“Worse than horrible. The soldiers had killed her sister just a day or two earlier. Then the Polish army arrived and all the Soviets ran off. Sabina and the two girls didn’t know what was happening, it was all chaos, but they saw their chance and ran away. They found a deserted farm outside of town and hid there. That’s where my father found them. The two little ones were so traumatized they couldn’t even speak. They never did get over it, really. They had a lot of problems in later years. Sabina, she was close to my father’s age. Eighteen. She was beautiful. My father fell in love with her, and they were married a few months later.”
“She was your mother?”
Tom nodded, momentarily embarrassed that he had tears in his eyes. But it was okay, he thought; surely Ed would understand. “Things turned bad again in Europe not long after that. My parents left Poland to come over to America, to live with my dad’s older brother in Chicago. Lots of Poles living on the south side of Chicago at that time. They had me in ’21, and my mama died when I was a boy. I can barely remember her now.” He had to stop talking for a minute. This was the first time he’d ever discussed this with anyone outside the family. “My father told me all about her when I got older, showed me pictures of her. Her health was never good after the Reds finished with her. Something inside her broke when they abused her. My father wanted to make sure I knew about what they’d done to her and the others.”
Ed sat there for a while, taking all this in. He was getting fidgety and kept picking at a loose thread on the arm of his chair.
“People sometimes underestimate what they’re capable of. Every single person in this world has the ability to do amazing things. If you dig deep inside yourself, you can find reserves of strength you never knew you had. That’s what my mother did. No matter what they did to her, something inside her convinced her to keep struggling, to stay alive so she could protect those two little girls.”
“I knew there was a moral in this somewhere,” said Ed.
“I’m serious. I know you’ve been through a lot. But don’t you try to tell me you’ve had it worse than my mother did. You still have a chance to save yourself. You’re using these drugs to try to shut yourself away from everything, but that’s exactly the wrong thing to do.”
“Everybody keeps telling me that.”
“Then quit. Stop using it and never look back.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Tom felt his patience slipping. “I never said it would be easy! That’s why I’m here, to try and help you. I’m not going to let you destroy yourself. You’re too―” He changed what he’d been about to say. “You’re too important to me to let this happen. I am staying here and watching you, and you are not going to take any more drugs. You’re done.” The time had come to play hardball. It would be bad for everyone if Ed bottomed out and died, or—God forbid—lost his job.
Ed rubbed his temples. “I need some aspirin.” He started to get up.
“Tell me where it is, I’ll get it for you.”
Ed sank back into his chair, smiling weakly, face glistening with sweat. “Don’t be so jumpy, Tom. The heroin’s gone.” He shivered. “I threw it away.”
Tom was doubtful, but what could he do? He couldn’t watch Ed every minute. He helped Ed get up and into the bathroom, then waited outside the open door while Ed urinated and got his aspirin bottle out of the cabinet. Aspirin wouldn’t help, at least not for long, but Tom didn’t want to discourage him.
“Gotta work in the morning,” said Ed, once he’d downed a couple of the pills. “God, my whole body hurts.”
“Ed,” Tom said, “This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I’ve seen people in your situation before. You’re not going to be in any shape to go to work tomorrow.”
“I can’t skip work. Already on thin ice.”
“I can help you with that, maybe.” Tom made a mental note to call Bob Linden first thing in the morning. Bob knew people at the phone company. “Now, how about we have a look through your stuff, and you prove to me that it really is all gone?”
20
The Houseguest
Berry’s secretary buzzed him just as he was about to take the first sip of his first coffee of the day. The sudden noise from the intercom caused him to spill hot coffee down his chin. He slammed a finger down on the talk button. “What?”
“Mr. Berry,” Rosemary’s voice crackled through the intercom, “There’s a Dr. Pilsudski holding for you. He says it’s urgent.”
Berry wiped his chin with his hand. He was inclined to curse, but Rosemary was trying to get him to cut down on the bad language at work. “Tell him to call back later. I’m busy.”
