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

3.24 A Good Man, But a Broken One

June 16, 12:40 pm

Keith and Pil sat, side by side, alone on the couch.

Without power, and with the blinds fully drawn, Keith thought that the room had a tomb-like quality; the air dense and claustrophobic. Perhaps it was the OxyContin, or perhaps it was the lingering pain in his burned arms that the drug hadn't been able to extinguish. Or maybe it was the realization that Michelle was gone—a fact that threatened to crush him if he were to let the reality of it sink in.

Richard and Michelle. Both dead...

Or maybe it was a combination of all these things that made Keith feel that the world was too dark and warped to be real.

Slowly, he tried to push all that away, and concentrate on what Pil had just told him. He wasn't sure whether to believe it, and if he did, he wasn't sure how he should feel about it. Pil had taken his hand in the gloom as he calmly relayed what had happened while Keith was sleeping, but otherwise the big man sat back away from him, as if he knew Keith would need some space to try to comprehend what he had just been told.

"I don't understand," Keith finally managed. It was nearly the first coherent sentence he had muttered since Pil had spoken. "Richard has made you a... medium? Like Howard?" Keith was blinking his eyes as if that would help clear the fog that surrounded him.

"That's right, K. I guess the way it works is that you have to be possessed and released a bunch of times. And Richard can do that now."

"Like what Justin did to Howard. When he made him..."

"Well, it was different." Pil's voice sounded dreamy, as if he was lost in the memory of it. "But yeah, in the end, it was the same thing."

"So that means you can see Richard now?" Keith asked. The implications of all this were slowly putting themselves together in his mind, like a gigantic puzzle.

"I can. And I can see Billy too. He's just a kid. He's actually barefoot, and wearing a straw hat, like something out of an old Western, if you can believe that."

Keith was silent, as he tried to find an emotion, any emotion, that made sense. He didn't know what to say, or how to give voice to the storm that was welling up inside him.

"I didn't realize..." he finally stammered, "...that was how it happened. And I didn't know Richard could... do that."

"I don't think he realized it either," Pil said. "At least not for sure. Until he did it, anyway."

Keith finally turned to look at Pil's face, and he gripped the man's huge hand tighter. He found he could barely see anything, and that his eyes had gone cloudy. He thought for a moment that he might faint, but he took a deep breath and calmed himself, and the feeling passed.

"Pil... How does Richard... look?" Keith asked.

"What do you mean? He looks like Richard."

Keith blinked, but didn't respond. He just looked at Pil until the man finally turned his face and caught Keith's eye. It was clear he knew what Keith was really asking.

"Well, he doesn't look... injured, if that's what you mean. I guess that dying makes the body turn back to the way it was. He looks just like he did when he was alive."

"But... not completely," Keith said, clearly sensing Pil's evasion.

"No. Not a hundred percent. It's his clothes, mostly. They're bloody. I guess that when you die, you take your clothes with you, and Richard's are pretty messed up. He looks like..."

"...like he had his head blown apart." Keith finished.

"I was going to say he looks like you would expect. But I guess. Yeah," Pil said, miserably.