Free Burnt Offerings (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) by Stephen Graham Jones, Robert Marasco Page A

deal. There was still something being left unspoken, he was convinced; something more than mere eccentricity to the Allardyces. But he recognized the look in Marian’s eyes; the house had indeed sold itself to her instantly, and it would take more than a blunt “no” to dislodge it.
    “We’ll think it over,” he said as sincerely as he could, “and let you know, okay?”
    “But, Ben . . .” Marian said, grabbing his arm. No pout this time; it was genuine protest.
    He didn’t bother to lower his voice. “Marian. The responsibility of an – ” He caught himself, “ – elderly woman . . .”
    “For this? ” she broke in, almost embracing the room. “For all this? ”
    Brother nodded confidently to Miss Allardyce who looked away from him quickly. “You won’t even know she’s here,” she insisted. “I promise you. She stays in her room all day. All day.”
    “Sleepin’ most of the time,” Brother said.
    “And when she’s not sleeping, she’s working on her collection. Right, Brother?”
    He agreed. “Her pitchers. Old photos, she’s got thousands of them.”
    “The memories of a lifetime,” Miss Allardyce said.
    “It’s her hobby,” Brother explained, “like mine is my music.”
    Miss Allardyce’s voice dropped. “What music?” she asked.
    “My discs, my record collection.”
    “ That .” She waved it away. “Give him his Mantovani and his whatyoumacallits . . .”
    “Roz here’s got no hobbies, no interests at all.”
    “Some people are too busy being useful for hobbies.” They had moved apart for the bickering. “His hobby,” she said to Marian and Ben, “is his health, his eternal health.”
    “You just watch it,” Brother said in a fit of coughing that Roz’s mention of health seemed to have triggered, “just watch yourself.”
    She looked away from him. “The people last year – ” she said, and Brother corrected her with, “Two years ago, dummy.” The coughing fit was passing.
    Roz glared. “Two years ago,” she said, “ – they didn’t see her once.”
    “The McDonalds,” Brother remembered fondly.
    “Wonderful family,” Miss Allardyce said. The voice was rising again, and she was moving back behind Brother’s chair.
    “Or the time before, as I recall.” Brother straightened in his chair, the rattle in his throat gone. “The Doncheys.”
    “Another wonderful family.”
    “They were all, Roz, all of them. The Wassoffs.”
    Miss Allardyce smiled. “And Norton, Brother, remember?”
    “Do I? And Spiering.”
    The names came at Ben and Marian, a whole litany of them that Roz and Brother were calling up with mounting and almost childish enthusiasm: Costanza, Kappes, Whipple, Ferguson, Thorne, Zori, Ableman, Wright, Griffin, Loomie, Costello . . .
    They stopped abruptly, and Roz and Brother seemed lost in meditation for a moment.
    “Wonderful families, all of them,” Brother said, and Miss Allardyce nodded and said, “Just wonderful.”
    There was a silence. “And now,” Brother said quietly, “ – Rolfe?”
    Miss Allardyce repeated the name, like a prayer. “Rolfe.”
    The announcement, small-voiced and whining, came from the open terrace door, wrecking the silence: “I fell.” He limped two steps into the room, holding up his arms and displaying two scraped elbows. His jeans were torn and his left knee gaped through, ragged and bleeding.
    The shock took a while to reach Marian; when it did it jolted her. She cried, “ David! ” and ran to him across the room. “What happened?” She was on her knees in front of him. “My God, baby, what happened!”
    “I fell!” he repeated shakily, and her reaction brought on the tears.
    Ben was beside her, examining the wounds. “Okay, sport, easy now.” He raised the scraped elbows gently. “Easy.” Marian had her arms around David. “Is he all right? Ben, is he all right?”
    “You want t’ wash out them cuts,” Brother said. He had wheeled himself closer.
    Miss Allardyce snapped