Chapter one: part three

Part three of three. We learn a fear of Lyndon's and meet two more tenants of the house

 “Dog,” Lyndon forced out through a dry and restricted throat. He was curled up against the wall, doing his best to keep away from the giant yellow-furred head sniffing over the side of the bed.

“Mason!” Meredith snapped, finally grabbing the dog’s collar and dragging him away from the bed. “Sit!”

The dog obediently sat, squarely on Meredith’s foot.

She rapped Mason lightly on the head and kept a firm hold on his collar as she turned to the breathless teen. “I’m sorry, Lyndon. He’s normally a lot more mellow than this.”

He nodded but didn’t seem at all reassured by her promise. 

“You afraid of dogs?” a new voice said from the hallway.

Meredith twisted with her hand still on Mason’s collar to scowl at the woman leaning against the doorjamb. “I asked you to watch him while I went to my hormone therapy, Elaine.”

Elaine was short but of average build, with bright blue hair falling to her chest and lively hazel eyes. She grinned and shrugged, her loose shirt threatening to fall off her shoulder. “Sorry. I was coming up to the climax and Rheam just wouldn’t let me go.”

The landlady blinked at her for a moment. “Erm.”

“My characters,” she sighed with a roll of her eyes. “Rheam is the protagonist of my latest story.”

“Oh.”

Mason whined as he strained against Meredith’s grip and the landlady turned back to Lyndon.

“I’ll keep him out of your room,” she promised, providing the boy with a kind smile. “I’m sorry he scared you like that.”

Elaine cleared her throat and earned a glare from Meredith. She shrugged and jerked her chin at Lyndon. “Who’s the new kid?”

The landlady sighed and introduced the teen in a terse voice. All she wanted to do was curl up with a good book and a cup of tea but she had to keep introducing her poor new boarder to everyone else. Everyone else she didn’t really want to deal with at the moment.

“Nice to meet you, then.” She smiled, bowed and left.

“She’s an author,” Meredith muttered as if it would excuse Elaine’s odd behavior. “Likes to get a bit caught up in her stories.”

Lyndon nodded, still curled into a little ball against the wall. He had his head tucked between his crossed arms and his chest, not daring to look up at the dog.

“I’ll take him out, now,” she sighed, nudging Mason with her foot. “Dinner’s at seven. Tyrone and Dorian will be there, if you’d like to meet them. You’ll be able to meet Brian tomorrow, before class. Let’s see…I think that’s it. I’m right next door if you need anything.”

He nodded again and lifted his head to watch her pull the dog out of the room by his collar. Once they were gone, he slowly let himself relax. He tested the bed and found it soft and comfortable, unlike the cold, hard concrete on the streets. With his stomach full for the first time in weeks and wrapped in the warmth of a soft blanket, he slowly drifted off to sleep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Meredith stumbled back down the stairs with her hand still firm on Mason’s collar. She put the dog out into the backyard and retreated to the kitchen. It had always been a safe place for her, the place she went to think when she was upset. And she certainly needed to think now.

There was something that made her alarms ring about Lyndon. He was too quite to be a healthy child. But she couldn’t help him if he wouldn’t talk.

She sighed and set about making a kettle of tea.