Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (6 page)

Stephanie
looked over her shoulder at her father, who forced a smile and
nodded, shooing her away with his right hand, his left arm still
wound tight over his chest. Stephanie understood the social
contract enough to know that she had been released from her
obligation.

As he watched
Stephanie walk towards the den, David’s tears started to flow more
freely. Hannah walked towards the island in the kitchen, and leaned
the small of her back against the counter. She patted the stool
next to her, “Get over here David. Whatever it is, it can’t be that
bad.” She watched as his shoulders shuddered when he inhaled … bad
sign, “Okay, it’s that bad … is it the crap with Tiernan again?” He
walked over and took his place on the stool beside her, resting his
forehead on the cool slate-topped counter.

“Oh god Hannah.
I’m fucked. I’m really fucked.” He sobbed.

Hannah bit her
lip and glanced towards the den, patting her brothers back
tentatively, “What happened?”

He sucked up
the drool that was starting to pool at the corners of his mouth,
“They think I’m lying! Hannah, it really sounds like they think I’m
involved in this.”

She was quietly
glad that he wasn’t looking at her. She was nervous, possibly even
scared for her brother, but she couldn’t keep herself from smiling,
“David, chill.” She laughed, embarrassed at her own ineptitude,
“Seriously though … if they really thought you were involved in the
assassination of a president, you’d be hog tied and hooded by
now.”

David laughed,
and inhaled awkwardly, “Shut up Han, they don’t do that.”

“Oh, I’ve seen
the photos”

David sat up
and glared at her seriously, “I can’t go back to work.”

Hannah shook
her head and rolled her eyes, “Of course you can … get over
yourself.”

David’s mouth
fell open, “Get over myself? You think this is me being embarrassed
to show my face at work? No Han, I mean, I literally can’t go back
to work … Carlton told me I couldn’t even go to the office to talk
to him.”

Hannah laughed,
her hands covering her mouth, “Shut up!”

No answer.

“Shut up!”

Still no
answer.

“Oh god David …
you’re Lee Harvey Oswald.”

He stood up
quickly and walked over to the window facing the back yard, hands
shaking as he filled the carafe with water from the tap. Coffee
would help. Coffee always helped.

“Oh come on
David, it’s funny because it’s true.”

David slumped
to the floor with his back against the kitchen cabinets, sobbing,
breaths coming in short, ragged, heaving bursts. Hannah finished
her brother’s half-assed attempt at setting off the coffee, then
slumped to the floor beside him. Sure, this was a big deal, but she
felt like David could at least try to make it easy for her to
sympathize with him. He was such a pussy sometimes, which was fine
… he’d had to deal with a lot of stuff growing up that she had been
too young to even acknowledge rationally, but she’d told him, so
many times that she felt cold, and kind of nauseated when men cried
near her.

“Hell David,
what’s the worst that could happen?”

David’s sobbing
ceased momentarily, and he lifted his chin from its resting place
on his knees, “ … fucking shit, I don’t know Han. Maybe, life in
prison … Death penalty?”

Hannah clamped
her teeth around her knuckle, and took a slow breath to steady her
nerves, “So, I’ll get to keep Spiff, and she’ll grow up a little
bit maladjusted, which, let’s be honest, was definitely on the
cards for her anyway.”

David started
laughing, but this seemed to have little effect on the flow of
tears, so Hannah dug deep, and draped an arm over her brother’s
shoulder. “Seriously Dave, this is only one of the worst things
imaginable, definitely not the worst. You’re allowed to feel a
little sorry for yourself, but now you need to pick your sorry ass
up off the floor, and put on a happy show for Stephanie, or I swear
to god, I’m going to beat the living shit out of you.”

With the sound
of tiny feet slapping on the hardwood floor of the kitchen,
Stephanie came running from the den with her hands behind her back,
“Aunt Han, what’s a sphincta?”

David’s smile
was crooked, but presentable, “What are you watching
Stephanie?”

“Wayne’s
world.”

David laughed a
little and coughed, “A sphincter is what stops you from drowning in
the bath when you let one go.”

