of your mouth,
I’m unable to speak
or paint you with words
Clare
After Luther Crowe left I was exhausted. It was noon and I had been up for an hour but it felt like 3 am.
I wanted to hide from the world―just curl up on my couch and wait until my stalkers were caught.
I know I had put on a brave face while Luther was here and appreciated his efforts and the security detail outside, but I couldn't handle the stress.
Maybe I was still coping with the after-effects from my head trauma, the constant efforts to recall past events or maybe I was just fatigued from trying to make sense of the inscrutable.
One life was a challenge―but past lives, a debilitation.
As I was struggling with angst, the phone rang. It startled me beyond belief. I was dismayed and ashamed of the panic I felt.
No one phones me on my landline, I growled testily, but my mood changed immediately when I heard Clare's voice.
"Hey, Marcus! If you're free this afternoon maybe you can fulfill your promise and take me to Whitehern."
The prospect of revisiting the gloomy manse with its murderous ghost didn't exactly thrill me, but I had invited her before.
"Sure, Clare―How does one pm work for you?"
"I'll see you then, Marcus."
Her voice was a caress and had already calmed my nerves. I just had time to change from my pj's and shave .
Maybe it would be good therapy to face the thing I feared, but considering recent events I wouldn't push that maxim too far.
By the time I got to the Lightbourne's Clare was waiting under the portico outside.
It had been a while since I saw either Clay or Sylvia and I wondered if that wasn't deliberate on Clare's part.
Regardless, it was complicated enough explaining our relationship to Nat and Tess―I didn't look forward to explaining it to her parents.
As I pulled up to the door I was struck again by Clare's beauty.
She was wearing a pale blue dress that perfectly complemented her lightly tanned skin.
"Don't you look lovely in your Alice blue dress." I smiled as she got in.
She looked at me quizzically and I realized what I had said, but where the line had come from, I had absolutely no clue.
"Don't bother trying to explain that one," she laughed.
We drove to the historical site chatting happily as if we hadn't a care in the world―as if I hadn't been almost curled up in a ball of fear an hour before.
Somehow Clare had a calming effect on me, as if when we were together, God was in his heaven and all was right on earth―at least in our tiny corner of the world.
But when I stopped outside Whithern, Clare's jaw dropped.
"I know this place," was all she could say, staring wide-eyed in wonder and quietly repeating the phrase.
Right away, I had misgivings about my decision to bring her, but having made the gesture of inviting her I felt it would be rude not to follow it through.