricky too, as Jamie tried to flip it while squatting beneath the sill, her arms up like shadow puppetry, until she gave up entirely, face to the neighborhood, where still, no one was awake.

She wondered, as she walked to the kitty awaiting her, whether this new fear she felt, against the world, was what normal kids feel when someone knocks at the door when their mom's at the store. It was a powerless fear; it shut her body down, held her against the hallway wall. Already, she had to stop her mind from categorizing closets in order of their hide-and-seek capabilities. She never played much hide-and-seek anyways. For one, there were few children. For two, there was nowhere to hide in the big sky vistas of her nomad childhood. Wherever she did finally find kids like her, they played tag, running from each other across the horizon. So, Jamie wondered, where can you run when you've locked yourself in, and them out?

She felt lighter at the brush of Katherine against her legs. She slalomed a figure eight between each ankle, her tail trailing behind. It was nice to know something else living. She paused for a moment, on the linoleum kitchen floor, and ran her hands through Katherine's fur. Matted, in some places, especially around her rear. Perfectly maintained in others, her chest, her paws. Jamie dug her nails into the deep furrows of Katherine's brain, scratching loose each pur. A thin line of drool connected Katherine to the ground. Jamie lifted the kitty, and held her in the cup of her left elbow, like a newborn. They explored the pantry together.

The cabinets were light. It seemed like someone had already nabbed the dead man's best snacks. A lunch of pickled herring and prunes would do, then. Both were slightly sweet, slightly off. The prunes had become jammy and caramel, cooked by the melt of summer days in a shadowed cabinet. Just a hint of plastic from their wrapper. The fish emitted a eye-watering aroma. Katherine's snout lifted from her supine state to catch a whiff. Jamie fed her a filet, and stiffled a guffaw when the kitty couldn't conceal her puckle at the sour sting of the pickling. They split the rest of the tub.

Jamie was used to making meals out of nothing. On long car rides, breakfasts were double day old doughnuts, snagged from last nights local bakery, lunches were picked apples and pre-packaged hard boiled eggs, the kind kept in watery plastic. Jamie knew them too well, she'd spilled the sulfuric placenta on her mom's back seat too many times to count, the ride from Colorado to Utah smelled of brimstone and mudpots. Sometimes dinner got to be special. Maybe Mal picked up a few shifts at the motel, and they got continental leftovers. Sometimes, if they were about to hit the road again, they'd lounge at the chain Italian, noshing on all-you-can-eat breadsticks and cups of ice water until they were fit to burst, then walk out confidently, like Mal instructed, without paying a dime. Jamie never slept well on those nights, but Mal always said that, when she worked at those kinds of restaurants, she wished she cooked food for girls like them than the good-paying people at the other tables.

Not that Jamie ever really wished to be a good-paying person, but she wanted people to think she could be. It felt different to steal. It was a crucible and a reckoning; keep everything in your life in perfect harmony until the moment you cross the threshhold. When it was over, it felt like watching the puss spill out of one of Jamie's new pimples, the cold shudders and sick relief to be done. Jamie would smile to herself when she pulled tampons and beef jerky from her hoodie pocket to display for Mal; she could be cool, she could be pretty. When her and Mal ran out on the check, she felt ugly and fat.

When the food ran out, Katherine rose, disinterested, and scampered down the hallway Jamie had left unexplored. She turned to follow the cat, whose substantial gut swayed with each step. The cat turned into the bathroom. A throne like litter box, lifted and automated by some unknown, analog system, sat aside the toilet. Katherine assumed her throne.

The walls were tiled tangerine. The thought of a bath, resting in this ghost's oasis, sounded oddly peaceful. She did a quick scan of the home, locked the sliding glass door to the backyard, the low-hanging windows, and the front door. Dust rattled with each latch. She grabbed a book on her way, something with pictures and local history, and made her way back to the bathroom.

A stand of candles crowded the sink counter, casting the general scent of a wet forest, and a general mood of calm. Jamie searched the medicine cabinet for matches. Vials of oils and serums lined the short walls, tubes of ointments and balms bubbled over, the consequence of an owner's amnesia. Their interiors had melted then hardened against the glass cabinetry, reminding Jamie of the remnants of flakes left on the pan when Mal cooked up grilled cheese. The whole thing had the somewhat neutral smell of caterpillars.

The matchbook sat atop a mushroom shaped jar filled with an unknown powder, sparkling and white. She broke the first light, wavered too long with the second, and finally lit the fuse with the third. The old wax smoked for a moment before fizzling into a pool beneath the wick. Jamie watched the flame dance for a moment in the mirror, then watched the shadow against herself for a moment.

The faucet was slow to turn, no one had tried it in quite some time it seemed. It eventually gave way after a hard pull by Jamie, who felt the resistence in her shoulders. A rising trickle echoed from the bath's mouth. A small spider or two escaped in time, they had made a home of the dead man's bath as well. Jamie's hand wavered by the drain to test the temperature: ice cold, pulled from the ice core of this town. Her hand jerked back on its own.

Jamie pawed through the undersink cabinet, looking for some cream to put on her face, like she'd seen on TV. A small tube, metal but pliable, caught her eye, as it shimmered when the light caught it. The front of the tube held an image that Jamie held slightly below her chin, she examined it down her nose. A woman applied the jelly-thick cream across the loose wrinkles of the left half of her face, the right half was the face of an entirely different woman, smooth and firm. The instructions on the back seemed to be written in a foreign language, as far as Jamie could tell at least. She placed the tube back where she found it.

She knew you were supposed to want a smooth face, or maybe it was a firm face. Either way, she felt her face was smooth or firm enough right now. Sometimes, when she's washing her face, she becomes conscious of a certain uncomfortable feeling: that her face is in front of her consciousness, that her face feels like it is on top of other things she feels. Sometimes, she needs to blink a few times, when she turns to the mirror, to remind herself that her face is the same soul as the one underneath. Anyway, the idea of having the skin of her face pulled more tightly across her interior seemed uncomfortable.

