carriage house - michael and atticus
Atticus wasn't looking forward to this meeting. Odd, in and of itself, because he liked Michael. Liked Michael's sense of humor, and sensed like in the younger man's need to diffuse heavy things with a joke. Truth, Atticus liked most of the boys from the paranormal gang that he regretted. Carver, even with his obsessions and so different from the boy he'd been then, was earnest in a way that was impossible to really dislike. Will was like a silent puppy, and how could someone dislike that? Casper had always made the hairs on the back of Atticus' neck stand up, but it hadn't ever felt like it was the skinny kid controlling whatever lived dangerously in that small frame. Atticus liked the boys. What Atticus didn't like, was thinking about how that combination of people could cause chaos, and all in the name of good and right.
But, tonight, Atticus wasn't looking forward to tonight.
Bad news wasn't something Atticus liked delivering. Was always an emotional requirement that came with it. Comforting, discomfort, awkwardness. Atticus' haunts didn't like those emotions, because they disliked anything that drained their perpetual battery. But Atticus liked Michael, and Michael had questions. Could do this, even if it wouldn't change anything. Atticus, he never changed things for people. Not if he could help it.
Inside, the Charlie Daniels Band played on an old Boombox that sat on the coffee table. Atticus was dressed in loose gray sweats and a long-sleeved shirt in mustard. His hair was a hand-rubbed mess, and the stubble on Atticus' cheeks indicated more than a day's growth.
Two bottles of Bud sweated on the coffee table, and his mother's journal sat at a safe distance. It was an old book, leather cover and painted flowers in blue that had mostly faded from handling. It was the journal from her last year of life, and the handwriting inside had that telltale unsteadiness that came with old fingers and thickening joints. There were photographs tucked in at intervals. The phographs weren't digital, and they'd never been digital. Atticus had the journal opened the entry from the date of the accident Michael had come about. The photographs were turned over beneath the journal, so Michael couldn't see them immediately, but the entry spoke at length about the man and the woman in the room arguing loudly, about the subsequent crash, about the woman's body found on the trellis below, and about the man's disappearance. Police had thought it was murder, and that the man had fled, but the journal entry made it clear that Atticus' mother knew the man hadn't left the B&B that day.
When the knock came at the door of the carriage house, Atticus picked up one of those sweating beers, and he took a long swallow. He was sitting on the couch, lighting up a smoke as he called for Michael to come in.