Chapter 4: Three Terms

By Monday morning Orson had slept on our porch two nights, and Martha said he was ruining her steps.

"Either let him in or hose him off," she told me over the eggs.

"I don't want him in the house."

"Then put him in the barn. The pickers' cot is still up in the loft."

I walked out to the porch with my coffee.

He was sitting with his back against the post, awake, with his hands hanging between his knees.

He looked up at me.

"I won't ask for anything," he said.

"Good. I have three terms."

He sat up straight.

"One," I said. "When I ask what you're feeling, you tell me out loud. Everything. Not the polite version."

"All right."

"Two. You don't touch me unless I ask you to."

"All right."

"Three. If you lie to me once, about anything, I'm done. You don't get your try at the Stone, and you walk off my land."

He swallowed.

"You can have the loft," I said. "You'll work for your bed. Martha will show you the ladders."

"Why?" he said, and his voice cracked. "After what I said to you."

"I'm not doing it for you. I can't tell what I want, so I need somebody who can. You're the only person in Hollowmere who knows what's in me."

He nodded slowly, and tears ran down his face again.

"What is it right now?" I said.

"What?"

"What am I feeling? Say it."

He pressed his lips together.

"You're tired," he said. "You didn't sleep. And there's something under it that I can't name. It feels like standing at the top of a long staircase."

"Is that good or bad?"

"I don't know yet."

"Then we have that in common."

I went back inside, and Martha was grinning into her coffee.

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