The War Chamber Read Free

on.”
    Dorothy's delicious laugh transforms her mock stern expression, reminding David of the sprightly Dorinda and her fortune-telling shenanigans.
    “Well, let's get busy,” Dorothy rubs her hands together, actually relishing the task at hand. She and David start picking up his room and, when his bed is carefully made, Dorothy takes a coin from her pocket and tosses it. “Perfect,” she judges as the coin bounces snappily on the bed.
    A sudden, crisp sea breeze entices Dorothy over to David's window. As she closes it, she studies the view earnestly. “Maybe,” Dorothy suggests, turning to David, “you would like to switch rooms with me. You know, defer to your old aunt and give her the ocean view?”
    David shakes his head. He knows what she's up to. “Thanks, Aunt Dorothy, but moving my room so I can't see the cemetery won't change anything.”
    “It might make you less withdrawn, and turn you back into alive and alert David Nickerson again.”
    “You've noticed?”
    “How could I not? You spend countless hours in your room. We had to all but drag you back to school this semester. And any mention of your mother sends you into some deep, dark corner somewhere.”
    David is used to, even welcomes, his aunt's bluntness. She can open a window of his soul and peer inside like no one else can. He sits and swivels back and forth idly in his desk chair, but his mind is working overtime.
    “How come,” David finally says, “when it looks like things are worked out, they're really not? I mean, they work out but it's never the way you hoped. The results always fall short of your expectations.”
    “Welcome to the wonderful world of reality.”
    “That's funny, coming from you, the lady who believes in dreams no matter how pie-in-the-sky.”
    “Still do. The bigger the dream, the better the results. Better to aim high and get only half of what you want than to shoot for only what you think is possible. Then, you could wind up with nothing.”
    “You mean like Sally?”
    “Yes. She may be hobbling around on crutches, but she's out of her wheelchair. That's sure something.”
    “Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean, she doesn't need an operation now, at least. She could still get better.”
    “I believe in time she will,” Dorothy says with several slow nods of her head. “And so does Sally. But what's this got to do with your attitude, especially concerning your mother?”
    David shrugs nonchalantly, but the rancor begins churning inside him again. “I don't know. I'm mad and I don't know who I'm mad at. It's not the accident, it's not Dad or God or fate anymore. I'm just mad.”
    “It's not unusual to be angry at the person who died.”
    “Mad at Mom? Why would I be? I loved her. I still love her.”
    “And you miss her desperately, so you're angry at her for leaving you. I know. That's how I felt when your Uncle Will died. I actually hated him for being where he was - not with
me
- when he had his heart attack. I thought he killed himself deliberately, just to get back at me for always harping on him to take better care of himself. And on top of it all, I was all alone without a clue as to handle all his affairs. Angry? Boy, I was a case, all right.”
    “So, how did you get over it?”
    “I had to come to terms with a lot of things about myself, as well as about Will. I'm sure my reasons for anger were far different from yours. I lost my husband, a companion and a friend. You lost your mother, your connection to life, to who and what you are and what you can become. That's a deep void to fill, David.”
    David runs a trembling hand through his sun-bleached hair. His aunt has struck a bone-chilling nerve.
    “The hole is so deep I can't touch bottom. I never knew anybody who died before. I don't know how somebody can be here and then not be here. One minute alive the next just - nothing. It doesn't make sense.”
    Dorothy takes a purposeful look around David's room. She walks to his dresser, then to his