A bright yellow, Mahrree thought, would be so much more interesting. Perhaps even a deep red, or a pale blue. But gray? What kind of mentality—
“That’s absurd!” Perrin muttered suddenly. “Gray paint? Who actually spent slips of silver on that?”
Mahrree laughed as his disparaging tone. “Thank you!” she sighed. “I needed that.”
“Why? What were you thinking?”
“About . . . moving here,” she confessed. “Only for a moment.”
Perrin leaned away from her and looked her up and down as if she was a complete stranger. “Why?!”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suddenly pictured myself here and started thinking how much we could really do with a place like this.”
“Such as use four times as much wood to heat the house?”
“Well, no, I hadn’t considered that. Of course it’s ridiculous. But it’s so strange, I didn’t even know this place existed days ago, then within minutes I suddenly find myself wanting it. I mean, why would I be so quick to fall in love?”
Perrin gave her a sidelong glance. “Clarify, please.”
Mahrree laughed and nudged him. “I meant, fall in love with these houses! Not you. It took me several weeks to decide to love you.”
He smiled slightly. “I thought you loved me the first time you saw me. I remember very well that look on your face when I first stepped on the platform.”
“What I felt was attraction. It took me a few weeks to decide if I wanted to love you.”
Perrin chuckled. “So, being attracted to one of these gray blocks imported from the dubious home of creativity known as Idumea—does this mean you’re no longer satisfied with what the Creator has chosen to bless us with?”
“Well, when you put it that way now I feel doubly guilty,” she confessed. “We have exactly what we need, don’t we?”
“Yes, we do,” he said, his voice a little unsure. “For now.”
Mahrree turned to look at him. “What do mean, for now?”
His shoulder twitched and he sat taller, looking around the gray landscape.
“What are looking for?”
“Administrators,” he mumbled. “This place feels so bleak that for a moment I wondered if we drove too far south and were in Idumea.”
“Not yet,” she smiled. “Why?”
“Well, when you were talking about Poe with Mrs. Hili, it got me wondering . . . you miss teaching, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Not so much, but I do miss knowing what’s going on. I feel like a dull knife. I used to be sharper. I’m completely out of touch. Having children like Poe around, I can at least gauge what’s happening in the school. Maybe I should take Poe and some other children in for the afternoons. It seems so strange,” she added vaguely.
Perrin waited for her to finish. When she didn’t—too lost in her own thoughts where he couldn’t interrupt her and force her to draw different conclusions—he said, “What’s strange?”
“All the changes, and so quickly. Maybe it’s been happening gradually and we simply didn’t notice because it was all around us, sneaking up slowly. But since we’ve been away for some time in our own little world with the children, it’s as if I can see things differently now. And I don’t like it, Perrin.”
He sighed in agreement. “I know what I’ve seen in Idumea and it just didn’t feel right. Just my gut feeling. Not a very logical argument, I know. And now it seems it’s coming here. I guess there’s no stopping ‘progress’.”
“There’s nothing wrong with following a gut feeling, Perrin. Sometimes that’s the best guide,” she decided. “True, feelings aren’t logical, but if they’re from the Creator, you best follow them. He tends to know a bit more than we do.”
Perrin was silent as the horses plodded out of the development and along the dirt road between the wide open fields outside of Edge. “Well, I hope my feelings are from the Creator. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish.”
Mahrree thought about that. “Do you regret following your feelings to Edge?”
“No,” Perrin answered instantly. “Never.”
“Then you followed the right feelings, correct? And if everything turned out well, the feelings were inspired by the Creator.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he whispered mysteriously. “Mahrree,” he continued, his voice unexpectedly heavy, “speaking of children and school . . . have you considered Jaytsy going to full school? That will be the only option when she’s six, I’m sure of it.”