"Alright," I said, nodding my head, feeling relieved.
I had a lot to think about, and I couldn't let my mom do all the work preparing dinner on her own.
"I'll see you soon," I said.
Chapter
Thirteen
LORTHION
Ipulled on the metal lever device, using it to tighten the juncture between the two lengths of copper pipes until there was no longer any sign of any water escaping from its constrained pathways.
"What is going on here?" Lillian's voice was muffled by the dead painted wood that surrounded my upper body. "Mom, I leave you two alone for two seconds!"
"He looked like he had strong hands," Lillian's matriarch Charlotte said. "How did drop off go?"
"Mom, he's a Forest Lord!" Lillian said, sounding exasperated. Then her tone changed, becoming softer. "She was so excited to see her friends. She barely even looked back at me."
"She will be so excited to tell you all about it when she comes home," Charlotte said.
"I am done," I said, scooting out from the dead wood box that hid the water direction system for the kitchen sink. I rose to my feet and held out the lever device to Charlotte. "I have completed your quest."
"You're a guest, Lorthion," Lillian sighed, putting her hand up to her forehead. "You don't need to be doing chores."
She was giving mixed messages.
"He was a guest the first time he came over for dinner," Charlotte said, giving me a firm smile. "Family helps out with chores. Speaking of which, do you know how to do drywall?"
"I do not," I replied. "Let me see the problem that requires this drywall."
"This way," Charlotte jerked her chin and led me out of her kitchen.
The hallway stretched out ahead like a tunnel made with sharp angles, straight and unnatural. I had grown more used to the unpleasant boxiness of this dwelling, but I was pleased that Charlotte had asked me to assist in tasks to upkeep it. I had already been sprouting new flowers outside the many times I'd come through the portal to feed the small butterflies and bugs that the plants needed to thrive.
Life was not built upon sterile surfaces.
It required layers of support, from the microbiotics in the soil to the shade cast by huge overhead branches. I hadn't yet added any new life to inside the domicile, as it was not my home to alter. The yard, however, I had claimed fully with my circle of trees, and the matriarch had exclaimed pleasure when she first saw the flowers.
The walls of the hallway were the color of bleached bark left too long in the sun, stripped of lichen and the memory of growth. No carvings. No vines. Just frames. Rectangular and rigid, set in rows as if someone tried to trap time between glass. Two women and a child stared out from behind the panes, the older Charlotte with strong shoulders and a mouth that curved up in the edges despite the lines of weariness and stress on her face. My love, Lillian, stared out at me in various stages of her development, and in one place there was an old picture of Lillian as a youngchild set next to one of Anne at the same age, and the similarities stood out in bright smiles and vibrant happiness. The frames were illuminated by a dull dome of hard yellowed glass that clung to the ceiling.
"Here," Charlotte said, reaching out to take a large group photo off the wall. Behind it was a hole, jagged and ugly, leading into a space filled with a pink fluffy material. "It was here when we bought the house, and I just haven't had the time to get around to it."
I placed my hand on the wall, next to the hole, as I let my senses sink into the dead wood, feeling out the stories held in the rings of its history. I listened to the whispers of its ghosts.
"I would like to repair this my way," I said. "Instead of the way of the drywall."
"Is it going to hurt the resell value of the house?" Charlotte asked.
"You will not be able to sell this home," I told her. "The protections I have placed on this domicile will prevent others from knowing of its existence unless you specifically invite them here."
"Is that why the power bill stopped coming?" Charlotte asked. "They haven't disconnected it, but all of a sudden they stopped charging my account. I called about it, but the person on the phone was very confused."
"They will have forgotten the conversation after you hung up," I told her. "The home will continue to be supported by the systems around it, but it has been hidden so thoroughly that Mundane technology will not be able to keep track of it."
"What if I want to move?" Charlotte asked. "How am I going to afford that?"
"Mom, you already paid off the house," Lillian said. "You told me once that there was no way you would ever move."
