Sighing deeply through chapped and impatient lips, Tiff unlocks the garage door. Her keys jingle just as anxiously as she does.

She feels around for the lightswitch, trying not to think about what comes next. All that needs to be on her mind is the inside of her bag and the open road— and grabbing Kepler from wherever he ran off to, and avoiding her aunts, and leaving a goodbye note for Andy, and grabbing something to eat, and—

And calming the fuck down. Jesus Christ. Has she ever heard of taking a breath? Darius's laugh mixes with Bryce in her head; and something pangs in her chest as she realizes just how deeply she's fucked herself on that front as the garage door closes behind her, plunging her into the soft orange-yellow of the overhead bouncing off the curved door and settling dust. If anyone finds out about her being actual, literal friends with Bryce Baker, after everything he did, she's never going to hear the end of it.

It's best not to focus on that, she decides. It's better to just keep going. Remembering Denny's warnings and her aunt's disappointment all the same, she clips her keys to her belt loop again, takes her toolbox from the workbench, and keeps walking. Tools are probably a good idea. She isn't sure what she would use them for on a fake ghost hunt, but she's pretty sure that she'd have them in her car if this were really her car, right? Denny keeps tools in her trunk.

But, then, she supposes, Denny also keeps dog food in her trunk, and nobody knows what that's about. She's a werewolf, but she doesn't eat dog food.

Tiff stops in the middle of the garage, toolbox in hand, and grinds the heels of her hands into her forehead. "Jesus Christ," she mutters. Just fucking focus on one thing. Stop thinking about everything and, "Focus. Just pack. Just pack for Canada, you fucking idiot."

The new Cain household isn't exactly new or clean, and the state of the garage more than reflects the rest of it. She has a mattress in here, sure, but no sheets; her workbench is half-unpacked; her projects exist in and out of boxes; and all the camping equipment is shoved off to the side in tubs and little orange bags that might be tents— or might be bags of hammers masquerading as tents. Tiff isn't really sure. She hasn't had the time to unpack them yet. May came and went, June was packed with trying to get things in order for Bloodsaw, and July has been a whole lot of Bryce Baker and this bullshit.

She can afford herself some grace, she decides. They moved in at the tail end of May. She works two jobs and she's in school. She's...

She's a parboiled piece of broccoli, is what she is. Pre-cooked and cooled, but not quite done yet. Stir-fry her already. Unscatter her mind and throw her into the wok. Give her a real purpose so she's not just lost.

This isn't the Time Gnome's fault. She knows that. This is all Tiff Sheridan.

And she's off-track again. Fuck. Why's she looking at flashlights? She shoves one in her back pocket with a groan, figuring it's probably a good idea but having no real basis for the thought outside the fact that she always packs one anyway.

What do you pack for a trip out of the country? She doesn't know how to pack for something that isn't camping. It's hard to know what to do in general, honestly. Most of her life, she has felt like everyone else has a manual for being a person that she never received in the mail. Did her mother hide it from her? Did Peepaw replace it with the Bible? Did the Bible displace it entirely? That's a little uncharitable, she thinks; it had some good lessons, like do unto others, love thy neighbor, "in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves," and quit it with the weird fabrics (one that she appreciates, honestly),but where on earth were the lessons on how to be a person? All she ever got were lessons on etiquette. How to set a table and where to put your napkin when you're done eating does nothing for social situations like trying to figure out when it's your turn to talk, or trying to figure out what to pack for a trip out of the country, or what to expect at customs, or how to get your very-much-sentient rat to stop shitting on the floor of the comic shop you're probably going to have to start avoiding because the Andersons are moving near the end of the summer and you don't want to think about how you're going to miss Eddy, but you're not going to miss him as much as you should without a constant reminder of his absence.

She's overthinking it, she decides. She should probably just pack normal things, like clothes. People pack clothes. Maybe it'll be easier if she pretends to be someone else— a cooler Tiff, with zero problems and no neuroses— for the entirety of the trip. What would Cool Tiff pack?

Cool Tiff would pack socks. Cool Tiff wouldn't pack six extra pairs, but, if she did, she wouldn't give a shit about it. Cool Tiff would remember to get her EMF reader out from under the bed before she left.

There, she decides, taking batteries from the container on the metal shelves. It's that easy. Stop ruminating. You have shit to do.

