A Mischief in the Woodwork - By Harper Alexander Page 0,47
your throne too?” he taunted.
My eyes were hot on him as I pushed myself up from my place of disgrace. Curse him. Who had given him leave to come into our home and act like he not only had rights, but was some lord of authority? And Letta – she posed no relevant defense on my behalf. Had I lost favor with the people I thought were my family, to this..this...stranger? Lost it to this fresh new upstart? It didn't strike me with any sense.
It merely struck me.
What had I done to warrant this treatment, and what had he done to escape it?
“I'll bring back what you need,” Tanen told me reassuringly, as if to validate himself now that he had pointedly crushed me into the floorboards. In my mind, it was a little shabby in the ways of redemption. I was reassured of nothing except the fact that this man now knew he could manhandle me and get away with it.
I felt betrayed. Letta had no stance against it.
I set my shoulders, fiery with defiance. Fine. “Half a dozen lanterns,” I said, starting a list. “A dozen books. A shovel, clothespins... Chandelier crystals. A writing quill. Cloth. Tile. A new pair of boots.”
Although evidently a little overbearing as I meant it, as if he could just trot down to the corner store and request the specifics from inventory, the list did not faze him. He blinked knowingly before responding, seeing what I was doing, but resigned himself to it. Nodding, he accepted his fate. “So be it.”
“And – a bird's nest.”
“What do you need a bird's nest for?” came the objection at that.
I smiled smugly inside at having cracked him. Outwardly, however, I remained all business. “Just get it.”
I saw the slight grinding of his teeth. Bone on dust.
Good. Two could play this game.
“Fine,” he said.
I gave him a slight challenging nod, and then he was off.
Half amused, half disapproving, Letta turned to me after he was gone. But I raised an eyebrow at her, and perhaps she recalled Tanen taking a blow at me first, for she said nothing.
Let's see you come back with even half of those things, Tanen, I thought. I knew it would be better not to underestimate him, because he had already proven he was resourceful, but I could not help being smug with the list I had presented to him.
My only regret was that, in hindsight, I ought to have made him wear the armored corset.
*
It was almost twilight when he came, laden with clinking odds and ends. In the sinking quiet, we could hear him from inside, coming down the road: the faint sound of wind-chimes in a time of no such thing.
Drawn by the off-key music, I abandoned my station at the sink, forgetting my wet hands. They were dried unconventionally on my hair as I absently smoothed it out of my face. Onto the porch and around the side of the house, and there he was:
A drifter and his wares, wandering down our road.
I blinked against the smearing gray of the hour, ascertaining that it was indeed Tanen. For a moment it didn't look like him, but in the end – who else?
He neared like a boat on lapping waves, something summery about him in his laden slowness. I recognized it a moment later:
The summery feeling of cheer at the end of the day, of relief, relaxation – triumph.
He had done it.
He can't have done it.
I narrowed my eyes at his load, attempting to discern the things he carried for what they were. Lanterns, I saw, strung on a pole that he carried over one shoulder. That was all I could make out, as the rest was a jumble under his arm or in the sack that crossed his chest and hung at his waist lapping his leg – all except...
The bird cage.
I didn't see it at first, strung on the end of the pole in line with the lanterns. In truth, from a distance, it resembled them. But I caught wind of a flutter within its boundaries as the contraptions all swayed from side to side, and disbelief shuffled a deck of pure face cards inside me.
Impossible.
He sauntered up, weary but buttered with cheer.
I looked at him. I had no other greeting.
He shucked his armload to the ground, then let the pole slide off his shoulder – but caught it before it could join the pile with a clatter. The lanterns swayed. The bird cage swung.