CHAPTER 31: THE APPRAISER
Maya Torres was late.
Not significantly late — seven minutes, maybe eight — but Logan had been standing at the front window long enough to notice.
"You're hovering," Sam said from behind him.
"I'm observing."
"You're hovering. It's weird." She joined him at the window. "Nervous about the appraisal?"
"Just curious."
A blue Subaru pulled into the driveway, winter-dirty and practical. The woman who emerged was late twenties, dark hair pulled back in a messy bun, carrying a leather toolkit that looked older than she was.
"That's her," Sam said. "She came highly recommended."
Maya Torres climbed the porch steps and knocked twice — efficient, no-nonsense. Sam opened the door before the echo faded.
"Ms. Torres? Thank you for coming."
"Maya, please." Her handshake was firm, her smile genuine. "And thank you for having me. I've been dying to get inside Woodstone ever since I moved to the area."
"Dying to—"
"Historical architecture," Maya said, already craning her neck to examine the foyer ceiling. "1850s Georgian Revival with Victorian modifications. The molding alone is worth the drive."
She stepped past Sam, her attention captured by the details Logan had stopped noticing weeks ago — the carved railings, the plaster medallions, the doorframes worn smooth by a century and a half of hands.
"This is my brother Logan," Sam said. "He'll be your escort today."
Maya turned. Their eyes met.
Something shifted.
"Hi," Logan said.
"Hi yourself." Maya's smile widened. "Ready for a very boring tour of furniture provenance?"
"I doubt it'll be boring."
"That's what they all say. Then I start talking about dovetail joints and their eyes glaze over."
"Try me."
The tour took three hours.
Maya moved through the house with the focused intensity of someone reading a language most people couldn't see. She examined drawers from below, checked joints with a jeweler's loupe, photographed maker's marks that Logan hadn't known existed.
"This credenza," she said, running her fingers along its edge. "Herter Brothers, 1880s. The inlay work is distinctive — they were the only firm doing this particular technique in American walnut."
"Herter Brothers?"
"New York furniture makers. They furnished the White House, did pieces for the Vanderbilts." She pulled open a drawer and pointed to a faded stamp. "Do you see that? 'H.B.' with the eagle. That's their mark."
"What's it worth?"
Maya's eyes gleamed. "At auction? Sixty to eighty thousand. Maybe more, depending on provenance documentation."
Logan whistled.
"Most people don't react when I talk about furniture," Maya said, watching him. "They nod politely and wait for me to finish."
"Most people don't live in a house full of history."
"Is that what it is? Living in history?"
"Living in someone else's story. Wearing a dead woman's furniture and a dead man's face."
"Something like that."
They moved to the parlor. Hetty was there — invisible to Maya, visible to Logan — and she watched the appraiser examine her things with the intensity of a museum curator observing a conservator.
"Victorian horsehair settee," Maya said, circling the piece. "Original upholstery, which is remarkable. Most of these got recovered in the fifties when horsehair went out of fashion."
"The family was... traditional."
"Traditional enough to keep nineteenth-century furniture uncomfortable?" Maya sat on the settee experimentally. "God, it's like sitting on a brick."
Hetty's expression flickered — offense, then grudging acknowledgment.
"The Victorians believed discomfort built character," Logan said.
"The Victorians were masochists." But Maya was smiling. She stood, made notes on her tablet, moved to the next piece.
Logan followed.
Their hands reached for the same drawer handle at the same moment.
Maya's fingers were warm. There was paint under her nails — ultramarine blue, the kind you couldn't get out no matter how much you scrubbed. Her hand stayed where it was.
So did his.
"Sorry," she said, not moving.
"Don't be."
A beat. Two.
She pulled away, a flush creeping up her neck.
"The drawer. I need to check the drawer."
"Right. The drawer."
Hetty, watching from the corner, raised one spectral eyebrow.
The appraisal finished at 4 PM.
Maya stood on the porch, tablet full of notes, leather toolkit slung over her shoulder. The January cold had reddened her cheeks.
"I'll need to come back," she said. "There's too much here for one visit. The attic alone would take a full day."
"We're available whenever."
"Whenever?" Maya smiled. "That's dangerous. I might take you up on it."
"I hope you do."
The words hung between them. Maya's smile softened into something less professional.
"This was fun," she said. "I don't usually have fun on appraisals."
"I don't usually find furniture provenance fascinating."
"Liar. You absolutely do. I saw your face when I found the Herter mark."
"I saw it in an episode. Season two, I think. Sam tried to sell it before she knew what it was worth."
"Guilty."
Maya laughed — warm, genuine, the kind of laugh that invited you to laugh with her.
"Same time next week?"
"I'll be here."
She walked to her car, then turned back.
"Logan?"
"Yeah?"
"Most people glaze over when I talk about furniture provenance. You didn't." She paused. "That's rare."
She drove away.
Logan stood on the porch, watching her taillights disappear down the driveway, feeling something he hadn't felt since transmigrating — something that belonged entirely to this life.
[OBSERVATION: HOST IS EXPERIENCING EMOTIONAL RESPONSE NOT RELATED TO SYSTEM OBJECTIVES.]
[CLASSIFICATION: PERSONAL.]
[RECOMMENDATION: NONE. PROCEED AS DESIRED.]
The coffee maker's light blinked through the kitchen window.
When Logan went inside, there was a cup of hot chocolate on the counter.
He hadn't asked for it. He hadn't programmed it.
And in the parlor, Pete was sitting beside an identical cup, watching the steam curl upward with an expression Logan couldn't quite read.