Crowley's Window (Novella) by Gord Rollo Page A

masterful job making him look this way for his family and friends to see. Whoever it was, they deserved a medal.
    “Come on, Abby,” her mother said, tugging on her arm. “Let’s take a seat, okay?”
    “Just a sec, mom. I haven’t had a chance to say goodbye yet.”
    Abby reached into the casket and found the cold skin of her father’s right hand. All she wanted to do was touch him and hoped to get a sense that he was no longer suffering but contacting him started her fingers tingling and suddenly…
     
    …Abby was far away from the Halderson Funeral Home and back in the parking lot of the Townsend Traveling Show. She knew what she was seeing was a vision from two nights earlier because Mister Chollo was there crouched down in the long grass nursing his injured hand and walking past Abby again was young Trisha Martin holding her big swirling lollipop. Beside her, leading the little girl off to her death was the tall man with the knife sheathed on his hip. At the first line of parked cars, Crowley’s henchman stopped and suddenly turned around to make sure no one was following them.
    Abby’s spirit gasped and froze in place.
    No! It can’t be. It just can’t…
    But it was. There tightly holding Trisha’s hand was Abby’s father, looking sweaty and nervous but not sick in any way. How had she not recognized him earlier? Abby had known there was something familiar about the man who’d always had his back to her in the visions but just hadn’t spent enough time around her father in the last few years to figure it out. Now it was too late. Jarrett Hawkins yanked the little girls arm, causing her to drop her lollipop, and started dragging her deeper into the sea of cars and the forest beyond. Abby looked toward Chollo but he was already moving toward the main entrance of the carnival and would be of no help even if he wasn’t leaving. In this dream, the things Abby watched had already taken place and couldn’t be altered. Like it or not, Abby was on her own. She swallowed down her fear and tried to chase after them, to run and catch up to her father but…
     
    …the vision changed, lurching forward in time to a dark room inside a house that looked familiar to Abby. Of course, it was the living room of her parent’s house, here in Millbridge. Crowley walked into the room, with Abby’s father following along like a puppy at his heals. Crowley carried a tall drinking glass filled with what looked like orange juice but she couldn’t be sure. He offered the glass to Abby’s father who took it and knelt on the floor.
    “You’ve served me well all these years, Jarrett,” Crowley said. “I’m pleased, but for you the work is over. You’ve earned your rest.”
    Jarrett Hawkins smiled, thrilled to have pleased his master. “Thank you, Reverend. I go to my reward with no regrets.”
    Abby watched her father drink down the juice; three-quarters of it anyway, then just have enough time to hand the nearly empty glass back to Crowley before winching in pain and crumbling to the floor. His body shook and spasmed for thirty seconds, then lay still at the reverend’s feet. Crowley smiled, stepped over Jarrett’s body and exited the room without looking back.
    Cancer my foot, Abby thought. Dad was poisoned. Murdered. No, he drank it willingly. It was suicide. But why dad? Why?
    Abby bent down to touch her father, hoping to get more answers, but as soon as she reached for him, she…
     
    …woke up back in the funeral home with her heart trip-hammering inside her chest and her head spinning from all the lies she’d been told. Her entire world had been turned upside down and she had no idea what to belief anymore or who, if anyone, she could trust. Was her mother in on this too? What about the other people in this room staring at her? Were they all in this together?
    “Mom?” she said, not trusting herself to say anything more. She heard the door slam shut at the back of the room. Someone off to her right started