“No you’re not. I’m putting him through.”
“Damn it, Rosemary―” But she had already put the call through, and now his desk phone was ringing. He snatched it up. “Berry.”
“Mr. Berry, this is Dr. Pilsudski from St. Vincent Medical Center. Sorry to bother you so early―”
“Sure you are.”
“I’m calling about an employee of yours, Edwin Terwilliger.”
Berry smiled and shook his head; Terwilliger and his games. “What, is he dead?”
“Oh no, he’s not dead. He’s been in an accident, though―”
“And he won’t be coming to work today, right?”
“Well, he’s been badly hurt. I imagine it’ll be at least a week, if not two, before―”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Dr. Pilsudski. P-I-L―”
“Tell you what,” Berry interrupted. “I’m going to call you right back, okay? Sit tight for a minute.” Smiling to himself, he hung up the phone and pressed the button to call Rosemary.
“Look up St. Vincent’s for me, would you?” He dabbed at the front of his shirt with a handkerchief while Rosemary put the call through.
“St. Vincent Medical Center,” a female voice said. “Can I help you?”
Whatever game Terwilliger was playing, he was about to lose. “This is Dan Berry from LAPD. I need to speak with Dr. Pilsudski.”
“Sure, I’ll page him,” the woman replied. “Please hold.”
A frown crossed Berry’s face, quickly suppressed. He waited. The call was transferred and a familiar voice came on the line.
“Dr. Pilsudski speaking. Is this Mr. Berry?”
Berry’s heart sank. “You were, ah, telling me about Terwilliger?”
* * *
“He just came out of surgery a few minutes ago,” Kajdas said. “It’s too early to tell. I’ll update you when I know more.”
Berry muttered something unpleasant and hung up. Tom waited on the line until another voice spoke. “All set, then?”
“That’ll do. Thanks, Bob.”
“My pleasure,” said Linden. “I’ll have them switch it back before anyone notices. Have a good day.”
Tom replaced the receiver and looked over at Ed, who was either asleep or dead. He watched until Ed’s eyelids fluttered slightly, then decided it would be all right to step out for some coffee.
Ed’s young lady-friend entered the apartment as Tom was on his way out. Kajdas had been surprised to meet her when she’d arrived to check on Ed, but in the last two days they had reached an understanding between them. The girl had made it clear that she had no intention of having anything resembling a conversation with Tom, and in return, he refrained from commenting on her age (far too young for Ed) and her appearance (Tom would have disowned his daughters if either of them started dressing the way this girl did).
“Awake yet?” she asked.
“Nope,” Tom replied. He left without another word.
* * *
Ed squinted in the early-morning sunlight. He knew he was dreaming—he could still sense that his body, lying on his bed in his apartment, was in pain—but the pain was distant. Almost tolerable. In the dream the sun was coming up over a flat horizon in a beautiful spectacle of color. He was in a desert, riding in the back seat of a car. Ed was small in the dream—just a boy. He
’d had this dream before, more than once, and yet he seldom remembered anything about it once he awoke. He knew that he would shortly turn away from the sunrise and look to his left. Every ounce of his soul wanted to cry out in fear of what he would find there. He knew what he would see, and he didn’t want to. But he had to turn and look.
The car slowed. Something was blocking the road. His father was driving—not his father, not Richard Terwilliger; Ed’s parents were both long dead—but a different father. The distinction was unclear in Ed’s mind.
The road was blocked by an overturned vehicle, and there were bodies on the street. Indians who’d been riding to work in the back of the truck. The truck had tipped over and poured them out onto the dry ground. Now patches of the ground were moist with their blood.
His father—the boy’s father—told everyone to stay in the car. His father called him Jimmy. He was Jimmy in a lot of his dreams. His father and grandfather got out and examined the bodies. One Indian gazed at him with a strangely neutral expression, but the eyes were devoid of life. A wind rose up then, whipping the desert dust into a vortex, and he felt the spirits of the dead Indians rising up with the wind. They pierced him and entered his body. He could feel their old souls pressing in, working their way into his mind to tell him their secrets.
