The Everlasting (7 page)

“So how far
does
space go?” Scott asks again.

Papa shrugs. “Who knows? No one's ever been that far.”

“But somebody must have a clue. Scientists or something.”

“They say it's forever.”

Scott stands for a few seconds, frowning at the road but not really seeing it. “I don't understand,” he says.

“You're not meant to.”

“What?”

Papa is staring at him now, all levity exhaled with his last breath. “If we understand everything, what is there left to look for?”

“Papa?” Scott is only eight years old. His grandfather is scaring him.

Papa leans down toward his grandson. His face is stern; laughter lines are worry lines now, and his whole image has shifted. “Sometimes it's sensible not to go looking for things you shouldn't know.”

Scott steps back, trips over his own heel, and falls onto his behind.

Papa laughs. He waves his walking stick at the sky, leans back, and roars, and when he looks back down at Scott he has tears in his eyes. Scott smiles, then laughs as well.

“But that,” Papa says, “doesn't mean you shouldn't.”

Later, Papa sits by a stream while Scott dams it, and when it's time to go home Scott breaks the dam and they watch the water find its natural level once more.

Scott sat on the bottom stair and stared at the blinds across the front door. “I can't know you,” he
said. “I can't
see
you. You're not to be seen or known. Fuck off.” He stood, stumbled into the living room, and picked up the single chair by the fire-place. It just fit through the doorway—he scraped his fingers but barely registered the pain—and he pushed it hard against the front door, wedging it beneath the handle.

He went back to the living room and made sure all the curtains were fully drawn. He could look outside and see them again, he knew, but he had no desire to do that. Perhaps he was imagining things, or maybe he truly was seeing them. It was the latter that seemed more likely to him. He had always believed, because Papa had instilled that belief. He had always known that there was much more to things than he could see or easily understand. But until now, he had been content not knowing.

He reached behind the curtain and tried to make sure the window latch was in the locked position. For a few seconds his arm was in sight of anything outside, but he turned his head away in case he saw beyond the glass. He fiddled for the latch, found it already locked, and withdrew his arm. Out in the hallway he did the same, then into the dining room—checking that the patio doors were shut and locked, the side window latched—and finally the kitchen.

He made another circuit, checking door locks and pinning the dining chairs beneath the door handles. He considered tipping the dining table onto its side and pushing it against the patio doors. It was a heavy
table, oak inlaid with ceramic tiles, and he remembered that it usually needed the two of them to shift it. The thought of asking Helen to help dissuaded him from trying.

Certain that the house was locked as tight as it could be, Scott sat at the kitchen table, held his head in his hands, and felt the pressure of the impossible coming to bear.

For a while he lost himself. He cried, shook, shivered as the air in the house seemed to drop below freezing; then he started sweating. He tried to believe that he had seen nothing—that Papa's letter had inspired strange visions and hallucinations—but he knew in his heart that was wrong. Something had changed, and everything felt different. Something—the letter, the muttering of those strange words Papa had sung in the woods so long ago—had lifted the veil and afforded Scott a glimpse of the greater reality.

And he didn't want to know. He wanted Helen, and peace. He did not want to believe that there were ghosts, because that implied that everlasting rest was not for everyone.

Is Papa out there somewhere?
he thought. He liked to think not, but . . .
But someone made that letter come here, and someone tried to open the drawer
.

“Papa?” Scott muttered, his voice distorted through the tears.

There was no answer. He was not sure what he would have done if there had been.

He cried some more, crossed his arms on the table, and buried his face in them. His heart thumped. He felt it dancing in his chest, pulsing where he was pressed against the table edge. He heard it, like the sound of a distant wooden barrel being beaten.

The sound came closer. He breathed harder, faster, trying to drown the sound of his heart with his breaths, but it suddenly came from all around him, softly at first, then harsher and more urgent.

Scott sat upright and looked around, and the sound did not stop. It was no longer in rhythm with his heart.

