"Come on, smells like Dad's in the kitchen," Addie said when he had finished. He set his boots against the wall next to a pair of pink and white Hello Kitty slipper thongs and stood up to follow the girls.
They passed through a fairly cramped hallway to another room. The sound of fire was stronger here, and smells of fresh-baked breads, meats, and spices attacked his nostrils, overwhelming even the scents of the two girls. Like the hallway, this room was decorated very similarly to the entrance room, with hardwood surfaces covered by simple, worn rugs and a few modest pictures hung upon the walls. Here wooden cabinets were sunk into the walls so that their doors were flush with the surface of the wall. A few stood open, exposing jars of leaves and powders, or bags and boxes starkly stenciled with "RICE" or "SUGAR" letterings, bold black against plain white. The wall to Ryan's left was a pegboard hung with an assortment of long-handled spoons, dippers, and baking equipment. Below these things sat a large white sink with shiny taps protruding from the wall.
The opposite wall sheltered a great hulking black stove, complete with a wood hopper and smoke hood, carrying the smoke away to some unknown destination. The fire popped and crackled fiercely and was loud enough to be somewhat annoying in the enclosed space. A large table took up most of the space in the room, with great thick planks and crudely carved legs. Its surface held an assortment of bowls, some containing vegetables, breads, or meat, all steaming or covered in rough cloth. There was a fair amount of spillage between the bowls, and the only clear area was full of crumbs, flour, and bits of spare dough.
The man bent over the stove, muttering as he stirred something in a great cast iron kettle with a long shiny spoon, was the same and yet completely different than the Damian he had known in college. His hair was still long and red, yes, but longer - now the familiar ponytail was down almost to his knees - and not so red anymore. Now it was mostly a simple brown that hinted of both the red it had been and the grey it was slowly becoming. He was short and thick, yes - but while the shortness had not changed, the thickness had increased considerably. His shoulders were thick and broad, his arms were huge, and the calf muscles which extended beyond his cutoff jeans were probably bigger than Ryan's thighs, and there didn't seem to be a bit of fat on them. His bare feet seemed worn and scarred, and more than a little bit dirty.
"Yeah, what is it?", he called over his shoulder without looking away from his pot.
"Hey-yah, daddy, we got us a guest. He calls himself Ryan Evey, and he says he's here to see you."
"Hey, yeah?" Damian took a sip of the mixture in the pot, shook his head in despair, and turned to face Ryan, wiping sticky hands on a stained apron. The muscular cook's face lit up and wrinkled in ways vaguely familiar to Ryan, with a huge grin pushing his reddish beard apart to show a few missing teeth.
"Hey, shithead! How the hell are you?", he roared, waving his hands and almost knocking the pot over.
"Dad!", Addie cried, scandalized. "He's a guest! Mind your manners!"
Damian waved the notion away as if it disgusted him. "Just 'cause we hain't seen him in almost two decades doesn't make him a damn guest. He's yer Uncle, and don't you forget it."
"Yes, sir," the twins chimed in unison. Ryan realized that they had taken on an orderly stance, lined up exactly with each other and with the room, arms clasped behind their waists. They seemed as relaxed in this position as any other.
"Right. You two are disgusting. Go get washed up, dinner'l be ready in about half an hour. And send someone to go get Timmy and Rachael, because no one's seen them in too damn long and they're likely as filthy as you. Well? Off with ye, then!"
The girls both performed the curious half-bow, half-nod and sprinted from the room without another word.
"Those two are pretty...cool," Ryan ventured.
"Yeah, aren't they? They're the worst of 'em. Spend all damn day slinking around in the dirt and the trees, looking for anyone to harass. If they jump out and scare Timmy one more time, I'll thrash 'em, I swear to God."
Ryan laughed. It was hard to imagine Damian thrashing anyone, despite his ursine appearance. He tended to wrestle and yell a lot, but Ryan had never seen him actually try to hit someone. He knew from his own experiences with parenting how statements like that tended to come out.
Suddenly, Damian lunged forward and grabbed him about the waist with his massive arms. Before he had time to do more than inhale, Ryan was being crushed in a terrible bear hug.
"ARRR-RRRAAGGGHH! Good to see you, man!"
"Uhhh-hurk," Ryan replied, feeling his ribs bending a bit.
"Heh!" Damian set him down with a barked laugh. "How was the drive? Besides long and dusty."
"Well, that was about it actually. Some crazy idiot almost ran me over with his truck."
"Huh. Yeah, you gotta watch out for farmers. They all drive like psychos."
Ryan smiled, remembering some rather dangerous driving he'd done himself in the past. Then he frowned again. "I don't know, it was kind of weird. I couldn't see anyone driving it."
