The Night Season by Chelsea Cain

gravel into the tank, making a bright azure floor three-quarters of an inch deep.
    He positioned the filters and heater, and then lowered the tank into the sink under the faucet. He put a small plate on the bottom of the tank directly under the faucet stream, to keep the gravel from getting unsettled. And he turned the tap back on.
    It took some time to fill the tank three-quarters full.
    But he didn’t allow himself to get distracted. Instead he arranged his plants and decorations. Small plants in the front, taller in the back. He’d chosen a nice castle for this one, and a diving helmet and an arched bridge. When the water reached the three-quarters mark, he added these in, careful to press them securely into the gravel. He stepped back and admired the marine landscape.
    Then he filled the tank to the top.
    He unfolded the top of a small cardboard box and lifted the creature inside by the scruff of its neck.
    The hamster had tiny black eyes and a quivering pink nose. Her belly was white, her head and back and ears apricot. Her little pink hands were clenched in panicked fists at her chest.
    He dropped her into the tank and sealed the cover into place.
    Wet, she looked like an entirely different animal. Tiny and slick, those pink feet uncurled, paws churning at the water. Her whiskers glanced against the surface, ears flat back, eyelids fluttering.
    She would hold on for a while. They all did.
    When she finally gave in, he’d let her rest for some time at the bottom of the tank, apricot fur feathering dreamily against the blue gravel.
    And then he’d take apart the tank, wash it all, and start again.
    He heard the back door open, and the rain get loud.
    “There you are,” he said.
    The boy streaked by behind him. His wet hospital gown clung to his scrawny knees.
    The hamster swam and swam.
    The man glanced up next to the window over the sink where he’d taped the column that Susan Ward had written, and wondered if she’d found what he’d left in her purse.

CHAPTER
    18

    Susan hunched over her computer at the Herald , yawned, and tried to focus on her monitor. Never take Chinese uppers on an empty stomach. This was what Susan’s mother, Bliss, had told her. It wasn’t even real speed. It was just some herb in gel caps in a bottle with Chinese characters on it. Bliss had gotten it from her acupuncturist, and given it to Susan before she’d gone on her yoga cruise. It was just like Bliss to head off on a three-week yoga cruise through the Caribbean days before the flood of the century. She was lucky that way. The ship had a media blackout policy, for “cleansing” purposes. Bliss had no idea what was going on back in Portland. This left Susan in charge of the goat and the compost pile and the leaky basement.
    Susan had moved back into her childhood home eight months before. It was supposed to be temporary. Then it was supposed to be just until she saved up enough for a down payment on a loft in one of those redeveloped warehouses in the Pearl District.
    Living with Bliss had its pros and cons. Susan’s mother wore her hair bleached and dreadlocked, boycotted anything plastic, and had recently gotten a medical marijuana card for unspecified “anxiety.” But Susan could live there for free. And if you liked brown rice, a lot, Bliss made a pretty good meal. What Susan didn’t like to admit was that, after what she’d been through over the last year, as crazy as it was, home felt safe.
    She shouldn’t have taken the Chinese uppers. But it was two in the morning. And Ian was demanding copy. He’d already gone ballistic on her for staying at the hospital with Henry and Archie rather than hightailing it back to the paper. She had really pissed him off this time. He wouldn’t even pay for the cab.
    “That’s it?” Ian blustered. He’d been eating sour-cream-and-onion potato chips from the vending machine. Susan could smell them on his breath. He sat down on the edge of her desk, nearly knocking her purse onto