Seven Kinds of Hell Read Online Free PDF Page B

job of conservation with distilled water, old cardboard beer flats, a toothbrush, rubber cement, masking tape, and some marking pens. Give me a gift card for the drugstore and I’ll work miracles.
    I’d never had much, and given just a little—a little instruction, a few materials—I learned how much I could accomplish. I learned how far I could go with just the smallest encouragement.
    And the libraries—there were lots of them and they were open almost continuously. A major chosen and a degree nearly within reach, I dove into my studies, excelling for the first time. They let you take out all the books you wanted. For free. The world was at my fingertips.
    The hours I’d spent there allowed me, for whole stretches at a time, to forget the Beast.
    In those two years, I’d found friends and, eventually, a boyfriend. People smiled when they saw me, asked me to work with them on their weekend research projects. I made money, I got skills, and I felt normal for maybe the first time ever.
    I, the rootless wonder, the girl blown about by the wind,
belonged.
    I missed the place terribly.
    Luck smiled on me, and I found a parking space on Commonwealth Avenue. It was several blocks from Sean’s street, but aparking space in Boston is a gift from the gods and I no longer had a valid parking sticker.
    “Um.” Sean looked really uncomfortable now. “You want to wait here? I can go and—”
    “No, I’ll come with you. I need to stretch my legs.”
    “If you’re sure.”
    We got out, and habit caught me glancing down the street to the faculty and graduate student lounge, otherwise known as The Pub. I’d celebrated my twenty-second birthday there with Will and Sean.
    That’s when I began to worry. I’d felt better coming to Boston than I had in weeks, but I hadn’t counted on the other memories that would come back with the scenery.
    We played
Frogger
with the traffic and trolley tracks, and then I started to realize it wasn’t such a hot idea going to the apartment with Sean. As we crossed St. Mary’s Street, my heart pounded. I tried to stay calm, but memory is as powerful a drug as anything on the market today. The more I recognized, the more I remembered, and the worse it got.
    I did some breathing exercises, trying to calm myself. The Boston University student ghetto was no place for the Beast. It was no place for me, either, and the faster I got out of there, the better it would be for everyone.
    I could have found my way up the weathered granite steps to the foyer, the elevator, the third floor, blindfolded. If memory is a drug, smell is the trigger. Maybe it was just my senses playing tricks on me, but Sean’s apartment was identifiable from down the hall.
    Very little had changed since I’d last been there two years ago, when my life had gone to hell. The living room looked like a garage sale had exploded, but that was Sean all over. When Will had been here, there’d been a modicum of order, and when I had lived here, there’d even been acceptable levels of hygiene. Now there wereonly pathways from the doorway to the kitchenette, the couch, and the bedroom. The rest of the space was piles of clothing, tools, and books, all very orderly, but out of place in a living room. There was a desk somewhere under a mountain of paper and notebooks. I had to assume it was a desk, based on the topography, but it could as well have been a stack of snow tires. Sean was ready, at a moment’s notice, to run a dig out of this apartment. On several occasions, the three of us
had
run a dig from this apartment.
    I tried not to look toward the room Will and I had shared. I shoved the memories aside and tried to believe when I told myself I should be grateful for what I’d had, not crying over what I’d lost.
    Somewhere, under all this crap, was my inheritance. And maybe, a clue to the Beast.
    “It’s still here?” I said.
    “Yup.”
    In spite of everything, in spite of the catastrophic, investment-grade bust-up I’d had