Chapter 66: and there's no time left for losing

So things happen.

He finds an ancient loose band-aid in the glovebox and slaps it on the burn. He stops off at a Dunkin Donuts and gorges himself on coffee and sugar. Then he does in fact get another phone.

Same as before - small, shitty, cheap, not a smartphone in any sense of the word, prepaid. It occurs to him only after he's out of the store and on the sidewalk that he could have pretty much bought whatever he wanted in there. And again, because of that, it additionally occurs to him that he's going to have to revise some very basic assumptions about the logic that underpins his world and how he lives in it.

But with something like this, he's also not sure he sees the point. He doesn't want a smartphone. He doesn't want a fucking iPhone or whatever. He doesn't care. He's still struggling to care about much of anything, if he's honest, and he doesn't care enough to lie. To himself or anyone else, if anyone else happened to ask. Not that anyone would.

He's not sure he's completely visible to the naked eye. Not sure he's completely in phase with everything else.

It's still relatively early - everything open only recently so and plenty of stuff not open at all. The rain has stopped and the sun is beginning to emerge - cautiously, as if it's not sure some kind of coast is clear of something undesirable - and he blinks in it, ignoring the rest of the very sparse traffic on the sidewalk. There's something mildly surprising about it. Last night it was so difficult to see past the night itself. Seemed like it might just go on forever, but here's empirical evidence to the contrary.

Life does, apparently, go on.

He wonders how Merle is getting on with his.

He heads across the street to the truck, gets in, drives.

Next stop is the high school.

He sits in the parking lot like he has before. Feels kind of creepy, like usual. Doesn't care about that either. He looks at that low, blocky building with its rows of windows and its football field, those towers of light that blaze on Friday nights, the deep green boxwoods in their concrete planters in front of the main entrance. They're trimmed very neatly. They cast long shadows. There's something about the look of them that he just doesn't like.

But somewhere in there is Beth.

By now it's a little after ten. She's talked about her schedule and right now she has calculus. He can't even begin to conceive of calculus but he imagines her at a desk - grabs the image from movies and TV - head bent, pencil in her small, graceful hand, ponytail over one shoulder, her braid bound in a glittery green elastic band. Biting her lip, maybe, the way she does when she's thinking.

Or doing other things.

Gold heart against her chest. Tight jeans. That loose cardigan he loves, because it slips so wonderfully down her upper arms without even having to be tugged. Brass and deep brown wooden beads strung onto leather thongs around her wrist. Head ducked like that - intent, concentrating.

Or maybe she's not concentrating at all. Maybe she's daydreaming. Maybe the teacher is droning on and on about linear equations or whatever - he has no idea if that has anything whatsoever to do with calculus and he doesn't even slightly care - and she's staring out the window, watching the sun on the fiery trees.

Or... He has no idea where her classroom might be. Could be she has a clear view of the parking lot.

Could be she can see him.

There's hard heat settling between his legs. Everywhere is heat. But not all that kind of heat. He aches. He remembers feeling like this; it's how he felt in the beginning, when everything was so new and so horrible and so unbelievably incredibly wonderful. Needing and wanting and desperately holding himself back.

It's not even that he wants to fuck her. Not right now. It's just that she's so amazing.

And she came and she held him so warm and strong, and when he asked her to lie for him she said she would, and she didn't leave him even though she probably should have. She never leaves him. She has to love him, because if she didn't she would be a thousand miles away from him right now.

She would have been the one telling him to go.

He closes his eyes and drops his head back against the top of the seat. He doesn't realize he's digging his thumbnail into the pad of the band-aid until the pain throbs up his arm.

She's amazing and beautiful and he wants her, loves her so much - so he can still feel something.

He can feel something a fuck of a lot.

But he can't stay here. He has somewhere else to be.

It's actually almost warm by the time he gets to the house.

Almost. That crisp autumn edge is still in the air, and now and then sharp breezes cut down the street, shouldering their way through the falling leaves. Those are beginning to gather along the edges and by the sidewalks, piling up, unraked, still colorful but browning. Peak is passing fast, and the near-warmth is treacherous. He doesn't trust it for a moment.

But the window is rolled down and the sun is on his face. And he does feel it. He feels like it's lifting him, a little. Like it's easing him back into something. He still feels like absolute shit, hurting and lurching and almost dizzy - like he's been sick, like he's only now coming out of it - but he thinks he can bear it.

He thinks he might eventually be okay.

He parks in front of the house and sits there for a while, looking at it.

