Page 19 of Where the Snakes Sleep

The basket smells faintly of bread, herbs, and something sweet.

There does not appear to be anything dead inside it, which feels promising.

I pick up the card, turning it over in my hand before opening the envelope. The message is written in English.

Ryan,

The village is not always gracious to strangers, particularly those who arrive carrying an old name. Please accept what it has failed to offer you.

Camille Moreau

Underneath his name, separated from the rest of the message by a small gap, is a small added note.

Wear shoes.

A reluctant laugh slips out of me. “Asshole.”

I fold the card and slide it back into the envelope, although I have no idea why I’m preserving it instead of throwing it away. Maybe because it is the first remotely kind thing anyone has done for me since I arrived in France.

Aside from bandaging my foot.

And warning me that my inherited house may contain structural abnormalities and rooms that should never be opened.

Though I only arrived yesterday, so again, I’m probably just being dramatic.

I crouch beside the basket and pull back the linen covering. A long loaf of bread lies across the top, its crust dusted with flour, beside a wedge of pale cheese wrapped in waxed paper. There are tomatoes still attached to a green vine, a cluster of dark grapes, several peaches, a glass jar of olives, and a bottle of wine with a cream label covered in elegant French script I cannot begin to decipher.

Beneath those, I find a bottle of mineral water, a tin of coffee, lavender soap, sunscreen, insect repellent, and a package of heavy-duty bandages.

I stare at the sunscreen.

Then at the bandages.

Then in the direction of the crumbled section of wall between our properties.

He saw me outside for maybe ten minutes, and from that brief encounter, he has somehow compiled an entire list of ways I’m incapable of caring for myself.

There are gardening gloves tucked along one side of the basket, thick enough to protect my hands from thorns, along with a compact flashlight, a box of matches, and three tall, skinny candles.

Practical things.

Things a person might need in an old cottage with unreliable electricity and a garden intent on swallowing it whole.

I glance up at the dark porch light.

“How much do you know about this place?” I mutter.

The basket, unsurprisingly, no, thankfully, does not answer. That would have had me shitting my pants and nopeing out of the country.

There is something a tiny bit unsettling about the care with which everything in my neighbor’s basket has been chosen. Nothing feels random or decorative. Camille hasn’t sent flowers, chocolates, or… I’m realizing I don’t know what’s normal to give new neighbors as a gift.

He has sent things I need. Things I either forgot to buy or didn’t realize I needed until this exact moment.

Things that suggest he has spent time considering me.

That should not make warmth spread low through my stomach.

It’s probably the heat.