Hannah slapped
the back of David’s head playfully, “Don’t listen to your dad
Spiff. Let’s look it up okay?” Hannah pushed with her feet, sliding
her back up the cabinet, and took Stephanie’s hand as she walked
her back into the den.

David got up
off the floor, and poured himself a coffee. He was glad to be home.
He looked out at the back yard and saw the twisted limping
swing-set that longed for attention. He would fix it. Manual labor
would take his mind off everything.

West stood up from the
couch, glancing around the room, as if one of the porcelain bulls,
or china fishermen might have the answer to Charlene’s question.
What had he given her? Charlene’s fingers stroked the skin of her
neck carefully, tracing a tentative line towards her chest. He knew
that she must be feeling better, and in the long run, that would be
all that would matter to her. He looked back at the porcelain bull,
before finally deciding that so far as demonstrative props went,
this would have to suffice.

“Charlene …” He
picked up the bull, tossing it from hand to hand before holding it
out in front of him, “The cow’s stomach has four chambers, the
rumen, reticulum, omasum, and the abomasum.”

Charlene glared
at him, “Put that down, I’ve had that forty years son.”

West smirking,
quickly obeyed, placing the cow back where he found it, amongst the
menagerie of ornate fish, and fowl. Charlene continued, “I’ll tell
you what, if all my aches and pains can be fixed with cow stomach,
and I’ve been suffering all this time, there’ll be hell to pay, and
that’s all I’ve got to say on the matter.”

West waved his
hand in the air, clearing the imaginary slate, “No, I’m sorry …
What I was trying to say,”

“Say it man,
there is no try.”

“The cow
stomach.”

Charlene
slapped her open hand on the couch beside her, “Spit it out. I’m
eighty-five years old you know; I’ll be in my bloody grave by the
time you’re done.”

West licked his
lips involuntarily, “Leeches.”

“Leeches?”

West nodded,
“I’ve given you leeches.”

Charlene
slumped back into the comfort of the couch, “Waste of time lad.
I’ve had ‘em before, and they did nothing for me …” her eyes
narrowed as a thought seemed to occur to her, “Here, you say you
gave me them? You mean you put one in my mouth?”

West shook his
head vehemently, “No, I simply placed one on your chest.”

Charlene’s
mouth contorted into a disgusted frown as she tried to look down at
her chest, wiping the skin feverishly with her hands. “Where’s it
now?”

West pointed a
finger at her, “These particular leeches have an ability to pass
through skin and muscle fibers with great ease, and they form a
strong neural bond with their hosts.”

“You mean to
tell me that there is one of those … those things in me?”

West nodded,
“One single leech, yes.” Charlene moved her hand over her skin,
trying to feel where the creature might be inside her. She was
horrified, panicked at the very thought of such a creature moving
in her, sucking her blood from within. “Why would you do this to
me?” she asked, fear rising in her voice, “Will I die? Is that what
you want?”

West looked
sympathetic, almost condescendingly so. He had known that she might
react like this, and he had been prepared for the risk, ready to
reason with her, and explain what was happening. Still, he was
surprised that Charlene would imagine he was trying to kill
her.

Charlene had
started to scratch at the skin of her chest, imagining that she
could feel the thing moving, feel it destroying her insides. West
moved to her quickly, pulling her hands down and holding them
still, “Listen to me,” she struggled to release herself from his
grip, “Charlene, just listen before you do yourself an injury …”
She tried to spit in his face, but her mouth was too dry, her
throat contracting with fear.

“Charlene, the
creature can be killed, and it would do you no harm if it died
right now. A single glass of salt water would drive it out of you,
but I need you to listen to me first.”

She rounded her
eyes on him furiously, “You’re a pig. You’re a monster, that’s what
you are. How could you do this to an old lady?” She redoubled her
effort to free herself from his grip, but his hands didn’t give at
all.

“Charlene stop,
now.” He shouted calmly. She stopped still, clearly terrified of
what he would do to her if she didn’t stop struggling.