Steam began to swirl along the ground. Katherine sat on her hind legs and batted it around. Jamie took a moment to wipe out whatever dust may have clung to the bath tub with flat palms, brushing slow. She watched it twirl down the drain. Then, she dropped the plug in.

A reflective moment formed. Jamie sat on the floor, her back against the wall of the bathtub. Beads of dew formed on the tile of the walls and the floor. Jamie drew a smile. She took a deep breath, the water in the air gave a lightness to her chest with each inhale. The frosted window pane didn't produce one sunbeam, rather, it diffused a creamsicle glow across the room. In combination with the soft candle light, Jamie felt as if she was inside one of those salt lamps she sometimes saw in gift shops. For a soft moment, she allowed herself to think about nothing at all.

She undressed, then sat back down. Just to feel the lightness of her body. Small vibrations were everywhere. She felt her arm hairs push out. She felt the skin on her back pinch and pull against the plastic tub. She felt her belly expand when she brought in air, and traced the muscles that helped her breathe. Her brow untensed. Her jaw loosened. Her head leaned back, and rested, supported. The cat curled up next to her and fell asleep, its yawning purr in time with the rising water.

As a general rule, Mal instructed Jamie not to take baths in their motel worlds. She was always concerned some unknown residue from some old corpse might seep into Jamie's body. At least with a shower, its just your feet taking it in, and that's why you wear socks anyways, to trap the bad spirits. Jamie considered this as she submerged. She had no real idea where or how Mr. Pearson died and given that she didn't really know him, she didn't really care to know.

In water, Jamie lost the sense of the edge of her body. So, she closed her eyes. It wasn't so much that any worries went out of her, as much as, she had not been able to close her eyes, alone, in an unimaginably long time. A hot tear or two slipped out, rolled down her cheeks, and dripped into the water, in much the same rhythm as the last few drops from the faucet. It wasn't so much that she felt safe either, she could still feel the life-giving tension in her shoulders that kept her from sleeping on her side. It was that, even though she was alone almost everyday, she was never alone from the world. Just sitting in a motel, or on the bus, in the library; anyone could hear her thoughts. She kept her eyes closed and wiggled her toes. The ripples lapped at the part of her chest that peeked out from the water and it tickled.

She ran a fingernail along her right arm, then up her neck, and through her hair. Trickles of water clattered as she did so. Mal would do that for her, sometimes; she said it would put things in its right place. It didn't feel the same, but it felt nice. She curled in on herself, pulling her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees, tucking her chin into her knees. The smell of her skin was foreign, kind of like soap and Mal's perfume, kind of like fresh water. She left a soft kiss against herself.

After some time, the heat of the warm bath water faded into Jamie and into the ether. Jamie rested beyond the point that the water turned lukewarm. She felt the time moving past her; she imagined she was a rock in a river. Her skin rippled with gooseflesh as she grew cold, the prickle made her smile. Eventually, she listened to her body and pulled the plug. The water sucked at her thighs and formed a whirlpool around the balls of her feet. The empty tub was still warm to the touch. Jamie slid down, laid on her back, her head against the plastic basin. She could feel the phantom waves splashing above her face, and she stayed until the tide broke the plane of her skin.

The blank ceiling held Jamie's view. All the floaters and sun spots and images behind her eyelids surfaced, against the white expanse, given an afternoon hue by the refracted light and the reflection of the tiles. The image grew pink, her eyes straining, and she closed them again. The soft underside of her eyelids was a comforting, if unfamiliar place, like a wool blanket she'd forgotten in the car.

It was time to rise up, and she did. The knobs of her spine poked against the ground as she curled upwards. The blood rushed from her head as she stood and black creeped in around her vision. One hand against the wall, fingers filling grout, to steady, until she could see the world. When her vision returned, she saw herself in the mirror. She smiled, her half-wet hair hung in thick tendrils, her tan lines stark against her arms and butt. At the end of summer, she would only look more ridiculous, and she found some humor in watching the transformation, day-by-day, her body counting up the season. The water, still draining from her hair, from pockets along her shoulders, smoothed her out. Some droplets caught in the hair on her lip, and arm, and the nascent hair below her belly button. Jamie gently placed a finger on each speck, some magnetism pulled the water out, and she flicked it away. Brush, then pause; the touch left a tickle, somewhere inside her stomach, that she let echo around inside herself. She examined herself in this way for some time, especially observing the subtle round of her belly, still soft with baby fat. But she didn't feel fat, she just felt okay right now.

A final peek in the mirror before leaving: a pretty girl. She thought about what Kitty had said to her yesterday, sleepy, that she was a pretty girl. So, she gave a pretty smile, then a pretty wink, and wrapped herself in a towel and waved goodbye.

Mal never taught her how to wrap herself in a towel. When it's just them, Mal just walks around, she calls it air-drying. Jamie wraps herself up when she's alone. She feels a little more adult, the terry cloth cinched above her chest. She sauntered around the carpeted home that way, one hand against her chest, one ahead outstretched to the future.

There was little in the way of light entertainment in this tomb. No coloring books, no TV, no puzzles. There was a radio. It was arched and wooden, with a black plastic dial. The old man had carved his favorite stations into the dial's penumbra. Flipping the metal switch to on, a sharp pop then a low buzz indicated life had found a way.

The mellow tremor of an old man's voice pushed through the radio's mesh. It was him and a guitar, somewhere in the corner, an organ. Some of the words were too big, some didn't make sense next to each other. She listened anyways, sitting on the floor, her normal living room position whenever they were invited in.

