A warm arm stretched around my waist, tugging me back into bed. I brushed my fingers through Quoth’s hair as it fanned across the sheets. He lifted his face to mine and met my lips with a languid kiss. I sank back into the bed, forgetting what it was that had startled me in the first place as Quoth’s fingers drew patterns across my skin.
SMASH.
That sounds like glass shattering…
Sighing, I threw the covers aside. Quoth transformed into his bird form and hopped onto my shoulder as I pulled on my dressing gown, shoved my feet into my fluffy skull slippers, and padded downstairs. As I neared the bottom, I discovered the cause of all the chaos.
Heathcliff stood on a rickety ladder, his arms loaded with tiny taxidermy. At his feet were scattered picture frames and other oddities we used to decorate the shop. He held up a hand when he saw me.
“Don’t come any closer. I knocked over the sodding lamp. There’s glass everywhere.”
I flicked on the lamp I’d positioned at the bottom of the stairs, and noticed shards of glass glittering on the rug. “It’s okay. In a few months, I won’t even need it. What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m Helen-proofing the shop.” Heathcliff jumped down from the ladder and grabbed an armload of stuff. “Anything she could sell, decorate, or that could spark one of her dangerous ideas is going into the storage room.”
“That’s not necessary. She’s hardly going to touch our taxidermy…”
Heathcliff looked at me like I’d gone mad. “If you recall, last time she was here she brought sequins to ‘bling them up’.”
“Right. Silly me. Of course, it’s necessary. You should remove all the books from the Business section, too.”
“Already done.” Heathcliff pointed to the empty shelves at the end of the hallway. “I thought I’d tackle the occult and self-help sections next.”
“Give me a minute to make our booking with Wild Oats and then I’ll help.”
Heathcliff came back to pick up the rug and shake the glass into the bin. I sat down under the window, pulling open the thick drapes to let in the natural light. The sun streaming in gave me visibility over a good third of the room, but even so, my temples throbbed from the strain of squinting at my phone screen as I searched for the Wild Oats website.
You’re supposed to be using the voice software.
My ophthalmologist Dr. Clements said this adjustment phase would be hard because I still had some sight and I’d fall back on it out of habit, even when it was a strain. “Sometimes, people find it’s easier to wait until they’re completely blind before they consider learning braille or adaptive technology. You’ll always be trying to use your limited vision, and it may make you more frustrated.”
Frustration be damned. I need to learn this stuff. It’s the only way I can stop myself from going crazy.
I turned on the screen reader and navigated to the Wild Oats website. According to their homepage, the Wild Oats Wilderness Survival School offered a range of different courses throughout the year. The next course was scheduled over the weekend and focused on foraging for edible foods. It involved an overnight stay.That will do nicely. We’ll investigate the center, then sneak off to see Morrie when everyone’s asleep.
“Hey, Heathcliff,” I yelled out. “How do you feel about learning how to forage for food?”
“Indifferent,” he yelled back. “Hurry up and make the booking. Your mother will be here any minute and we’ve still got to put OUT OF ORDER signs on all the bathrooms. The last thing I want is to come home to find she’s turned our loo into a turtle-breeding facility.”
Urgh, I never should have told him about when I was seven and Mum tried breeding turtles in our bathtub to sell around the estate as pets, and ended up flooding the flat beneath ours.
I pressed the phone to my ear. A gravelly male voice picked up on the second ring. He introduced himself as Sam and seemed overjoyed to hear from me. I imagined Sam as a grizzled old hippie with a long beard, and then immediately felt guilty for stereotyping him.
“Sure, we can accept three more intrepid foragers on the weekend course. Would you like to pay by credit card now or—”
“There’s just one thing…” I paused, collecting myself. “I’m actually going blind. I have a rare condition called retinitis pigmentosa, and most of my peripheral vision is gone. I also find it hard to see in darkness. Do you think I can still take the course?”
I held my breath, surprised by just how much I wanted him to agree I could come, and preparing to fight if he said no. I knew that part of my future meant being locked out of things other people took for granted, but I wasn’t going to take that lying down.
“I’ve never been asked that before.” I imagined Sam stroking his long, hippie beard. “I don’t see any problem. You may not be able to see everything, but so much of foraging is about feel and scent, I think you could even have an advantage. As long as your tastebuds work, I think you’ll enjoy the experience.”
“Thanks, Sam.” I glanced down at the photograph on the website, where a smiling instructor held up some kind of wriggling grub, and wondered what exactly we’d got ourselves into. “We’re looking forward to it.”
“Me, too, Mina,” Sam laughed. “I’m excited to meet you. Having a blind student is new for me, but I can’t wait to introduce you to the joys of cooking from the forest floor. It’s going to be an interesting weekend for us all.”
Yes, but probably not for the reasons you think.I wasn’t sure how to take this Sam character, but I appreciated his enthusiasm. I already found myself hoping he wasn’t Kate’s murderer.
I hung up the phone and made a second call, this time to Dave Danvers, whose details I’d hunted down last night. I was quite proud that I’d managed to find him without Morrie’s help. The newspapers said Kate Danvers lived in Crookshollow, and that her husband was a plumber. It only took a quick search online to find Danvers Plumbing with a phone number. From there, I found Dave Danvers’ Facebook page, got a sense of who he was and his unusual hobbies, and formulated a plan.