Those big windows up there. That turret. The window just on the side - he was thinking sort of half-seriously about claiming that room. The stained glass. The painted gables. The huge old oak tree. The wild remains of the flowerbeds. The porch, the swing. But he keeps coming back to the windows, all the windows, in need of cleaning but there, so many more than he's ever really had, so much more here than he was ever supposed to have. Merle was right: This isn't them. It isn't him. It's like when Beth first led him up to the farmhouse and he was more than hesitant; he was actually scared, because he's not supposed to be in places like that, and even if he does end up in them he's just a tourist. At best. And he's never completely stopped feeling like an intruder. Not even with the Greenes.

This isn't him.

But maybe it could be. Somehow. Maybe. If he tries.

House of light.

He doesn't believe in God, and he doesn't know exactly what a prayer is. But he does believe in Beth Greene, and right now it feels like that's all he has, and it's something.

He closes his eyes and turns his face away.

Help me.

He doesn't know if she can answer prayers. He really doubts it. But one of those little gusts comes whistling into the cab through the window and stirs his hair, combs through it like warm, gentle fingers, and images slip through his mind, half-formed and ghostly, prints on clean glass.

The gleam of a wolf's teeth, glossy fur. The flutter of wings. Blue doe-eyes.

She's not a goddess.

Girl.

He gets out of the truck, picks up the pack, picks up the bow, slings both over his shoulders. He doesn't hesitate. Not now.

He plods up the cracked front walk, climbs the steps, and knocks on the door. And when it opens, he walks through.

The front hall is full of bags - or it sure feels like it is - and Cathy is flustered. She says hello and clacks off to the kitchen to do something, calls to him that she'll be back in a minute. Daryl is momentarily confused until he remembers: the cruise. Right. She won't even be here. It'll be Carol instead.

And suddenly Carol's there, coming out of the living room, giving him a faint smile. She seems to hesitate for a fraction of a second, not totally looking at his face, eyes widening just a touch, and it takes him another fraction of a second to realize what she's staring at.

The crossbow. Yeah, well. Right. That must look kind of weird.

He gives her half a shrug, taking hold of the strap. "I hunt."

She lets out a soft breath. "Ah. Okay, right." Another smile, less faint. "You won't be dragging any dead things in here, right?"

"Probably not."

She gazes at him for a moment longer, and he guesses she might be trying to work out whether or not he's kidding. But then Cathy comes back in, rubbing her hands together, reaching up to adjust her hearing aid. She's wearing leggings and a very brightly colored, very flowery shirt. Daryk has never in his life even considered going on a cruise, nor has he ever personally known anyone who has, but he supposes this might be the kind of thing someone would wear on one.

Or it might just be Cathy. From what little he knows of her, either or both are extremely plausible.

"So." She produces a cigarette out of nowhere, lights it. The burn on Daryl's hand flares into an itch and almost immediately subsides. "You got it?"

He nods, reaches into his pocket. Carol gives him another quick look, her own single nod, and and vanishes into the kitchen.

Cathy arches a brow when he pulls out the roll of bills but otherwise confines her reaction to a stream of smoke from the corner of her mouth. "Alright, then. I did figure you were good for it. Nice to see I was right. I have to get going in... Christ, about five minutes, but Carol has the lease for you to sign."

And she's not going to ask him any questions. Regardless of the fact that a bunch of cash in this kind of amount looks more than a little odd. Possibly more than a little suspicious. But if she's going to take it and leave well enough alone, he's not remotely into the idea of having a problem with that.

He counts out the hundreds and hands them over. She receives them without further comment, folds them into her fist, and nods at the bow. "You hunt?"

"Yeah. I mean... When I can." He manages to cobble together a kind of smile. " Ain't gonna drag nothin' dead in here."

"You better not," she says amiably, and looks past him at the front door. "You got anythin' comin'? Got a van or somethin' with your brother?"

His stomach twitches, twists, ties itself into a complicated series of knots. He manages not to wince. Shakes his head, and hopes his face isn't clearly broadcasting what's happening to his insides.

The arch of her penciled eyebrow lifts a bit further. "Out in the truck?"

He shakes his head again. Speech suddenly feels some distance out of his reach.

Cathy takes a long drag on her cigarette and regards him with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism, both eyebrows now creeping upward. "This right here? This all you got? Seriously?"

Nod.

"Where're you gonna sleep?"

He shrugs. He honestly hasn't thought that far ahead. He hadn't thought ahead to this line of questioning, if it comes to that, though he really should have. But thinking isn't his strong point at the moment.

