Buffy Stuff

Nonsense

mistymidnight

Author's Notes: Two updates in one day! Woot for me!

Sigh I thought you people loved me more than this. I added a new chapter this afternoon, and now it's a quarter to ten and I've only gotten TWO REVIEWS! You're all lucky my creative juices can flow all on their own! (A lack of reviews causes clots, though. =) )

Chapter Seven

Tara stared eagerly ahead at the dirt road. To her left, dirt or gravel driveways snaked off through the trees, and Tara thought she could catch the glitter of a lake every once in awhile. Then the road forked. Mommy took the left side, and the next thing Tara knew, the pickup truck was grinding over the gravel that the driveway was composed of. Tara looked excitedly to her left…and there it was.

The house was huge, at least to Tara. From the driveway, stairs led onto the porch, which wrapped around two of the house's four sides. A small garage separate from the house was straight ahead, and Mommy parked in front of it. Tara jumped out of the car to stretch her legs, then ran up onto the porch and looked around.

Straight ahead was the lake. It glittered through the trees, a deep blackish-blue with silver sprinkles. On the other side of the bank Tara could see mountains, lazily making half-hearted attempts to touch the clouds.

"Oh, neato," she breathed, then took as deep a breath of the fresh mountain air that she could muster. It smelled crisp and clean and warm like a sheet that had been washed and dried on the clothesline in the sun. Except better. Because in this air there was pine and compost and cold water and the calming woody smell of the porch.

"You like it?" Mommy asked, smiling, as she unloaded their bags from the back of the truck.

"Oh, yes, Mommy, it's awesome," Tara said. "It's like…like…the Goddess herself."

Mommy smiled. "I know how you feel." She turned to the bags. "Now come help me get this inside."

"Okay," Tara said agreeably, skipping over to help. Mommy carried her bags to the porch stairs, then knelt down and felt around underneath one of them. Her face lit up and she pulled out the house key that had been taped under the step. "Just where she said it would be," she mumbled to herself, then straightened up again. "Tara," she said, holding out the key, "would you like to do the honors?"

Tara grinned and ran up the steps to the clear glass door. She slid the key into the lock, turned and pushed…

…and the door creaked open.

The inside of the house was just a lovely as the view outside. The house was sunny and bright, courtesy of the huge sliding doors out onto the other part of the porch, and the huge windows above the sliders. Everything was the colors of the woods: birch tree gray, the dark brown of soil, the deep greens of plants, the rich clay reds, and just a hint of white winter frost. The walls were just barely off-white, and the stairs heading up to the loft were hardwood, a light, shiny brown the color of the crusts of fresh baked bread. The rafters were the same color.

A gray-white wall-to-wall carpet covered the floor to Tara's left. As far as she could tell, this was the living and dining area. There was a big oak table the same color as the rafters and the stairs, and in the living area there was a couch set directly in front of a huge fireplace. A chair sat just off to the side of the couch, and a small circular end table sat between them. The coffee table between the couch and the fireplace was the color of rich dark chocolate.

The blanket the was draped over the back of the couch incorporated all the colors of the room, adding to them the reds and blues and blacks of the forest.

Tara turned her gaze over to the right, the kitchen area. Right next to her elbow was a counter with two chairs next to it, for a quick meal. The kitchen was surrounded on three sides by counters. On the far wall, Tara could see a door, probably to the bathroom, and on the wall next to that, she could see another door. It was open a bit and Tara could see that it was a girl's bedroom.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Mommy asked, coming up behind her. "It was so nice of Tammy to let us stay here."

"Yeah," Tara agreed. "Is—Can that be my room?" She pointed at the door to the bedroom.

"Of course," Mommy said. "I'm staying upstairs, in the loft."

"Ooh! I wanna see!" Tara exclaimed, dropping her bags by the door and dashing toward the stairs. Mommy followed, laughing like a little kid. Tara raced her up the stairs and found herself in a big room with a big bed against the wall. It was covered with a woven bedspread that sported a pattern of off-white diamonds lined up on a navy-blue background. A bathroom and a closet were off to the left. But best of all was the view. Not only out the floor-to-ceiling windows, but looking over the little half-wall of the loft down below to the living area. Tara felt almost some kind of bug—a butterfly, she decided—sitting on the wall of a room, unobserved by the people there, just watching everything unfold before her. It was an interesting feeling.

"Let's go swimming!" she said, turning to Mommy. "Please? I can see the lake! It's just across the road! Please?"

"It's too late in the day, honey-bear," Mommy said. By the time we unpack and eat dinner and get ready to go and then get there and get in the water, it will be time to come back."

"I guess," Tara said.

"Tell you what, though," Mommy said. "We'll go first thing after breakfast tomorrow."

"Yay!" Tara said.

"All right," Mommy said. "Now dinner."

They got halfway down the stairs when Mommy said, "You know what? We don't have food."

"Are we gonna starve, Mommy?" Tara asked in a small voice.

"Of course not, Tara-bear," Mommy said. "We'll just ride into town and pick some up, that's all. You'll just have to wait a little for your dinner."

Tara was so happy with everything that she'd be willing to wait days before eating anything.

She was happier than she'd been in a long time.

mistymidnight