Free Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 by Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant Page A

back porch, Carla noticed a black-dot alphabet of crusty watermelon seeds. At the far edge of the property, toward the woods line, the remnants of a deluxe-sized dog pen.
    For rabbit dogs, “huntin’ hounds,” Susie Johnson explained. “But it'll pen any breed."
    Carla's and Roger's hmm's coincided. They didn't own a dog.
    In the vicinity of a weeping willow, Carla was seized with the desire to plop down on rangy crabgrass, cloud gaze, pluck at dandelions.
    Odd.
    Also, equally, true.
    Back in the Wagoneer, Susie Johnson failed to ask for their phone number but handed each her business card. The heirs stuck with the dog-pen/watermelon-seed house would probably accept a lowball bid, she intimated. Probably she never expected to hear from the Virginians again, but did, the very next day, when Carla and Roger faxed over an offer that, once accepted, doubled their work commute.
    After the closing, they put in for instant vacations, then spent two weeks slaving like members of a road gang under armed guard, scrubbing, stripping, chopping, hauling, dead to the world, the house and each other by nine every night. Neither could remember what both had assumed they'd never forget: the 24-hour thrumming of the mini-mart's ice machine. In their fixer, they made all the noise.
    Technically, Roger still had a day left of vacation when his boss called. It wasn't a problem only Roger could fix, but his boss preferred he fix it. If you were a military brat who'd somehow managed to escape the allure of racetracks, tattoo parlors, and online ordering, employers tended to rely on your mediation skills. It was an oft-proven fact.
    "Better safe than sorry,” Roger's boss said.
    Roger said: “If we ate nothing but hot dogs, starting now..."
    But they couldn't afford to retire anytime soon, even if they ate pebbles. Roger kidded occasionally, dreamed perpetually.
    As it happened, she wasn't sorry to spend a day in the house alone. It gave her a chance to putter, peek and pry at her own pace, disdaining the project list taped to the refrigerator door.
    Every closet still smelled of mice and mothballs—they hadn't gotten around to simpler cleaning chores. None of the windows in the guest bedroom would open, jammed by paint that had dripped and dried. She could have scraped at windowsills, sponged the grime off wallpaper in the hallway and guest bedroom, most of those paper bouquets sun-bleached to vanishing point. Instead, she ventured into the attic. She'd only been there once before, trailing the realtor and her fire hazard cigarette up the fold-down ladder.
    "Big enough for a skating rink,” Susie Johnson had whooped, but neither Carla nor Roger joined in the rave. They didn't need the extra space for storage, for anything. The downstairs square footage was triple what they'd been used to, gobs more than they could fill.
    There was no compelling reason to visit the attic again, so why did she?
    Afterwards she couldn't remember.
    Dirt dauber nests, rusty coat hangers, filmy canning jars. Arachnids the size of cockroaches. Along the center pitch, she could almost stand without crouching, but when she sneezed, rebounding, she bopped her head.
    The green caught her eye—a smidgen between pink insulation.
    Why had she so readily stuck her hand into the hole?
    Afterwards, she couldn't remember.
    The first hat was straw, pale green with a yellow band, dusty but hardly the worse for wear, the last two black with elaborate veils. Nine in all.
    An odd thing: to wall up hats. But so what? (Mental shrug). Life squirmed with oddities.
    She was sitting on her heels in a circle of hats, not touching any of them when a dog, singular, began to howl. She cupped her ears, the better to listen and distinguish between the first howling dog and the pack that now seemed to be throwing themselves against a jangly fence. When she raised up on her knees to check further on the commotion, she slid a bit and caught a splinter. Picking it out of her knee, she tuned in