Unconventional

I was out the door in moments, crossing the courtyard. Bringing my coffee with me of course.

“Hi! Can I help you?”

The trespasser squinted back at me from two shrewd eyes. I could see now he was carrying a clipboard. As he readjusted his stance to face off with me, he scratched at a grey-flecked, unkempt beard.

“That depends,” the man said. “Are you Madison?”

“Ms. Lockhart,” I said, making the distinction. “And yes.”

“Pleasure to meet you Madison,” the man said coolly. “I’m Thomas Burrell. Midlothian county inspector.”

A shiver of unease bolted through me. Even fully-clothed, I felt suddenly naked and vulnerable.

“But I’ve been meeting with inspector Sinclair.”

“Inspector Sinclair is no longer associated with this property,” the man replied nonchalantly. “I am.”

Unlike many of the inspectors I’d dealt with, the man was missing a distinct air of superiority about him. Instead, he had a general indifference. A complete lack of interest in whatever it was he was doing.

I didn’t know which was worse.

“So uh… exactly why are you here?” I asked, trying not to let it come out wrong. “My next inspection isn’t scheduled for another two weeks.”

The man glanced over my shoulder, at something behind me. The uncomfortable silence continued while he stared down at his clipboard and wrote something.

“Consider this a pre-inspection,” he said finally. His pencil moved some more. “I need to get caught up, so to speak, on everything inspector Sinclair might’ve missed.”

“Missed?”

“Yes, Madison. Missed. As in, forgot about. Or didn’t know. Or—”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

It was a bad thing to say, especially to an inspector. But I couldn’t hide my rising anger anymore.

“Well the courtyard for one,” he said, pointing with the eraser end of his pencil. “Many of the stones aren’t set level enough for—”

“They’re seven-hundred years old!” I protested.

“Yes,” he almost chuckled. “They certainly are.”

“And they have to be level?”

“For you to live here, and have the property maintain historical status? Yes.”

I felt like someone just knocked the wind out of me. The man looked down at his clipboard again.

“The gatehouse still needs a bit of work. And your reconstruction of the curtain wall is almost satisfactory, but for the—”

“But for what?” another voice boomed, from out of nowhere.

I whirled, and there was Julian. He was standing behind me, his big chest still heaving from working the sledge. He had his shirt slung over one shoulder, as if that constituted wearing it. The rest of his sun-bronzed skin was covered in several alternating layers of sweat and dust.

“But for a few spots, where the mortaring is still below standards,” the inspector finished. “And then there’s the issue of that missing keystone, on the archway there.”

“That keystone has been missing for centuries.”

“So?”