She takes a tent bag (it's not full of hammers; it only has one in it) and puts it in the same hand as the toolbox before she enters the kitchen, switching off the light behind her.

The inside of the house isn't much better than the garage, as far as organization is concerned. The Cains try. They do. They're just messy and naturally-disorganized people. Unless somebody's really on a cleaning kick or somebody's coming over, it's not going to look nice. Presentable, sure. Okay, absolutely. Magazine-worthy? Absolutely not. A month after they moved in, the tables and counters are already covered in what looks like a year's worth of debris, the pictures on the walls are a little askew, and the baskets along the walls are full of items-to-be-put-away-soon. To Tiff and everyone else living here, it means that this is home, home is a farmhouse on the edge of town, and the edge of town is a place of pines and run-down roads.

In every sense of the thought, she prefers it to a townhouse she had to clean every day and never made any progress on. That was home, sure, but it never felt like more than a house.

Before she even dared come up to the door, she checked for the car in the driveway. It wasn't there, which was to be expected. She isn't sure where Aunt Zlob is— her truck wasn't parked on the side of the road, but it might be at the spot by the gas station. They have a place there. If Elmer Duncan isn't using it, why shouldn't Zlobganorff— or, rather, Zabrina Cain-DaWich?

If she's even in town, that is. Tiff holds out some hope that she's on the road, or out in space, driving some route between planets or between Empire City and Colorado. She'd like to just slip off to Canada without having to explain. It should be easier for everyone else. She knows Aunt Esther is at Jaded Paradise, doing her damn job in the booth, coordinating this city's finest and bravest soldiers in their uniforms of spandex and platform heels. Drew is doing the receptionist thing at one of the two auto shops in town. As long as she can avoid Andy and Jeb Jr., who should be out of the house and doing teen things during their summer vacation (whatever teen things are— setting fires, probably. Tiff wouldn't know), she should be able to quickly pack a bag, leave a note on the kitchen table, and leave the way she came. She's used to treating her home like the scene of a crime. She can abscond.

Entering through the garage is just an extra precaution. If anyone is home, they're probably in the living room, not the kitchen. That particular coast is clear, anyway; nobody is at the table. It's why she lets herself pause, set down the toolbox and tent, pull out a container of sliced Colby Jack, and eat a quick sandwich before moving on. From there, it's on to the living room. Sneaking around is a move she has calculated a thousand times before. After all, it's easier to sneak into the room behind someone than to enter in their direct line of sight, and it's better to come through the kitchen than up the creaking basement steps. The couch faces the TV; and the TV is tucked partially against the front window and the old, broken fireplace on the eastern wall, because the outlets are very rudely in that area. That means the back of the couch is to the technically-a-dining-room's face, just adjacent to the basement door's jamb. Nobody sitting on it like a normal human being would see her— unless they were on the half of the sectional facing the eastern wall, in which case they would, and then she would just bolt up the stairs.

Which is normal for her. She's a stairs-bolter. That's one thing about Tiff Sheridan: she's going to bolt up the stairs.

And if she bolted up the stairs, nobody would get a question in anyway, and it wouldn't matter. Easy-peasy.

Half-thinking of her plan (around the wall and up the stairs), half-thinking of ghosts in general (the house is, woefully, not haunted), she leaves her boots by the kitchen door and heads further in. She'll just have to leave a note on the kitchen table before she leaves and then turn off her phone so nobody can call her and ask why she got arrested or why she's whoring herself out to the American government for a small sum of ten thousand dollars (oh, god, that's so much money and she's such a bad person). And if they do, she can just answer that she's an adult; and they can answer that, if she's such an adult, she can leave; and she'll say, yep, you're so right, I'm so sorry for intruding on you for all these years.

Jesus fucking Christ. That last bit would never happen and she knows it. She takes a deep breath, reminding herself that this is a perfect plan and nothing will go wrong; she steps into the living room and rounds the wall to the stairs.

Unfortunately, she immediately knows she isn't alone in the house. A large, corpulent slug descends the carpeted steps just in front of her. Tiff's heart jumps into her throat— not because of the sight of greater-than-fifteen eye-stalks, but because she's been caught. It would be just as bad if this figure was a tiny human woman with violet ringlets and a few too many teeth instead of what's absolutely an alien coming down the stairs with her son's, her youngest niece's, and the bathroom's laundry baskets on her back.

