Chapter 13 #2
“If you think I would sit inside a house in Griffon’s Elbow as often as I do and say I didn’t, then you think I’m way braver than I actually am, my friend.
” She focused her attention on the bookshelf opposite them.
“Which is an answer in itself, isn’t it?
Why?” Her laser attention shifted to his face.
“It—yeah.” He made to get up, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“What do you think might happen if you leave?”
“What? Nothing. Who? Did Myles tell you something?”
“Oh! No. Not at all. I’ve barely spoken to him, although his niece is a treasure. So… chatty.”
Steven couldn’t help a smile. “She really is.”
“But why on earth would you think Myles would betray a trust like that? He doesn’t strike me as the type.”
“I don’t, really. Just that he’s the only one I’ve ever told.”
“Told what?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Is this going in a book?”
“Sweetheart, I am a student of human nature. Any time I can find out more about how people work, I take it. I can honestly say I’m not currently writing any such book where experiences like yours factors in, but I can’t promise I never will. That’s just the nature of the beast.”
“Right.” He sank back into the chair. “So, this is going to sound so weird.”
She straightened the bangles on her arm. “I seriously doubt it, but go ahead.”
And so he told her about the strangeness of the house after his parents died.
Of the darkness that seemed to overtake it.
He told her of the seemingly random, but near catastrophic events whenever the house sat empty for any length of time.
A small electrical fire in the stove. Frozen pipes in the basement, causing flooding too close to his father’s books for comfort.
Missing shingles over the sunroom where his mother used to paint.
“Those all sound like things that happen in old houses.”
“But always when no one was home?”
She tilted her head at him. “What were you doing when they happened?”
“I was… I don’t know. I don’t remember.” But heat rose up his neck, flooding his stupidly pale cheeks.
“You do.”
“Why would it matter?”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
She had a point, he supposed. But during those early days, weeks and months after he and his siblings had been on their own, he hadn’t been here.
He was ashamed, still, of the amount of time he’d left Stephanie alone to deal with Jake.
How often he’d run from the ghosts in the house rather than help her face them.
How very much time he’d spent elsewhere.
Anywhere but where he’d belonged. Where he should have been.
“If I had been here—”
“What? You could have stopped shingles blowing away in the wind? Or wiring going on a fifty-year-old appliance?”
“Well, no. But.” He frowned. “Why did it only happen when no one was home?”
“Here’s the thing.” Awkwardly shifting to face him better, she picked up his hand and squished his fingers in both of hers. “You people all talk to these buildings like they’re, well, people. Like they have opinions and ideas, and agency.”
“Because they sort of seem like they do.”
“Then why on earth should it surprise you that if you treat your house like a member of your family, that it reacts like a member of your family when something goes wrong? Do you think they would only be capable of being pleasant? Happy? Only share in the good parts? Why shouldn’t they get upset when bad shit goes down? ”
He blinked at her.
“And why on earth wouldn’t they try to protect you?
If wiring goes bad while you’re home, so much worse things can have happened than your kitchen getting slightly scorched.
You look at it like the house acting out because what?
It was lonely? But what if it was the house keeping a lid on the things that might have hurt the people it cares about until those people were out of harm’s way? ”
He blinked some more. “I never thought about it like that.”
She patted his hand. “Of course you didn’t.
Because you want to believe everything bad is within your power to prevent.
When really, the only thing in your power is you.
” She smiled, and it was a kind, understanding expression that warmed a ball of something that had been sitting cold and inert in his chest for a very long time.
“You can’t control your house any more than you can control your siblings.
Stop trying, and maybe, start listening to it. ”
Around them, music flared from its general, background hum to fill the room. Strains of “Rainbow Connection” and Kermit’s nasally voice engulfed them.
“Dad used to sing this song. Like, all the time.”
Tiffany raised one eyebrow.
Steven huffed. “Yeah, okay. Message heard.”
She smiled at him. “I hope so, sweetie. I really do. People miss you.”
“You barely know me.”
“But I know your people. Your name comes up a lot.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “Yes. Now…” She let him go and tucked her laptop into her bag. “I have a date with my own family tonight, so I have to get going.”
“They’re here?”
“Temporarily. I’m meeting them for dinner at the Mill.” She got to her feet, strung the bag’s strap across her body and situated her crutches. “I hope you have a good rest of your evening. Thank you for letting me use your space.”
“Anytime.” He stood with her and went to the door, holding it open as she stepped out onto the porch. “And I mean that. My front room is your front room. Anytime you need it.”
“Thank you. It’s always nice to have options.”
She was right about that. Steven didn’t like to think too hard about how many options he’d cheated himself out of by opting to stay alone in this house. Or how lucky he was to have found any companionship at all, given he never left.
“I am lucky I found him,” he said softly as he shut the door behind Tiffany.
The light in the foyer flashed strobe-bright a few times before going out completely. An eerie silence echoed through the rooms.
“Okay, okay. I’m lucky you brought him here.”
The light slowly brightened, and the music began to play again, softly, as if the house was humming to itself.
Steven hummed too as he flipped the sign, pulled his phone from his pocket, and headed for his kitchen. Behind him, the front door lock clicked on its own.
“Thanks.” He patted a door frame as he meandered through.
Lights dimmed behind him and brightened ahead.
He didn’t have to watch where he was going.
He knew every inch of the place down in his soul.
Instead, he pulled up Myles’s number and smiled.
The quick snap he’d taken earlier in the week was of Myles, his ubiquitous damp wipe in hand, cleaning his fingers after shelving some books.
If his eyes remained a touch sad, they were still focused on Steven and his camera, and he had a relaxed, maybe even contented, look on his face.
Steven had a detailed memory of Myles flipping that small white square of neuroticism over his shoulder before advancing on Steven and kissing him to within an inch of Steven’s control.
He had an even more vivid memory of Myles giving up that control the instant Steven had applied a small amount of return pressure.
They had almost done things that should never be done in the kids’ books section or probably any section of a shop that was still open.
“Heh.” He brought up the texting app and started typing.
STEVEN: Never asked if your cooking lesson went well yesterday.
Almost immediately Myles responded.
MYLES: No signs of food poisoning yet.
STEVEN: Well done.
MYLES: We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.
Steven was in the kitchen now, and he set the phone down long enough to pull a TV dinner from the freezer, rip open the box and peel back a corner of the plastic. He snapped a pic of the meal before popping it into the microwave.
Myles sent a throw-up emoji back.
STEVEN: Speak for yourself. I splurged. Got the expensive ones. Not half bad.
MYLES: Not home cooking.
STEVEN: No.
Steven was tempted to challenge Myles to come over and show his home cooking when an image popped into the chat. He enlarged it to see Jet sticking his tongue out at the camera, with Shelly asleep on his lap.
Myles’s accompanying text read:
MYLES: Long drive today. Looks like bath, story, tuck-in time around here.
Another picture came, this time with Myles in the frame and Jet looking almost happy.
STEVEN: Looks like. Have a great evening.
No way was he even going to ask. Myles was exactly where he should be, with his kids, doing exactly what he should be doing.
The microwave shrilled at him, and he set the phone down. A quick “night” flashed on the screen, and he nodded.
It was going to be a night. And tomorrow, another day. He could do this.