'There's not even room enough to be anywhere / It's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there.'

Whatever that was supposed to mean to the old man singing, it meant something to Jamie. She wasn't much for music. She only got radio in the car. She knew all too well those slices of interstate that no pop radio statio touched. At that point, it was just you, the road, and public radio. Mal and her opted to talk their way into town rather than listen, then. This was different. As the instruments crashed against each other in soft waves, the song receding back into the radio, she wanted to hear it all over again. Or something.

'Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer / It's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there.'

When the decrescendo pulled itself into non-existence, a soul called out. Jamie stirred, unprepared for company.

"Hey folks, when the old guy's good, he's good. To me, that was pretty good. Some still say he came through this little corner of America, years ago now, and stopped for a coffee back when Norma still poured it. He ordered hard eggs to go. I wish I could order something cool like that. But I take mine scrambled, so." The DJ trailed off. Jamie could hear the faint clatter of dishware in the distance. "Not much changed in this town for him to come back and see. Just little people in little houses. Big candy machine keeps pushing, pulling. Don't get sucked in, as they say."

All sound paused out for a moment. Jamie assumed it cut out whenever the cook started swearing in the background. The DJ faded back in with a laugh. "Anyways, I'll keep spinning. See you at the end of the dial, folks."

A quick boogie, bass heavy, funky, started up, with the scratch of a sloppy needle drop. Jamie turned to the cat, napping thoughtlessly atop the couch, and lifted her into a dancing partner. The warm kitty fur, kitty flesh, pressed against Jamie's chest. They swayed in circles and circles, centripetal love pulling Katherine in, centrifugal fear pushing her out. A terse love struggle, but fear won out. The cat leapt to the ground in teardrop fashion, her body teardrop-shaped upon landing. The circles had driven Jamie a little loopy, and she was pulled to spin a little longer. Her arms swung out to her sides, twirling, like a petal on a summer wind. The chorus kicked in, maybe for the second time, and Jamie was filled with laughs. Her legs gave out, and she fell sideways to the couch. The plastic covering crinkled.

The room turned and reset and turned again with every blink. Her heart beat behind her eyes. A tingle ran through her thighs, a thanks for stopping. On the little table next to her, she noted a small picture frame, the size of a wallet. She nabbed it and tried to brush off the dust. It was thick, though, and curled off into pills that she picked away and sprinkled onto the carpet.

It was the old man himself, looking old. Grey hair hung, full of air, around his round skull. Circle specs hung on his plump nose. He was smiling. Jamie hadn't really thought about it, but this did seem like the house of a happy man. He held a long rope of candy. The photograph was black and white, but Jamie guessed it must have been pink; it looked to be the same color as the old man, and the way he smiled told Jamie he'd be pink. He may have been old, but there was something very alive in the picture. After close inspection, to Jamie, it was the way his fingers bit small indentations into the candy's body.

It occurred to her that he died alone. No bouncing babies, children, grandchildren, in any of those pictures on the wall. No high chairs or bibs. No wooden blocks. Just a small house, surrounded by his workers who never saw him, dead or alive.

The cracked copy of Willy Wonka sat askew next to her. She thought of this old man, sitting, one leg-crossed over the other, looking down his nose, which very well could have blocked his view, reading a children's book, and laughing. Certainly, now, she knew that the tears across the jacket were the necessary residue of love.

Jamie wasn't really sure if she could end up that way. Mal is sweet, she gets her everywhere. Yeah, she also makes them leave. Yeah, she comes home late. But, Jamie couldn't imagine falling asleep without knowing Mal wasn't on her way. There had been some mornings, Jamie didn't like to remember, turning, waking without her mother. As Mal had instructed her, Jamie would tell no one. She would gather up her things and hide in the closet. Plastic butter knife wedged deep inside her fist. Her eyes would dart, tracking every shadow that passed through the crack in the door, the sounds of traffic and footfalls the only noise breaking through the thrall of her heartbeat. The only calm she ever found was the forgotten tobacco scent of the unvacuumed carpet, the same in every motel. No one ever broke in, aside from Mal, shoulder against the deadbolt. They would cry together on the floor, Jamie still seated, her back to the interior wall of the closet. And they would move to another motel in town.

She wondered what it would take for her to be able to fall asleep perfectly alone. Maybe a house like this, though she doubted it.

It was odd, or cosmic, then, to hear that familiar sound. Plywood cracking against metal, the animal grunt behind the shoulder caving her shelter in. Another shove, some daylight shot into the room from the curved frame. Her eyes wide as dinner plates, her heart stopped but her legs went, and she screamed. Like a girl, the tightest string of her vocal chords, her throat filling with blood. She didn't need to breath, the shriek existed outside of her, an alarm. Her body shot off towards the backdoor, and she thudded against the glass door. The front door swung open. Her hands fumbled against the handle, and fumbled the whole slide open. She was too late anyways, she heard the intruders voice.

"Hey ... sorry! I didn't realize anyone was in here," It was the dull voice of James, "You can stay, if you want."

Jamie's entire body felt electric, live wire. Her fingers trembled. Her mouth curved into a half-smile, and a few giggles escaped, and she cursed herself with each other. She, in general, felt like she had been boiled.

"What ... why? Why are you here?"

"I mean, why are you here?"

Jamie answered the question with silence. She never had a good reason to be anywhere, but she didn't need one for this boy. He filled the silence with his own mumbled response. "I just come here when I gotta leave home. Or my boys. Or whatever, you know?"

She shook her head, she really didn't know. But, looking at him, it made sense. He slouched, for one. And his hair could use a brushing, curly, and poured like crashing waves down over his eyes; he swept it back up over his face with his left hand. His clothes were plain, a t-shirt bearing some band Jamie didn't know and a pair of baby blue jeans, ripped at the knees, they were a size too large and collected around his Adidas.