“Charlene, I
will never hurt you. If you refuse to listen to me, and insist that
we end this right now, I’ll understand and I will accept. I ask
only that you allow me to explain myself before you judge.”

She leaned
forwards, “Oh, you’re a big man, threatening an old lady. ‘Ooh,
I’ll never hurt you’ you say, but you know that mentioning hurt
puts the thought in my head. I know reverse psychology when I hear
it.”

West heaved a
sigh of frustration, and decided to forge ahead, disregarding
Charlene’s fear.

“The creature
inside you has an incredible ability to regenerate its own cells.
Not only that, it has the ability to regenerate the cells of its
host. It wants nothing more than for its host to be in perfect
health, for its host to be the perfect body in which to be
transported around the world.”

Charlene was
stony faced, but West thought he might be getting through to her.
He smiled, “Want may seem too strong a word to attribute to such a
creature and perhaps it is, but these leeches do tap into their
host’s nervous system and they know intuitively what they must do
to keep their host healthy.”

He watched her
eyes, watched the subtle changes in her attitude. Her body wasn’t
the tightly wound spring of tension that it had been moments ago.
She was trying to understand what he told her, fighting some
internal battle with her thoughts.

“Before you
woke, I placed a single leech on your chest. The first thing it did
was to anesthetize your skin so it wouldn’t hurt you as it cut its
little entry wound. You didn’t wake up at that point. You probably
woke when the creature had found its bearings within your body and
realized that the greatest risk to its host’s life was a
cardiovascular blockage. If left to its own devices the creature
will move through you, traveling through muscle fibers, under skin
tissue, even through vital organs as it sees fit, and everywhere it
goes, it will try to make you the perfect host. One leech though,
there is only so much it can do.”

Charlene
frowned, leaning towards him slightly, “What do you mean?”

“I simply mean
that if you were to be seriously hurt right now, mortally wounded,
you would die. You could sustain a wound in the direct vicinity of
the leech and it would do its best to sustain you and heal you, but
ultimately, if you walked out in front of a bus …” The skin of
Charlene’s nose wrinkled slightly as her mouth opened. It was too
much for her to take in, she felt like she was missing something
important in what he was telling her.

West let go of
her hands and smiled, “I want you to try something for me and I
will leave you alone for today.”

She still
looked a little scared, though she managed to contain her thoughts,
so he continued, “Go about your day, don’t leave the apartment
today, don’t tell anyone about our encounter, simply live for today
with the creature inside you. I promise that if I return to you
tomorrow and you feel uncomfortable about it, I will stand by you
and comfort you as you drink your glass of salt water and the whole
thing will be over and done with. Leeches have been used
medicinally quite frequently throughout history; treat this as one
day of medical testing okay?”

She wrestled
with her thoughts as she looked around the apartment. There were
many little tasks and chores she had avoided because she had known
her chest pains would cause her discomfort. Perhaps this was to be
how she would die. Then again, perhaps it wouldn’t be the worst
thing in the world to enjoy being busy without that nagging
discomfort. He was the most perfect double of the man who had left
her so abruptly all those years ago, and surely, if he wanted to
kill her …

“Mr Yestler,
tell me about the first time we met.”

West smiled,
glad that for the first time that day, his memory was capable of
serving a use, “It was Wednesday evening. It was warm outside, and
I was visiting one of my favorite bookstores off central park.
There was a girl, leaning against a high stacked bookcase at the
rear of the store, one leg crossed behind the other, hair hanging
to one side of her head as she thumbed through the pages of Don
Quixote. I walked up to that girl, and I said, ‘Too much sanity may
be madness, and maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it
should be.’ Then you looked at me for the first time, and you said
…”

“Until death it
is all life.” As she spoke the words, Charlene frowned, trying to
wish away the tears, then relinquishing, she wiped her eyes and
smiled at West.

“Is there
anything I need to know? Is there anything I should do?”

West smiled
deeply, feeling no small amount of accomplishment, “No Charlene,
just don’t go out and don’t accept any visitors.”

“Why? What will
happen?”

West laughed,
“Nothing will happen, it’s just a precaution, and one you may
understand more fully tomorrow.”