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

3.21 The Only Other Thing He Cares About

June 16, 11:31 am

Pil stirred from a nightmare so painful that he struggled to keep it from his waking mind. The dream quickly fled, but he couldn't banish the tears on his cheek, the image of Michelle's terrified face as she went up in flames, or the sensation that a brutal vice was clamped onto his heart. With a gasp, he forced his eyes open, and the room swam into focus. And as it did, the reality of Michelle's death threatened to crush him again with its cruel weight. For several minutes, all he could do was wait for that anguish to pass and search desperately for a reason to go on.

He looked down, and he found it.

Thankfully, Keith was sleeping deeply, his head on Pil's lap, and no traces of tortured dreams clouded his round face.

Thank god for the Oxy, Pil thought. He considered taking one himself, but the desire quickly passed. It was up to him now to get himself and Keith out of this. It would be what Michelle would want of him.

He gently stroked his friend's hair, and in his sleep, Keith's hands flexed, as if he was trying to grasp something ethereal.

Slowly, Pil became aware of hushed voices drifting through the hall. At first he thought he was hearing a conversation in the dining room, but then he realized it wasn't a conversation. You can't call something a conversation where there is only one voice. It was more like overhearing one side of a telephone call. And even though he couldn't hear any words clearly, the tone of Howard's whispering was enough to cause him a rush of anxiety that gathered in his shoulders and refused to leave.

He gently dislodged himself from under Keith's sleeping form, being careful to put a pillow under his head and not bump his friend's burned arms. But he was sleeping soundly, and didn't stir. Clearly, half of an OxyContin had been enough, combined with his general state of exhaustion, to put him out for the count. He paused for a long moment to linger on Keith's peaceful face and wished that he could just stay there with him. But something was going on in the dining room, and every instinct he had told him it was important that he get in there. As gently as he was able, he eased himself off the couch. Keith moaned, but did not awaken.

Quietly, Pil crept out of the living room, but some deep foreboding made him hold back in the shadows of the hallway, listening. Through the open door he could see Howard's back as he stood at the dining room table. But the boy's gaze was darting back and forth as he engaged in the conversation with Billy and Richard.

Pil had finally accepted that the two ghosts were truly there. Michelle had believed Howard from the first, and had put her trust in this strange boy. But Pil hadn't wanted to believe that what Richard's murderer was saying could be true. And even though he had originally railed against him, Pil now knew that Michelle had been right, and Howard could be trusted. He had gotten them back here safely, when neither he nor Keith were in any condition to take care of themselves.

Pil listened, finally able to peek into the dining room and hear what Howard was saying. But it didn't feel like eavesdropping at all. It was more like peering in at an inmate of an insane asylum, watching him arguing with his imaginary friends. The boy in Richard's big shirt was so worked up that Pil didn't worry that he would turn and see him standing in the hallway. And based on the intensity of the conversation, it wasn't likely that either of the two ghosts would notice him either.

"Absolutely fucking not, Richard," Howard was saying. "The answer is no! There is no way I'm letting anybody back into my head. You have no idea what that's like. I'm not doing it. I don't care if this whole fucking city burns. I'm just not!"

Pil chewed on that in his mind for a second. So the two of them are trying to convince Howard to let himself be possessed again? Why in God's name would they want him to do such a thing? He didn't blame the boy for being angry. Like Howard, Pil knew exactly how much of a violation possession was.