04-24-2019, 03:12 PM
Jude’s voice slithered up from the gloaming, cellar-dusty. The refusal to return to the surface didn’t come as a surprise. He hadn’t exactly set a precedent for good behavior earlier. But then it was Come down here with almost exactly the same inflection that Isa would turn on Lew when she was being stubborn but that Near couldn’t bring himself to affect in his own conversations with the dog because he was a confirmed laissez-fairest when it came to Lew, and it occurred to him that he really should adopt the same attitude toward the kid, too. Ignore him, turn around and leave him be. Doing otherwise could only aggravate the headache whose throb he could feel beginning at the far corners of his temples. God only knew what he was doing down there ...
In a way, though, that was why he couldn’t.
Contributing to this was the feeling that, while Jude might very well belong to the house in a more significant way than Near did -- or the other way around -- Near wasn’t actually a factor in the Jude/Reaches equation and ruffled at the assumption that he might be called like a dog into a space he had been categorically avoiding. There was a small wooden cutting board on the nearest counter, leaning up against the wall. He picked it up and weighed it in his hand for a second, considered the merits tossing it down the stairs instead of himself.
“Why?” he shot back instead, more a statement about how there was no acceptable reason to summon him into the basement than a request for further information. “That door was locked.” Subtext: it was supposed to stay that way.
In a way, though, that was why he couldn’t.
Contributing to this was the feeling that, while Jude might very well belong to the house in a more significant way than Near did -- or the other way around -- Near wasn’t actually a factor in the Jude/Reaches equation and ruffled at the assumption that he might be called like a dog into a space he had been categorically avoiding. There was a small wooden cutting board on the nearest counter, leaning up against the wall. He picked it up and weighed it in his hand for a second, considered the merits tossing it down the stairs instead of himself.
“Why?” he shot back instead, more a statement about how there was no acceptable reason to summon him into the basement than a request for further information. “That door was locked.” Subtext: it was supposed to stay that way.