The second house was quieter than the first. A father this time, a broad man in his forties with the build of a former field awakened and the careful stillness of someone who had learned, somewhere along the way, to take up less space than he naturally occupied. His son sat on the sofa beside him and looked at Aris with enormous dark eyes and said nothing for the first ten minutes of the visit.
His name was Mark, and he had apparently told his father, the morning after the incident, that the pretty person who went into the bad door was going to be fine because he didn't look worried.
Her father had relayed this to Aris with the expression of a man who had found this both comforting and somehow the most concerning thing his child could have said.
"He has good instincts," Aris said, giving the kid a warm smile.
"He's eleven," his father said.
"The instincts are still good."
