The Everlasting Read Free Page B

he could not escape the fact that the envelope was old, original, and there was only his name on itsfront face. He had not shown her that, and he was thankful she had not asked to see.
    Someone had hand-delivered this letter.
    Perhaps it was best not to think about it too deeply.
    The contents of the letter—twenty-two lines, that was all—echoed at him whatever he did around the house that morning. And those strange shapes and sigils were shouts within the echo. He had called in sick to work, needing time to digest and absorb what he thought this letter might mean. Time also to disabuse himself of the idea that he and Helen were now in danger.
    The threat had hung like a shadow from the moment the letter arrived.
    The truth, Papa had written, was simple, and easily found. And reading it was to experience it as well. The words made a spell, and the unknown symbols somehow added to its potency. Scott could not recall them without looking at the letter, and when he did look its contents imbued him with a different feeling every time. The first time he read it, he felt safe and warm and cosseted. The second time, a distance had opened up around him, pulling everything back so that there was nothing that could do him harm, but also nothing to touch or love. The third time he had slipped into a fugue; it must have lasted for mere seconds, but the dreams it contained had continued for hours, whole worlds in there, whole existences that screamed to be lived, and lived again. They faded away but left their mark.
    Now, he was too afraid to read the letter again.
    Helen read it too, he thought. What did she feel? What did she see? They should talk about it. But her concern had been for him, not the letter. That made him more afraid than ever. Had she felt anything other than confusion at an old man’s final words?
    Scott walked into the garden and strolled around the perimeter. It was a fine spring day, clear skies promising to burn away the morning chill. A soft breeze blew into the garden through the boundary hedge, setting leaves shivering, fresh buds dipping and rising as if nodding in appreciation of their burgeoning life. He paused where he had imagined seeing a shape in the leaves and probed the bushes with his foot. There was nothing strange inside. He glanced up at the drifting clouds and saw no one watching him from there.
    â€œPapa,” he said, “what have you given me?” He knew that he would have to read the letter again. It had changed him. His blood pumped differently; his heart was older by the length of time it had taken him to view those thirty-year-old words. And the most confusing aspect of this was that he did not know why.
    As he entered his teens, Scott had become aware that Papa was more than just an old man waiting to die. Scott’s parents—his father in particular—viewed the old man as an eccentric, someone to smile at and humor, and sometimes to laugh at behind his back. He visited his friend Lewis regularly, and each time Scott asked about these meetings Papa would tap the side of his nose and wink, then stare off seriously into the distance.
    In the weeks before he had taken Lewis’s life andhis own, Papa had grown quiet and withdrawn. Scott saw him more than ever, and afterward he thought it must have been Papa trying to cram in as many visits with his only grandson as possible. He left no note, no clue as to why he did it. Lewis had been his good friend since they fought together during the war. Nobody understood why an old man would kill his friend and then himself. Most put it down to madness, and Papa’s name had become mud.
    Scott had always known that there was more to it than that.
    â€œYou weren’t mad, Papa,” he said to his quiet garden. The small willow tree whispered in agreement.
    He went back into the house, closed the back door, and made a cup of tea. The letter sat on the desk in his study. He’d half expected it to have vanished as