One hand on the door frame, one foot on the concrete stoop, she stood at the crossroads between the woods and this boy. "But why did you break down the door?"

He scratched his head and sat on the couch, like an unfolded blanket. "It's just everything, man. Mom chased me out the home. The neighbors saw. I stayed a night on someone's couch. They were cool at first, but guys can be jerks. And now mom's all quiet when I come home. Now we're supposed to have another fire tonight. They want me to get the beer like always," He huffed," Sometimes, it just feels like all you can do is light things on fire in this town, you know? And Kat'll be there I guess."

Without a pause, "Right. But why did you break down the door?" Jamie knew no answer would really restore her sense of hardscrabble solitude. She just knew making him uncomfortable was all the power she had.

"It was locked. I mean, how was I supposed to get in?"

She found this boy annoying. Whatever fear she may have had transmuted into hot anger. "You don't! Do you break down all your neighbor's locked doors?"

"No! Obviously. He's dead! He's not my neighbor. Never was." His teeth pinched together with each new phrase, tight irritation. He seemed ready to be irritated.

Jamie knew she only got so many queries anyways, eventually they tell you to shut up. So, before she turned to jump the fence, she shared, "A locked door isn't an invitation. Sometimes, turn around."

Something flashed in James' face, Jamie watched it come and go. It looked like all the cuss words in the world. It looked like the ax, breaking through the bathroom door, when there was no fire. It looked like the instictual urge she assumed all men have to tell a little girl to shut the fuck up and push her against the wall. Guess he hadn't learned to hide it all the way, just most of the way. He said, "Look, I can't unbreak the door, can I? Stay, go, whatever," then he kicked up and laid along the couch, his dirty shoes hanging off the far arm, his hair shading his eyes.

Something clicked in Jamie's mind. A note from somewhere in-between her conscious mind and her soul: she liked giving this boy shit. Whatever Kat was going on about yesterday about making him sweat, a certain kind of sense congealed from her memories of it. She stepped onto the porch, nabbed an adirondack chair, warped by sun and salt, and wheeled its front feet onto the edge of the concrete expanse. Her view held the boy through the glass doors and the narrow alley between the picket fence and the house; always know your escape plan, as Mal would say. The chair was large, and she curled her knees up to sit entirely in the palm of its hand. The chair was hot, baked by the afternoon sun, and whipped her legs with plastic summer burns; she knew not to yelp. Anyways, there was a quiet joy in letting the burn fade to calm warmth.

"Doesn't it seem wrong to break into a dead guy's home?"

"Didn't you do the same thing?"

"Well, the door was open when I came by. Plus, I didn't even know the guy."

"I knew the guy, I don't have any problems breaking into his home. I hope his rest is very unpeaceful."

Jamie, somewhat aghast. "He seemed nice."

"He was not. He scammed this whole town. Picked everyone's pockets. Then he went and died and locked all his money away. And he wanted us to call him his neighbor."

"Well, did you ever try to be his neighbor?"

"That's not how it works, man. He moved here. Wanted us to thank him. For giving us cheap-o candy that tastes like plastic? Not a chance." James rubbed the soles of his shoes against the couch. Thin clouds of dust puffed about.

"I like the taffy." Perhaps not the most truthful statement, but she knew it was provocative. It was a successful provocation.

James shot up; at least, to a seated position, "You'd be the first! I bet the Oompa Loompas hate chocolate too. It's end times here, man. There's nothing to do, no new flavors, and taffy is old people candy. What happens after the guy who makes the taffy dies and the guys who eat the taffy dies?"

The question seemed rhetorical at first, but James made a face as if to say, 'Well?' So, she considered the question. "You light fires in the woods, right?"

Maybe for the first time, Jamie saw his smile. Must be poorly practiced, a pain, physical, caulked the young boy's crow's feet. "Yes. You light fires. You like fire?"

Not really. Mal had a come-and-go romance with cigarettes, but her lighter otherwise never left the watch pocket of her skinny jeans, especially not when Jamie asked for it. Somewhere in South Dakota, a gas station attendant had flipped her a pack of matches. A combination hotel and casino advertised on the cover, with an Indian woman laying on top of the company's name. She spent the following evening lighting a match every few minutes. The hot bead tickled down, eating up the narrow wood, until it popped the pinch of her fingers. Her heart didn't rush at the sight; the brief moment, waiting, wondering, when she would feel the sting, that did a trick. And she liked the phosphorous smell of the matchbook, which she kept in a small pouch of all her things in the world. Anyways, she knew that boys who light fires, the same boys who break into houses, are somehow different than girls who light fires. So, she said, "Not really."

The smile faded, but not into anything frightening, maybe into reflection. He spoke while looking up into the air, "Honestly? Me neither. Teenage boys and fire, how typical, right? The whole ... machismo thing, I guess. You know, girls, they always show up, they call it, fashionably late, right? So, you don't get to see the hour it takes to clear a little space, grab the dead branches, and sit on our asses while Matt tries to light the thing with just a lighter for the fiftieth time. Half the time, the cops run their sirens just to mess with us, and we all go running. It's like, I know they want to have sex with high schoolers, so they just do it to put the kibosh on our fun. They get you from both ends, right?" Jamie nodded along even though he didn't look for her approval, "The guys want you there, but as soon as they get drunk they call you a queer and grab your ass. The girls don't want to be there, but the girls don't want to be alone with you either, which I get. Good ol' mom and dad don't want you out late, but they don't want you home either. Thankfully, nice Mr. Pearson is too dead to say anything about me wasting my time in peace. Unless you have a problem with it uh ... what was your name again?"

