Day Thirty-One

 

     If there is one thing Casper has come to realize in this last handful of days, it’s that he needs to keep himself busy. Because, try as he might, his long sojourn in Glenholm is steadily eating moth holes in the very fiber of his being. Or maybe just his head. In any case, it remains quite clear that, unless Casper wants to lose himself again, he needs something, anything, to stay engaged with reality. This close to leaving, he can’t afford to go into another fugue and sleepwalk through the week, never you mind the day he’s supposed to leave.

     The funny thing about time is that, unless you’re doing something to give it meaning, it’s all to easy to let it slip by. Let it pass in a fuzzy, grey haze, not a thing to delineate one day from the next and the next. Meaningless. Boundless. Monotonous. And he’ll freewheel like that, out of mind, out of control, until something gives him reason to wake up again. The frightening thing is that he doesn’t know how long that’ll take. He drifted like that through the better part of the year, once upon a time. It’s only natural he’s anxious about falling back into the habit when he can least afford it.

     And so, he’s come up with a cunning plan: he’s made himself a to-do list.

Day Thirty

 

     Smith’s place. Sometime in the morning, while it’s too early for Myr to barge in and most (if not all) of town is still in church. Coming from Smith, this whole arrangement may as well have come complete with an engraved invitation and fanfare. Casper should be happy. Hell, he should be ecstatic, skipping his merry way down the hill at first light.

     He’s not. If anything, he feels sick thinking about it. He’s been dragging his feet all the way through his morning routine, but he can’t put it off forever. There’s no point in staying at the house anyhow, with Balor cooped up in his attic, busy doing whatever, and Casper too afraid to set foot onto the second floor to follow. He’s only making matters harder for himself, unnecessarily so.

     But, hey. That’s the story of his life, isn’t it?

Days Twenty-Seven to Twenty-Nine

 

     With the glasshouse harvest having reached its culmination, there’s been progressively less and less to do every day except wait and eat. Consequently, Balor’s spending less time in their garden. He seems occupied with something, but god knows what, least of all because he outright refuses to tell Casper what’s going on. Whatever it is, Casper doesn’t like it. It can’t possibly be Casper’s impending departure (ten days, nine, eight…); both Balor and Smith have both amply assured him everything is well in hand in that regard, so what’s going on? When people start moving around Casper without telling him what they’re doing, it generally means bad new for him. It’s only fair he’s getting a little bit (extremely) nervous.

     Myr’s up and about during the day now, though that may be because the daylight hours are getting longer, the evening stretching onwards and outwards through what was once the night. Casper’s making good use of the strange shadows that line the manor halls, cast by the interminable afternoons that blur into a summer long haze. But he needs to keep his head clear, needs to stay on his toes.

Day Twenty-Six

  

     Casper finishes off the espinac with Balor’s blessings. The stuff’s about to go to seed, so it needs to be eaten soon. There’s the one crime Casper would be loath to commit: wasting perfectly good food. As for what counts as ‘perfectly good food’… It varies on the circumstance and range of alternatives, be it bitter greens or the days old bread rolls that’ve been sitting in his pockets. He had his reservations about using up the last bit of pub fare he’ll likely ever get, but it’s not like it was getting any fresher. He ate the last crumbs yesterday for dinner while Balor turned up his nose at them and stalked off muttering about getting him something decent to eat.

     Between a full meal yesterday and another this morning, Casper’s has the rare pleasure of being sated. The sheer amount of bare earth he’s left behind, however, is disconcerting.

Day Twenty-Five

     Bad dreams tonight. Casper’s back in the workhouse. Old scars ache and bleed fresh as the day he got them. The foreman has Myr’s face. Casper wakes up screaming with another kick to the ribs.

     Myr isn’t standing over him. He’s nowhere to be found in fact. Neither’s the foreman. Just a bad dream, the kind that comes from bad memories. Casper sits up, gets his bearings while he’s shaking off the nightmare. He’d rolled over onto his bruised ribs sometime during the night; the pain woke him up, not Myr. He’s fine. He isn’t bleeding. He’s safe. Just a dream.

Day Twenty-Four - Evening

     Before they head off, Smith tells Rodney the druggie to go look in the backroom to see if there’s a nice vintage lying around. They might have a nice sherry or red on the shelf above the pickled eyeballs, but Casper doubts it. Rodney salutes cheerily and comes back with a surprising selection. Smith squints at the labels, turns the bottles this way and that, examining them in the light before finally picking one. “The trick to dealing with Myr is to never do it when he’s sober,” he confides to Casper. “Other than that, you gotta know how to talk to him; there’s where I come in.”

     Casper blinks between him, the bottle, and the post office, wondering what they don’t have in there.

     Rodney waves them off, Smith with bottle in hand, Casper slinking unhappily behind. Everyone turns and stares at them going off, plainly together, in the direction of the hill. They’re not even pretending they’re not gawping. The damage is done. They knew already, no point in keeping up pretences.

Day Twenty-Four - Midday and Midday

     Casper wanders the streets of Glenholm more or less aimlessly, turning one corner and the next, no real direction in mind, the only purpose being to waste time. Doesn’t feel right to sit down, to stay still for a single minute. He can’t settle, as unsettled as he is. Being in one place, much less out in the open, for too long makes him exposed. He knows it isn’t rational, he knows he isn’t making sense, but he can’t help the way he feels. The curious glances he’s getting from behind curtains isn’t doing him any favours. He winds up avoiding the larger roads almost entirely, simply because there are more windows facing out along them. The center of his corkscrewing route, however, always remains the same: the post office.