Her step-aunt's body wobbles, ripples, and creaks as she climbs down, holding a book in front of her with one of her gelatinous tentacles. One of her real eye stalks focuses on the book while the other guides her down the stairs. The others are, as Tiff knows and most prey don't, fake stalks meant to psyche something out. They serve other purposes, of course, but Zlob hasn't let Tiff in on those yet. That kind of violence and sex aren't for someone below the age of fifty, Zlob has maintained.

But she'll talk about eating people all the time. Sure. Nevermind that Tiff just wants to know how things work.

Zlob stops and turns both eyes to the half-paralyzed figure of Tiff at the bottom of the stairs. She regards her curiously. "Greetings, dear Tiffany May. How does the day treat you?"

"Uh— fine," she stammer-lies, leaning on the wall like that's a normal thing to do. Her elbow slips into one of the bookshelves. She pretends like that's what she meant to do. "Everything's good. What's up with you, Auntie?"

Everything most certainly isn't good. She was already thinking about ghosts, which is an odd rabbit-hole to be going down. It's been a while since she was last haunted, and she hasn't been able to get into Jaded Paradise, but ghosts exist. She met one in Abaddon Heights. She spent the entire drive here thinking about it, and it's so stupid that she's thinking about Rufus, who plays the piano at a Rootin' Tootin' Wild West Experience in southern Georgia instead of how to quantify and empirically assess the presence of a ghost. And she's already spiraling in a different direction about how upset Aunt Esther is going to be when she inevitably finds out what happened at the golf course. She's going to kick Tiff out—

No, Tiff reminds herself, like she's a screaming toddler in a parking lot; she's not going to do that. No matter how afraid Tiff is, she won't and she wouldn't. Knowing that doesn't get rid of the fear. As stupid as that is. Absentmindedly in all that nervousness and pent-up energy, she fiddles with the wrong ring on her left hand— the one shaped like a skull and stars, instead of the plain white band on her middle finger. It has more edges. It has more places to twist. (And that's another thing to be worried about, she supposes— what it means to be married, technically, even if it is platonically, and even if you are getting divorced soon. Stupid clowns. She's almost glad they're all dead.)

Shit. She forgot to keep responding. Oh, goddammit.

"Yep," she repeats, slipping against the slick white paint. "All good!"

"You are being deceitful, beloved human." One eye stalk slithers toward her like a sentient webcam scrutinizing her from every angle. A quiver passes through her aunt's Jello body; she continues her descent. "Your heart rate has increased and your sweat glands have activated when the house is kept at a very optimal temperature. I will not force you to tell me, but know that I care greatly for you. I shall, as you say, become all ears."

"I am not sweating," she protests, like that helps at all.

Tiff's alien aunt's body rapidly reshapes itself without warning, complete with an onslaught of wet, squelching noises that bring pigs in mud to mind. Normally, Tiff would delight in watching the process. Right now, all it means is less chances to escape. She's stuck there until it's over and the dust settles.

When it does, a more human Zlob stands on the stairs in front of her, grinning from ear to ear. That's her default state, Tiff has learned: a wide smile. Perhaps a little too wide. It's a very presidential too-many-teeth framed by tanned, rosy cheeks and violet curls. She's naked now, but doesn't stay that way for long; she reaches for a robe from one of the overturned laundry baskets on the steps behind her.

Her voice comes out softer in this form; she reaches up a hand, so close to human, to touch Tiff's cheek. "I just wish to ensure your well-being. You are one who trouble seems to have very little of itself finding."

"Nothing's wrong!" she laughs, trying to move past her on the stairs. She dodges a couple piled-up pairs of Jeb's dirty underwear.

"If I must consume someone and digest their meaty bodies, just direct me."

"Nobody did anything." This time. Nobody did anything this time. "It'll be okay. I'm just neurotic. You know that."

She could ramble on and on. She sees those too-many-teeth in her aunt's mouth and wants to spill everything toward them. It's a function of having another mother figure: you just want to tell her shit. Thoughts on haunting and marriage and the entire country of Canada could spill out of her until she loses them between the books on the shelves and the paint staining her left pantleg. It's nice to be cared for. It's also terrifying.

