Free The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh Page A

her a plate of pancakes.
    â€œWhat the hell?” Bess laughed. I’d made the pancakes into shapes, like Birdie used to do when she watched me on the weekends. Birdie never made anything cutesy like a rabbit or a snowman; her pancake shapes were practical at best. A cross. A shovel.
    â€œThey’re baby possums,” I said, pointing with the spatula.
    â€œAre those chocolate-chip eyes? That’s just creepy.” Bess flooded her plate with syrup. “So when should I pick you up Friday night?”
    I sat down at the table to eat with her. “I dunno. I’ll call you after my dad gets back.” I’d forgotten about the party. I knew Dad would let me spend the night with Bess—unaware of our plan to sneak down to the river—but it was hardly worth the risk of getting caught, since I doubted that there would be anyone at the party I cared to see besides Bess.

Chapter 6
    Lila
    Carl started coming to the restaurant earlier in the evening and sticking around until closing. Sometimes Crete showed up to eat with him, but usually he was alone, and every time I came by to refill his tea, he’d try to start a conversation. He gave up pretty quickly on asking personal questions when I repeated the same vague answers, and instead he started telling me about everybody who came in. Darrell, the crippled guy with the comb-over, supposedly was left as a baby on the steps of the old rooming house and taken in by the owner, but everyone knew he was really the owner’s illegitimate son. Jacob Deary, the redhead with the pockmarked skin, had been caught screwing his neighbor’s horse. Apparently, no one in Henbane could keep a secret. Their dirty laundry flapped around out in the open for all to see.
    It was nice to have one familiar face at the counter every night, especially since the rest of the customers continued to whisper and stare. One guy started muttering prayers whenever I came near him. There were a couple of greasy-haired ladies who didn’t want me touching their trays, and Gabby had to serve them. She apologized like crazy, but there was nothing she could do about it. I considered spitting in their burgers, but every time I had a thought like that, I reminded myself that I couldn’t afford to get fired. I had nowhere else to go.
    Crete arranged for Carl to drive me home when he couldn’t do it himself. “Seems like you’re working a lot of hours,” Carl said one evening as we pulled up to the garage. “Days at the farm, nights at Dane’s? You getting along all right?”
    â€œIt’ll even out,” I said. Crete had promised the winter was slow as molasses and I’d have more time off, but I didn’t really mind working. I had nothing else to do, and it kept me too busy to think about other things. I slept so hard I didn’t remember my dreams, and I liked it that way.
    â€œI’ve noticed some folks at the restaurant not treating you right,” he said.
    â€œThey’re not quite as friendly as I expected small-town people to be.”
    â€œIt just takes folks around here a while to warm up to strangers,” he said. “Don’t let it get to you.”
    â€œIt didn’t take you long,” I said.
    He glanced at me sideways and looked away. “You never felt like a stranger to me.”
    Ransome treated me well enough, though she didn’t seem to have any interest in getting to know me better. She never asked any questions about my past, and that was fine by me. Crete came out to see us in the field some mornings before work, and Ransome always had a worried look when he showed up. I got the feeling he wasn’t normally so hands-on at the farm, at least not before I started working there. He took pains to make sure I was getting settled in. He stocked my fridge one night while I was at Dane’s, and set up a little oscillating fan. He hadn’t come through with the air conditioner he’d