He turned to her. He wasn't out of breath, the way she'd seen some men get after their ramblings. Though, Mal had warned about chill guys too, you don't want them to be too chill, then they're psycho; she seemed to have good advice about every man Jamie came across. "It's Jamie," She hoped not to be in town long enough to regret being honest.

"Jamie." He spoke as if he could taste her name. Cutting the talk, he pulled a limp marijuana cigarette from his back pocket, along with a lighter. A few puffs, he cradled the light, even though the air was stale and limp as could be. A few coughs, he held an open palm, face down, to Jamie, joint pinched between pointer and middle finger, an offering. To receive the offering, she would have to officially cross the threshold, the living room carpet, and touch him. A bridge to far, Mal would say, she might say; she offered an open palm, face up, to say, not today, friend, or whoever you are. He shrugged and brought the stick to his face, sucking in so that she could see the outline of his teeth through his cheeks.

His voice grew dreamy, though he did not laugh the way Jamie was used to when that noxious fume filled a room. When he turned to look at her, glass-eyed, she imagined him on top of her, scanning her naked body, as Kat said he had done the other night. She found him unsettling.

"Well, Jamie, come light some fire with me later, if you want. I'm gonna nap here for a while though. Catch you on the flip side." Eyes closed, he pretended to doff a hat over his eyes, the barely lit joint hung over his forehead, spilling smoke. A hollow opened up in Jamie where a new friend normally went; whatever fun there was teasing this boy, he could light a smoke and forget the part of the world she existed in. The door to her temporary home closed right on her face.

The chair stuck to her as she tried to leave, the plastic legs skittered against the cement in her struggle. She came loose all of a sudden. Red marks on the back of her thighs where the hot plastic got her, red marks on the front of her thighs where she leaned over herself. The boy didn't rouse.

She moved just enough to press against the hard wall of the house, aside the glass door where she couldn't be seen, and did everything she could not to tear the whole house down. One day was all she had really wanted, some solitude, just enough to make it to the part where her and Mal get to sleep together in bed, and the world can't give her that. Mal always told her, don't ask for fair, don't even ask for what you want, just ask for safety. She knew it wasn't fair, to get kicked out of a place no one owned, and at this point, she wasn't sure what she wanted, but she knew that, if she stuck around, it could get a little unsafe.

Between the crack of the glass door and the frame of the home, Katherine slipped out. Like static cling, she brushed against Jamie's legs, then trotted off down the street. Jamie made the decision to make her way into town, to try and make herself into one of them before she became one that night.

The walk was familiar enough now and passed in no time. Cracks in the pavement, or ridges where pavement gave in to unwatered lawn and weeds, had already burned into her memory, her brain was free to wander. She wandered into anger: if I could, I'd beat that boys butt so bad. She wandered into self-pity: I still was all warm from the bath, it felt so nice, I even locked the door. She wandered into hope: tonight, it'll be okay. She stayed in hope until her feet his the dusty boardwalk. not sure how we get here but this in this scene, the candyman gives Jamie a ride to the factory out in the woods.

Idle time always got sucked up by adults. Jamie drummed her fingers along the plastic of the window sill. Her torso was just long enough to see over the high wall of the truck. Though, for a truck, it wasn't too tall, she considered. She also considered that she had never considered that making candy was the type of job that would require a truck. As they drove on, she recognize that the firm pack of the seat beneath her meant very few butts had ever come by to depress it.

Also against expectation was the candyman's silence. Normally a chatty guy, perhaps too much so. Now, he sat, hunched over the wheel, an indent in his belly where the grip bit delicately into him, like a old dog with no teeth. He was also sweaty, though Jamie could only tell in the way he began to glisten, and the way she felt his aura grow cool rather than his typical cloying warmth, and not in any kind of smell. The windows were cracked, and the wind ripped in and whipped up loose papers and leaves in the small back bench behind the driver seat. His wood cane rattled back their too

They turned off the seaside highway towards an access road. Ferns carpeted the sides of the road, and the truck was wide enough that it trod on the extended palms on both sides. Jamie clocked the plumage of dust kicked up in their wake, though they drove just a hair too quick to watch it fall back down. She also clocked the white of the candyman's knuckles against the wheel.

None of her gazing was to say she was not on guard. The first thing she noted was the door-lock, which remained unchained, and were the pull-up kind of locks that she knew how to wiggle out of in a pinch. In moments like this, where Mal wouldn't approve of what she was doing, Jamie felt a responsibility to see everything. No candy wrappers, or taffy wrappers, anywhere in the car. No car freshener, but the truck smelled alright anyway. The chest-cross of the seat-belt was too high and ran along her neck; he didn't deal with kids. The thin edge of the nylon cut against her whenever he feathered the brake. The sunlight said afternoon, and in June, it wasn't going anywhere until, all of a sudden, it did go somewhere. The way his left leg lolled as the truck hugged the curves of the dirt road said that it was bum, just like his back.

The road grew uncomplicated and his knuckles relaxed. He started to speak, "Aren't you going to ask me questions?"

"Like what?" Jamie hadn't planned on saying anything, least of all presume enough to ask a question.

"Like ... " He paused, and lifted one hand off the wheel to move the cogs of his mind into thoughtful answer,"Like, why am I giving you the money? Where is it from? Who am I?"

"No."

He grunted, "I suppose that's for the best.

Jamie realized that for all that is mysterious about this man, his injuries and money and interest in taffy, she was bored of him. It felt rude and hurtful to be bored of someone, but the feeling washed over her nonetheless while she sat there. The feeling that she would rather fastforward their conversation and get to the part where she's got cold hard cash in hand. Whenever she got that feeling, she was reminded of a teaching from one of Mal's old boyfriends. Mal had left the room to go to the bathroom, and Jamie gave up the act of listening to anything this man might say. And as Jamie sat there, tapping her foot and chewing her lip and altogether wanting to be getting ready for bed, he said, "You can't fastforward this part, 'cuz you won't be able to hit play on the part you want."

