Page 65 of Ring Rust

She grinned. “Okay.”

“The inside chickens or the outside chickens?” Nina asked. “Can I help?”

Winnie coughed out a laugh and said, “Yes, you can. Come with me.”

“Inside chickens?” Jasper said, grinning at Ryan. “Imagine.”

“Yeah, right?” Ryan said. He coughed and leaned forward on the couch. “So, you seem pretty tired. You should probably head to bed.”

“I’m tired, but not sleepy tired yet. You trying to get rid of me?”

“No! No.”

Jasper set his bowl on the coffee table and was about to consider whether he wanted to scoot slightly closer to Ryan on the couch, when he heard a noise.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” Ryan asked, staring at the TV.

“I heard a noise coming from the bedrooms. Like, an animal noise. Where’s Calliope?” Jasper sat up and looked around for the cat, relieved when she was in one of several of her favorite spawn points. This time, it was the homemade cat bed Ryan had built when Jasper mentioned feeling sad she couldn’t see out that window that overlooked the bird feeders. “Oh, there she is.”

“I didn’t hear anything.” Ryan stood from the couch. “You all done? I’ll take your bowl. Can you turn up the TV so I can hear it when I go into the kitchen?”

“What? No, why would I do that? You’ll be back in twenty seconds.”

Another, slightly louder noise rang out then. Definitely an animal, and definitely from the bedroom side of the house.

“Seriously, what is that?” Jasper stood up and started walking towards the bedrooms. Ryan followed close behind.

“Okay, uh?—”

“You’re being weird.”

“I’m not being weird. I actually wanted to talk to you about something, though. Something so important.”

Jasper paused in the hallway and turned to look Ryan, who was weirdly sweaty and his Adam’s apple bobbed with an exaggerated swallow.

“Are you feeling sick too?”

“No—oh, actually, yeah. A little bit.”

Jasper lifted his hand and pressed it against Ryan’s forehead, like Ryan had done earlier. “No fever,” he said, smiling.

“Let’s go back to the couch. We should be resting.”

The noise hadn’t repeated, and while Jasper was still curious about what caused it, he couldn’t deny he was fading quickly. Whatever cold they’d come down with was worsening by the minute, general malaise moving down his body, inch by inch.

“I have a few things to do before bed, but you’re probably right.”

“What do you have to do?” Ryan asked.

“I have to steam the wrinkles out of all the costumes I made for Nina’s dance recital, and I need to pack them up so I can get them to the school this week.”

“I can do that.”

“You can steam wrinkles out of fabric? Since when?”

Ryan scoffed. “Excuse me, it’s like you’ve forgotten the many different gear designs I’ve had over the years. A lot of that required steaming because I’m bad at packing suitcases.”