The Last Handful of Clover - Book 3: The Stone in the Stream

3.00f Synopsis of Books One and Two

Book One: The Hereafter

Three days after he was shot in his own home, Richard Pratt (57) returns to the world of the living. As he struggles to make sense of the strange netherworld in which he finds himself, his much younger partner Keith Woo (32) struggles to cope with the grief that comes from having his partner of ten years die in his arms.

But Keith and Richard are not the only ones dealing with tragedy. In fact, all of Salt Lake City is slowly falling under the grip of a spree of violence whose scope is only starting to penetrate the consciousness of the city residents.

On the same night that Richard returns, airman Bradley Seward (40) brutally attacks a dozen teenagers in a suburban theater. In the aftermath of the killings, we meet two more ghosts: Mattie Sowersby (8) and Billy Travers (15). Mattie is a dark and evil presence who possessed Bradley Seward and used his body to murder the theatergoers, and Billy is her guardian, who has been helplessly following her since they both died in 1857.

Meanwhile, Richard Pratt is struggling to stay sane as he must bear witness to his grieving lover while being unable to communicate or interact with him at all. After a day of this, and suffering from overwhelming grief and panic, he finally flees from the home they had shared.

It is in a park near to their home that Richard encounters Mattie, the first ghost he has seen, and welcome proof that he is not completely alone. But unfortunately, the mad little girl flees from him, leaving him lonelier and more confused than ever. In a desperate rush to return to his husband, a delivery vehicle strikes Richard in the street—his ghostly body shattering like glass. This is how he learns that ghosts can be "reset"—a painful and terrifying process which returns him to the location where he died.

What he does not know is that Billy Travers (who was following Mattie) witnessed his reset. Sensing that there is something unusual and powerful about this new ghost (but not understanding who he is or where he died), Billy sets off on a quest to find him.

Meanwhile, in the Salt Lake Detention Center, we meet Howard Gunderson (22): the young man who shot Richard Pratt through the front window of his home. It is a crime that he doesn't remember, and he fears for his own sanity. Carla Grayson (47), the detective that is overseeing the investigation, is fascinated and moved by the vulnerability of the boy, and his desperate confusion about what is happening to him. After Carla's departure from his cell, we learn that, like Bradley Seward, Howard committed his crime because he was possessed by a ghost. This one is named Justin Kimball (18), and he returns to possess Howard again, in a brutal act of domination and humiliation.

Justin is obsessed with Richard Pratt, after having been used and betrayed by him in life, decades earlier. But his possession of Howard only started out as a need to use the boy as a random tool to enact his revenge. Now, he has become obsessed with the young man. And in possessing him more than once, he is defying a strange and powerful presence that calls itself God, and whom Justin has sworn to serve.

Now back in his house, Richard struggles between a desire to stay with Keith, and the pain that comes with watching his partner grieve his death.

Helping his husband through his mourning are Keith's two best friends: Michelle (33) and Pil Kilani (38). Michelle grew up with Keith, and Pil is a huge Maori man from Hawaii that Michelle met on her LDS mission. The bond among these three friends has always been strangely powerful and has only grown through the tragedy of Richard's death less than a week before.

Richard accompanies the three friends to a funeral home, where Keith must make some of the final arrangements. Richard is disturbed to learn that his corpse is in the mortuary's basement, and he accompanies Pil and Keith down into the meditation room, where Keith wants some alone time with his late husband. There, Richard has the surreal experience of gazing at his own coffin.