She doesn't have the best track record with mothers. Perhaps the truth is the other way around: mothers don't have the best track record with Tiff Sheridan.

It's easier not to. It's easier to just keep it to herself.

"Nothing's wrong," she repeats, like it's going to convince her, too. All the while, she twists the ring Bloodsaw gave her. Star-shaped spokes bite into her hand. "I'm just going to go upstairs for a minute. And then not be upstairs."

Zlob nods her human head. She pats Tiff on her human head. "Secrets are to be given if and only when you choose, dear Tiffany May. My offer will always stand to devour any and all of your enemies for their many nutrients."

She isn't sure what to say to that. Zlob is pretty much the only person who threatens to eat people Tiff's having trouble with. It has taken less getting-used-to than she thought it would. "Thank you. I genuinely appreciate it."

"Of course you do. Now, I must go to the store to collect ingredients for... a rizz o toe."

"A risotto?"

"A rizz o toe. It requires a foot flavored cheese. Most delicious!"

"You can... drive, right?"

"I am a trucker. A space trucker."

"Not what I asked."

"I will drive to Wondermart."

"With what car?"

"I will get the car from my beloved wife." She nods. "At the esteemed Jaded Paradise."

"I mean, hell yeah, go to the strip club and get the keys, but— But I think we have risotto ingredients—"

"Jebediah Junior ate the foot cheese for the rizz o toe to spite his father."

For a desperate moment, she tries to figure out how on earth eating a whole block of Parmesan would help someone get back at his father. For once in her life, she comes up with nothing. Then again, how running off barefoot in the snow get back at Ruth Sheridan?

Her aunt picks up the slack. "Will you be here for dinner?"

Her answer is a quick shake of the head. She shakes her head too many times. "I have to hit the road."

"Become that oddest of Bedelias, then. I will collect the—" She checks the book in her hands again, well-worn and faded.

"The parmesan?" Tiff guesses. She has no clue what goes in a risotto off the top of her head. Bryce told her something about it in the past couple days, though. She's pretty sure it's parmesan. Other cheeses aren't so famously horrible-to-handle.

"Yes, the parmesan." She mimics Tiff's pronunciation, then tries her own, more incorrect one. "Parm-ee-zian. I will find it. The Whisper girl at the Wondermart is most helpful."

"Who the fuck is Whisper?"

"The one who dresses like your friend Edgar Junior, but with less ghosts in the air around him."

Who the fuck— "Cam Joyce? The assistant manager's daughter?"

"Yes, Whisper." She nods sagely. "She likes to be called Whisper now."

Tiff shakes her head. That's the kid that calls Tiff a poser every time she goes in there to buy anything, whether it's a tube of paint or a box of tampons. She's never said anything bad about Zlob, though. "Yeah, I think she has a crush on you."

"She can not crush me." Zlob laughs, loud and bright, moving past Tiff on the stairs. "She saw Jebediah Junior eat her coworker. This is nothing but trouble for a hot woman like me."

"Ew. Stop calling yourself hot."

"My sweet wife Esther thinks I am smoking."

"No, she quit smoking."

It takes Zlob a moment to piece that one together. When she does, she laughs again; and the sound warms Tiff's chest the same way that a more genuine grin from Zlob does. "I understand! Oh, I do adore you, my niece-daughter. If you will not be home for dinner, you must drive safe."

"I can't guarantee safe," she sighs, toying with one of the books on the shelf next to her. Drew's well-worn childhood paperback Bridge to Terabithia slides in and out under her fidgeting fingers and unfocused eyes. "But I can drive cautiously."

"Do not die!"

"Don't buy any flour," Tiff laughs, heading up the stairs.

"I will buy what I will buy. Let me know when you are coming back. Perhaps I will make a..." She narrows her eyes at the copy of Taste of Home she's holding. "A mousse."

"I'd like that. Just no Jello."

"Do you not like gelatins?"

She shakes her head. "Never have."

"My people invented gelatins."

"I find that hard to believe."

"We had much to do with it."

"Again, I find that hard to believe."

"Not all of history comes from your Earth, Tiffany May."

"Not all of history comes from this plane," she reminds herself. Nodding once, Tiff scampers up the stairs. She has a canvas bag to fill with random shit, just like Cool Tiff would.