Prologue
Seven years pass...
Crap.
- The journal of Eric Montgomery (final entry)
...It was Spring again, and apple blossom was falling from the trees. He concentrated on this as the taxi cab took him from the hospital. He watched the little pale petals fall and coat the ground beneath in white and tried pretend that the last few hours hadn't happened. But there was the sympathetic pamphlet in his pocket, and the smell of hospital on him, that smell that he had become so used to and never failed to turn his stomach. And there was the memory of it in is mind. Oh yes. The memories. Terrible, sickening moments which flashed past his eyes over and over and over again. Moments not just from that day, but from his whole life. Things he'd wished he'd done, and not done, said and not said. There was one way of drowning them out. But that was stupid. There was another way to get through this.
"Um," he said.
The taxi driver glanced at him in the rear view mirror.
"Are we near Summer Street?"
"It's just the next left," replied the driver. "You wanna go there instead?"
He looked at the apple blossom again, remembering a friendly face. It was synonimous with care, and understanding. And pain. It was a face that had gazed into is eyes in horror as he'd burned.
No. Forget it.
"No," he said, "forget it. Take me home."
...In a darkly painted bedroom in Summer Street, the owner of a friendly face left tarot cards half laid out and a candle burning on his small desk. He terminated the phone call and stood for a moment, shaking his head in shock and sadness. He wondered briefly what he should do next. Go to the hospital, of course. Maybe he'd need to stay overnight. He grabbed a change of clothes and his toothbrush, and scooped his cards up from the desk. They went everywhere with him recently. The dreams had made him nervous, and he had yet to rule out the Worst. He stalled at his door. He really should tell the others. They'd want to be there. He picked up his phone, and wasn't sure why he felt he had to dial one particular number first. Things had changed in the last few years, after all, and...
The phone at the other end was picked up. A male voice said "Hello?"
"Hank. Have you heard?"
Of course not. The voice at the other end grew worried.
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses.
"You... you gotta come home."