“If we can’t take it down…” Gage began.
Fox rolled his eyes. “Here goes our Pollyanna with a penis.”
“If we can’t take it down,” Gage repeated, “if we know it’s going south, is there a way to get the women clear? To get them out? I know you’ve both thought the same.”
Fox slumped back into a chair. “Yeah.”
“I’ve gone around with it,” Cal admitted. “Even if we could convince them, which I don’t see happening, I don’t see how they’d get out, not if we have to take this stand at the Pagan Stone.”
“I don’t like it.” Fox’s jaw tightened. “But that’s where it has to be. The middle of Hawkins Wood, in the dark. I wish I didn’t know in my gut that it has to be there, that they have to go in there with us. But I do know it. So we can’t let it go south, that’s all.”
IT HAD BEEN EASIER, GAGE ADMITTED, WHEN IT had just been the three of them. He loved his friends, and part of him would die if either of them did. But they’d been in it together since day one. Since minute one, he corrected, as he started downstairs.
It had been easier, too, when the women had first gotten involved. Before any of them really mattered to him. Easier before he’d seen the way Quinn meshed with Cal, or the way Fox lit up when Layla was in the room.
Easier before he’d let himself have feelings for Cybil, because, goddamn it, he had feelings. Messy, irritating, impossible feelings for Cybil. The kind of feelings that pushed him into having thoughts. Messy, irritating, impossible thoughts.
He didn’t want a relationship. He sure as hell didn’t want a long-term relationship. And by God, he didn’t want a long-term relationship that involved plans and promises. He wanted to come and go as he pleased, and that’s just what he did. Except for every seventh year. And so far, so good.
You didn’t mess with a streak.
So the feelings and the thoughts would just have to find another sucker to… infect, he decided.
“Gage.”
He stopped, saw his father at the base of the steps. Perfect, Gage thought, just one more thing to give a shine to his day.
“I know I said I wouldn’t get in your way when you came in to see Cal. And I won’t.”
“You’re standing in it now.”
Bill stepped back, rubbed his hands on the thighs of his work pants. “I just wanted to ask you-I didn’t want to get in the way, so I wanted to ask you…”
“What?”
“Jim Hawkins tells me some of the towners are going to camp out at the O’Dell farm. I thought it might be I could help them out. Haul people and supplies out and such, do runs back and forth when needs be.”
In Gage’s memory his father had spent every Seven skunk drunk upstairs in the apartment. “That’d be up to Brian and Joanne.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Why?” Gage demanded as Bill backed away. “Why don’t you just get out?”
“It’s my town, too. I never did anything to help before. I never paid much mind to it, or to what you were doing about it. But I knew. Nobody could get drunk enough not to know.”
“They could use help out at the farm.”
“Okay then. Gage.” Bill winced, rubbed his hands over his face. “I should tell you, I’ve been having dreams. Last few nights, I’ve been having them. It’s like I wake up, but I’m asleep, but it’s like I wake up ’cause I hear your ma out in the kitchen. She’s right there, it’s so real. She’s at the stove cooking dinner. Pork chops, mashed potatoes, and those little peas I always liked, the way she made them. And she…”
“Keep going.”
“She talks to me, smiles over. She had some smile, my Cathy. She says: Hey there, Bill, supper’s almost ready. I go on over, like I always did, put my arms around her while her hands are busy at the stove and kiss her neck till she laughs and wiggles away. I can smell her, in the dream, and I can taste…”
He yanked out his bandanna, mopped his eyes. “She tells me, like she always did, to cut that out now, unless I want my supper burned. Then, she says why don’t you have a drink, Bill? Why don’t you have a nice drink before supper? And there’s a bottle on the counter there, and she pours the whiskey into the glass, holds it out to me. She never did that, your ma never did that in her life. And she never looked at me the way she does in the dreams. With her eyes hard and mean. I gotta sit down here a minute.”
Bill lowered to the steps, wiped at the sweat that pearled on his forehead. “I wake up, covered in sweat, and I can smell the whiskey she held out to me. Not Cathy, not anymore, just the whiskey. Last night, when I woke up from it, I went on out in the kitchen to get something cold ’cause my throat was so dry. There was a bottle on the counter. It was right there. I swear to Christ, it was there. I didn’t buy a bottle.” His hands shook now, and fresh sweat popped out above his top lip. “I started to pick it up, to pour it down the sink. I pray to God I was going to pour it down the sink, but there was nothing there. I think I’m going crazy. I know I’ll go crazy if I pick up a bottle again and do anything but pour it down the sink.”
“You’re not going crazy.” Another kind of torture, Gage thought. The bastard didn’t miss a trick. “Have you ever had dreams like this before?”
“Maybe, a few times over the years. It’s hard to say because I wasn’t picking up bottles to pour them down the sink back then.” Bill sighed now. “But maybe a few times, around this time of year. Around the time Jim says you boys call the Seven.”
“It fucks with us. It’s fucking with you. Go on out to the farm, give them a hand out there.”
“I can do that.” Bill pushed back to his feet. “Whatever it is, it’s got no right using your ma that way.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
When Bill started to walk away, Gage cursed under his breath. “Wait. I can’t forget, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive. But I know you loved her. I know that’s the truth, so I’m sorry you lost her.”
Something came into Bill’s eyes, something Gage reluctantly recognized as gratitude.
“You lost her, too. I never let myself think that, not all those years. You lost her, too, and me with her. I’ll carry that the rest of my life. But I won’t drink today.”
Gage went straight to the rental house. He walked in, and right up the stairs. As he reached the top, Quinn stepped out of her bedroom draped in a towel.
“Oh. Well. Hi, Gage.”
“Where’s Cybil?”
Quinn hitched the towel a little higher. “Probably in the shower or getting dressed. We hit the gym. I was just going to… never mind.”
He studied her face. Her cheeks seemed a little flushed, her eyes a little overbright. “Something wrong?”
“Wrong? No. Everything’s good. Great. Thumbs-up. I, ah, better get dressed.”
“Pack, too.”
“What?”
“Pack up what you need,” he told her as she stood frowning and dripping. “Seeing as you’re three women, it’s going to take more than one trip. Cal and Fox can come by at some point and haul more. There’s no point in the three of you staying here-and by the way, do any of you ever think about locking the door? It’s getting dangerous in town. Everyone can bunk at Cal ’s until this is over.”
“You’re making that decision for everyone involved?” Cybil asked from behind him.
He turned. She was dressed and leaning against the jamb. “Yeah.”
“That’s fairly presumptuous, to put it mildly. But I happen to agree with you.” She looked over at Quinn. “It’s just not practical to have three bases-here, Cal’s, Fox’s-anymore. We’d be better to consolidate. Even assuming this house is a cold spot, and safe, we’re too spread out.”
“Who’s arguing?” Quinn adjusted her towel again. “Layla’s at the boutique with Fox’s dad, but Cyb and I can put some of her things together.”