“Ellie.” Sheri started and paused for a moment, as if she expected to be interrupted again. When she wasn’t, she continued. “All I’m hearing is what Ben needs or what Patrick needs. What about what Elliot needs?”
Elliot didn’t even need to think about it. “I need Ben to be happy. For eternity. Not for a little while with me in the plantation house,” Elliot answered quietly, and Sheri knew him well enough to know that the conversation was over. The call of the morphine was finally too much for him, and he drifted off to sleep.
WHEN HE
woke again, Sheri wasn’t there for once. He hoped she had finally gone back to the hotel for some much needed sleep. But what was he going to do all alone? He looked at the clock on his phone, which somehow managed to stay beside him while he slept, and saw it was the middle of the night. He didn’t want to call anyone.
He thought of the journal and looked around for it, hoping no one put it in the drawer of the bedside table, which, with his incision, might as well be in the next state. But no, there it was, on his lap where he left it. He must have moved the blankets over it, but it was still there.
He picked it up and began to read.
January 1, 1857
I think I’ll start writing a journal. Our teacher talked about the importance of keeping track of our thoughts and feelings and suggested that since it’s a new year, we start writing in a journal. I know most of the boys thought it was something that only the girls should do. I don’t agree. I think it will do me good to have a place to put down thoughts I can’t even tell Ben.
I used to tell him everything. We’ve known each other since we were four. I can’t remember a time without him. I can’t remember a time I didn’t love him with my whole heart and soul. But, as we get older, there are different kinds of love, and I find that I feel that for Ben too.
The problem is… they say in Sunday School that this kind of love is wrong. That I should feel this kind of love only for a girl, well, a woman. And only a woman that I marry. And some of the ideas that go through my head, especially in my dreams? I really shouldn’t think those things about anyone I’m not married to. That’s what they say in church. But in my dreams….
I’ve talked to my father about dreams like that in general. I didn’t tell him that Ben was the star of them. He said they’re normal for fourteen-year-old boys to have, and it’s even normal for me to wake up with… I can’t even write it. It’s embarrassing. But it also feels good and not just physically. I think if anyone was in those dreams except Ben, it would feel wrong. Ben and I? We’re made for each other. Where one goes, the other follows. That’s what everyone says. But it’s not so much one following as the two of us moving in unison. I can’t imagine feeling that for anyone else.
Elliot felt like he was intruding, like he shouldn’t be reading this. But Patrick showed him where the journal was because he
wanted
him to read this. He was sure of that. So he continued reading as long as he could, which turned out not to be that long. He distantly realized that he was falling asleep and that he should put the journal down first, but he was gone before he realized whether or not he actually did.
“SO,” BEN
says as we’re walking home from school, “Becky Fischer says she likes you.”
I’m surprised. I know Pa said that at almost fifteen, we’re all at an age where we’d start thinking about pairing up, not that we can do anything about it yet. He said we needed to wait until marriage. But I don’t feel like that about anyone but Ben. And I can’t tell him, or anyone, about that. I can only write about it in my journal.
“Did you hear me?” Ben repeats when I don’t answer.
“Yeah,” I reply. “I’m not sure what to say about it.”
“Do you like her?” His voice sounds almost sad. Maybe he likes her and he’s jealous.
“Nah, Ben. Not like that. You’re free and clear if you want to court her.”
“I don’t want to court her. Where’d you get that?” He picks up a stick as we pass it and starts swinging it into the tall grass at the side of the road, as if it were a scythe. “I only asked you if you did.”
“Actually you only asked me if I liked her, not if I wanted to court her.”
“Well, you can’t do one without the other, can you?” He’s getting wound up for some reason, and the poor grass is paying the price. I’m just bratty enough to him at times that I’m going to play with him. “You can like her without courting her. That’s doing one without the other.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” He throws the stick as far as he can, and the grass sighs as it rips through it.
“Of course I know it, but where would be the fun in answering seriously?”
“It’s not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be serious.” He’s abusing rocks now. Kicking any that he sees as far down the road as possible.
