Steve and Uncle Homer sat around talking for a couple more hours, until it got to be very hard for Steve to stay awake. While he hadn’t gotten up particularly early, a lot had happened on this day and by midnight he was running mostly on inertia.

After a while Ann rejoined them, looking bright and chipper. For an hour or so she was in and out of the room, although rarely joining the discussion and then only for a few words, but mostly she was in another room, not making much noise.

Sometime after midnight she offered to make lunch for Uncle Homer, and a midnight snack for Steve. “Sir,” she said to Uncle Homer as she served them, “Unless there’s a very important need for it, perhaps you should let the young Mr. Taylor get some rest.”

“Yeah, it probably is getting a little late for you, Steve,” Uncle Homer said. “I think you ought to get some sack time. I can see I need to talk to you some more and bring you up to speed on what I need you to do for me first, but I think it would be best to keep you on a daylight schedule for now. Ann, you have a bedroom set up for him, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Second floor left, first one on the left.”

“After we’re done here you can show him up there.” He turned back to Steve. “It’s going to be a little cumbersome this way, but you’ll be up hours before Ann and I will be. I’m going to leave you a few things to study, though.”

“Steve, I’ll probably wake up when you do,” Ann said. “I’ll make you some breakfast then.”

“Why don’t you just stay sleeping?” Steve offered. “I mean, leave me some cereal, bread, lunch meat, milk, and coffee, and that way I won’t bother you.”

“Oh, it’s no bother sir, so long as you don’t keep me awake very long,” she smiled. “I’ll need to check a few things in the middle of the morning, anyway.”

“All right, it’s your choice,” Steve shrugged. “I don’t care very much for cold cereal and milk.”

The three of them chatted for another few minutes, with Ann being rather formal and respectful as she seemed to be around Uncle Homer, although she was less casual around Steve than when she had been driving back from the airport earlier in the evening. He wondered about that a little, but it didn’t bother him.

It really did feel good to follow Ann up the stairs and to the bedroom; it was well after his normal bedtime, even though he’d been in a late-to-bed, late-to-rise mode anyway. The room was comfortable, if a little out of date. He had the impression that it wasn’t used much, but had been recently cleaned. “Have a good night sir,” Ann said as she showed him the room. “The bathroom is the next door on the left. There will be no one else on this floor, and I will have no need to come up here tonight. Sleep as late as you like. It will be easier for all of us that way.”

“It shouldn’t be any problem, Ann. Thank you.”

“Oh, you’re quite welcome, sir. It will be good to have you working with us.”

At whatever it is, Steve thought but didn’t say. It was clear that he’d be told what was happening when Uncle Homer was ready. “I’ll see you in the morning, I guess.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied. “I’ll be going now.” She turned away, and Steve could hear the click-click of her high heels as she walked back toward the stairs.

Interesting woman, he thought. There were clearly a number of mysteries about her, and he knew that he’d only scratched the surface about them. She was very nice looking, but . . . strange. His curiosity was raised in ways it hadn’t been in a long time. Maybe he’d get to know a little more about her, and maybe not. One thing was clear: he couldn’t take anything for granted with her, and he expected to be surprised some more.

As tired as he was, Steve didn’t lie awake for long. This whole deal still felt very surreal, and there were tons of questions he couldn’t answer, starting with why he was here in the first place. Uncle Homer’s parables and stories had obvious lessons, but how was he supposed to apply them?

Oh, well, he thought as he fell asleep. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find out more.

It was obviously daylight when he woke up, even though he could only tell that fact from the light filtering around an old-fashioned roll shade in the room. It was still pretty dark in the room, and he surmised that the house probably would be dark during the daytime, too. There was an old alarm clock in the room, although it hadn’t been set, and he could see that it was mid-morning.

Since Ann had said no one else would be on the floor, he didn’t bother with a robe or anything but his underwear as he went down the hall to the bathroom. Once again, while it clearly wasn’t new, it was clean, and he suspected recently cleaned by Ann. The fixtures were old, not modern replicas; he thought that the claw-foot tub must have dated from the 1920s, and the stool and vanity must also be that old. The stool made a hell of a racket when it was flushed, enough to wake the dead, so it was likely that Ann would know he was stirring. The shower worked well, although again it was hardly up-to-date. How long could it have been since this bathroom and the bedroom had actually been used? Maybe a long time, considering how Uncle Homer had talked about being a loner much of his life! Hell, the last person to take a shower here might have done so over fifty years before! There was no way of telling and he didn’t plan on asking.

