The Everlasting by Tim Lebbon Read Free Book Online Page B

and imagine it full.
    He dreamed of Papa, coming home from the hospital after thirty years and being cured of suicide. Scott was delighted to see him, and in the dream Scott and Helen had three children, all of whom recognized Papa instantly as their great-grandfather. But there was sadness, too. Scott told him about the ghosts, and Papa was devastated that it had come to this. “It’s just not right,” he said. “I did everything I could, and still . . .”
    Scott woke up, opened his eyes, and felt the dregs of his dream filtering back into sleep. He saw shapes in the room, and all of them he recognized: chair, wardrobe, pictures on the wall.
    â€œPapa,” he whispered, but none of the shapes moved.
    He remembered that he and Helen did not have children, and he was sad. It felt as though a chunk of his life had been knocked away. Then he recalled that Papa had died thirty years ago, and another slice was taken from his world.
    Scott sighed and turned over, taking comfort from the warm shape of Helen beside him.
    And now that what he lacked from his dream hit home, those extra things in his life began to pour in. The letter, the odd things it said, the memories of Papa unremembered before now, the broken drawer . . . the ghosts.
    The shapes in the garden, crowding his home almost without moving.
    Those words he had uttered. Papa’s strange song, which had lifted the veil on his reality and shown him more of what there was to see and know.
    Scott sat up and glanced quickly around the room. The familiar shadows were still there, with nothing new. Fear heightened his senses, but there was nothing out of place.
    He stood from the bed, careful not to wake Helen, and moved to the window. Shifting the curtain allowed the half-moon access. It caught the hairs on his arm and hand and spilled to the floor behind him, revealing a long-forgotten coffee stain.
Moonlight makes everything clear
, he thought, though he did not know where that came from.
    He looked down into the garden. Everything seemed as it should be. He closed his eyes, sang those guttural words he had remembered Papa saying, and opened his eyes again.
    The shadows in the garden changed. Most were still, but some moved like thin trees in the breeze.
    He was the center of their attention.
    Scott dropped the curtain and stepped away. He nudged against the bed and sat down heavily, creaking the mattress and causing Helen to stir. She rolled over, muttered something, and went back to sleep, snoring softly.
    â€œThey’re still out there,” Scott whispered. He looked around the bedroom—empty. “Only out there. Maybe.” Standing, he padded quietly from the room and stood on the landing. It was also empty. He leaned around the corner and glanced downstairs, terrified of what hewould see, glad when he saw only shadows that belonged. Across the landing, shifting aside the net curtain that covered the window there, looking down onto their driveway, he saw more of the shadows, and the strange shadows they cast. They seemed semisolid, as though the moonlight could not make up its mind whether or not to pass through them.
    He gasped, stepped back from the window, trying to breathe slowly and heavily to still his frantic heart.
    â€œThey’ll get in,” he whispered. “Papa, they’ll get in. Unless . . .”
    He had seen some of those wraiths moving toward the house, but as yet he was not sure that any of them had actually reached it. He had to go downstairs to find out.
    â€œLook after me, Papa. Your words do this, so you must be with me now.
Must
be.” Scott hoped for another of those fresh memories of his grandfather—something that would perhaps explain what was happening to him right now—but as he descended into the cooler, darker downstairs, none came.
    It was silent, and it felt more still and dead than upstairs. At least up there he had the knowledge of Helen sleeping in their bed, even though she