II

I. < > III.

“Eleven weeks.” The voice belonged to an older woman, aged at around seventy-five. “It has been eleven weeks, every Wednesday.”

She had found Jean's astonishment endearing, having overheard his conversation with a man on the bus that carried him from Charlotte's to the town center. Jean first thought it to be a matter of disease—some kind of degenerative disposition, perhaps a fungus in their grain, a chemical in the water. But she promptly put that theory in its grave.

“Exactly three?” Jean wanted to know if it was pure coincidence or madness that governed this mystery. He took a moment to revel in the idea of counting sheep before lifting his eyes to catch hers.

She hummed out a yes as she carried to him a plate of her famous Tradorian cake: a heavy breaded monstrosity engrossed in cream, honey, chocolate shavings, and cinnamon—yet, surprisingly, it was the buttery, vanilla crispness which stood out the most. Jean believed the slice weighed more than she did.

Indeed, a very heavy cake.

“And you have no clue as to why these,” he forked another edge of cake, “quite pedestrian ruminant mammals have begun to, well, free fall?”

“No,” She said, finally sitting. “I'm just grateful it's no longer happening here.”

'Here' being Cromptille Road, the corner of which belonging to her bakery and home, Difiloe's. This was, naturally, the Mrs. Margaret Difiloe, whose seasonal treats he had been the recipient of, courtesy of his ever-thoughtful sister Charlotte, in years past. He looked forward to the pumpkin brittle every autumn.

“Here—you mean, three years ago? Did that happen here?”

She looked confused. Jean reiterated that three years ago—according to Garrett—the sheep had made their way across town to cause trouble. Mrs. Difiloe waved it off, explaining it had been an unusual summer that year. The sheep came into town looking for shade and to escape the bugs that rose from the rocks. Terrible little biting flies. She went on to say it had happened once before, over fifty years ago, under the same conditions: heat and flies. Horrendous little monsters that drove all the animals mad.

It happened, now and again.

“Oh.”

“Yes,” She said. “Nothing to do with the coffee shop.”

“I see.” Jean sat his empty dish on the coffee table between them. “Earlier, you said it happened here?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What, exactly, happened?”

Mrs. Difiloe tapped her collar bone uneasily, threading the weave of her gold necklace between her fingers.

“I'd really like to know,” Jean said.

“But you really wouldn't.” Her eyes studied the floor, tracing the ornate patterns of the burgundy and mint rug that looked far, far older than her. “For months, and I mean months, the same problem happened here, but with—well, smaller creatures.”

“What?”

“Rodents. Cats. Sometimes dogs, too, I believe—yes, little ones—but…”

Jean hesitated before asking, “Did they jump from the roof?”

She shrugged. “I don't know—no, I don't think so. They didn't, no.”

“Then how?”

Mrs. Difiloe leaned forward from her armchair. “You wouldn't believe what I'd find in alleyway come morning,” she said.

“Their little bodies all twisted, crushed.”

At that point, she began to sob. Jean looked at her as if she were alien, choosing not to engage, but to instead slowly devour the last few ounces of his cake. Sympathy seemed such a disingenuous business; had anyone ever really been sorry for another human being? Nothing unsettled him more than the earnestly empathetic, except perhaps the leeches who followed them.

“I thought for sure I was being cursed,” she said, calmer now than before. “And some of my neighbors have children—you know how disturbed they can be. I didn’t know what to think.”