I, Keveny - pt 13

"I can't stay, you have to let me go!"

 

The man fixed his large grey eyes on me, a slight smile playing across his face.

 

"We know by now you have no desire to stay. There is no intent to keep you." The words stung for some reason. It wasn't like I didn't want to be here. He made it sound like I was rejecting this place.

 

"Look, it's not that. It's just that—"

 

He put his hand up. "Explanation implies eventual comprehension. There is nothing for us to understand. You wish to go, so you shall."

 

"Where's Daniel?"

 

"We know not anyone of that name."

 

"Sure you do. He was the big black guy?" I held my hand over my head several inches. "About this tall?"

 

"Oh yes. He is nonesuch."

 

"I'm sorry?"

 

"He is none—no longer with us."

 

"Hey wait a minute. You're those girls, aren't you? From when I first got here."

 

"We have many forms."

 

"Yeah. Daniel said you were a bowl of apples when he got here. Why'd you bring me here?"

 

"So that you might listen. We took the form of your father to—"

 

I scowled. "I didn't know my daddy. I would have preferred the apples."

 

It morphed and shrunk. An instant later it looked like a ten year old boy with those same gray eyes.

 

"Perhaps the form of your son—"

 

"I don't have any kids."

 

"Sure you do. He was conceived when you were—uh, never mind. We are in the form of a random boy, totally unrelated to you."

 

As if to confirm this, the boy's hair went from black to blond. Whatever this thing was, it didn't know me like that. If I had a kid out somewhere, I would've known about it.

 

"I gotta go."

 

I turned and headed for the stairs.

 

"Before returning to the ground, you should be armed with pertinent information. The manner of your death is the grounds by which you are still tethered to the dust of the ground."

I paused on the stairs to think about that. He'd said the word 'ground' three times. Was that just coincidence?