Page 19 of Justice & Liberty

While I was staring around my backyard, feeling as lost as I’d ever been in my life—where did a chicken live? What did it eat?—I heard a screen door slam, and looked up to see where the noise had come from.

The Millers’ house, unsurprisingly, and the older woman who had sent Ryan over to help me. I smiled tentatively at her, and she...well, she was headed straight for me. She was also smiling, so I didn’t get the immediate urge to run away and hide in my house.

Besides, she had sent Ryan to help me.

She couldn’t hate me, right?

She marched right up to the fence, then cocked her head as she watched me standing there with the chicken. “You okay honey? You’re looking a little lost out here. Thought I’d come see if I could help.”

I held up the chicken before me. “I don’t, um...” How the hell did I even say it? “I gave Mona Brighton some of Mom’s tea, and she gave me a chicken. I have no idea what the heck to do with a chicken.”

She nodded sagely, looking at the chicken, then finally holding her hands out over the fence, as though for me to hand it over. I gladly complied, giving the incredibly docile creature to her.

She looked it over a moment, then nodded. “Mona raises a fine bird. She always sells eggs at the farmers market on the weekends, and they’re good ones. This lady here is an adult, couldn’t say how old exactly.”

Then she . . . handed it—her—back.

“What do I do with it?”

The woman gave a giggle, but covered it up quickly. “Sorry, I just...your face.”

“No arguments here. If I look half as ridiculous as I feel, I’d be laughing too if I were you. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so confused in my life. Did people often pay Mom in livestock?”

“They did,” the woman agreed. She reached across and petted the chicken like it was a freaking cat. “Can’t say the animals ever stuck around here too long though. I guess I always figured your mother was sacrificing them and reading their entrails or some such.”

I clutched the chicken tighter against me until it made a slightly dissatisfied cluck, horrified at...wait, she knew. She knew that Mom was a...a witch. She had to, or why would she think anyone would do such horrible things to an innocent little chicken?

I loosened my grip and tried petting the chicken myself. It was...very fluffy.

“No,” I told the woman. “I don’t think Mom would have, and I definitely will not be sacrificing any chickens, not even for the purpose of knowing the future. Nope, nope, nope.”

She grinned at me, shaking her head. “Well if she’s getting on in years,” she said, motioning to the chicken. “Most people would say she’s for the stewpot anyway.”

I took half a step back, this time careful not to squeeze the chicken too hard. “Absolutely not. She...I don’t want to kill her, I just have no idea how not to. Like, what do chickens eat?”

“Anything they can find. Or layer feed from the supply store. Or vegetable scraps from the kitchen. Or all three.” She motioned up the hill toward her own home. “We let them forage in the spring and summer, but still give them chickenfeed. You can give them fresh fruits and vegetables, too. We always give them anything that’s not going to get eaten before it goes bad.”

They had what looked like a tiny barn near their house. The door on it was open, and while I watched, a chicken walked into it.

“You’ll also want a coop. It’s a good place for them to lay eggs, and someplace safe for them at night or when it rains. They can run expensive, though, if you’re not going to keep a lot of chickens.” She leaned on the fence, watching her own chickens wander the yard, pecking in the dirt and moving with their cute little chicken waddle. “Honestly, it’s a little expensive either way. I always laugh at those city folk who think they’re going to keep chickens to get cheap eggs.”

I wanted to ask her “then why do it?” but I doubted there was a good answer for that. Just like why she’d been okay with the notion of Mom killing a bunch of chickens to tell the future or whatever.

“She’ll probably be okay on the back porch for a bit,” she went on, motioning to the screened area on my porch. “But it’ll be a pain to clean. I can give you some of our chicken feed, but I recommend getting over to the supply store sometime soon if you’re planning on keeping her.”

I thanked her, and thanked her again when she brought me a can of chicken feed from her own supply and explained how much to give a single chicken every day, but I thought she didn’t understand the issue, not really.

It wasn’t that I was “planning on keeping” a chicken or chickens. I just had no freaking idea what else to do with them if they were given to me.

Finally, when she left me on my own—I was going to have to ask Ryan her name when I saw him again, because it felt weird to think of her as “Grandma Miller”—I took the chicken up onto the porch.

“Okay, we’re going to have to come to an understanding,” I told her, setting her down as I closed the screen door. I looked around and almost immediately, my eyes lit on an old newspaper sitting on a side table. I pulled it out and spread it, setting it in an empty spot next to the door. “I would appreciate it if you only poop there, for now. I’ll try to get you a chicken coop as soon as I can, but I...well, like I said to our nice neighbor, I have no idea how to take care of chickens. I’ll do my best if you do, though.”

As though she understood me, she immediately walked onto the newspaper when I stepped away from it, looking around at the floor beneath her feet for a moment. Then she shat on the prominent picture of a politician’s face right below the headline.

I grinned at her. “Good girl!” If that didn’t deserve a little food, I didn’t know what did. “I think I’m going to call you Laverne. How does that sound?”

She seemed unruffled either way, just wandering around the porch, looking at everything. It seemed safe enough to me, and I hoped she wouldn’t peck her way through the screen and leave, but well, what was I going to do if she did?

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