Karen kneeled beside her brother, gently placed a hand on his burning forehead. His eyes stared off at nothing — at least nothing she could see. Dusty came over, sniffed his face and chest, licked his chin, and still he had no reaction at all.
Leaning forward, Karen whispered, “Don’t let him have you, Sean. You’re stronger than that. He was a bad man. I know he was, but you’re stronger than he is. Do you hear me? He can’t win if you don’t let him.”
She could sense Saul and Rory shifting their weight uncomfortably behind her and knew how insane she sounded, but she didn’t care. She wanted her brother back. Needed him back. Grasping one of his bony hands in hers, she was suddenly assaulted with a vision jolting her like a thousand bolts of electricity and she knew she was seeing what Sean had seen. What had driven him over the edge.
Crows in a dark gray sky, flying up there with the dead leaves that floated and drifted, carried by powerful winds. The crows circling lower and lower until at last they landed on the ground and low-hanging branches of the pines. But these were no normal crows. Oh, no. These were big bastards with huge human eyes that stared, bore through you like the sins of the past, and human hands, small like a child’s, but very, very human, clutching at the ground, at the branches, small fingers twitching, blood caked beneath the nails. Tiny wrists and forearms that disappeared into the feathered black bellies of the birds which stared and cawed and took a young man’s sanity with them when they decided to swoop back into the angry sky, dropping beads of blood onto the upturned face that watched them go.
Karen cried out, releasing her brother’s hand, immediately overcome with terror, blinking, forcing herself back into the present. She was not in that bizarre haunted past, but here with two others, here in the House of Fallen Trees where not everyone came and then left intact.
Two men have the carcass, she thought and finally knew what it meant.
The men did have the carcass of her brother and one of the men was Frank Storm, who she knew was more than just an eccentric sailor, but the other was Sean himself. The real Sean, who remained deep down in the darkness where light couldn’t touch him ever again.
All that remained was this poor imitation of her brother, skeletal and frail, haunted, unblinking eyes which chose not to see her or anything else except for a mangy stray dog. Karen watched as Dusty lay down beside Sean, resting her chin on his chest, watching the rest of them with roving brown eyes and Karen knew the dog wouldn’t move from Sean’s side again. Maybe she was even regretting having eaten the turkey Karen had tossed her.
That’s nuts, Karen told herself as she stood up and listened to the wind. She’s just a dog. Do you really think she regrets anything?
But, she supposed anything was possible. After all, they were two strays now and they had found each other, loved and protected each other for at least the last six months. Maybe they would continue to do so forever.
Glancing at Saul and Rory she said, “Sounds like the wind is dying down a bit.”
Rory sank to his knees and began to weep. He stayed on one side of Sean while the dog stayed on the other. They both gave the appearance of guarding the dead.
Saul sighed. “We should be able to get out of here soon.” As an afterthought, he added, “Finally.”
“Yeah,” Karen agreed, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Finally.” But in truth, she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave now. Technically, she owned half this house and after all… she had family here.
EPILOGUE
14 MONTHS LATER
Karen was in her office writing when the door bell rang a little after noon on a Wednesday in January. She stopped writing, head cocked, and listened to the dog bark downstairs. Waiting to hear the sound of voices, she was mildly irritated when, a moment later, the bell rang again.
Sighing, she rolled her chair back, exited the room, and made her way down to the door, passing though the living room where Sean sat on the couch watching TV. Dusty sprawled beside him, her head in his lap, also not willing to rise, preferring to do her guard dog routine from a relaxed position. He stroked her back absently, engrossed in whatever he was watching.
Karen didn’t bother saying anything to him. They’d been sharing the small house on the outskirts of Fallen Trees for five months now and she knew better than to expect too much from him.
In the kitchen, she peered out the window in the door and saw Rory. He offered a smile and held up a rainbow bouquet of roses for her to see.
“Happy hump day,” he announced when she opened the door.
She laughed, gave him a hug and invited him inside, eyeing the flowers. “I assume those are for Sean?”
“Nope. They’re for you.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, though she couldn’t help but smile as he handed them to her. “Really? What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion. I just saw them in the market and they spoke your name.”
Karen raised an eyebrow. “I hope not literally.”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them and not because she saw the pained looked in his eyes. It was a bad joke and after everything they’d been through — particularly Sean and herself — she should know better.
An awkward silence fell upon them, until she broke it by saying, “I should find a vase for these.”
As she began searching the cupboards, he asked, “How is he today?”
“He’s good. Glued to the television, as usual.”
“I’m gonna go say hi.”
“Okay.”
She finally found a vase under the sink and busied herself with the flowers. She did her best to not eavesdrop on what was being said in the other room, but it was difficult. She knew Sean would be happy to see Rory, of course. He always was. The hard part came when it was time for Rory to leave and Sean wanted to go with him. Even now, after everything that had happened, her brother still wanted to go back to that house.
When he had been committed to Western State Hospital in Tacoma, one of the doctors there had told her the house was a drug to Sean and he…well, he was a junkie. Despite knowing it would almost certainly kill him eventually, he still craved it…needed it. He probably always would.
Sean had spent nearly nine months in that place and the whole thing had been exhausting and traumatic for everyone involved. There had been countless court hearings, going back and forth. Sometimes he wanted to be in there, sometimes he didn’t. When he didn’t, it had been pure hell for Rory and herself.
But all that was behind them now, or so it seemed, and thank God for that. There had been times when Karen had felt so guilty about him being in there, she had been sick with it. After all, if her brother had been insane, what did that make her?
She’d wanted to take him back East with her initially, but the way he’d begged her not to had broken her down. When he’d been in the hospital in Tacoma, she’d stayed nearby, renting a small room — a stay she’d thought would be shorter than it had turned out to be, but she hadn’t complained. Having him back was such a miracle she didn’t dare complain about anything.
“I’m ready now!”
The shout from the other room almost startled her into dropping the vase as she was carrying it over to the windowsill. Instead, she put it on the counter and hurried to the living room to see what was happening.
Both Sean and Rory stood in the middle of the room, facing each other. Neither one even glanced in her direction when she entered.
“I’m not so sure about that, Sean,” Rory was saying.
Sean shook his head in disgust. “You don’t trust me? You don’t fucking trust me?”