The banging stopped and his heart raced on. He sat there for a while, wondering whether he'd imagined the sound. Perhaps he'd had his ear pressed against his arm in such a way that his heartbeat sounded like an echo. “No,” he said. However much he tried denying all this, he knew what was really happening.

“Back door,” Helen said.

Scott jumped from the chair and turned. His wife was leaning against the kitchen doorjamb, eyes slitted against the harsh light. “What?”

“Door. Back door. Someone's knocking on it.”

“You heard that?”

Helen nodded, then opened her eyes wider when she heard the stress in his voice. “Was that you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Banging on the table?”

“No. Not me. Why would I?”

“Don't know,” she said. She ran her hand through
her hair, frowning. “I'm tired. Maybe we're both dreaming this.” Then she went for the back door.

“Don't.” Scott stood in her way. She stopped before him and he held her shoulders, pulling her close. “Please don't.”

Helen shook her head and he felt her hair trailing across his face. “I'm so tired,” she said. “Put the kettle on, babe.”

Scott sighed and let her go, turned for the kettle, realizing only as he heard the key turn that Helen had always intended opening the door. Maybe she wanted him to confront the fears she believed Papa's letter had implanted in him yesterday. Show him there was nothing out there but night. Let him see that maybe the only thing haunting him was Papa, a constant presence in his mind that had been aggravated by reading something he had written thirty years ago.

Or maybe she was so tired, she did not know what she was doing.

Scott felt the cool rush of air entering the house as Helen swung the door open. Darkness heaved in, actually seeming to shove the kitchen light back for the space of an eyeblink before light and dark agreed upon equilibrium.

“Who's that?” Helen said. And Scott knew that she saw only one shape.

The shadows were still standing across the garden, shimmering now as the effect of his muttered spell wore off. They were obvious to Scott, and not only because he knew they were there. They were visible. Helen could not see them, and it was not only the
darkness hiding them from her sight. Scott saw more.

But she
could
see one of them. The shape that seemed to emerge from the darkness at the edge of the garden, coming into being beneath the moonlight and walking quickly across the lawn.

“Who
is
that?” she asked again.

Scott moved to the door and went to push it shut.

“Who are you?” Helen said. “What do you want?”

“Helen . . .” Scott pushed, but Helen had moved in front of the door, holding it open with her shoulder. “Let me close it. What are you doing?”

She ignored him. “I'll call the police,” she said.

“It's him.” Scott was certain. It had been thirty years, but he could remember the pained gait, the determined swing of the arms, and as the ghost of Papa's dead friend Lewis drew closer, Scott knew his face.

“Papa?” Helen said.

“Papa.” Lewis stopped three steps away from the door. He looked the same as when he had confronted Scott in the field with the shattered tree: old, drawn, his face lined with effort or pain. “That's a name I've not heard spoken for a while.”

“Shut the door,” Scott said, but Helen would not—or could not—move.

“Where is it?” Lewis asked.

“What?”

“The Chord of Souls. Where?”

“I don't know what—”

“You
do
know what I'm talking about!” Lewis stepped forward, growled with effort, and grabbed hold of Helen's dressing gown. He screamed as he
pulled hard, his face breaking into a smile of triumph as Scott's wife stumbled to his side.

“Helen!”

She had turned now, and he saw why she had not been able to move: she was petrified. Her eyes were wide-open, mouth agape, and a line of drool hung from her chin.

“Give me the book or your wife . . .” Lewis trailed off, but his gaze never left Scott's eyes.

“What?”

“I'll leave that unsaid,” the ghost said. “You have an imagination, I know. Papa saw to that.”

“You're not real,” Scott said.

“You told me that last time we met.” Lewis turned to Helen. His movement seemed fluid, not solid, as though his image were ghosted on a bad TV screen. She struggled in his grasp, and the ghost's lips pressed together as he held her tighter. “You know I'm real, don't you?” he asked.

