Page 22 of Tell Me Why
“This is that important?” she asked, and he nodded.
“The things I have done in service of this debt are… I want it done.”
He was looking out the window, and Tina didn’t press him again as they drove, winding their way out of the train yard and onto an interstate, headlights and miles, the city lights ahead and around, then once more behind them.
Tell was quiet the whole way, which was comfortable enough. Tina had questions but the human driver wasn’t someone Tell wanted to talk in front of, so she refrained.
They went up a winding drive to a very large house made up almost entirely of windows and porches.
“Oh,” Tina said, looking up at it as the yellow light spilled out of it onto the porches and the lawn. “Oh, we’re having parties, aren’t we?”
“It’s a form of communication,” Tell answered. “If you know what you’re doing.”
Tina got out, hearing the men from the second car getting their luggage out and taking it up to the house as a woman came down from one of the deep front porches.
“Evenin’, y’all. Welcome to Nashville.”
She had a cheerful, perky voice and she came to shake hands with first Tell and then Tina.
“Just here to show y’all around, make sure you can get in when you need.”
“Of course,” Tell said.
Tina thought that if the locking mechanisms werethatcomplex, she’d underestimated the place.
The sunny redhead walked them through the house, opening cabinets and refrigerators - three - showing them light switches and remote controls, and then she cheerfully informed them that she was available at any hour to help with the operation of the house, if they needed it.
“Y’all expectin’ more?” she asked, looking at Tina and Tell with the first actual human curiosity she’d yet expressed
“Corporate retreat,” Tell said. “They’ll be arriving over the next few days.”
“Ah, yeah,” the woman said, completely sated. “Well, you all have a great time, make sure you come back and see us next time.”
She shook their hands and left, and Tina and Tell went to stand at the doors that overlooked the main porch. Tina thought that there had been a convention distinguishing a porch from a patio, but she hadn’t caught it.
“It’s a lot of windows,” Tina observed.
“There’s a basement,” Tell answered. “We’ll sleep down there.”
She nodded, looking around again.
She’d spent time with Hunter at something that rather resembled a castle, even compared to this, but where that had been grand and spare and elegant, this was intended to feel absolutely packed with…cost? It wasn’t that it was expensive, though it was. It was just… used up. All of the space had been utilized to a purpose to draw attention to how thought-out it had been.
There were antler chandeliers above the tables.
“Armed security?” Tina teased. “You going to be able to survive in a house that all you have to do is break the glass to get in?”
Tell was looking out at the darkness, or watching his own reflection, she couldn’t be sure.
“Am I so weak that you think I must be defended at all times to feel secure?” he asked, then shook his head. “Don’t answer that. I’ve dug myself a pit where I am strong, and let the world pass by me on all sides. I don’t regret it. Perhaps I ought to, but I don’t. I like my home, and I like my life, and I pity Hunter his. But perhaps we are cursed to walk the earth forever, the way the ancients believed, and that we will never find meaning anywhere, no matter how many times we scour it.”
“Do you feel cursed?” Tina asked. She was almost certain he was looking at his reflection, now.
He laughed quietly.
“I don’t know why I fight so hard for my life, if it is such a burden to me,” he said. “It suggests that it is quite highly prized, after all, even if I don’t recognize it immediately.”
“Tell,” Tina said. “What’s going on?”
