“Yes, my charming sea witch?”
“Where might I find vintage dental devices?”
9
Finn
“What the hell is that?” Henry’s voice was tight and horrified, making Finn turn to find him looking at the jar that now sat proudly in the center of his island.
“Exactly what it looks like,” Finn said, exhaling hard.
“Those are teeth. You have a jar of teeth on your counter.”
“Indeed, I do. Fangs too. She’s an equal opportunity collector.”
“This is Iris’s doing?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t discover some new obsession with teeth all of a sudden.” He wasn’t even going to bring up the torture device that was sitting next to their toothbrushes in the bathroom, which had been used to keep mouths open in early dentistry.
“But why?”
“Good question. If you ask her, can you also try to figure out why she’s taken up entomology too?”
“Entomology?”
“She collects dead bugs and pins them to a board. I suspect she only got into it because I told her I didn’t think there was anywhere nearby that taught taxidermy classes.”
“When did this all happen?” Henry asked.
“Seems like she got a whole life going while we were out of town for that golf tournament.” He wasn’t sure if he was freaked out, intrigued, or completely charmed by it, to be honest. On the one hand, he loved how she was settling in and finding hobbies and interests. On the other, he did kind of wish her interests weren’t so unsettling.
It had only been two and a half days. But that was long enough for Iris to really spread out.
And Finn wanted her to feel comfortable, to start to think of his apartment as her home as well. To that end, he found himself charmed by the piles of books all around, her coral comb that was always left somewhere random after one of her many daily hair brushings, and her random kicked-off clothes on the bedroom or bathroom floor.
Those things were familiar and domestic.
The teeth and bugs, though, that was just as creepy as an undead subway rat making eye contact.
To be completely honest, he had purposely not done the research on the taxidermy thing. He wasn’t sure he could stomach coming home to find a bunch of stiff, dead animals scattered all around his home, staring at him with unnerving glass eyes.
“I thought mermaids were supposed to collect shiny things,” Henry said.
“Whatever you do, don’t say that to her.”
“Why not?”
“Because I made that mistake right when I got homeand saw them. She told me I was being speciesist and ran to the bathroom and cried. Loudly. For hours.”
It was strange how fragile she seemed to be. This woman in his apartment, integrated in his life, barely resembled the fiery-eyed woman who’d dumped a drink on his head when he’d come off as a bit of a jerk at their first meeting.
“Well, could you lightlyencourageless morbid hobbies?”
“I barely know the woman, Henry. I can’t start dictating what she does for fun.”
“Well, maybe you need to get to know her more. Take her to an art class. Or pickleball. Anything but this,” he said, shaking the jar of teeth. “You have no engagements until tomorrow afternoon. See what you can do with that time.”
With that, Henry was off.
