Page 23 of All Saints Day
“I can’t do this.” I hear the words escape me just before the loud ringing in my ears begins to eclipse any other sound; my hands clamp the sides of my head in desperation—as if I could shut everything out if I just tried hard enough.
“Frank, Francis—hold on, you have to hold on, for Louise’s sake!” Michael’s voice calls dully, struggling against the deafening dial tone of my boiling brain.
Eyes watering against the searing pain, I open them—my vision swimming as I try to force Michael into focus.
“You need to do something!” I beseech him, Michael’s bonding bite throbbing with pain as I press my palms together.
“What can I do, Frank?” Michael sputters—beginning to fade from my vision like dissipating smoke.
“I don’t know! Anything—I can’t handle it, and if I can’t handle it—he’s gonna show up,” I wail, trying to reach him before he disappears entirely.
“Frank, I’m not here!” Michael barks, but still I stumble toward him.
“We can’t let Rook get to her—I’m worried that if he gets ahold of her?—”
“Only you can stop him, Frank.”
I feel all the air suddenly sucked from my lungs.
Frank.
Francis.
Francis Stone.
No, not Stone—that was a name I took once I had to pretend to be a good little boy scout. Francis Stone, the G-Man, the Fed, the soldier, the would-be politician—neat and clean.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?
I’m no longer in the east wing of the Windmill’s remote headquarters; I’m in Winter Hill with my old man, with my old man; Patrick Castle.
Only a few months before my thirteenth birthday, but I’m old enough to know that my father and our ‘family business’ are different from those of my classmates.
Usually, Pops would leave me at home when he went out on ‘business,’ but between the death of my mother the year before and my proximity to teenagerdom; the old man started bringing me along for some of his more mundane visits.
In the memory, we pull up to the popular bar and restaurant Emmaline’s, my father in an expensive gray suit—no tie, his pale blue dress shirt roguishly rumpled beneath the sharp, stark lines of his jacket.
We walk through the front doors. A few girls in their early twenties, in black slacks and blouses, sit at the bar rollingflatware into napkins, fastening the bundles closed with adhesive paper strips.
“We don’t open ‘till six,” the bartender drones without looking up from the stemware he’s polishing.
“Oh, that’s alright,” my father beams genially, raking a hand through his coal-black hair. “We’re not here to eat. Tommy’s expecting me.”
The bartender looks up—his eyes widening with understanding and fear as he takes in the sight of my father.
“Kelly, go get the boss,” the bartender snips out, almost dropping his glass before his eyes catch on me, his panic abating slightly as he sees that I’m a kid.
“Mind if we take a seat?” My father places his hands on my shoulders and nods to a pair of open stools at the end of the bar.
The bartender swallows hard and bobs a few anxious nods.
“Sure, ladies, why don’t you bring the setup stuff out back so I can get these fine gentlemen something to drink.” He smiles nervously, hazarding a glance over his shoulder at the door to the back room before he wipes down the bar.
The other waitstaff clear out as the bartender asks my father and I what we’d like to drink.
“I’ll have a Jack and ginger.” Dad sits easily on a barstool; I still have to clamber up onto mine.
“I’ll have a Sprite.” I do my best to sound cool, like Dad.