I laugh and elbow him, waggling my eyebrows. “I’ve heard it’s supposed to be fun, Ben. Matthew from school? He’s eighteen and he’s been courting Cassandra for two years. He says it’s very fun.”
Ben is getting upset and I don’t know why. “Fine, go have fun with Becky.” He jogs off down the road and I have to run to catch him.
“Ben.” I finally get close enough to catch an arm and turn him around. “I don’t want to have fun with Becky.” I smile. “You and I have the only kind of fun I’m interested in right now, okay?” It isn’t exactly true. I’d like to have a different kind of fun… but only with Ben. So it is true where it counts.
“You say that now. But Samuel says we’re growing up, and there’ll be girls for each of us, and we won’t stay this close.”
“Is that what this is all about?” I smile but he doesn’t. I slap his shoulder. “Samuel’s your big brother. He’s supposed to make your life miserable. But he’s not right about everything. He’s certainly not right about this. We’ll be together forever, Ben. Where you go, I go. Always.” I pull his chin up to make him look at me because he’s suddenly become very interested in his shoes. “Don’t worry about girls coming between us, okay? It’s not going to happen.”
He tries to smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I don’t know what else to do to convince him. My dreams come to my mind, but I certainly can’t do anything we get up to in those, and I’m not sure that would help anyway. So we walk home the rest of the way in silence.
ELLIOT WOKE
a little disoriented, not knowing where he was at first. Steady beeping to his right brought back the knowledge of being in the hospital. Again. He was really getting tired of hospitals. They were all the same. South Carolina or Pennsylvania didn’t seem to make any difference. He always seemed to be in a semiprivate room with no roommate. The room smelled of antiseptic and stale air, and usually urine, at least part of the time. In his personal experience that was because the nurses gave him urinals to use but didn’t always empty them promptly. One hung on his railing right now, almost full. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do if he had to relieve himself again before they came to get rid of the current contents.
He could almost hear the two teenaged boys from his dream giggling at the thought of trying to pee into a mostly full bottle and teasing each other mercilessly when it undoubtedly overflowed and got all over their bed… and them. He still wasn’t sure how Patrick was able to give him those dreams here in the hospital. Then he looked down at his lap and noticed the still-open journal lying there.
Spirits can be attached to objects too, can’t they?
As soon as Sheri got there for the day, he asked her before she even got seated in her personal torture device.
“How would I know, Ellie? I mean, they can on
Supernatural
. But then again there are demons and werewolves and vampires on that TV show too.”
“Which is totally why you watch it so religiously.” Elliot leered sarcastically, shifting in the bed to be able to see her better. He absently realized that it wasn’t as agonizing to move today, not that it didn’t still hurt around his incision. “Because you completely believe in those things.”
“Hell no,” Sheri shot back. “I’m just in lust with Jensen Ackles. That’s why I’m saying I have
no
insight to give you on what does or does not bind ghosts. You know I don’t believe in any of that crap.”
Elliot chuckled but decided he must have been mistaken about his lessened discomfort a minute ago, as his incision pulled and twanged and generally got pissed off about his twisting around in the bed, even the slightest bit. “I know. Your biggest belief system has to do with feeding the libido.”
“Damned straight.” She grinned. “Well, in your case we would make it bi, if you were ever interested.”
He blushed. He was never sure how much she was teasing when she said shit like that. Then again, he was pretty sure he’d go along with the suggestion if he was even remotely bi. Which he wasn’t. He continued to grin.
“So,” Sheri continued the original conversation. “Let me get this straight. Now the theory is that Patrick is attached to the journal. A book he left in the tree house when he went off to war. Where he died, like seven or eight hundred miles away.”
“Yeah, but if the connection is strong enough—” He rubbed at his chest to try to apologize for making it hurt.
“But Ben is stuck in the house where he died and can’t even go out to the backyard.” Sheri leaned forward slightly each time she made another point.
“Yeah, but Ben is choosing to stay there to wait for Patrick.” Even to Elliot’s ears, that sounded thin.
