Chapter Twenty-Four #3
With a faraway look, Meredith went on, “It wasn’t that that had me so shaken up.
” He turned away and picked up the unbaked pie, then set it back down.
“Only I turned around and there was no way to get past him, the way he was standing over me and just so—so big. Frightened me a bit,” he admitted softly.
David went still. “Do I? Ever frighten you like that?” It wasn’t a thing he’d ever much worried about himself, but someone who wasn’t as physically imposing, someone who was seen as more effeminate regardless of what terms he did or didn’t choose to refer to himself—in short, someone like Meredith—must have an entirely different experience.
“You? Never. With you, I can just…” Meredith sank back against him, and David wrapped him in his arms. “Feels…safe.”
David held him close, resting his chin on his shoulder. “Meri,” he began, “I’ve been meaning to—”
A knock at the door interrupted.
David took a deep breath. Surely that was for the best. He had nearly blurted out an impulsive confession, not at all the way he’d meant to go about things.
“Who could that be at this hour?” asked Meredith and then, to David’s disappointment, slipped from his grasp to go answer the door.
“Mr. David! My dear Schwarzy!” Bednarek beamed as he stepped through the front door. “At last I catch you at home.”
“Ah. You’ve found a replacement for Todd?” That had been inevitable, but David couldn’t avoid a twinge of disappointment. He’d rather enjoyed the two of them having the place to themselves.
“Regrettably, no,” said Bednarek, still beaming. “Truthwise, I must admit, with recent goings-on, new tenant has not been priority.”
This was it, then. Just as David had suspected. “I suppose there’s no more need to dance around it, Mr. Bednarek. You’re selling the cottage, aren’t you?”
Meredith looked from David to Bednarek in dismay. “Selling the cottage?” he repeated.
“But no!” protested Bednarek. “It is not the cottage I sell, but the Wood. Thanks to Mr. Cartier, soon we shall have lovely new condominium development where the Midnight Wood now stands.”
“What? But you can’t—you can’t just get rid of the Midnight Wood!” said Meredith, horrified. “What will become of the Mice? Where will the Moon Calf and the Night Horse go? Where will any of them go?”
Bednarek patted him on the arm. “There, now. I assure you, all will be quite all right. If your friends need new place to stay, you give them my card, tell them come see me.”
When Meredith did not appear to take any consolation from this, Bednarek added magnanimously, “Special offer, as you are my dear friend: with referral from you, I do not even charge application fee.”
Meredith turned helplessly to David, who’d been struck speechless by the whole thing. He’d thought he’d known what was coming, yet somehow the rug had still been yanked from beneath his feet.
“Incidentally,” Bednarek went on, “my true purpose in stopping by: Mr. David, I require still the bill from plumber.”
Wordlessly, David went to the end table, removed an empty teacup from a stack of mail, shuffled through it, and presented the only slightly coffee-stained invoice to the landlord.
“Wonderful! Now, then.” Bednarek clapped his pudgy hands together. “It is late, I intrude upon you no longer. Good night, boys!”
The door fell closed behind him. After a silence that lasted an eternity, Meredith asked, sounding quite lost, “David, what are we going to do?”
“Well, it’s hardly the end of the world,” said David with far more conviction than he felt.
He was not sure how the Midnight Mice, or any of the other purported inhabitants of the Midnight Wood, would fare when displaced from their natural habitat.
“I’m sure Mr. Bednarek will see to it that they have someplace to go. ”
“What, you think the Moon Calf and the Night Horse will just take an apartment over on Chavez Street? Can you imagine, the Mice in that triplex across from the butcher’s shop? God, I can’t believe Bednarek,” Meredith fumed. “What’s next, he sells this place out from under us, too?”
“If it were to come to that—” began David.
“We’d just move into the boardinghouse behind the cinema where Steve Corner lives, is that it?
” Meredith’s question held a stinging sarcasm.
“Oh, yes, won’t that be lovely? I’ll smuggle in Bianca in a suitcase, and perhaps we could all live down the hall from one another and play pinochle on the weekends. ”
“You don’t play pinochle,” David pointed out. “You can never make sense of the scoring. And why are you angry with me?” It hurt more than he liked to admit, even if he himself knew he’d done nothing to warrant it.
At that, Meredith seemed to deflate. “I’m sorry, David, I’m not really. I’m just—it’s not—” He gestured in frustration, bracelets jingling. “It’s not fair! It’s not s-supposed to be like this.”
David started to reach out for him, but arrested the motion as Meredith turned away to pace the length of the room.
He searched desperately for something to say, but all he could come up with was “I’m sorry.
” It felt inadequate—it was inadequate, and he tried again.
“I know the Midnight Wood means a great deal to you.”
“Wait.” Meredith whirled to face him. “Cartier’s going to be at the auction tomorrow night. You’re going to talk to him then, aren’t you? You can ask him not to tear down the Midnight Wood.”
David sympathized, but how could he make such a demand of Cartier upon their first proper conversation?
It would hardly make a favorable impression.
Besides which, the Midnight Wood appeared to have become rather a dangerous place of late—perhaps it would be better for all concerned if its current residents sought a new home.
“We’ll see how it goes,” he offered, and even to him it sounded like an evasion.
“David, please,” begged Meredith. “If anybody can change his mind, it’s you.”
David had to look away from the pleading intensity of his gaze. “I don’t think that’s true,” he said gently. “I mean to say, I wouldn’t like for you to get your hopes up.”
“But you will try, won’t you?”
David didn’t know how to answer, and eventually settled for repeating, “Let’s just see how things go.” At Meredith’s look of disappointment, he added, “I promise you, one way or another, it’ll turn out all right.”
But as David retired to bed—alone, not having dared to ask Meredith to join him, no matter how he longed for his presence—he was not sure it would turn out all right at all.