He's pretty certain that he could sleep on a fucking rock right now, and sleep well.

She stares at him for another moment and folds one arm across her chest, blows more smoke. "Where's your brother?"

"Ain't comin'."

"Ah."

Just that. Quiet sound of sudden comprehension. For now, apparently, it's back to no more questions. And it comes to him, what it means that she wouldn't feel the immediate need to ask any. Why this might not come as a tremendous surprise to her. What, when she looked at the two of them, she might have seen.

"Alright. Well, that means an adjustment to the lease, but I guess it ain't a big deal. You sign it anyway, I'll take care of it when I get back. That work for you?"

Nod. It works perfectly well.

"Okay." She glances around at the bags, mouth tightening. "Okay. I got a taxi comin', like, now." Outside, someone gives a car horn a hefty punch. "Yeah. So here's the keys." All at once she's holding them out to him, two coppery keys on a simple, unadorned ring. He has no idea where she was keeping them, because she has no pockets as far as he can see, but his not-caring approach seems to still apply to some things. He takes them, closes them cool and strangely heavy in his palm.

Cathy jerks a thumb at the staircase behind her. "Go ahead up that way this time. Just remember, like I told you - stairs outside in back are yours. Use those unless you can't for some reason."

"Right," he murmurs, and she's turning away, scooping up bags - more than she should really be able to carry, at her size and her apparent age - and out the door so swiftly that it hardly seems to open.

Leaving him alone in the front hall.

He listens for a few seconds, and he's not sure what for until he realizes that he's listening for Carol's movements. But there's nothing. The house is bright and silent.

He hefts the bow further onto his shoulder and starts up the creaking stairs.

It feels like they go on for a while. Longer than they appear to allow for. That he's climbing and climbing, and the sunlight through the stained glass on the landing throws the entire stairwell into shifting, nearly hallucinatory colors. With every step his entire body gets heavier, and when he finally reaches the top he's stooped, head hanging, gripping the strap of his bow.

He fumbles the key into the lock and it turns easily. There's a click, unnaturally loud. And the door swings quietly open into light.

It echoes when he steps through - sound ringing off bare wooden floors and bare walls. An empty room. But it doesn't feel cold. Doesn't feel spartan or impersonal. The echo and the light through the big windows and the clean white of the walls, the dark gleaming wood of the floor - it feels like that breeze, those soft fingers sliding into his hair, tugging gently at him.

Come in. Come in and be welcome.

He does, and closes the door behind him, silent but for an almost inaudible squeak of hinges and the click of the latch.

He moves to the center of the room, directly into one of the largest patches of sun, and stands there, head tipped slightly back and eyes shut, breathing. It smells like old dust and old wood and a paint job from years back, and none of it is in the least unpleasant. The light through his closed lids is making his world a brilliant red, the color of a turning leaf. He's still so tired, but he's lighter, and he can breathe.

He's alone.

He lowers his pack and sets it down, unshoulders the bow and sets it carefully beside. He rubs at his eyes, turns, swings his gaze around and scans the space he's in.

And it's not empty. Not completely.

He doesn't even know what it is at first, sitting there in the corner by where the bookshelves were. It's so incongruous, so unexpected in such a fundamental way. He was told the place would be empty, told the former occupants wouldn't be leaving anything behind, and he assumed...

Cathy has to have been up here. She would have seen. She would have taken them out. Given them back to their owners. Done something else with them. Not just left them here.

When he crosses the room, he takes it a step at a time. Like everything else here, the floorboards are old. They should creak like the stairs. He's certain he remembers them doing so the last time he was in here. But they're silent, and he's silent too as he stops and drops into a crouch, reaches out and picks up the book and turns it over.

It really couldn't be anything else.

He sits down crosslegged and just... holds it. He holds it in his hands. He feels the weight of it, the lines and angles, its reality. It's here. He's here. He's holding it and he's here and this is all real and beating into his skin and muscle, his blood and his bones, and his head is flooded with light.

He opens it and focuses on the page.

When I woke
I was alone,

I was thinking:
so this is how you swim inward,
so this is how you flow outward,
so this is how you pray.

He lifts his head, and he already knows what he's going to see.

Set against the baseboard with clear and utterly inexplicable purpose, glittering in a shaft of sunlight and almost too bright to look at, is a little crystal wolf with eyes stained blue.

Note: poem is "Five A.M. in the Pinewoods" by - of course - Mary Oliver.