Page 33 of Sweetling
“More than just the bats in the attic, anyway.”
The shutters rattled and the house groaned as if it too laughed along with her. She wasn’t sure the house actually minded the bats in the attic or the raccoon family in the east tower or even the bee hives in the rafters of the north wing. They were all little friends, little inhabitants for the house to take care of.
And that was what the house liked most, Molly came to find. Taking care of its inhabitants. It was always finding ways of being helpful—opening doors for her, turning off the spigot when she forgot, and even having the kettle already going by the time she got down to the kitchen to make tea. The house anticipated her needs before she even knew them herself.
Although, there was one thing that was a bit of a sore spot between them.
Every evening, the house opened the armoire and the large trunk at the foot of her massive canopied bed. Every night, Molly refrained from storing her things inside them. Her clothes were getting wrinkled and she’d made a bit of a mess on the far side of the bed laying out what she didn’t bother putting back in the bags.
The house would creak at her, drawers opening and closing to emphasize that her things belonged there.
But they didn’t.
Something about putting her things in those drawers would mean…they were now part of the house.Shewas part of it.
But she wasn’t.
No matter how the house rattled at her. No matter how its master looked longingly at her over the butcher block.
Molly didn’t intend to stay.
That didn’t mean, however, that she wasn’t amenable to making friends. She got on well with the house, and felt, within a few days, that although she couldn’t count on its loyalty to her over Allarion, she could at least trust that it would tell her the truth.
Strange as it was to think, Molly found the house guileless.
It was comforting to sit cross-legged on her bed and chat with the house. Knowing she could ask it questions and get a truthful answer.
“Is it strange being inhabited by a fae and unicorn?” Molly asked it. She tried to camouflage her curiosity by picking at her cuticles, but she didn’t know if the subterfuge worked—or was even necessary.
She waited a long time, but nothing happened. It took her a moment to remember that nothing meantno. The house hadn’t responded in the negative in a long while.
“Not strange…” she muttered to herself. “Do you like Allarion?”
The drawers opened and shut three times, and Molly couldn’t help her grin.
“That’s a yes. But…would you like him even if it meant you weren’t sentient?”
Without even the shortest pause, another series of opening and closing drawers.
Yes yes yes,it told her.
Molly’s heart lurched in her chest. The answer was so earnest, so forthright.
Wetting her lips, she forced out the question she’d been dreading. “Can I trust him?”
This time there was a pause. The house creaked, and Molly held her breath.
The room seemed to bend, as if the house held its own breath as it leaned in closer to her. Molly clutched the pillow in her lap,trying to stay still.
The drawer opened and closed twice.
Yes.
“Are you sure?”
Opened and closed.
“Does he mean me any harm?”
