Chương 13: “Lauren”

Saturday. June was at her nan's. Lauren cleaned the room, the surface clean, the picking-up-of-things, and found Vorrath on the windowsill. She picked him up. She turned him over in her fingers. Held him to the light the same way June did, which he noticed and did not remark upon. She had the same quality of attention her daughter had, the same way of looking at things. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Hm," she said. She put him back exactly where she found him and went on cleaning. That evening she leaned in June's doorframe and said, without quite looking at him: "The rock. Where'd you actually find it?" June told her. The closet, the back of it, the floor. Lauren was quiet for a moment.

"Keep him off the carpet," she said.

"I don't want stains." She left. June looked at Vorrath.

"She likes you," she said.

"She touches things before she puts them back when she likes them. She only does it with things that matter." Vorrath had noticed this. He spent the rest of the evening insisting to himself that he hadn't.