     Obsessively, compulsively, inevitably, he’ll circle back around from wherever his meanderings have taken him and find himself somewhere within the vicinity the post. If that delivery comes today, he can’t afford to miss it. And if it doesn’t, if it’s delayed again, or it’s come and gone already, or it isn’t coming at all, well…

     There’s another one of those things he doesn’t want to think about.

Day Twenty-Four - Morning

     The sun is shining. The birds are singing. Casper and Balor go through their morning ritual of tending to their gardens behind the house and Casper tries not to think of anything at all. There’s no need to water anything outside today, so they finish off quickly. Casper wouldn’t have minded having a little more to do if it meant keeping his hands busy, keeping his mind occupied.

     Balor rinses his hands off in last of the water in the well pail, the remainder of what’s leftover from watering the glasshouse plants. The espinac is coming out in full force, beta too, lagging a mere step behind. The old man has quite the green thumb. The glasshouse alone has been sufficient to provide Casper with regular breakfasts. When the stuff they’ve planted outside is fully grown, there’ll be enough to give him three square meals a day, pub fare or no. Except Casper won’t be there.

     If he has his way, he’ll be leaving today.

     He still hasn’t told Balor.

Day Twenty-Three - Afternoon and Evening

     Casper waits and watches from a side alley until Smith leaves the post office and returns to his own establishment. He’d’ve taken off sooner, except Myr’s taken to waiting in front of the bank for Smith to show himself. Smith greets him with a warm greeting of “’Zekiel!” and claps him on the back just as fondly when he gets near. They could be old drinking buddies or could be starting a knitting circle for all Casper cares, he just wants them gone and out of sight so he can go already.

     Smith invites Myr in for a drink. Myr naturally agrees, leads the way into the building in fact, welcoming himself like it’s his own home. Smith doesn’t seem to bothered by it either. The familiarity suggests they’ve been doing this a long time.

     Casper sighs and files away that particular footnote for later. He may have to get into the habit of asking Balor for Myr’s schedule on any given day. He’s not fond of Myr getting the drop on him once, much less making it a regular occurrence.

Day Twenty-Three - Morning and Midday

     Casper asks Balor permission to leave for town early this morning. That’s the thing about stakeouts; the more time you can waste on them, the better the chances of success. He promises he’ll do his share of chores when he gets back. Balor is admittedly puzzled over why the time that the weeding and watering gets done would matter, much less why Casper feels the need to rush off to town. The old man doesn’t ask though. Something about plausible deniability. He does, however warn Casper to expect Myr. Apparently the drunk intends on paying Smith a visit sometime today, likely this afternoon if his sleeping habits are any indication. God knows how and why Myr, of all people, has gotten himself wrapped up in Smith's business, but at least now Casper knows to keep an eye out. Not that he plans on being seen anyways.

Day Twenty-Two - Afternoon and Evening

     Something strange is starting. A certain restlessness amongst the locals, a certain malaise in the air. Hard to put a finger on what, exactly, is causing it or where it’s coming from, but there’s definitely something afoot. Chances are second to none this was what Curly was referring to about a week back, something about the trouble that goes on in the summer. Well, wouldn’t you know it, the air is getting noticeably warmer, summer just around corner, and now no one lingers on the streets like they used to. People take their conversations inside with them, warry of new the faces in the streets. They keep vigil on Smith’s out of town associates, much like they did when Casper was their person of interest.

     Needless to say, something’s going on, but it’s happening in places Casper isn’t privy too, places he can’t pry into. Not without attracting a lot of attention, that is. He’s getting very, very curious about the whole thing and that doesn’t bode well for him. He knows all too well from past experience what a dangerous thing curiosity can be, but sometimes he can’t help himself. What he can do is be sneaky about his snooping so he’s not as likely to get caught. That’s what his spies are for.

Days Seventeen Through Twenty-One

     The days carry on in due course through this sleepy, little town called Glenholm and not a single one is wasted. Beta sprouts next to espinac on the hilltop with a number of other things. Casper sticks wooden supports into the earth where Balor tells him to. Supposedly, stalks as thin as thread that are poking out of the soil now are going to grow into long, stringy vines that will bear fruits one day. Casper has his doubts, but he’s no expert. There are times, however, where he can believe. This morning, as he’s looking on his burgeoning field of green, is one such occasion. A little garden plot, all his own, just to keep him fed. It’s a lot of work.

     Casper insists on helping Balor water it all, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. There’s not much to do thanks to the rain shower that came by before sunrise, so Casper lends a hand with the sprouts in the glasshouse instead. It’s a lot of work, but seeing the fruits of his labours and the fruits to come… For the first time in forever, Casper has an appreciation for the job he been put to.

Day Sixteen - Afternoon

     Casper trudges down the backroad from Smith’s, leaving in a considerably worse mood than when he arrived. Another three weeks his arse, that’s what he said last time!

     “I said three weeks at the very earliest,” Smith puffed on his cigar. High quality stuff too by the smell of it. “And,” Smith continued, “it’s hardly been a week since you been here last, so don’t you go harping on me now boy.”

     And that was the end of that. Showed Casper straight to the door without letting him get so much as a word in edgeways. Casper will be back, there’s no doubt about it. He’ll be counting the days, mark his words and the tally he keeps carved by his bed. He’ll be there… (what’s three by seven again…?) nineteen days later on the dot.