Back in his room, Steve got dressed a little more casually than he had been the evening before, bearing in mind that he might want to dress up a little bit before evening came and Uncle Homer would be likely to be stirring. It was something he thought he’d better ask Ann about.

Once he was dressed he went down the long flight of stairs and to the kitchen, where Ann was waiting, dressed in a white blouse and a knee-length blue pencil skirt in the low light of the room. The shades were drawn, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if that was more or less permanent. At first look, the kitchen looked old-fashioned indeed, but Steve noted that there were plenty of modern appliances. “Good morning, sir!” Ann said brightly. “I heard you were up.”

“Yeah, the plumbing is a little loud,” he said. “I hope I didn’t bother you.”

“Oh, not in the slightest, sir,” she smiled. “I had to get up for a few things that needed doing in daylight, so the noise didn’t bother me. The bathroom up there is only used rarely, and I’m afraid I’d forgotten how noisy it is.”

“It surprised me. I hope I didn’t bother Uncle Homer.”

“You need not worry about bothering Mr. Taylor. I know he doesn’t sleep with his hearing aids in. Would you care for breakfast, sir?”

“Unless it’s simpler to do something else.”

“I think breakfast would be best for you, sir. Mr. Taylor pointed out last night that we should probably keep you on a normal daylight schedule for now. I can do eggs, toast, home fries, and sausage easily, sir.”

“That sounds good. But Ann, you don’t have to call me ‘sir’ with every tenth word.”

“I feel I must, sir, especially here at home. It’s what I feel is proper. I should not have been as casual with you yesterday as I was, but I felt you needed to be put at ease.”

“It sounds strange to me,” he shook his head, “but if it’s what you want, I guess I have no room to complain.”

“Thank you, sir,” she smiled. “I even feel a little uncomfortable that I may have to call you ‘Steve’ at times, but with two Mr. Taylors around it could get a little confusing.”

“Do it however you want, Ann. Whatever makes you happy.”

“Thank you, sir. I shall have some coffee ready for you in a few minutes. How would you like your eggs, and would you prefer white or wheat toast?”

“Over easy and white would be fine.”

“Sir, I also have some very nice Amish-made blackberry jam. Would that be acceptable?”

“It sounds wonderful, Ann. You’re being very nice to me.”

“It’s the only proper way to treat a guest, sir. Perhaps I should say more than a guest. An associate might be a better term. I think you’ll find being here worth your time.”

“I hope so, Ann,” he shook his head, “but I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“It will become clear in time,” she said. “Sir, if I have learned anything from the years I’ve spent with Mr. Taylor, he has his own way of doing things, but he usually has his reasons. In any case, he has suggested some materials for you to study today, and you can talk about them this evening.”

It turned out that the materials were all on a single flash drive, which included a list of website URLs, some of which were general local information about Cookeville, Tennessee, an hour or so east of Nashville. A couple of the sites involved hints and tips on how to handle auctions, especially for real estate. There were others involving banking procedures, and, a little to Steve’s surprise, a website about WWII in New Guinea. Steve went over them carefully on his laptop – formerly RELI’s laptop, that is – and felt he’d digested what there was to digest.

Steve thought maybe he ought to drop an e-mail to Craig Markham to tell him that everything seemed to be on the up and up, but decided not to – there was still a lot he didn’t know. There wasn’t anything in his e-mail but the usual spam, so after a while he shut off the computer.

A little at a loss for what to do next, he wandered through the house a little to discover Ann sitting in a room at the far end of the house, working at a computer. In fact, there were four computer screens running in there. He didn’t want to call the room a mess, but it was a little unkempt, like it was an active work room. It seemed slightly out of place for the normally neat-as-a-pin Ann. “So what are you up to?” he asked.

“Just some things that need to be done, sir,” she replied, making it clear she didn’t want him to know what they were. “Is there anything you need?”

“I was thinking about taking a little walk, get some fresh air.”

“Feel free, sir. Behind the house you will find a nice path down to a pond. I often take a walk on it, after dark, of course. I doubt you will see the animal activity during the day that I see at night, but you may find it interesting. I’m sure you’ll understand why I don’t care to go with you.”

“A little too bright for you out there?”

“Too bright to be pleasant for me, sir,” she replied.

“Maybe sometime we could take a stroll on a bright moonlit night.”

