Page 69 of Torin and the Princess

I said, “I’ll walk you down to the?—”

Cooper stood. “Nah, I’ll walk him down, no worries.”

“But—”

“But what? If he needs a shoulder to lean on heading down, are you going to hold him up? He’s twice your size.”

I said, “I guess not.”

He met Torin down the hall.

We heard Torin saying, “I daena mean tae put ye out, Master Cooper.”

“No worries, I ate a lot of ice cream too, and drank a lot. I could use a little fresh air before bed.”

I went to the hall and caught a glimpse of Torin’s face, green, as he went through the door, calling over his shoulder, “Thank ye kindly for the meal, Mistress Lexi.”

And they were gone.

Jen said, “Damn, should we be worried that Cooper is walking him home?”

“Probably, he was in no mood.”

We began clearing the table.

She asked, “What did you think about the test, did Torin pass it?”

I was quiet for a moment. “I mean, Ithinkso? I already sort of believed him, even without the test. I mean, just watch him, no one can keep a character that well, for that long.”

She said, “There was a moment when he didn’t seem to react about the computer and I was thinking,aha! You say you’re from the past but you’re going to take a computer in stride?But then he asked what it was.”

“Yeah, if he was pretending wouldn’t he just ask, ‘What is this, what is that?’ Instead it’s as if he doesn’t see it until he notices it.Thenhe asks about it. It seems legit. I believed he’d never seen a banana before.”

She carried all the ice cream stuff on the tray. “Truth. That was wild. How can you never have seen a banana?”

“Yeah. If heisfrom the past and this is all completely new, everything would be confusing. The room would be chaotic and you’d recognize nothing. I feel like that’s true. Then suddenly he’s like, ‘What’s that laptop thing?”

“So you believe him.”

I said, “I don’tnotbelieve him... you know? He hasn’t given me any reason to doubt him. ”

We carried all the stuff into the kitchen and looked through the window to see Torin and Cooper were almost all the way to the back-shack.

She asked, “Want to go down there? See what they’re talking about?”

“Totally. I’ll do dishes when we get back.” We left for the lawn, with Dude following behind us.

23

LEXI

2004 - THE BACK-SHACK

As we approached the back-shack, Cooper was standing just off the stoop in the darkness, looking in through the door to the fully lit interior. He was watching something, intently, secretively. He heard us walk up, and pressed his finger to his lips, telling us to be quiet. We quieted and joined him, watching.

Torin, alone in the house, was blowing on the lightbulb of the lamp, trying to get it to go out. He had forgotten how to turn them off, or the lesson from yesterday had been lost in all the other stuff that happened.

He finally gave up, sat down on the couch, and then rolled over onto his side, wearing his modern clothes, putting his Nike-clad feet up on the end. He looked like he was going to sleep, the light of the house on — bright as day.

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