Page 2 of Tell Me Why
The problem was that the minute Tell had walked out the door to answer Hunter’s summons, Ellen had called to say that there were strange noises in the house and should she call the police.
No.
Tina and Tell had thought that they’d run off the bennaxes, but it sounded like the terrible little creatures had followed Harold home, and while they were notquiteas uncatchable as they had been as adults, you had to smell them and hear them rather thanlookingfor them, because they were fast enough to get past your eye.
Scent lingered.
So Tina headed out again, switching her jacket for the one thatdidn’thave holes at the elbow, because that was more credible, even if just to her, and she took the elevator down to the garage, driving back to the little split-level house where they had just dropped off Harold about an hour and a half before.
She got out, putting her hands into her pockets because she liked the posture of it - unconcerned - and went up to ring the bell. Ellen opened the door before she got there.
She was absolutely sheet-white.
“We can’t tell where it’s coming from,” she whispered. “Or even if it’s there at all. We didn’t know what to do.”
“You did the right thing,” Tina said. “We were trying to keep from having to hurt or kill them, but if I have to, I will.”
At what point did mischief and malice turn into something that was worth real violence to fix it? It was one of those tricky questions that Tina didn’t have a real answer to, but mostly things resolved themselves one way or the other withoutherhaving to be the one who made the call.
Couldn’t be her fault if she wasn’t the one who escalated.
Right?
“You’re not welcome in here,” she called as Harold appeared up at the top of the stairs, looking down at her.
They’d torn open a boiler and shoved him into it.
They had it coming, whatever happened to them. All signs indicated they would have left him there if Tell and Tina hadn’t tracked him down.
“They’re just going to keep coming,” Harold said.
“No, they’re not,” Tina answered, her voice low. “Not if they know what’s good for them.”
Helen followed her up the stairs and Tina drew a breath.
The bennaxes had been here. Theywerehere. Tina could hear them moving around in the rooms of the house, up and down.
They were smaller, now, than they were as adults, but they still had a piece of themselves that was made of light, and they could go through a window as though it wasn’t there.
It would make coming and going from most rooms of the house quite simple, the ability to disappear and reappear unexpectedly. And they were fast, no doubt, as well. Strength wasn’t their forte, but they made up for it with just an exquisite amount of malice.
Tina rubbed her elbow.
“You need to go before I really get angry,” she called.
There was a quiet hissing from the kitchen ahead of her and Tina stepped through the doorway to look down at the squatted bennax.
“Ruin our fun,” it hissed.
“That happened,” Tina said. “But it doesn’t change that you aren’t welcome at the school and you aren’t welcome here. Leave, now, and don’t come back, or I’m going to have to do something more permanent.”
She’d felt for them, as they’d been working their way through the school, trying to find the most recent scent from Harold, fighting off the bennaxes and their random attacks as they attempted to amuse themselves and interfere with the two of them.
Where did theyreallyhave to go?
“You’re looking at it wrong,” Tell had told her, bored. “They don’tbelonganywhere. It’s a very human instinct, the need to have ahomeandbelonging.”
“But we’re driving them out, here,” Tina had argued. “Where are they supposed togo?”
