Page 16 of Little Etheldreda Riding Hood

Chapter Seven

In Which The Choracle Makes Its Appearance

Darla’s sitting at the kitchen table when I finally decide I’ve done enough lounging. Her house is as impeccably neat as it was when I was growing up. There’s no clutter or dust or mess anywhere, which is astounding with all of the animals around.

“Hungry?” she asks, looking up. Her nightgown, like everything else she wears, brushes the ground and several of the joeys are attached to the hem. Spread in front of her on the table are several seed catalogs opened at various places. She’s got a notepad with a list of plants already halfway down the page. I shake my head, flop into the nearest empty chair, and pick up a catalog.

“What do you like to grow?”

“Flowers and herbs…things that smell good, mostly. But I think I’d like to do more vegetables this year. Cucumbers, maybe…I want spicy pickles.”

“That sounds amazing,” I murmur, flipping through the catalog.

“We’ll have to see. It’s hard for me to get down on the ground. Most of the time, I stick with flowers and herbs that do well in pots.”

“Well, you have me now. I can totally make you some tall planters if you want to do vegetables. I used to build them for my grandmother when she was still alive.”

She looks up at me over the catalog. “I don’t want to put you out.”

I shrug. “It won’t. I just applied to start college classes in the city, but I’m still going to have a lot of time on my hands until I can find a second job.”

Darla raises an eyebrow. “Have you ever gone to college? I think you’ll find it a lot more time-consuming than you realize.”

I open my mouth to respond when my phone buzzes with a notification. I take it out of my pocket and swipe down on the screen to see the message. It’s from an app I forgot I even have. The words on the screen make my stomach drop. My heart rate picks up, and I can hear the blood pounding in my ears.

Morgan: Hey, it’s me. I heard you moved. I just want…

“Son of a bitch...” I stare at the screen, not wanting to click on it, and let him know I’ve seen it. I thought I’d been so thorough in scraping him from my online life.

“You okay?” Darla asks.

I sigh and lift my gaze from the phone to look at her. “My ex…I thought I had blocked him on everything.”

I hand her the phone. She clicks on the screen and reads aloud. “Hey, it’s me. I heard you moved. I just wanted to say I miss you, and I hope you’re doing well in the new place.” She makes a face at the phone. “Fuck off, dude. What was his name?”

“Morgan.”

“You’re not going to respond, are you?”

I shake my head. “No. No good can come out of responding to that.”

She nods. “Hold strong to that. A person’s character rarely changes. Once a cheater, always a cheater.”

I know she’s not wrong. It won’t be hard though. This is the first time in six months that I’ve heard from him. He’s probably just bored or nosey. I delete the message and am about to delete the app when several loud knocks sound at the door.

“Do you have shoes on? It’s probably the pigs wanting into the backyard.”

“The pigs? You have pigs, too?”

She shakes her head. “No. Remember the ones I told you about?”

“The ones that live at the mine down the road?”

She nods and pushes up from the table. “They just come to visit every now and again.” Darla starts organizing her catalogs into piles. “Can you let them into the backyard while I change?”

“Sure.”

I head to the front door and peek through the peephole before opening it. The three pigs I’ve seen wandering around are standing on the porch staring up at the door. They step back politely and make room for me as I open the storm door.

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