“That would be enjoyable, sir. We’ll have to keep that in mind.”

It really was pleasant outside this time of year, if a touch on the cool side. It was a bright and sunny afternoon, and Steve easily understood why it would be uncomfortable for Ann. The path behind the house was easy to find, and Steve strolled along it, trying to put yesterday and the changes in his life into perspective.

Steve eventually came to the pond, which was small, perhaps an acre or two in size. There was a pair of swans nesting partway around the shoreline, cruising around peacefully on the sparkling, light-dappled waters, a nice and peaceful scene. It was a convenient place to stop and think for a few minutes.

This whole thing was strange, there was no doubt about that. Some of it was understandable now that he knew a little about it, such as Ann’s problems with bright light, but it was clear that she was still a strange woman. He doubted if he had been called “sir” collectively as much in all his life as he had been in the last day. Clearly Ann had a casual side, for he’d occasionally seen hints of it, such as when she’d heaved a rock at the raccoon the night before, but it was only a rare glimpse behind her normal formality. Was she like that all the time? He didn’t have enough information even to start developing a theory.

What made it seem even stranger was that Uncle Homer was obviously a casual kind of guy, an old man with a fund of stories. Why hadn’t some of that informality rubbed off on Ann? Or was Uncle Homer usually pretty formal, and being casual now for the sake of making him feel at ease? For some reason that felt more likely, but as strange as things were around here he wouldn’t want to bet on it.

And what the hell did Uncle Homer really want him to do? He had no idea. Clearly there was going to be some risk involved, but to whom, or what? Uncle Homer wanted him to be careful, but take a risk on whatever it was. Once again, he didn’t have enough information to tell.

There were lots of questions, and not many answers so far. The only thing he could do was to keep on and hope that something would be revealed to him along the way.

Eventually watching the swans paddle around the pond while his thoughts chased their own tails got dull, so he decided to walk back to the house, to see if he could find out more information. The path was an easy walk through the trees, and in minutes he came out to where he got a good view of the house, which he hadn’t looked at in daylight. The place was huge, three stories high with a mansard roof. It was covered with slate tiles, now weathered and gray, which gave it the appearance of a haunted house – well, at least a bit spooky.

There was no telling what might be in the upper floor; he hadn’t been there, and knew that Uncle Homer hadn’t been there recently. Somehow he didn’t think Ann made it up there very often, either, although he couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t even looked around the second floor very much, other than the bedroom and that noisily plumbed bathroom, but had the impression that it wasn’t used frequently. It might be fun to poke around the upper stories a little, although it wasn’t the kind of thing he would want to do as a guest.

There were secrets in that house – that was for sure. Would he ever find out what some of them were?

“It seems strange to have dinner at this hour of the day,” Uncle Homer said a couple of hours later as Ann set a plate of veal parmesan in front of him at one end of a large formal dining table in a room near the kitchen. “This is usually breakfast time for us, but since you’re a guest I suppose we can adapt.”

“In the future, don’t go out of your way for me,” Steve replied. “You have your routine, and I ought to be able to fit into it.”

“That’s appreciated, Steve. When you’re here for extended periods you’ll probably be as much a night person as we’ve become, but for now you’re just going to have to adapt to it. Considering what we have to do, there will be times that Ann and I will have to be up at odd hours ourselves.”

“Yes,” Ann agreed as she took a seat at the table with them. “The world doesn’t seem to run on our clocks very often. Fortunately I need less sleep than the average person and can get by on naps from time to time if I must. Sirs, how is your dinner?”

“It smells wonderful, Ann,” Uncle Homer smiled. “Up to your usual quality.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Much better than pulling something from the freezer and throwing it in the microwave,” Steve replied. “Great job, Ann, but you didn’t have to go to this trouble for me.”

“Oh, it’s very little more trouble to prepare something properly, and it’s much more enjoyable, sir.”

“Still, this is the best dinner I’ve had in weeks, if not months,” Steve replied. “Ann, if I had to eat your cooking very often, I’m afraid I’d put on a lot of weight.”

“I doubt it, sir. I would take care to prepare only appropriate amounts. I’ve had to be careful about our diets, so keeping an eye on yours would be no extra bother.”

“If you can’t enjoy quantity,” Uncle Homer grinned, “at least it’s nice to have quality to appreciate.”

