Lake Silence

CHAPTER 55

Vicki

Windsday, Sumor 5

“Tell me again,” Ineke said when we took a milk-and-cookie break from unpacking my things and arranging them around the cabin.

“The terra indigene that Ilya assigned to clear out the main house and cabins took everything that hadn’t been in The Jumble when I arrived. They even took the light bulbs.”

Ineke’s eyes gleamed behind her black-framed glasses; she looked like a child being told the Best Story Ever. “That is so amazing.”

“I know! I couldn’t believe it when they carted in the boxes of bulbs.”

“No, not that.” Ineke waved a hand dismissively. “Your attorney is literally a bloodsucker, so I expected him to wring everything he could out of your idiot ex. What’s amazing is that you kept the receipts for light bulbs to prove you bought them.”

I blinked. That wasn’t quite the reaction I’d expected. “I thought I was supposed to keep the receipts for everything.”

The attorney who represented me during the divorce made a passing remark about me keeping receipts since I would be running a business, and I’d been so afraid of not keeping something that would have a serious impact on my depleted savings when I had to send in my tax forms that I had saved everything, all neatly labeled in file folders.

Ineke leaned forward. “You kept receipts for everything? Even the paper products?”

“Well, you’re the one who told me I should do that because I would need to buy in bulk. And things like paper towels and toilet paper aren’t cheap anymore.”

“The Others took those too? Even the partially used rolls of toilet paper?”

I looked at the box marked paypurr and wondered if all the rolls of TP had been riddled by Cougar’s claws. “If I had a receipt for it, they took it.”

Ineke laughed so hard she almost fell out of the chair. When she regained control of herself, she took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. “Want to bet on which woman is the first to sit down and make that discovery? Or how long it will take them to stop arguing about it so that someone makes an emergency run to Pops’s general store or the grocery store in Bristol?”

“No bets.” Personally I was hoping it would be the second Mrs. Dane who made that discovery.

“Spoilsport.” Ineke took her milk glass and dish to the sink. “In that case, let’s get the curtains on the rest of the windows and the dry goods into the kitchen cupboards. You want me to help you with the books?”

I shook my head and went outside, distracted by the sound of . . . bells? Ineke followed me out and we watched the goats for a minute. Well, we watched the goats that were grazing on the grass between Julian’s cabin and mine, and the donkeys that were grazing between the cabins on the other side. There were even a couple of those chubby ponies grazing nearby.

“If the ponies aren’t really ponies, what do you think the goats and donkeys are supposed to be?” I asked.

“Organic lawn mowers?” Ineke replied. “They cut the grass and fertilize it at the same time.” She gave me a one-armed hug. “Let’s tackle the rest of the ‘need this done today’ items. Then I have to get back to the boardinghouse, and you should sit outside with a book and catch your breath.”

Catch my breath. Get my blood pressure out of the red zone. I liked that plan.

Besides, tomorrow was soon enough to start thinking about what I was supposed to do with my life. Again.