Damian's eyes narrowed. "Is that so. What kind of a truck was it?"
"I don't know, some kind of an old rusty red dodge. There wasn't really anything remarkable about it."
The look on Damian's face became very thoughtful and, Ryan thought, suspicious. He turned and went back to the stove, stirring the contents of the pot as though they were the driver in question.
After a few seconds, Ryan cleared his throat. "So, do you know who it might have been? I mean, I passed a couple of turnoffs, but..."
Damian stirred.
"I, uh...does anyone else live up here?" Ryan found himself beginning to worry again.
"Does anyone else live up here? I should say so. Dangerous lunatics, the fringe of society, and worse. Don't ever trust anyone who lives on a farm, you hear?" He punctuated this last warning by turning and waving the spoon at Ryan in a no-nonsense-tolerated kind of way. Realizing that he had just splattered the floor with what looked to be some sort of gravy, he frowned at the spoon, muttered, and turned back to the stove.
"Well, go ahead and bring your crap in. Your bedroom is the last one on the left at the end of the hall, the one with all the stuff stacked up inside on the far wall - sorry about that, but you haven't been using it for the last twenty years, and we're remodeling part of the house... Well, anyway. Uh. Go ahead and put your stuff in there and wash up if you want, and feel free to wander around. Anyone that doesn't want you in their space will let you know. Sean and Joyce should be here in four or five hours, and Norris is coming tommorow afternoon. 'Til then, you're the only Uncle in the house, so you'll get plenty of attention. Heh."
"Uh, thanks." Damian didn't turn around. "See you in a bit then."
"Dinner should be ready in about twenty minutes. And if you see any of the kids outside, tell 'em to get their asses in here and clean themselves up."
"Right. I'll do that." Ryan returned to the entrance room and wondered things as he pulled on his boots, such as how many of these kids are there? and how many rooms can this place have, anyway?.
The light outside was growing dim. Ryan left the door partially open in order to avoid having to mess with it on his return. The western half of the sky was a dark blue fading to black, while in the east a few stars already shone brightly in the clear mountain air. The tops of trees moved restlessly in a breeze which had yet to reach the ground.
Ryan's left foot stopped unexpectedly against something soft and heavy. Unable to correct or pull up his foot, he fell forward and sprawled over the pig. The pig squealed and wriggled out from under his body and then trotted off into the field, grunting as though severely offended.
I guess it's a bit dark not to be watching my feet, Ryan thought. He made his way to his car and pulled a couple of bags out of the trunk. After pausing in thought for a few seconds, he opened the passenger side door and grabbed another small sack which contained some bills and papers he wanted to look over when he had time.
Ryan made his way back into the house and removed his boots again. He then made his way down the hallway, turning sideways to fit his bags in the narrow space. The hallway was long and poorly lit, and as he walked he counted doors. The first three were closed and had names carved into the thick, shiny wood - Jenni, Caitlin, and Holly. The carving was uneven and the letters were blocky and clumsy. Holly and Caitlin's names had small embellishments which he guessed were supposed to be flowers, but it was hard to tell.
The next door was opened. It's interior was a chaotic swirl of clothes, wooden dishes, magazines and comic books, food, and miscelaneous junk. The floor was not visible and indeed Ryan was not even sure how far down it was. No one was in the room, and there seemed to be no furniture. A few drawings and magazine pages were fixed to the walls, and one wall sported a rack which held a wooden sword, several rods of varying color and length, and a fencing mask. The name on the door had been carved so clumsily that it was difficult to read, but he thought it might be Jessie or Josie.
Ryan continued down the hall. Addie & Ally, Rachael, Sarah, Heather, Becky, and Timmy - some doors were opened, some were closed. All the open doors showed empty rooms of varying states of order. The twins' shared room smelled rank and were almost as messy as the first open room.
The next few doors were closed and blank. The sound of running water came from behind two of them.
The hallway continued, and now even the occasional lamps were unlit, forcing him to continue in gloom. He thought the next few rooms had names as well, but he couldn't make them out and had stopped counting. Incredibly the hallway kept running, occasionally stepping up or down and once turning a righthand corner.
Finally the hallway ended. The wall at the end of the hall felt like nothing more than a sheet of plastic over bare dirt. Ryan guessed that Damian planned to eventually extend the hallway. It was too dark to see whether the wooden door to the left had a name or not, but it was definitely the last door on the left. Ryan grabbed the handle and pushed.
The door stuck a bit at the top. Probably warped. It opened inward and Ryan felt around inside for a light switch. There didn't seem to be one.