#clue.closed

“Dung delivery!” He yells familiarly from the open window of his truck, honking his horn in greeting as he pulls up to her property. The bed is full of industrial sized sacks of sheep shit, home grown fertilizer, which he always has the pleasure of delivering to Ariel personally every few months when his comport bins turned over. He puts it in park when he gets in close enough enough, and get out. “Come on, green bean. Where’s your wheelbarrow? I have hungry sheep to feed, let’s unload this stuff.” 

“Oh come on!” Lisette exclaimed from where she sat atop her desk, legs flailing under the opening of her desk as if she’d just taken a copious amount of drugs. “We have to go,” she pleaded. Spending the whole night watching documentaries about cold cases with a recurring theme of forests, she noticed a pattern. Tiny, missing pieces of evidence. A broken nail, bodily liquids, hair strands that seemed to blend in with the color schemes of the earth. “This is Mistpitch, for Christ’s sake. I personally think we’d be missing a grand opportunity to get ahead of things. Hell, we could even maybe break national news if we found something,” Lisette murmured, attention flying around as she searched for her keys. Where were they…? “Just one hour,” she pouted, lip jutting out. “Then I can buy you and Noah all the food y’all want.” Granted it was nearly dinnertime, she was to clock out from the paper and more than likely, binge on more docuseries that she did not need to be watching, but perhaps, this would be a nice diversion.

“There was a call about bears this morning,” she says casually. Marble barely lifts her head from under Perion’s chair, but her tail wags when she sees Forrest. “The Caller wanted to make sure we knew that they were around north trail, but that no one was actually in any danger.” She sips at her travel mug of tea and glances back at the wall of cameras she’s watching, the channels changing between human and animal feeds. “Should we consider putting up signs to inform hikers? Better safe than sorry.”

“Hey!” she shouts, though not unkindly, she’s trying to get the girl’s attention. “If you don’t have a whole bunch of bells on your bag  and bear mace you’d better not take the north trail this week. Rangers said we’ve got bears.” It isn’t uncommon for hikers to pass the camp, to get to some hiking spots, but residents are allowed to access the starting points on camp property. She’d been shouting the same warning at everyone who came by who might look unequipped. The routes themselves aren’t very treacherous, but she wouldn’t want the any unfortunate wild life encounters if she can help it.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she says with a laugh when she gets out of her truck. His tire is blown, pretty badly, and she walks around to grab her kit from the back, letting Marble out of her crate. “Break!” Marble hops down, keeping pace with Perry as she walks the kit over to Nico. She puts it down on the gravel by the road and Marble sits. Taking a knee, Perion gets a preliminary look at the damaged tire.  “Ouch— did you hit something on the road?” 

Perion rubs her hair, off her face, offering Annabel a smile. Marble sits at Perion’s side, looking around the farmer’s market. She’s coming off a late shift but wanted to grab some items. The customer ahead of her heads off and she approaches the stand. “Morning Annabel, I’ll take that lavender honey and another nice comb please.” She hands over a woven reusable bag. “How’re the hives doing, better now that I got rid of the badgers?” 

He’d promised to call and so he is, hoping he can salvage the wedding he’d more or less been subjected to by Brooklyn’s parents. Family is more accurate. She doesn’t get along with them much and it shows, they want to make a show rather than listen to their wishes for a modest ceremony and party. So the line rings, and boy does he hope Ariel or Charlie can hook him up with a different but no less essential greenery.

“Are you okay?” she asks, heart kicking up just enough from the excitement that she forgot about both the cut on her jaw and shoulder, as well as the fact that she was wearing a tank top and showing more skin (and tattoos) than he’d probably ever seen on her for as long as they’ve known each other.