Brydie.
In the front passenger seat, Danny wheeled around.
“I’m right here! It really is Will! He’s alive, he’s come back! I don’t know how, but it’s him, it’s really him!”
Brydie narrowed her eyes to pure hate at the back of Cowan’s head. If only she’d had a knife on her she’d have slit his throat at the nearest stop light. There were no warrants for her in this country yet, she could probably get away with it….
(Shame she and Danny couldn’t keep the car, though. Smooth and quiet, plus it was big enough they could live in it.)
There was no blood in Cowan’s hair. She could have sworn she’d split his scalp with the blow from that lamp.
But of course she had to concede, as the vise around her skull tightened its grip and the car’s interior swam gray again, that this was all just a dream. There was no other explanation. It had all been a dream from the moment Will placed that call to Christian. Maybe even from the moment Will punched Danny – after all, he’d certainly hit the boy before, but it had never led to anything like this.
She leaned back into the softness of the seat, and momentarily gave in to the urge to stop thinking and just close her eyes.
__________________________________________________________
Danny.
(Pinch her!)
came a voice to Danny out of nowhere, inside his head yet clearly audible. The same voice that had spoken to him at the motel, the one that had told him to shoot the Underwear Man.
And a fat lot of good that had done him.
(Pinch her hard!)
the voice urged again.
“No!” Danny shouted out loud to the voice, looking all around in the front seat as if he could discover its hiding place. “I’m not gonna do it! I’m not gonna do anythin’ til you tell me who you are!”
He felt a puzzled look from Will, but for once he managed not to flinch away.
“Well, if it’s who I think it is,” Will said without taking his eyes off the road, “that would be your uncle, an’ my younger brother. David’s his name, an’ I wish you could’ve met him while he was alive. You’d have liked him. An’ he’d have liked you.”
“So….I’m talkin’ to a ghost.”
Will nodded.
“Geez. This country is weird.”
As they drove on in silence, Danny observed Will sitting there using another man’s body and driving another man’s car. He’d always secretly thought of Will as a bit super human, but this….this was over the top, even for Will O’Graidy.
No one back home would ever believe it. Not even if they saw it, would they believe it.
In the past, to stare (or even gaze) too long at Will O’Graidy had been ill advised. Even for Brydie and Danny – and sometimes especially for Brydie and Danny. But if ever there had been a new day, this was it. And on this new day Danny could watch Will drive without being afraid.
“I never knew you had a brother named David.”
“Well I did,” Will said in a conversational tone Danny had scarcely ever heard him use. The big man had never seemed comfortable enough to hold a relaxed conversation. “I did, an’ I think that’s who’s talkin’ to you now.”
“How did he die ?”
Will’s answer was so long in coming, that Danny started to fear he had stepped out of line with the question.
“Christian killed him. There at the compound. Killed him just before we arrived.”
“Oh.” Danny found himself at a loss for words. But remembering the manners Brydie had taught him, he added, “I’m sorry.”
This drew a half smile from Will. “You’re a good lad,” he said. “Your mother’s taught you well.”
Danny turned and stared out the passenger window, feigned interest in the passing telephone poles. To cry had been a sin in Will O’Graidy’s household, and now Will O’Graidy was back.
The Gyre. By Sharon Collins. 