The Everborn by Nicholas Grabowsky Read Free Book Online Page B

circumstances with a reasonably sound mind.
    I must admit that the questions which plagued me were growing all the more numerous and perplexing along with my calm. And I still wasn’t quite myself, not that I ever again would be.
    Due to the often nail-biting schedule kept by both my wife and I, our income provided us with the convenience of maid service every Tuesday, Friday, and sometimes Sunday afternoon. Perhaps, in our absence, they had continued their schedules until they found we could no longer be contacted for payment. They were extremely trusted and employed by only one other household, so they were given keys and the security code for the alarm system. Were they still cleaning for us? After all this supposed time?
    And who had dressed me in clothes such as these, in a manner which suggested that my wife herself had done it?
    Standing there, gazing downwards in consternation towards a carpet so disturbingly shampooed that its normal ruby tone seemed almost orange, I realized I was still holding my wallet. That was when I decided to experiment.
    It was intuition which made me first submit to the authenticity of the upstairs letter, but the cowardice I faced by the mere notion of challenging its message made me hesitate. Something within me whispered that I was wasting precious time; that I should have been out the door by now.
    I stepped into the kitchen. I made up my mind. I opened my wallet and reached for the wall phone.
    Outside, the wind rapped steadily against the glass of the curtained kitchen window, and for the first time since I awoke I caught the gentle clamor of the pipe chimes swaying and suspended beneath the patio awning. Before the first number was dialed, it was their wispy serenade which tenderly hinted that perhaps the source of my calm had risen from the reassuring efforts of my home itself.
    And my home did not want me to leave.

 
     
     
    3.
    A Boulevard of Doors
     
    A strange, restless urgency to abandon everything without further thought or delay would not let me be. It was like being hounded for loose change by the vagrants at the corner store while trying to use the payphone. Aside from this annoyance, there was not a doubt in my traumatized mind that one or two inquiring phone calls would bring me closer to my rational perceptive self. I could not comply with the letter’s invitation until I was satisfied by this simple task. The Master Magician, whoever he may be, could wait an extra ten minutes.
    On the other hand, what about Melony?
    My speculation was cut short as was the dial tone of my cordless, and I moved for a seat at the dining room table nearby. I spread my wallet and its selected contents before me as the mannerly effeminate voice of my bank’s twenty-four-hour customer service representative put me on hold. After a minute or two with an earful of an instrumental rendition of Blind Faith’s “ Can’t Find My Way Home ,” the matter of my conventional obligations was put to rest. Somehow, my monthly banking needs had been tended to, as was everything else, as though I had never been gone at all.
    This amounted to two reasonable explanations: either I hadn’t been gone at all but instead suffered four months’ worth of amnesia, which meant this whole letter thing was a joke...
    ...or my wife had been living here without me all along.
    Needless to say, this discovery put me at ease all the more and I found no desire to continue with the experiment. I withdrew from the table and replaced the phone into the wall cradle. I fought against any further urge to speculate or delay and the growing temptations to place additional calls to friends or associates might prove futile and even dangerous.
    I made my way back up the stairs and returned to my office. Standing beside my wife’s desk one final time, I noticed the Land of the Lost calendar my wife had apparently placed upon the wall. It bared the month of January ‘95 and it made me feel distant and alertly out of place.
    I