CHUPACABRA

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Cultivator

After the initial awkwardness wears off, Forty discovers living with Naila is exactly what she's always wanted. Out of all the people she's met, Naila is the most human. She has the little quirks Forty used to be able to discern from the monitors, but she's always emotionally available. Forty used to think that Jane was the closest thing she had to a mother, but Naila blows that belief out of the water. She's all Forty could ask for and more.

There's a little garden out back where Naila grows a variety of vegetables. Large heirloom tomatoes crawl up trellises fashioned from old chicken wire and painted wooden stakes. Zucchini, yellow squash, and potatoes seem to be a particular favorite, cropping up in different varieties in the garden. Since it's fall, nearly ripe pumpkins populate a far off corner at the edge of the garden. Naila grows lettuce heads, cabbage, onions, garlic, and strawberries. She hangs mint, parsley, and basil out on old clotheslines to dry out, crushes up dead flowers to make potpourri for the house. Forty is mesmerized by all the life in the garden, and it becomes her designated chore to tend to it.

Naila discovers Forty can read a few days into their stay. She immediately piles every book regarding plants into the girl's arms. Forty learns words like propagation, tilling, germination, pollination. She thinks about bees and flowers, and she memorizes the scientific names of her favorite plants. Naila tells her that out of fall and winter she has a natural garden beyond the trees. It's a hilly paddock, one that she never bothered to expand into, and it erupts in wildflowers during the spring. Forty can't wait to see it.

Thirty-Seven struggles to keep busy. Mainly he devotes his time to haunting Forty during her work in the garden. He dutifully listens to her prattle off about weeding and agrees wholeheartedly with her rants about aphids. She knows he isn't as happy as he was with Cade's group, but she appreciates his desire to get to know the place before he judges it.

About a week in, Naila makes a breakthrough with Thirty-Seven. She catches his record out on the bed when she comes to bring fresh sheets down, and promptly fishes out her old record player from a pile of clutter. She spends most of that day telling Thirty-Seven about the band members, explaining the stories behind each song. She admits she's not that into rock music, but that Joseph Zapata of all people was and that's how she knows so much about it. Thirty-Seven grumbles about this relentlessly.

There's times Naila gets annoyed by the pair. After living alone for so long, she finds it hard to put up with their complete lack of civility. Forty rummages through things like a nosy raccoon, and Thirty-Seven shreds anything he doesn't understand. Naila takes it all in stride, though, correcting the behavior like she would for a particularly large pair of murderous dogs. She has to reluctantly admit that they are painfully endearing, and some long dormant part of herself enjoys their company.

Forty still avoids bringing up the car crash. She thinks that if she hasn't heard about it yet, then surely the problem is behind her. That was how it worked in the compound. If she messed up but not enough to where it merited correction, the problem was simply left in liminal space. Perhaps that is how humans work on the outside too, Forty hopes.

Naila makes infrequent trips into town, which is about twenty miles from the cabin. She says she has a car stowed somewhere near the road, which is about ten miles away, and she refuses to bring Forty on these outings. "You'll be made so fast," she tuts, pointing at Forty's blank face. "And you! You just look like you want to eat people!" She gestures at Thirty-Seven's everything.

In the early days, Forty keeps a close eye on Thirty-Seven in case he does start to show signs of wanting to eat Naila. The woman herself seems totally unafraid of this prospect, even when Forty casually mentions it to her. "I'd like to see him try," she laughs. Forty has the inkling feeling that she's not bluffing.