The dinner really was excellent, and the conversation around the table involved nothing of importance. Steve mentioned seeing the swans down on the pond, and Uncle Homer explained that there had always been swans there. “In fact, it’s pretty much been the same swans,” he said. “They have amazingly long lives, so those are only the fourth generation since I’ve been here.”

They took their time eating, and eventually Ann cleared away the dishes and replaced them with an excellent cherry cobbler. Say what you will, Steve thought. Ann may be a little on the strange side but she’s a hell of a cook.

After their desserts, Uncle Homer suggested they go into the living room. Ann wheeled him in and helped him get into his comfortable chair. “Thank you, Ann,” he said. “Go deal with the dishes, and come join us. I think we’re going to need you participating in this discussion.”

“Certainly, sir,” she replied. “I shall only be a few minutes.” She turned and left the room, the clicking of her high heels the loudest sound in the room.

“Interesting lady,” Steve commented as he watched her go.

“Yes, she is,” Uncle Homer replied. “As long as she’s been with me, she still surprises me from time to time. I honestly don’t know what I would do without her, and I’m just not talking about my day-to-day life. She’s been very useful in other things, too, but as I mentioned to you yesterday, her capabilities are limited, which is why I’m asking you to do a few things for me.”

“I understand she needs to be with you most of the time.”

“Well, yes, but it’s more than that. Steve, I’m not saying this behind her back, since she knows what I’m about to tell you as well as I do, and she’ll probably be listening to us, anyway. Ann is extremely intelligent, and is very good at doing what she’s told to do. She’s not as good at setting goals for herself and working toward them, and she has only limited initiative to start things for herself. In the beginning she was so unsure of herself that I had to tell her almost every move to make. For example, for a long time I had to tell her which groceries to buy, and in what amounts. After a while, I was able to tell her to get the groceries, what she thought we needed, and she learned to do that, but I still had to tell her to go to the grocery store. After some time she reached the point where my supervision wasn’t needed to deal with that, since she knows we need certain amounts of groceries. For example, I had to suggest veal for dinner, but once that decision had been made she knew how to carry it out. It’s not all bad but can be tedious to the point of irritating at times.”

“I have to admit, I hadn’t picked up on that. I mean, not at all.”

“Oh, it’s true. Steve, as you may have guessed, we don’t often have guests around here. It has been years since the last time. I’m not sure how long but I don’t doubt that Ann could tell you. Anyway, it’s a rare enough occurrence that Ann and I had to discuss how you were to be treated. The point I was making is that I don’t have to tell her to keep the house clean anymore, at least the part we use, but I did have to tell her to make up the room you’re in once we decided to ask you here. She might have thought about it herself but would have been unlikely to take action on it. Now if she thinks something needs to be done she’ll ask about it, at least most of the time, rather than waiting to be told. It hasn’t always been that way.”

Steve shook his head. “Like I said, I never would have picked up on it. I mean, it seems like she has everything under perfect control.”

“Well, she does,” Uncle Homer grinned, “but you’re also seeing her operating in her comfort zone, doing the things she does routinely. What I had to tell her was transparent, as far as you’re concerned. Now, I could get a housekeeper or nurse or someone in here to take care of me if she had to be gone for several days. Things wouldn’t go as well for me as they normally do, but I would survive. But for a number of reasons, Ann couldn’t handle things like I’m going to be asking you to do. They would take too much initiative on her part.”

“I would never have guessed it. It seemed to me when she came to meet me yesterday that she was very competent, if a bit reserved. But it seemed to me that she knew exactly what she was doing.”

“I have no doubt that she did. But you didn’t see the preparations we went through, the options she had to have laid out before her in case certain things happened. Did you notice that she called me a number of times?”

“Yes, I did. I thought it was checking on you.”

“Oh, she did that all right, but she was also getting her instructions updated as necessary, too. Ann can be extremely useful, Steve, and in ways that you can’t imagine. But you will also have to be aware of her limitations, and in all the years I’ve known her I haven’t discovered them all yet. Realistically, she hasn’t either.”

“I was getting the impression that things around here are a little more complicated than they seem on the surface. I guess I was right.”

“No doubt about it, Steve. Now, I’m getting ready to send you out on a little errand. It’s something you should be able to handle easily. I’m not sure Ann could do it at all, and besides, in this case her presence might flush the game before we’re ready. Have you read any Sherlock Holmes, Steve?”

“Some.”

“Then you ought to understand what I mean when I say, ‘The game’s afoot.’”

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