That genre of Snapple-cap-stoner-philosophizing was a constant from men immature beyond their years in Jamie's years of travel. Most of it left her mind the morning after, but some things stuck in the folds. She wasn't sure, though, whether any of that was good when talking about pudgy, broken, old men. SHe figured she'd take it as it comes and accept Mal's truth-ism, men can kill you at anytime, anywhere, so, know your exits. She fidgeted with the lock, down and up with her thumb. His eyes darted sideways at her, and he sighed.

Her skin prickled, sensing his eyes. Or maybe it was the AC that smelled like dog fur. Something in her, like Mal's adult concerns could possess her thoughts, was irked that he would run the AC and leave the windows open at the same time. She always felt Mal in her when she watched someone leave their leftovers, or run the shower long. She never knew why, what did they care for long showers, Jamie had no idea that last time Mal paid a water bill. Still, she couldn't stop her mind from running its thoughts.

Between the tree line, and through the evergreen overstory and understory, a structure came into vision. A small sign welcomed sanitation staff to the Pearson factory. As they grew closer, the buildings shadow blocked out the sun. At least four stories tall, beyond that was Greek to Jamie, the only thing not rectangular about the builidng were the circular smokestacks that puffed away day and night. The access-road fed into a dirt lot around the back of the building. Around the corner, Jamie spotted the worker's parking lot, lined with trucks and SUVs slowly eaten away by seasalt, misuse, and old age.

The candy man double parked by the entrance and began to exit with great effort, before turning his head over his shoulder to Jamie. "Do you want to come with?"

She considered the prospect of sitting alone in the car in the middle of nowhere. On the one hand, she had clocked the paved road that the worker's must take back to town. On the other hand, what was she running for? At least, she thought that to herself nervously. She said, "Sure."

The asphalt gave a haze, the way it sometimes obscures your vision on hot days, like the ground itself melted into air, like it was so dry it turned wet because the world was sweating. She could feel it through her pink boots. Sometimes, their rubber sides tapped her ankle bones. She never liked that feeling. Her boots heels clopped at a steady clip as she caught up to the candy man. It did not take long, he was a slow walker. Each step needed a swing of his cane, and his cane never swung more than half an arms-length from his body. A damp V-shape darkened his Hawaiian shirt. It was patterned with bouquets of white flowers, inside of each cup sat a smiling corgi.

His steps came with the kind of small wince that doesn't show on the face, the kind that's felt in the shoulders. A saggy awning gave some shade for the janitors on their smoke breaks. A bucket painted to look like Campbell's soup was filled with an inch of water and a thousand cigarette butts, swollen with still water. A few flies buzzed as Jamie opened the door for the candy man. He gave a half nod.

Mechanical clicking was the primary sound of the buildings interior, then the sound of non-slip soles against concrete, then the sound of rolling carts bumping, along with their goods, against cracks in concrete. And they all came at once, rather quickly too. It was long enough after lunch that the factory had beaten any digestive exhaustion out of the worker's; they were a high-functioning machine, man and metal. They walked back hallways. Jumpsuited grown-ups walked and sometimes ran past. No one ever stopped to look the two of them over at any point, no matter how hard Jamie looked the worker's over. Some held clipboards, some banged the butt of a pack of cigarettes against the heel of their hand, some smelled like candy, some smelled like bleach. She wondered how much every person got paid.

Every so often, a cork-board broke up the monotony of the yellow walls. Jamie paused to look it over; she thought it'd be boring, it be work and all, but it was like a picture book. A large wheel with two horses behind it, local 970, gave information for a 4th of July cookout. A crayon drawing of a cake and a phone number for someone organizing workplace birthday sweets. A worker asked her to move while he pinned up a dark paper that asked for donations for funeral preparations for someone's mother or daughter. Jamie apologized and scurried up next to the candy man.

They needed to climb a set of stairs to get where they were going. The candy man ascended, one hand on the wooden handle of his cane and one on the metal handrail. He paused partway up. Jamie stood next to him, anxious that she was in the way, but it seemed that no one came even close to bumping into her. He waved his cane a little bit, and a passerby paused. He pointed the cane at Jamie. She felt a cold grip her blood, but it thawed quick when the worker produced a sweet from the inside of their coat, then kept on walking by. "They all keep a little candy on them. You'd think you'd get tired of it. But you don't, I should know. You just need more candy every time to fill your kicks."

The flourescent lights, hung high above, reflected off the foil wrapper. She ripped it quick and snagged a bite. It was all sugar, a little bitter. Marshmallow coated in dark chocolate and coconut flakes. The flakes melted in her mouth, she wished they had a bit more texture to them. All she'd had today were make shift snacks, and her belly, while thankful for something, wished for a little more than candy. She said thank you.

"They stopped making those, you know. You can only get that little treat right here."

"Why? I thought it was pretty good?"

"They say that people's taste changed, people stopped buying 'em."

"But it tastes just like an Almond Joy, people like those."

"I suppose they do. In any case, they called the thing, 'Spuds of Hawaii,' and enough people have been there know to now better, at least that's my guess."

Jamie had never so much as sniffed Hawaii on someone's suitcase, so her country's national island still held coconut-flavored secrets. She'd eat macadamia nuts on long bus rides because Jamie said someone dropped them off from Maui. So, the idea that people got tired of that place of endless vacation, seemed wrong. She ran her tongue across her teeth, sucking the last sugar down; it was a rather good sweet, she thought. Maybe people just didn't want to eat something called a spud, whether it was tasty or whether it was from Hawaii.

