Then, he launched himself onto the couch as if the floor had suddenly turned to lava.
“Get away from them!” he yelled at me. “They could have—I don’t know—diseases! Plague! They could have the plague!”
“I don’t think mice in Virginia carry the plague.”
“You don’t know that! Are you a mouse scientist? Are you a plague doctor?”
“I’m fairly certain plague doctors aren’t—” I broke off as I noticed a movement in my peripheral vision. Purrsephone was sitting in the hallway, watching us with an expression of profound pride. Her tail swished slowly back and forth.
“You,” I said to the cat. “You did this.”
She meowed. The sound was unmistakably smug.
“She’s laughing at us,” Samuel said from his perch on the couch cushions. “That demon cat is actively laughing at our misfortune.”
“She probably thinks she’s being helpful. Cats bring prey to show affection.”
“Then I am feeling extremely ungrateful right now!” Samuel pulled his feet up even higher, like the mice might somehow reanimate and climb the furniture. “Please tell me you’re going to deal with this. Please tell me you have some hidden mouse-disposal expertise I don’t know about.”
I looked at the mouse I’d stepped on, still slightly adhered to the bottom of my boot.
“I grew up in Connecticut,” I said weakly. “We had a cleaning service.”
“So that’s a no on the mouse-disposal expertise.”
“That’s a definitive no.”
We stared at each other—Samuel crouched on the couch like a very fashionable gargoyle, me standing frozen by the door with mouse residue on my shoe. The romantic momentum of three minutes ago had been thoroughly, comprehensively murdered.
By mice. Dead ones.
“This is not how I imagined this going,” Samuel said.
“You imagined this?”
“I imagined this going in several extremely explicit ways, none of which involved rodent carcasses.”
Despite everything—the mice, the absurdity, the fact that I was still standing in a doorway like an idiot—I laughed. It burst out of me, surprising us both, and then Samuel was laughing too, helpless, slightly hysterical laughter that happens when reality becomes too ridiculous to process.
“Okay,” I said, once I’d caught my breath. “Okay. We’re going to handle this like adults.”
“Adults who are clearly not equipped to handle this.”
“Adults who are going to figure it out, anyway.” I spotted a box of tissues on the coffee table and grabbed a generous handful. “Do you have a plastic bag? Something we can put them in?”
“Under the kitchen sink. But you have to go get it because I’m not getting off this couch.”
“Noted.”
I retrieved the plastic bag, trying not to look too closely at the kitchen mouse as I passed it. Armed with tissues and disposal apparatus, I approached the first body.
“Wait,” Samuel called from the couch. “Are you seriously going to pick it up with your bare hands?”
“I have tissues.”
“That’s not—that’s like—do you not have any concern for your personal safety?”
“I thought we established that Virginia mice don’t carry the plague.”