“Holding her is an effort, isn't it?” Scott said.

“
Worth
the effort.”

Scott glanced past Lewis and out into the garden, searching for shadows. The spell of those strange words had worn off, but now he knew that the ghosts were still there. Always there.

“I don't know what book you're talking about,” Scott said. He realized that he had suddenly become very calm. Seeing Lewis again—and seeing Helen's fear—confirmed that he had not simply been imagining things. Reality crashed in and ebbed around the events of the past day, and, unimaginable as they
were, Scott could now view the situation from a point of knowledge. This
was
a ghost standing before him, and the letter
had
arrived. The future began at that moment, and it was a very different place.

Lewis shook his head. “Perhaps not,” he said. “Maybe Papa really didn't show you the book. Old fool that he was, maybe he thought he'd be keeping you safe.”

“He'd never do anything to hurt me,” Scott said. He was looking directly at Helen now, trying to offer her calmness through his gaze.

“But now you've heard from him,” Lewis said. “Now you've been told. I know that. Your wider self is richer. It's in your eyes. You've heard from him, and now there's more to life than you ever believed before.”

“Papa is dead. How could I have heard from him?”

“
I'm
dead! And at Papa's hand! But it doesn't always have to be this way.”

Helen whined and started struggling, and Lewis held her tighter.

“Good,” he said. “It's getting easier.”

“What about the book?” Scott said. In spite of what was happening, he found himself interested.

“The Chord of Souls,” Lewis said. “It contains the spells for eternal life. Ruling the Wide. Immortality. And more. You
have
to give it to me. It's . . .
important
!”

“You're a ghost.”

Lewis frowned, as though confused by the term. He looked at Helen, glanced back at Scott, then shook his head. “Scott, I'm much less than a ghost. Didn't he tell you? Didn't you ever hear?”

“Hear what?”

Lewis spoke the words, and shadows filled with shadows. He gauged Scott's reaction and nodded. “Then you
have
seen them before.”

Helen tried to break free. Scott stepped forward and Lewis tensed, the motion fluid, as though seen underwater.

“You have no idea what I can do,” the less-than-a-ghost said.

He's right
, Scott thought.
I have no idea. Papa told me a little, but nowhere near enough. He told me enough to put me in danger, but not enough to save me
.

The ghosts stood there, vague echoes of people. They watched. Some of them moved. And Scott wondered for the first time whether Lewis had any control over them at all.

“You have to find the book,” Lewis said.

Scott shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“You heard from Papa.”

“Not really. A whisper. Maybe I was asleep.”

“That poor old bastard can't whisper.”

Scott's calmness was amazing him, and he saw confusion in Helen's eyes. “What's the Wide?”

Lewis smiled, and it was a horrendous sight.
No dead person should ever smile,
Scott thought. It didn't become them.

“That's for you to find out, just like your grandfather and I did. It's a knowledge hard come by.”

Scott looked at Helen, saw the terror and confusion she was feeling, and made a decision. “You're not here,” he said. “I'm asleep. Dreaming. I thought of
Papa yesterday and now he's in my dreams, and you're there too because he killed you. I love him and trust him. You must have deserved to die.”

“I deserve to live forever, damn him! He can stay where he is and I—”

Scott shook his head and smiled. “You're not real. And now I'm going to wake up.” He closed his eyes, wondering for a second whether what he said was actually the truth.

Then he heard the scream. Helen, her voice telling him of her pain and fear.

Lewis muttered as Scott opened his eyes again, similar to what Papa had said in the woods but the chant longer, rising and falling, words twisting into and through one another as though they were a pile of writhing snakes. Lewis had wrapped his other arm around Helen and now he smiled triumphantly.

A storm struck the garden. Wind howled; lightning arced so close that Scott's hair stood on end.

“Meet the Wide,” Lewis said. “She is here with me, and if you want her back . . . the Chord of Souls.” He shouted a final few words and the world split apart.