Their brief repose brought a straightness to the candy man's back and he climbed the remainder of the stairs without using the handrail. Jamie could see straight down through the steel grate of the stairs. There was nothing below them, just a poorly lit corner of the factory floor. Maybe an abandoned mop, but she couldn't really make out the form. A cold flash of fear griped her belly, and she gripped the handrail. It wasn't the height, she couldn't have been more than ten feet, it was just something about the half-shade beneath her and the grate and the height, altogether. She was frozen for a brief moment, a sponge for factory sound to pass through. She stayed that way until a worker walked by, carefully avoiding her, but rattling the grate beneath her feet. The reverberation rattled up her legs and she shot up the staircase before it gave out beneath. The staircase would stand for many years into the future, though Jamie wouldn't sit around to find out.

The candy man was waiting by a wooden door along the grated mezzanine. Jamie felt naseous and looked straight ahead, her boots clanging loudly against metal cloud. The door was ripped at the bottom, where the plastic, feigning mohogany stain, revealed plywood. It swung open as the candy man reached for the lever handle, nearly swinging him into the room along with it.

A tall man in the shape of an upside-down trapezoid stood in the frame. He wore a tan suit and a tan hat. He smiled without his teeth. He had turned grey from blond and Jamie couldn't make out his eye brows. He turned his outstretched right hand inward.

"Please, come in Coop. You've brought a guest?" His forehead creased. Jamie guessed he'd raised an eyebrow, though she really couldn't tell.

"Yep, an apprentice."

Jamie had never wanted to play an instrument, but then again, they never had the trunk space for it. She imagined sitting on the couch, plastic wrap crinkling underneath her, and feeling the wooden hips press against her thighs. Jamie had also never been to a sixth grade orchestra performance, so her expectations were not yet capped.

Somewhere in the house, Jamie had lost track of the cat, in a comfortable way. It was off, pilfering saltines, or lounging in a sun spot somewhere happy. In some ways, this house now felt like an extension of herself. In their motels, she never felt the need to memo keep writing, have katherine join here, after bath. Only the lonesome rattle of dry pipes poured out from the faucet, however, when she turned the knob. The echo reverberated the plastic beach chair that sat in the center of the tub. Several straps had since snapped, and now lay against the plastic floor of the tub. A line of soap dispensers had been installed on the wall, though each was stopped up from dried soap scum. Hooks aside the chair held more peculiar utensils. A palm-sized stone with a hole through which a rope ran, a small metal rod with a ovaluar metal hoop on its end, an old-timey razor where the blade popped out and now lay on the ground, and a small plastic notebook with a heavy pen, hung by its spiral binding.

Each page was spongey and thick, the whole notebook only could have been about 20 pages all told. Each page held the diagram of a taffy's cross-section. Little circles that smiled, another was London bridge, the last was a shrunk down version of the Japanese wave. For all her savoring, Jamie had never taken the time to look at the art inside her candy. The art was scratchy. Multiple drafts shared space on each page. Jamie felt she could see the old man thking and rethinking each attempt, turning over the candy in his mind. She turned over a sweet in her mind, enough to keep her filled for the time.

The toilet begame a recliner as Jamie thought about her next moves. This home was as dead as Mr. Pearson, like it got buried too. There was something sad to that, for Jamie. The phantom image of Mal, brushing her teeth at the sink, talking out of the corner of her mouth while she pulled back hairs from her face, floated in front of the mirror, standing statuesque in the center of the bathroom. Even in future memory form, Mal didn't quite seem to fit here. Jamie always thought her mother needed some place hip, some coastal city where she could step out to her boat and ride away. The idea of her putting on an apron to cook dinner every night in a small town like this just didn't really seem to fit. Though, that all sounded pretty good to Jamie.

She decided to explore the bedroom, and if it was boring, she would leave to make a fort in the forest. It was relatively unadorned. The walls were white. A small cot with a metal frame sat in the center of the room, it sagged a bit, and the straps holding the canvas to the frame were worn. The only window was higher than Jamie's head, and beat a blue square across the opposite wall. Jamie climbed the step-stool that sat in the far corner; the cieling was half-painted. Small swirls, so small they blended into swatches of color from the purview of the cot, filled most of the cieling. But not the far corner, which was left blank by time and death. Light didn't show in this corner either, Jamie backed down, creeped out.

A familiar and unwelcome smell wrenched Jamie back to reality. A careful meander towards the closet, then she slowly opened the door. A creak. A small plastic baggy with green leaves, some torn to dust, and a small glass something, the size of a little waterbottle, with one arm full of burnt dirt and one arm facing up, muddy water sloshed as she interrogated it. The mixed smells of herb and burnt toast gave her a sick feeling. She knew the smell from Mal's old boyfriends. It was the kind of smell that seaped into old couches.

In an instant, it felt as if a layer of grime laquered the home. She knew the drugs and dirty glass weren't for the old man, and any thought about someone breaking in and filling his resting place with smoke made her shiver. She thought for another moment, homes aren't for the dead, they're for people, this place isn't a tomb, just no one's around to sell it. Nonetheless, she realized, something spectral had been thrown off balance, and her presence may have been a part of it. Every sound grew louder, she could hear her breathing inside her ear. She wasn't sure if it was a ghost or the knowledge that someone else had been here.

Just as the urge to leave stirred into a fever pitch, the creak of the front door called, then footsteps. Fear that rippled goosebumps down Jamie's body took hold, followed by a cold sweat. She stopped breathing, as the steps came closer. All thoughts became white. Her legs moved first, into a full bore sprint, out the bedroom door, down the hallway. James stopped walking up the hallway, and watched as Jamie ran past him. He called out quietly, "Hey.."

Jamie had reached the front door before she realized what happened. One hand on the frame, one foot on the concrete stoop, she pulled back, into the aged perfume of the living room. James had pulled back too, from the hallway, and they faced each other. Having never really appreciated this boy before, Jamie took her opportunity.

