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Tucked away safely in the bottom is a necklace I haven’t worn in a while. I brush my thumb over the indents of the planchette, fighting a sad smile at the memory that comes with it. One of a black-haired boy who believed Valentine’s Day existed purely to ruin his aesthetic yet still ended up thrusting a box into my hands with trembling fingers. It was sweet, the way his confidence fled him in that moment.

“I got this for you. Because you’re cute and spooky and I thought you could use some luck with your finals coming up.”

My good luck charm.

One that I just might need tomorrow.

Chapter Three

Sunday

“Would you care to explain what happened?” Antonio, Lara’s father, sits across from me, his voice firm and unwavering.

I continue to stare at my tattooed hands as my boss berates me in an emergency one-on-one. The muscles in my jaw jump, teeth clenching as my eyes trace the pattern of my blackout tattoos on my right hand and both arms.

I know I fucked up. But the thing is, an educator isn’t technically my role. I’m not a people person, much less a kid person. I’m still trying to be a good person, though, and I wasn’t about to leave Lara high and dry.

So, I took the tiny, annoying people on tour. The tiny people with grabby hands, who kept grabbing shit I’d told them repeatedly not to touch, including me. I know my tattoos are unique and I’m a walking piece of art and all that, but fuck, do not touch me without permission, please.

I press a knuckle into my lip as I chew over how to answer the question. There’s no good way to spin this—I really did tell a kid to fuck off. Can I blame it on the lack of coffee? That’s a reasonable excuse, right?

“Look, Sunday⁠—”

“Sunny.” I shouldn’t bite, but it slips past my gritted teeth anyway. I dislike being called Sunday. Other than my parents, there’s only ever been one person I tolerated calling me Sunday.

Not that it matters; I’m probably about to lose my job anyway. My thumb works its way into my mouth, teeth worrying at the skin.

“Sunny. I understand that you don’t do well with sudden changes in routine⁠—”

Oh, so it’s a personal attack now. Charming. Maybe I don’t want this job after all.

“—and I appreciate that you were just trying to help by stepping in, but you must consider this a verbal warning. If something like this happens again, you will face a disciplinary meeting.” He pauses, as if he expects me to say something, pressing on when he realizes I’m just going to continue my self-cannibalism. “We need you on the team. You saw what the standard of work was like before you got here.”

“Nightmare fuel,” I half grumble, half laugh.

Antonio offers me a tight smile. He knows I’m right, though. This place could have been a museum for bad taxidermy on its own. It was meme-worthy until I arrived and fixed what was salvageable and procured some more specimens to replace the ones that looked like roadkill on popsicle sticks. I’m good with my hands, so I help with building maintenance too.

“There’s a new educator starting this afternoon to replace Melody, so you shouldn’t have to do it again. Keep your head down, and for the love of God, please stay away from the classrooms if you can’t keep your mouth clean.”

My ass is out of the chair and through the door as soon as I’m dismissed. I physically have to shake my limbs to get rid of the unpleasant feeling of being chewed out.

I’ve always hated criticism, but it’s become worse as I’ve gotten older. I’d hazard a guess that it started happening somewhere between the crap show that was my late teens and getting yelled at by my dad for getting a Class C misdemeanor the year after I graduated. I’ve since pulled my head out of my ass, kicked most of the bad habits, and started trying to be better. But to my pea brain, any time I don’t get it right, I start hating myself immediately. Critical hit, critical failure. Waste of space, loser, piece of shit Sunny.

Fuck.

I need coffee.

Or sugar.

Or a good fuck.

Or all of the above, in no particular order.

I swing by the staff room in the west wing, which is also where my workshop is and where the new exhibit will be. There are a few people milling around, including Lara, who is practically vibrating out of her skin with excitement over having a new person to yap with today. Once I’ve secured my watery instant coffee, I head back to my workshop and pull out the supplies I need to start the day.

The taxidermy process has several stages and takes anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, so I usually have multiple projects going at once. Currently, I have some skins preserving in borax that I started at the beginning of the week, so they should be almost ready to play with. I check on the dermestarium to see how my little beetle friends are doing, pleased to see that they’ve nearly cleaned off the ram skull I put in there a couple weeks ago.

Setting a rabbit skin on my workbench, I make a mental note to call the bug people and see if they have any cool specimens coming in soon. I find working on insects a little fiddly and irritating, but bitches love bugs in bell jars. It’s easy to lose myself in my work, time becoming a construct as I put scalpel to skin, working with needle and thread and chemicals that make my nose twitch. I’ve always loved it, loved the process of marrying death to some semblance of life, the morbid creativity of it. More than anything, I love the way it empties my mind so all that exists is sinew and tissue.