Into This River I Drown - By Tj Klune Page 0,60

doesn’t come back. This can’t last long, I tell myself. People will begin to ask questions. My mother and the Trio will begin to ask questions. How long can the name Cal Blue and the person behind it hold up to inspection? He can only end up bringing my carefully constructed world crashing down, and I don’t know if I have the strength to build it up all over again. So it’s good, I think, looking down at the blankets on the floor outside my door. It’s good he’s gone. He doesn’t belong here. He’s an angel. I am a little speck of dust that means nothing. This won’t be any more than that. He is big and bright and strong and powerful. And I am nothing.

But that’s only a small voice.

Inevitably, I’m up and pacing the floor in the living room in the dark, glancing out the front windows every few moments into the night, hoping to see a large figure ambling up the driveway toward Little House. The longer it takes, the more I begin to eye my keys hanging on the rack. What if he’s hurt? I ask myself more than once. What if he’s lost? What if he’s trying to find his way back to Little House and he can’t? What if he needs my help? And, as if he can hear me thinking, as if he understands I’m about to break, that is the moment I see him, a flash of the red rust on his head, his creamy skin illuminated by the moon and stars. Relief washes over me. These are strange feelings, new feelings, feelings I don’t think I can or even should be having. I watch him for a moment as he moves toward me. I think how handsome he is, how strong he looks. I think how the small voice that wants him to leave is undoubtedly right, but I will ignore it for as long as I can, because I don’t think I can go back to the way things were. Being alone, being haunted. I allow myself to think these things for just a moment, because any longer will be too much for me to handle.

As he approaches Little House, I melt back into the dark, down the hall, stepping over his blankets and then shutting the door behind me. I crawl into bed and lie on my side, facing the door. Moments later, I hear footsteps walking down the hall gently, as if he is trying to be quiet so he doesn’t wake me. Shadows shift across the floor as he stands in front of my bedroom door. And then his voice, softly saying, “I’m back, Benji. I’m here.”

The first night he said this, I was sure he’d seen me in the window, that he knew I was awake. But then he said it again the next night. And the one that followed. And the one after that. Finally, on the seventh night, I stayed awake as long as I could, to see if I could hear him when he left. It was just after midnight when he stirred. He stood and leaned against the door. “I’ll be back, Benji. I promise. I will come back.”

But regardless of when he leaves or when he comes back, he knocks on my door shortly before dawn, waking me from a fitful doze I’ve just fallen into. “Benji?” he says. “It’s almost time.” And then he walks down the hall and out the door.

There are moments when I tell myself to stay in bed, that I don’t need to put myself into this any further. It doesn’t mean anything, I argue with myself. It can’t mean anything. But then my feet find the floor and I’m standing before I can even think about it. I walk down the hall. I take my father’s jacket from the coat rack and slip it on. I put on the old work boots by the door. I go outside, the sky already beginning to lighten in the east. The grass is slick with dew. The stars are still visible overhead, though they are now fading.

I reach the ladder and climb up one rung, and then two. There is movement above me and I look up. The angel Calliel is there, hand outstretched. There is no hesitation now as I reach up, his big paw engulfing mine. He pulls me up the rest of the way and then moves back to his perch at the edge