She affected disinterest, a la her new friend Kat, "What do you want?"

He affected bufoonery, a la the general affectation of the American teenage boy, "I just thought I recognized you. Are you friends with Kat?"

"Yeah, I think so, I spent the night over there last night."

The look on his face seemed to reveal something about Kat that she couldn't piece together. "Aren't you new in town?"

"Yeah, and I don't think I'm planning on sticking around either." With that, Jamie turned to the door, questioning why she paused anyways.

James wheeled around, cutting off the exit. "It's a nice town, anyways, this is kind of my kick-back spot. If you're looking to kill some time, you could hang out."

Jamie knew both that the whole point of coming to this little home was to avoid everyone, and that boys like this radiate untrustworthiness. She knew these things, but also knew saying no while he stood in front of the door would just get her further from the door anyways. So she shrugged. His eyes filled with an excitement that needed to please.

"Normally, it's just me and the guys here. We have this dumb 'no girls allowed' thing," James gesticulated bunny-ears, "But you seem chill."

The final word slid out with a slight vocal fry. Jamie found the statement a somewhat dubious honor. Chill girl, she reflected, sounded more comatose, or corpse-like, than she ever cared to be. An unwelcome pat on the back and opposite gesturing hand towards the bed room interrupted her thoughts. Her legs moved for her, and she cursed her body for betraying her.

All the world blinked into a small cone of vision. Mostly, she just noticed the threads of the carpet, how they formed waves and crashed against the walls and back against each other. Then, the clam-shell plastic toe of his shoes, the lazy shuffle he used to move about the world. Then, the blank walls of the bedroom, pulsing red and black with her vision.

He had been speaking, though she had bad reception, so it came in fragments: "Honestly I just come here by myself ... This town is too small ... I thought Kat was cool ... Do you like music? ... I still have to ride my bike everywhere ... Anyways, I bought this from my buddy ... thirty freaking dollars ... "

Suddenly, the reeking glass pipe presented itself beneath her face. James offered a light, the lighter's tongue lapped at the mossy powder in the small bowl. Jamie shook her head, and crawled back against the wall. "Suit yourself." A great gurgling filled her ears, as if it came from within her own head, and blocked the sound of her own breathing. It seemed to go on for longer than Jamie thought someone could breathe. A tidy full bed was backed to the wall. Smalled piles of books lined each side, one cracked open on its face lay aside the pillow. The spine had peeled flakes off onto the sheets.

talk about shuttle buses, the kind owned by hotel chains, interview that have water damage and are slightly moldy. Maybe she learns to catch a bus to town. the boyfriend of mom is not a boyfriend, it's actually a woman. A retiring stewardess. The stewardess struggled to make friends during her time in the air, and is now paying Jamie's mom for a friendship with the intention of remaining friends once she fully retires. Right now, she is only a stewardess for local flights between Seattle and PDX. She's acting more like an escort w/out sexual trappings.

Each day after the offer by DB is going to be very hot, dry heat. Gotta dry out the forest. Sticks become brittle, leaves brown slightly.

There are two sets of twins in this story. Kat and Kitty. I don't know what their twinning is. I think it's the one who embraces her new life but struggles to succeed (Kat) and the one who wishes for the old life but fears the consequences (Kitty). Kat remembers their parents, Kitty doesn't. Kat remembers living inside with them, she remembers comfort. The other set is Jamie and James. Jamie is pulling into an in-group, James is being pushed out. On the fourth day, they are alone together (I think Jamie, fleeing Mal and the girls, posts up in an abandoned home along the highway cost), and is found by James trying to do the same thing. They commiserate, and then James tries to rape Jamie, who is initially interested before becoming frightened and fleeing. Jamie sets the fire off, throwing flames at James. the thing she throws is the lost scarf.

Okay so thinking ahead for what the third day looks like. Jamie goes to spend the day with Kitty again. The old lady is home and takes care of them. Kat cooks the soup. After they eat it, Kitty takes Jamie to see the place that her and Kat lived and she learns more about the two of them. Jamie also overhears Kat telling more details about Jamie’s story to the old lady, who, increasingly grows concerned about Jamie and moves to offer her a bed in her home. I don’t think this woman would call CPS, but she is maybe a little invasive and also has a good bead on homelessness. She goes to have a sit down with Jamie the next time she catches her, which is actually outside the home. There will be a parallel. They meet at Norma’s, and the flow of their conversation will be akin to Mal’s with the bartender. Maybe not. I'm thinking that Jamie spends the night at the girls' house. She leaves a message at the motel that doesn't get passed to Mal. Mal tracks her down, and lays into the old lady.

oh fuck yea. Ok so the ending brings together a couple things. DB cooper dies in a fire in the factory as well, which begins to burn most of the factory. THe fire is started by the spurned Kat boy tossing something in her direction. The fire maybe/maybe not injures Jamie, who can't seek medical attention. the wild girl's mom sees this injury and would call cps/the cops, so Mal and Jamie have to hit the road again. Mal is hesitant about DB's offer, but is leaning towards taking it before the accident and having to flee. Maybe the fire thing is hackneyed, so keep thinking. NO! I think the teens have a fire too close to the warehouse, it spreads. DB is there at night to return his unused taffies. Jamie's at the party when the fire spreads, brought by Kat. Mal is at the restaurant celebrating with the hostess.

Jamie characterization in short: she's sassy but kind. Accustomed to being alone, but can work a crowd. She is heroic and brave, but she is very tired of putting on a brave face. She is young but she is ready to settle down.

no way the boy is in the woods when Kat and Kitty go to show Jamie where they would live. No it's true, that's no way. I like it better undisturbed.

Need to add in details about the candy man's van. Want it to be identifiable to Jamie, so she could pluck out him driving around town.