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“Well,” Leo said. “You’re wrong. I’m special. I’m different. You know nothing.”

He was certainly special and different. Nate couldn’t argue with that and he wasn’t going to.

“Okay. You’re right. I know nothing, that’s why I’m going to go into town and ask around.”

Leo turned back to the window. “Fine. Do whatever you want. It’s your time to waste.”

“It is.”

Nate picked his pen back up and returned to his list. Screws. Wood filler. A new bulb for the basement.

Leo was still there. Nate could feel him hovering at the edge of the kitchen, arms crossed. As if he still had something to say.

Nate kept writing and waited.

“While you’re in town,” Leo said finally, “two of the shutters on the east side are hanging by one hinge each. They won’t survive another storm.”

Nate didn’t look up. Under wood filler, he wrote shutter hardware.

Leo drifted closer and watched him do it.

“Anything else?” Nate asked. “While I’m making a list.”

Leo hesitated. “The foxgloves,” he said then. “They’re being choked out by the weeds. In case you need some gardening equipment to take care of that…”

Nate looked at him for a moment.

“What?” Leo asked. “I’m not saying you have to do it. But someone should. That’s all.”

“No, I don’t mind doing it. I’m just…” surprised you want me to take care of your garden. Nate swallowed the words. Instead he looked down at his list and wrote weed the garden at the very bottom.

Leo made a short sound of approval and floated away once more.

Nate finished his coffee alone. He turned the conversation over once, trying to decide whether it had gone well or badly, and couldn’t tell.

Maybe a little bit of both.

He grabbed his keys.

The town was fifteen minutes away, and everything that mattered clustered in the center. A diner, a bank, a pharmacy, a hardware store. Nate had driven in once before, for a propane canister, and had been aware the entire time of being looked at.

Today was no different. He parked in front of the hardware store, and by the time he’d reached the door, an older couple across the street had stopped walking to talk to each other.

Probably about him.

Small towns.

The hardware store smelled faintly like motor oil. Behind the counter stood a woman in her fifties with reading glasses pushed up into her gray hair.

She took one look at him and nodded slowly. “You’re the one who bought the old manor.”

“That’s me.”

“I see.” She looked at him more closely. “My nephew watches your videos. He says you’re going to die in there.”

“The renovation costs might just kill me.”

“No, I don’t think that’s what he meant.”