The Heir Of Dreams And Curses

Where I get by with a little help from my friend

I was speechless. I was driving myself crazy, wondering how Daniel Johnston could have come up with that idea.

"Maybe I'm dumb," I feigned ignorance. "But I have something that I'd like to ask."

"You're not dumb" Edgar stated, matter-of-factly.

"Well, I must be! Something about all of this just doesn't feel right. Mister Johnston, why are you saying that Alice disappeared into another dimension? How can you prove a rift between two worlds opened?"

Thomas Johnston was not known for keeping his cool. He seemed immediately bothered by my words --- he understood what I was getting at.

"I don't need to explain a reason to an ignorant student like you," he replied stubbornly. "If anything, I'll leave it to you to find me proves that something else happened. Until then, I'm blaming your leisure vacation on KI last Spring."

"Oh, shit," Edgar commented.

Mister Johnston looked at him defiantly. "Next time," he said. "You'll either show up sober or not at all. I was meaning to ask you to help us find a solution to the power outage, Ryan, but now I see we don't need your help."

When Thomas Johnston left, Edgar looked at me sadly. "You shouldn't let him treat you like that," he said.

"It's fine," I shrugged.

"Seriously, it's not! It's just something you say. I was there, on KI, when a Reaper stabbed you in the heart and you kept acting like everything was fine."

I shivered. It was not one of my fondest memories.

"Well, what we need now is some good night's sleep," I said. "Not that I'll be able to get any, with Alice missing and everything. But if we wait until tomorrow to act on it, maybe things will be clearer. In the morning, it won't even matter that much if there's a power outage."

Edgar seemed to give it some thought. "All right," he said. "Meet me tomorrow at Flora's house. We'll try to cheer her up while we think of how we can help her out and find proves we didn't open any rift."

I wasn't expecting Edgar to propose we did this together, but I accepted gladly. I was glad that he didn't ask me if I thought it really was our fault. Not blaming somebody unless you had proof, even ourselves, was apparently something that we both agreed on.

The following day, we met on the road that led to Flora's house. We were about to ring the bell, when a woman came out and told us Flora wasn't home, and would come back later.

"I'm the landlady," she said, her white bun shining under the fickle rays of the Autumn sun. "And you would be..."

I stole a glance at her. She was wearing pajamas, a long gown the style I'd seen on Flora before on mornings such as these. She had a look in her eyes as if she knew exactly who I was.

"The Typhon, according to a lot of people," I rolled my eyes. "But don't worry lady, it's taking a looong while for my soul to rot."

The landlady shrugged, and closed the door on me.

"Well, that was petty," Edgar commented.

"I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it. "I'm just a little nervous. Alice disappeared yesterday. I really thought I'd wake up hearing good news, but I haven't. She disappeared so many hours ago, it's not looking good."

Edgar seemed to shut up for some time. The look in his eyes was enough to make me understand that he knew how terrible the situation was.

"Where are Raegan and Jeff anyway?" he asked. "Why didn't you bring them along?"