“So, if you tell Ben that Patrick is here, he should be able to choose to come here now? Why doesn’t he come here for you? He’s really pissed that he can’t be with you. Daniel dodged flying furniture for like an hour when we sent him out there, poor boy.”
“He was not there for an hour.” Elliot addressed the off-topic point first, then dropped his hand to his side because rubbing his incision was only ticking it off more. “And maybe Ben doesn’t realize he can do it. Or maybe he had to make that decision at the time of death and after that they’re stuck? I don’t know.” He waved his arm and hand in an unsure gesture.
“Then why wouldn’t Patrick have attached himself to Ben at the time of death? He had promised to go back to him.”
“I don’t know.” Elliot did
not
whine that statement. He didn’t. He never whined. “He was shot in the head. Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“But he was thinking clearly enough to attach himself to an object hidden in a tree house hundreds of miles away?” Sheri arched her eyebrows as she dropped her chin into her hands.
“It’s a theory. Okay? I don’t know.” Elliot threw up his hands in defeat. Both hands, then winced when the IV pulled at his left and he immediately dropped them to the bed.
“One that does not fit all the facts, Elle.” She wiggled her head around in her hands in a gesture that Elliot assumed to be a negation, but it just looked like she was one of those bobbleheaded things people put in the back windows of their cars.
“Well, give me one that does.” He slumped his shoulders.
“Nothing about any of this suggests any viable theories, if you ask me. Including the belief in ghosts. And yes, I’ve talked to Ben, so I have to believe he’s there, but I still don’t think I believe in ghosts.” She suddenly sank all the way back into her chair. Apparently the argument was over and she thought she had won.
Elliot glared at her. “You don’t believe in ghosts even though you’ve held conversations with one.” It wasn’t a question.
“It’s about as logical as you believing Patrick attached his spirit to a book.”
Elliot took a deep breath and carefully pushed himself up in the bed a little, feeling his incision protest almost before he did it. “I don’t have any other ideas to explain the memories.”
“Overactive imagination,” Sheri suggested.
“Still on the table I guess,” Elliot had to admit. “And I haven’t completely ruled out a psychotic break.”
Sheri patted Elliot’s hand. “Whatever’s going on, Elle, no one thinks you’re crazy. Okay?” Then she had to tease a little. “Now, maybe if we hadn’t been able to experience Ben for ourselves….”
He reached over with his other hand and smacked at her. And got another tug from the IV for his trouble.
ELLIOT WAS
still in the hospital several days later. They weren’t letting him go home yet because they couldn’t get decent, consistent readings. Every time they thought he was healthy enough to go home, he’d have another episode. Not a full-blown heart attack, but an abnormal heartbeat severe enough piss off the ICD and to warrant more tests, different medication, or at least another day’s observation. At least he wasn’t completely bedridden anymore. They helped him walk up and down the hall several times a day, which always completely exhausted him, but they said he had to do it.
Today they had him sitting up in his room. The black-and-gray institutional recliner had two separate controls: the normal lever for the footrest, but a smaller button above that to recline the head. It had taken him way longer than it should have to find that damnable button the first day; he’d sat stick upright for ten minutes cursing the lack of cooperation from the head part when he tried to push it back.
Apparently, by Elliot’s seventh day of incarceration, Daniel decided that instead of waiting for Elliot to come back to SC, Daniel would come to PA.
“You scared us all pretty badly,” he told Elliot after the initial small talk.
“Yes, Sheri has made that abundantly clear,” Elliot deadpanned and shifted in his seat. Thank God that didn’t hurt quite as bad anymore. “This is why you all didn’t want me here by myself, yadda, yadda.”
Daniel smiled but had to admit, “Well, it is, man. What would have happened if that carpenter hadn’t gotten there when he did? A couple more minutes unattended and you would have been gone.”
“I knew he was coming that morning. So I knew he’d be along any time. I only wanted to get a head start so I could find the journal before I had to talk to him about reconstruction of the tree house or before they actually began.”