Chapter 35: 35 – Lennox

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“You really do have a lot in that wagon,” Leo observed. He’d stopped exploring the room in general and settled into investigating the contents of the sideboard cabinet.

“I try to be ready for anything,” Lennox said, rummaging in it. “Old buildings aren’t necessarily completely safe, and at this time of year, it can be a long cold night if you don’t come prepared.”

“Yeah? But do you have...” Leo held up his find. “A simple deck of playing cards? C’mon, we’ve got nothing to do and lots of time to do it in. What’s your favourite game? I might know it, a friend of mine loves games and she taught me a bunch.”

“You want to play cards.”

“Why not? What else are you going to do? Sit and look out the window all night? There must be something you like playing.”

“I don’t play cards very much.” He sighed. “But... I learned to play Crazy Eights with my grandmother, it made her really happy. I think I remember the rules on that one.”

“There we go, and instantly, we have something to distract us.” Leo sat down at one end of the long tables, angled towards the seat at right angles to him, and started shuffling the cards. “Your grandmother, huh?”

Lennox pulled two sports drinks out of the insulated bag holding his food and drink supplies, and brought both to the table. “She was pretty lonely after my grandfather died. I went over once a week to take out the garbage for her and help with heavy kinds of laundry, stuff like that, things that she was starting to struggle with, and my cousin took her grocery shopping once a week. She always had fresh cookies, and she always wanted me to hang around for a while. So we’d play cards and talk and whatever. She died a year and a half ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

Lennox shrugged. “At least it was in her sleep, right? She kept telling me I should be more open-minded. That she’d been around long enough to see some things that I wouldn’t believe and couldn’t disprove. Then she wouldn’t actually tell me what they were.”

“Maybe she couldn’t. Some things are pretty hard to put into words.”

“Idunno. Maybe. Whatever. She was pretty damned smart about most things right up until the end, aside from that. Never missed a trick, and God help any of those psycho scammers who thought she was vulnerable—she’d tell them off like naughty children, their mothers and grandmothers would be so ashamed of them for ruining the lives of innocent people, that kind of thing.”

“Awesome for her. She sounds like a very cool lady.”

“Yeah. She was.” Lennox gazed distantly at the cards Leo was dealing in front of him. “I miss her. It was a lot of work going over every week, and there were days I wished I didn’t have to, or days I couldn’t stay like she wanted, but I really wish she was still there and I’d made more time.”

“I think that’s just normal, that you can genuinely love someone but still resent the responsibility when you’re already stressed or tired or trying to do too much. I bet she understood and was glad to have you when she could. And I bet she didn’t want to add to you being stressed or tired.”

“Yeah. She wouldn’t have.” Lennox shrugged and picked up the cards, while Leo set the remainder of the deck between them and flipped the top card. “All right. What’ve we got?”

A couple of games later, the level of the sports drinks was dropping, and so was the general tension level in the room.

“I’m kinda hungry,” Leo said, stretching. “I mean, not ravenous or anything, but it’s been a while. You?”

Lennox shrugged. “Variety on food is pretty limited, but I have some and you can help yourself.”

“I was thinking more that I’d just slip across the hall to the kitchen. Like I said, the cook seems mostly interested in people enjoying the food, hard not to, and is really easygoing about handing it out. How about you stay here, and I’ll run over real quick to see what I can scrounge up? It’s not going to take long.”

“You sure about that?”

“Completely. I’m not insulting whatever you brought, but compared to the hot fresh stuff over there? It’s all safe, I already had some earlier.”

“Yeah,” Lennox conceded grudgingly. “I had some sandwiches earlier that were really good.”

“See? I’ll be back in a few minutes. Nothing to worry about. You like tea? Or hot chocolate? I have no idea if they even have coffee.”

“Hot chocolate’s okay, I guess.”

“You vegetarian or have allergies or anything?”

“No.”

“Must be easier. I am. Okay. I’ll be right back.”

Lennox got up and wandered around the room while Leo was gone. He stepped out into the hall and located the bathroom, making brief use of that and washing his hands, then returned to wait. What if Leo was wrong?

But Leo returned before long with an old-fashioned picnic basket slung on one arm and a tray balanced in both hands.

He set the tray on the table. “Hot fresh homemade soup—the one in the black bowl is chicken noodle, the one in the white bowl is all-veggie with noodles. And two cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows. And more goodies in the basket—a bottle of lemonade and two glasses, a bowl of fish curry that smells majorly yummy and rice to go with it and plates to eat it from, some buttered bread, and a couple of bananas and some shortbread cookies for dessert.” He swung the basket around and started to unpack the contents onto the table next to the tray. “Come help yourself while it’s still hot.”

