Page 49 of Finding Basil
He’d made the same plea so many times, it was tedious. “The you that you are right now won’t last. You may like it, but you’re about to hit the wall. You’ll be depressed a long time, and then…who knows what you’re going to do the next time you’re manic? You’ve committed crimes this time, Steve, and they’re not little ones. Arson, attempted murder…”
“Murder!” Steve began to laugh hysterically. “You’re the one who needs the hospital, Basil. I’d never hurt anyone. That was…dumb, and I’m sorry, okay? Is that what you wanted?”
“If you’re truly sorry, Steve, you’ll come with me now. Right now.”
It took another hour of talking, but finally, Steve agreed to leave with him. As Basil described the crimes, and the punishments for each, Steve relented. He may have bipolar, but he wasn’t crazy. Jail was hell for the most well person, let alone someone with his disease.
They got into the truck and headed out, the darkness of the night possible from the thick dark clouds covering the moon. As soon as they were on the road, Basil told him, “You know, if you weren’t so jealous, and hating him because of me, you’d really like Herb. I hope you’ll get to meet him when you’re out and well.”
“Will I ever be?”
“If you stay on your meds, yeah.”
“You won’t want me around!”
Basil sighed, “Of course, I will. You’re still my friend, Steve. You’ll always be my friend.”
“Really?” he asked in a small voice. “You mean that?”
“I don’t lie, Steve. You know that. I can’t lie; I get all nervous.”
As Steve laughed, he said, “God, you’re bad at it.”
“Yeah. I am.”
Chapter Thirteen
Herbcouldn’tbelievehiseyes. After watching Basil go into his house, he waited for a text or call, and there was nothing. Then he looked for his keys and realized Basil had taken them.
He sat, heartbroken near the window, staring at the telescope, wishing it was broken, that he hadn’t seen what he’d seen. He couldn’t imagine why Basil would need to go into his house, why he’d taken Herb’s keys.
Was he wrong? Had Herb been so wrong about Basil? Was Basil after the house, or the fields, or something else? Money? Herb had little in the house to steal, but what else could it possibly be?
When Herb watched again, waiting for Basil to come out, he didn’t see him exit the house. Leaving Lila’s Herb slowly made his way across Lila’s yard, and just as he was about to cross onto his own property, Herb did spot Basil, but he wasn’t alone.
Someone else came out of the house with him.
Herb was shocked still. It must have been a good five minutes before his legs would work again, and once they did, he found the spare key he kept under a rock alongside the gravel walkway leading to the greenhouse.
Once inside, the lights came on, and he started searching the rooms for signs of theft, but not one thing was out of place. Upstairs, he went from room to room too, but nothing was missing.
Not that there was a thing in the far spare room, but he went inside of it regardless, and that was where he found something.
The closet door was open, and the dim light was lit, showing…a ladder.
He remembered Cordelia mentioning an attic, and the attic was small, unfinished and generally used for the storage of seasonal decorations. He hadn’t thought of checking it out, because, well, if there was stuff up there, it was just more on his plate to deal with.
As he made it up the ladder, however, the flashlight on his phone illuminating the attic, he saw a totally different place than he imagined. There were a few boxes, but they were in a far, dark corner. What he saw shocked him with he rest of the place.
It was obvious someone had been living there, and they’d drawn and written on all the sloping and vertical walls. There was a makeshift bed on the floor, and empty soda cans, water bottles and even an old pizza box littering the floor.
He sat in the center of the room, and his eye caught some of the writing. It was all about Basil, and how they’d run off one day, heading to LA to be stars.
Steve had been living in his fucking attic. And Basil knew…
When he got back to Lila’s, he saw that she was awake, watching out the window. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, I’m an old woman. I wake up so many times, it’s better exercise than I get in the daylight. Where were you?”
