SACRED VOW – CHAPTER 9
There was a chance that the same Sacred Vow was in his house, somewhere. He had written it down after a stirring dream he had had some time ago. And he was going to move every item in his possession, one by one, until he found that scrap of paper—if he had not thrown it away.
Ian had a bad habit of disregarding musings and inspirations that he scribbled down as time passed. This particular bit of writing had sparked such uncomfortable emotion within him that he had almost destroyed it immediately. In fact, he remembered that the only reason he had not done so was he couldn’t believe a few words from a dream could force such an uncontrolled emotional response within him.
Now he knew why he had reacted so strongly to the passage. Ian resolved to find it.
It proved unbelievable how much a single person could store into every hidden space of an entire house. This became especially evident to Ian when he decided to inventory everything he owned. Half of what he sifted through over the next two days had certainly long lost its value or purpose in his life.
The task he was performing was almost a perfect situation for a thorough spring cleaning. Or, it would have been, if not for the fact that Ian was completely intimidated by the idea that he might accidentally overlook and discard just the item he was searching for. He unearthed everything, examined each thing, and put it right back in its original place—just in case he didn’t find what he was looking for and had to do it all again.
It was a good thing no one happened to come by the house during that little obsession. Ian was sure they would have had him carted away. He rarely moved away from his place of excavation, except very briefly to attend to life’s necessities. Several times he woke after having fallen asleep right in the middle of his work.
Ian was beginning to worry about what would happen if he didn’t find the paper. Months later Liz or Djalma might come looking for him and discover that he had expired during his fixated searching; unsatisfied but unwilling or unable to give up.
Eventually, Ian was successful. The crumpled bit of paper was one of several unrelated scraps in a box of old pictures. Ian had not imagined the impact holding