Then, while Ed still shook from the memory of fear, the desert abruptly went dark. He was in his Dream City again; the flickering pinpoints of light were all around him.
This time, the boy from the desert had come with him. Reflected light glistened on the tears that were still on Jimmy’s cheeks. Seeing that Ed was looking at him, the boy scrubbed his face with his sleeve. Then he looked at the ground.
Who is he? the gnome demanded inside Ed’s brain.
“Who are you?” Ed asked. Instead of answering, Jimmy pointed at something on the ground in front of him.
Ed walked over to where he was pointing. It was too dark to make out the tiny object on the ground, so Ed reached out and picked it up. It was very light and soft to the touch.
He held it up to look at it. It was a dead lizard. Ed dropped it and wiped his hand on his jeans.
Jimmy’s mouth was moving frantically, but no sound came out. He put both hands to his chest. A dark liquid flowed over his fingers—only a trickle at first, but soon it was spurting out of his chest with enough force to spatter Ed’s face and clothes. Jimmy looked at Ed with an expression of pure terror, then collapsed without making a sound.
Ed rushed over to where Jimmy had fallen, but the boy was gone.
See? the gnome said. He’s why you have to come here. They’ll kill him.
Ed knelt down where the boy had been and coughed. His throat still felt full of sand. “Who was that?”
A prophet, the gnome said. You have to save him. He fights for Orc.
“Save him? From what?”
From Urizen.
“Urizen isn’t real.”
You don’t know what’s real! The gnome’s voice was growing softer, as though it was fading into the distance, and Ed noticed for the first time that it was floating slowly upward into the sky. Urizen will destroy the prophets. He’s already started. The creature continued speaking, but its words faded to silence as it floated away.
Ed left the dream and found his sleeping body again. His throat was parched. The sheets and mattress were soaked with sweat. How long had he been in bed? He’d spent the last—he didn’t know how long—stuck halfway between sleep and waking. Sometimes he woke up crying from terrible pain; other times he felt strong enough to take a few sips of water from the glass by his bedside before falling back into bed again. At least the vomiting had stopped. Tom had been there each time he opened his eyes, and he thought Doris had been there sometimes as well.
This time the pain was not as bad as before. He thought he might not die just yet. And, amazingly, he was hungry.
He sat up. His head was spinning fiercely, but it stayed on his shoulders. He was alone in his bedroom.
Pushing himself to a standing position, he waited for the dizziness to subside and shuffled into the living room. A pillow and blanket were piled up on the sofa. Someone had been sleeping there.
Behind the closed door of the bathroom, that someone flushed the toilet. Ed jumped at the sound, reeled and almost fell.
There was a sound of water running in the sink, then silence. Ed watched the bathroom door expectantly. Then the door opened and Tom emerged with newspaper in hand, accompanied by a noxious cloud that was almost too much for Ed in his already fragile state. “For crying out loud, Tom,” he croaked.
“Sorry, buddy,” Tom said sheepishly. “Had Mexican last night. How you feeling?”
Ed leaned against the wall and shut his eyes against the painful light from the windows. Even though the pain was not yet gone, the silence inside his head was wonderful. The gnome seemed to have left him, at least for now. “I think I might be getting better. I don’t wish I was dead anymore.”
“Progress,” Kajdas said with a grin.
Ed’s stomach rumbled. “How long—?”
“Two days. It’s Friday afternoon.”
There was a brief silence while he assessed his likelihood of making it as far as his blue armchair. The wall was holding him up nicely, though, so he decided to stay where he was a while longer.
“I sent the girl out to pick up a few things,” Tom said as he folded his newspaper.
“What girl?”
“The Jewish gal.”
“Doris,” said Ed.
Tom sighed deeply and crossed his arms, giving Ed a stern look. “Doris. Ed, you and I need to talk.”
