Six
In the days after Beck had materialized with his insane metamorphosis story, triggering her tics, Melissa couldn’t catch a break on the farm. Codling moths threatened the apple harvest and there were signs of a blight on the Roma tomatoes. One of the laying hens mysteriously dropped dead. The irrigation pipe to the squash field was blocked, so she asked Daphne to connect a series of hoses and water the pumpkin, zucchini, acorn, butternut and spaghetti squashes by hand. Someone needed to do a grocery run; they were down to the last two loaves of bread in the freezer, and there was no salt, sugar, soya sauce or cat food. Melissa yanked her hair into a rough knot and started up the rusty farm pickup. It coughed a puff of bluish exhaust, a classic symptom of engine trouble.
Beck had fini
