The Everlasting by Tim Lebbon Read Free Book Online Page A

fading. Those that had been wavering to begin with were almost gone, and the others were starting to lose definition. Two that had been moving slowly forward stood directly outside the window now, pressing ahead as though leaning on the glass. Their features were blurred and confused.
    He closed his eyes, whimpering and desperately grateful for Helen’s clasp. When he looked again most of the wraiths were gone, and those that remained were shadows on the air.
    Scott started to cry.
    â€œWhat is it, babe?”
    â€œThey’re almost gone,” he said, gasping through his tears.
    â€œGood. That’s good.”
    Scott shook his head and started to shiver. “I can’t see them anymore,” he said, “but they’re
all still there
!”
    He pulled away from Helen and she let him go, following him back into the hallway to the bottom of the staircase, where he sat and curled up and tried to remember exactly what Papa had told him about life and death.
    â€œI want to run,” Scott said. “I want to run away and find somewhere safe.”
    â€œWe’re safe here.” Helen had barely left him untouched since he had seen the ghosts, leaving only tofetch a clean shirt. She did not believe him—that was obvious, and understandable—but she was with him, and he loved her for that.
    â€œMaybe,” he said, but there was so much he didn’t know. “But I still want to go.”
    â€œWe can if you want. It’s not midnight yet. We can jump in the car and go for a drive, find a hotel. Book in as Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”
    Scott managed a wan smile. Then he thought of those wraiths standing before the house, and the smile slipped away. “They were there for a reason,” he said. “Only in the garden, not beyond. All looking this way. All of them just—”
    â€œThat fucking letter,” Helen said. “It’s all because of that.”
    â€œYes!” Scott said, but that was not what she meant at all.
    â€œYou’ve got Papa on your mind, and you said he was always talking about stuff like this. Ghosts and death and weird stuff.”
    â€œDeath’s not weird.”
    Helen only shrugged.
    â€œAnd maybe it is the letter,” Scott said. He sat up straight on the settee and stared at the picture above their fireplace. It was a modern painting of a seascape, blazing colors of sky and sand all converging into a deep, dark, blurry line tipped with a splash of white. A tiny white horse was just rising from the sea, and many nights Scott had sat back with a glass of wine, urging it to grow.
    â€œWe should sleep,” Helen said. “Too much wine. And you’ve been dwelling on that letter all day. Just remember, babe, you should have had it when you were sixteen. Not now. You’re an old man now.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œPleasure.” She smiled and touched his shoulder, squeezing like a friend. Was she so angry with him that her affection now came to this? He leaned back to look at her face, and saw that she was very tired.
    â€œLet’s go to bed,” he said.
    She nodded and yawned. “It’ll be better in the morning.”
    Sometimes things were. But not this. If Scott went to the window and pulled back the curtains he would see darkness, but those wraiths would still be out there, and perhaps they could see him even though he could not see them.
    Could they enter the house? Come upstairs, push through closed doors, avoid all those loose floorboards that gave the building its voice? If in his sleep he muttered those words spoken by Papa in that clearing long ago, would he wake to see those ghosts surrounding his bed?
    His heart stuttered in his chest, his breath came fast and shallow, but Scott did his best to hold himself together. Helen deserved that, at least.
    He made sure every window and door was locked, all the while avoiding looking outside. He was so afraid that he would see an empty garden