This felt like the right time for Ed to attempt the expedition from the hallway to his armchair. Pushing off from the wall, he began taking very small steps. Tom followed closely, prepared to offer support if needed, but Ed felt that he was doing fairly well on his own. All things considered.
Tom waited for him to get settled before he started in. “Why didn’t you tell me about this new friend of yours?”
“What’s to tell?” Ed rubbed his eyes; putting pressure on his eyeballs helped his headache a bit.
Tom sat on the sofa and absently straightened the Blake compendium on the end table. “She’s awfully young. Normally I don’t feel that it’s my place to comment, but honestly, she can’t have more than a couple of years on my oldest. And you’re what—twenty-six?”
“I’m not sleeping with her.”
Kajdas frowned down at the book, looking embarrassed. “Well, ah... good. I didn’t think you would. It seemed strange to me that you would start fooling around with some girl when Eleanor’s only been... You know what I mean.”
“No,” Ed replied levelly. “What do you mean?”
“Forget it. I’m sorry.”
Ed said nothing.
“I should’ve known you wouldn’t do such a thing. And this Doris is obviously the freewheeling type, nothing like your Eleanor, from what you’ve told me, so I’m sure you wouldn’t...” Seeing that he was only digging his hole even deeper, Tom fell silent.
Grunting with the effort, Ed pushed himself back to his feet and slowly made his way to the kitchen to find something to eat. Halfway there, though, his legs turned to rubber and nearly dumped him on the floor. He was still attempting to regain his balance when the front door opened.
Doris stood in the doorway with two grocery bags balanced on one arm, glaring at him with deep disapproval. “What are you doing out of bed? Look at you; you can’t even stand up.” She plopped the bags down on the counter and hurried over to support him, making little exasperated noises as she did so. “And you,” she snapped at Tom. “You couldn’t keep him in bed? I told you not to let him up yet.” Ed was surprised at how much of his weight he needed her to hold up for him. She helped him to his blue chair and tumbled him into it gracelessly. To Ed she said, “Your friend here wasn’t offering, so I went out to get you some food. You must be starving. Oh, and I borrowed some money from your wallet.”
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“I am,” said Ed, feeling overwhelmed. “Starving.”
An awkward silence followed. Both Tom and Doris looked like they had much to say to Ed, but neither one appeared willing to speak in front of the other. After a while, Tom cleared his throat self-consciously and got up to put away the groceries.
Doris leaned close to Ed. “Can we talk?” she whispered. “Outside?”
“I just sat down. Can’t we talk here?”
“It’s private.”
Ed made a face and accepted her help getting out of the chair. Tom gave Doris a reproachful glare as she led Ed out of the apartment and down the walkway toward Mrs. Findlay’s place.
“Man,” she said, keeping her voice low, “I thought I was used to hanging out with freaks, but that guy...”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s—I don’t know, his eyes are funny. Like he’s looking right through you all the time. It’s creepy. And he talks too loud.”
“He does talk loud,” Ed admitted.
“I’m telling you, something’s not right about him. And he’s so condescending. I bet he voted for Goldwater.”
“And your Guru person isn’t condescending? Look at the way he uses you.”
Doris set her jaw. “I told you before, he doesn’t use any of us. The Guru would never ask me to do something I didn’t want to do!” She cut herself off, turning slightly red in the face. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m supposed to give you a message from him.” Doris’ pronouns somehow took on a different character when she was using them in reference to the Guru.
“A message?”
“He wants you to come see him. Today. As soon as you can.”
“I haven’t passed his ‘test’ yet,” Ed replied, allowing a touch of bitterness into his tone.
“Ed, there’s something wrong with him. He’s been acting weird lately, and it’s getting worse. He wants to see you right away. Will you come back to the house with me?”
Ed let out a deep sigh. “I can barely stand up. Can’t it wait?”
She leaned against the wall and folded her arms, thinking. Finally she said, “I have to go back and take care of him. Can I tell him you’ll go there tomorrow?”
Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1) Page 18
