“Huh?”
“Our lives are twisted in secrets, tied up like a ball of string, Buddy.”
“I can imagine.”
“No, you can’t,” I insisted. “That’s why I wish you hadn’t come along.”
“Look,” he said, still holding my hands. “You didn’t do what you were supposed to do last night. You cared about me. You took a great risk. I have to believe it was not just for me but for yourself as well. It was for us. You’re different from whatever lives in that house. I couldn’t love you if you weren’t.”
I said nothing. His words were comforting and beautiful to me, but they didn’t change how I felt. My body was still tight. My heart was still thumping with anticipation, and I was still drawn to watch everything that moved around me. He continued to ask me questions, to keep me talking, expecting it would relax me or maybe to relax himself. I gave him as many answers as I could, hoping that he would final
ly realize that he was possibly in even greater danger than he had been last night if he continued to accompany me. If he had simply gone home, he would surely have been safe. Neither Ava nor Mrs. Fennel, and especially not Daddy, would have pursued him and given credence to the stories he might have told. They would have simply left, and it would have been forgotten. But not now. Now he was here, still part of who and what I was.
Our food came. The danger and the flight made him ravenous, whereas I barely picked at my hamburger and didn’t touch the bun.
“How can you not be hungry? Don’t you like hamburgers?”
“I’ve had this so rarely,” I said. “Meat was always the only thing we enjoyed outside of what Mrs. Fennel fed us.”
“What did she feed you?”
“I couldn’t tell you what it was, exactly. She used herbs in combinations only she knew. You would probably spit out the first bite.”
He ate and nodded and looked at me oddly.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ll think I’ve just gone crazy after all that’s happened, but you look older to me. I don’t mean aged or anything. You just look older.”
“I feel older,” I said. “It’s like whatever was childish in me died.”
“Well, I can understand that. I think the same thing happened to me last night.”
He finished eating. We paid our bill and got back into the car. Buddy had asked the rental attendant for a map of the state when the car was delivered, and we both studied it for a few moments to make sure to choose the best route.
“Not that I know much about Oregon,” Buddy said, “but from the looks of it on the map, this town isn’t much.” He sat back. “Come to think of it, I remember when we first met, your sister asked me if I was from a small town.”
“She was trying to find out if you were possibly a renegade,” I said.
“Renegade? What’s that?”
“People like my father who don’t follow our rules. They endanger us all. They’re actually our worst enemy, because they invade our territory and try to take control.”
“No kidding?” His expression changed. “She decided I wasn’t one of those renegades, right?”
“Yes,” I said. I nearly laughed. “I don’t know why that should give you any sense of relief now, Buddy. You’ve kept yourself a target by coming along with me.”
He shrugged. “No sense talking about it now.”
He drove on. Because we had started so late in the day and because of the time it took us to reach Hearts-port, it was twilight by the time we found Dunning Road. The road began as a solid macadam street, but after a good mile and a half, it became gravel.
“You sure about this address?” Buddy asked. “I haven’t seen any houses since we turned, and this isn’t looking like anything that’s been developed, especially when you think how long ago you were there.”
“It’s the address I have,” I said.
We continued almost another mile until we saw a large, two-story house with a cupola at the crest of a small rise. It had stone cladding, a small stairway to the front door, and a double slanted roof. From this angle, the dormer windows looked like eyebrows. The grounds around the house were not very neat. There were patches of grass here and there and wild bushes.
“That’s a pretty old house,” Buddy said. “I know a little bit about architecture because of a class I took. It’s what’s known as Second Empire.”