The Everlasting by Tim Lebbon Page B

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.
    â€œWho’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 thedarkness 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.
    â€œWho
is
that?” she asked again.
    Scott moved to the door and went to push it shut.
    â€œWho are you?” Helen said. “What do you want?”
    â€œHelen . . .” 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.
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œPapa?” Helen said.
    â€œPapa.” 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.”
    â€œShut the door,” Scott said, but Helen would not—or could not—move.
    â€œWhere is it?” Lewis asked.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe Chord of Souls. Where?”
    â€œI don’t know what—”
    â€œYou
do
know what I’m talking about!” Lewis stepped forward, growled with effort, and grabbed hold of Helen’s dressing gown. He screamed as hepulled hard, his face breaking into a smile of triumph as Scott’s wife stumbled to his side.
    â€œHelen!”
    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.
    â€œGive me the book or your wife . . .” Lewis trailed off, but his gaze never left Scott’s eyes.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’ll leave that unsaid,” the ghost said. “You have an imagination, I know. Papa saw to that.”
    â€œYou’re not real,” Scott said.
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œHolding her is an effort, isn’t it?” Scott said.
    â€œ
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.
    â€œI don’t know what book you’re talking about,” Scott said. He realized that he had suddenly become very calm. Seeing Lewis again—and