“Thank you. I appreciate that,” Angelle said.
“It shouldn’t be too bad. They’ll all be vying for a chance to meet Elijah anyway,” Lily said.
~~~
Less than an hour later, Boon stepped quietly up beside the chair Angelle was sitting in. “Are you anxious to see your home?”
“I’m anxious to see your home,” she countered.
“You know it’s for you.”
“It’s for us, if we can make this work.”
“It’s for us when we make this work.”
Angelle smiled at him, deciding to give in.
“You want to head on over?” he asked.
Angelle glanced around the room; her parents and Boon’s sister and brother-in-law, and Tempest and Brandt, were all deeply involved in conversation as they rehashed the story of Destroy taunting Brandt endlessly as he trekked through Whispers looking for Tempest when she’d left him in the early days of their relationship. She nodded. “I don’t think they’ll even notice we’re gone.”
Boon held out his hand.
Angelle placed her hand in his so he could steady her as she stood.
Together they started for the door.
“Y’all leaving?” Daniel asked.
“Thought we’d go and see the house,” Boon said.
Daniel simply looked at them for a second or two, but instead of getting up, he just nodded. “Maybe we’ll get someone to show us over there later. Give y’all a chance to see it alone.”
Boon nodded gratefully. “We’ll see you later, then.”
“We’ll walk them over. You two go on,” Carrik said.
~~~
Boon and Angelle stepped out onto the porch and looked across the clearing Lily’s home was set in.
“It’s really beautiful here,” Angelle said. “It’s so peaceful.”
“It is. It’s a different way of life from what I’ve seen of your world. We live a much slower life. In some ways, a much richer life.”
“How’s that?” Angelle asked.
“Most of the world seems to look everywhere but at each other for satisfaction, for entertainment, for happiness. They watch televisions, or scroll incessantly on their cell phones — watching everyone else’s lives, rather than living their own with the people they chose to build that life with. We talk to our people. We go for walks. Laugh together. Read books. Cook dinner together. Our lives are built around each other.”
“My people spend time together. They built lives they love and treasure. But I won’t tell you that some of the younger generation, mine included, tend to spend more than their fair share of time on their phones or glued to the television when sitting in a room full of people.”
“If that’s what some want, I’m not the person to question it, but it’s just simpler here. More people focused. That’s the point I’m trying to make.”
“I can understand that. So many people are always saying they wish we could go back to the ‘good times’, when things were easier. Here, you’ve never left those times. You still live your lives like it’s the early 1900s.”
Boon nodded as he stood there with his hands shoved in his pockets. He looked around again, his mind filling his head with memories of the area that used to house the Dragon Tree, and now held Lily and Carrik’s house, on the exact spot the Dragon Tree once stood. “A lot of things happened in this clearing.”
“Oh, yeah?”