“Thought you said you were vegetarian.” Leo was right, the soup did smell good.

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“I make the odd exception for a bit of fish now and then, and I’d rather not be excessively fussy as a guest in someone else’s house.” Leo paused. “Hm. Where did you come from?” He lifted a pair of ripe yellow bananas out of the basket.

Clinging to one was something that looked a lot like a tiny octopus, although it was hard to see since it was the same yellow as the banana.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Doesn’t exactly look dangerous. Given the way he’s holding onto that banana, that’s probably all he wants. Right, little guy? He can have a bit of mine. I’ll take him back to the kitchen when I take the basket and dishes back.”

“Are you sure? We have no idea what it is. What if it’s, I don’t know, poisonous or something?”

Leo shrugged. “If he has something to eat that he likes, then presumably he won’t bite us or anything. Just keep out of reach, if you’re worried about him. I think he’s kind of cute.”

Lennox rolled his eyes. That kind of logic was the bane of his existence. But there really was nothing he was going to be able to do about it at the moment, especially not with Leo actually peeling back the top of the banana the creature was attached to.

It climbed along the banana until it reached the exposed part and latched on with all eight legs, the colour bleaching to a paler yellow.

“See?” Leo said. “Too busy to bother with us. And to him, we must be enormous and possibly terrifying. Come have some soup. And hot chocolate. And bread, and curry, and cookies... man, we’re going to be stuffed. Whatever else you can say about this house, the hospitality from the kitchen is absolutely beyond any complaints.”

“You said the white bowl was the vegetarian soup?” It stretched belief that the cook was even willing to humour specific diets in uninvited guests, but it appeared to be true: the soups looked different.

“Yep. Black for you, white for me.”

They lingered over the admittedly-delicious food, in no particular hurry. Leo kept asking Lennox questions about previous investigations, and did seem like he was honestly curious. The weird little creature chowed down on the banana and finally made a little burping noise and fell off the fruit to just lie on the table. Before Lennox could stop him, Leo scooped the thing up to set it on his shoulder, where it clung sleepily, the colour gradually changing to a dusty black.

“I don’t want either of us to accidentally sit on him or step on him or put something down on top of him,” Leo explained. “Octopuses are pretty squishy but there’s gotta be a limit.”

Lennox understood vegetarians often having a very high respect for life, but there was a point where it just became ridiculous and foolhardy. At least Leo appeared to be right for the moment and the little thing just fell asleep or something, not moving.

By the time they worked their way through the entire meal, Lennox no longer had the energy to be furious about being trapped in this house and lied to. With a stomach full of hot and satisfying food, with friendly and ordinary if slightly off-beat company, with no immediate threat... he was more inclined to just go along with Leo’s strategy of waiting until sunrise and making decisions based on whatever happened then.

They played a couple more hands of Crazy Eights over the sweet rich crumbly cookies.

“You look exhausted,” Leo said. “Sorry for being a bit personal, but your eyes look almost bruised they’re so dark. And you’ve yawned twice.”

“I’m okay. I... kinda burned off a lot of energy earlier, more than I planned on. Once all that food kicks in, I’ll get my second wind.”

“Those bench things look like they’re not too bad. Maybe you should just crash for a bit, until that happens. I can stay awake. I wasn’t up until majorly late in the day, I’m usually up at night so it’s not a big deal.”

“I don’t think I...” Lennox yawned and couldn’t quite suppress it.

“I’ll wake you up in a little while. For sure if I start getting tired. I’m going to need a nap eventually too, I guess.”

“You still have your phone?”

“Um... no?”

Figured Leo would misplace his.

“I’ll set an alarm for an hour on mine.” Lennox reached for his phone.

“There’s a clock right there on the wall. It’s fine. I’ll wake you in an hour.”

Lennox hesitated, then let go of his phone and snapped the flap shut over it. “All right. I’m not much use if I’m barely awake. But seriously, only an hour. And wake me if anything happens. Absolutely anything.”

“I will. I promise.”

With mixed feelings, Lennox moved over to one of the benches and stretched out, resting his head on one of the cylindrical end cushions.

It wasn’t great, but it could have been a lot worse.

He tried to still his spinning thoughts. The animal contentment of a full belly and no current threat and a place to lie down all helped. It took more of that hour than he’d have liked, but he did eventually feel himself get drowsy, and then slip even farther.

He barely roused enough to realize that he’d just smelled something unfamiliar and strong, a mix of cut grass and mint and some kind of flower pollen, before he crashed hard into deep sleep.