David cut the engine and unlatched the doors.
The blood drained from her face.
He opened the passenger door. “Jackie? What is wrong?”
“I can’t go in there.”
“It is just a church.” He stooped so that they were pretty much eye level with one another. “I will not let anything happen to you. I promise.”
She tried to smile, but her facial muscles had turned to stone.
“Please.” He reached out his hand. His energy was so strong, it made her believe he meant what he said. For Babu, she reminded herself, and she took his hand and let him help her out of the car.
He kept his hand on her shoulder as they climbed the church steps and approached the carved entrance doors. The last time she climbed these steps was the day of her exorcism.
“You are not afraid the church will fall down on you, are you?”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.” His joke slightly eased her tension.
He pushed open the church door and motioned for her to go in before him. She took a deep breath and then stepped inside the vestibule. When she took another breath, the scent of incense and beeswax filled her nose. It was both comforting and haunting.
David touched her arm. “Come.”
It felt sacrilegious for her to leave the vestibule and enter the nave. She hesitated.
“It’s okay. You are not a stranger to this church.”
Maybe she did believe the church was going to fall in on her. She cautiously followed David through the arched entranceway and into the nave. Sparsely decorated, it was tranquil and clean. A large Oriental rug covered the polished wood floor in the center of the nave. Smaller Oriental rugs covered the outer areas. The candles in the choir areas were lit. She didn’t remember ever seeing the church without people. She could still feel their energy and their foreboding stares.
David climbed the platform steps and then pointed to the iconostasis. “It is here.” A drop cloth covered the left half.
She froze at the steps.
“It is okay, Jackie. Come.”
“But…”
“Please.”
As she climbed the steps, she had an eerie feeling that the floor was going to open up, and she would plunge straight to hell.
David fingered back the drop cloth, revealing the charred icons behind it. “What do you think?”
She swallowed, but her mouth was dry. “I don’t know what you’re asking me.”
“We found it like this one day. We thought the candles were too close, that it caught fire and burned itself out. So, we replaced the icons and didn’t light the candles. Within hours, it looked like this again.” David made a quick sign of the cross.
“So, what do you want from me?”
“I thought that maybe you would have another vision.”
“You think the Virgin is going swoop down and tell me what’s up with the iconostasis?”
“I really did not think about how this was going to work. I only know that you were warned once about the fire in the church. I thought that maybe if this meant any danger to the church, you would be warned again.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
His eyes lit. “I know that you saw the Mother of God and that she spoke to you. I know that Stephanie’s life would have been spared if Father Dmitriev would have listened to you.”
“Says who?”
“The congregation. They still talk about you.”
“Do they talk about how Father Dmitriev made me stand right here as he performed an exorcism on me?”
“They know.”
“Why don’t you tell Father Dmitriev to work his holy spells on this?”
“He has. I have prayed too. It does not seem like God is listening to us.”
“He’s not going to listen to me, either.” She started for the platform stairs.
“I wear black to mourn the evil in this world and for those who are suffering,” David said. “What do you wear black for?”
He was really crossing the line here. She turned to David. “I wear black so people will leave me the fuck alone.” She felt bad about letting the f-word fly in church, but this place was really getting under her skin.
“Is that what you want Jackie? To live your life alone?”
She lost Jason. She almost lost Babu. Yes, it did frighten her to be alone; however, doing a psychic reading inside a church wasn’t going to win her friends among the congregation. David needed to know what he was dealing with.
“I need to touch the icon to pick up an impression. Is that what you want me to do inside this church? I don’t know what they taught you in seminarian school, but what you’re asking me to do is against the laws of God. Divining, I believe the church calls it.”
David fell silent for a moment. His eyes appeared to be studying her as if he was accessing her integrity. Then he said, “Do what it is you have to do. You were warned before for a reason. I believe that warning came from God. The congregation believes that too.”
“What if it didn’t?”
“What if it did?”
“Fine. I’m doing this for Babu. Not for you.” She walked back to the iconostasis and reached for the drop cloth. As she did, her arm brushed the candlestick. Tiny vibrations tickled her arm bones and then spread across her chest.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.” She wrapped her fingers around the candlestick. The energy poured from the holder into her hand. Sadness filled her, and her heart began to ache. Within seconds, her heart ached so much, it was ready to crack open. She let go of the candlestick to stop the pain, but the energy was so strong, it clung to her. She covered her face with her hands. Tears pricked her eyes. She sniffled.
“What is it?” David draped his arm over her.
She nuzzled her face against his chest and breathed in his scent.
“Are you all right?” He squeezed her shoulder.
She had this terrible need for him to hold her, to love her. She clenched his robe.
He pressed his cheek to her head, and his arm tightened around her. His energy combined with the energy binding her, transforming it from unquenchable desire to pure bliss. Her vision filled with white light.
“What’s this?” Father Dmitriev boomed.
The spell was broken. White light crumbled into thousands of tiny stars, and then the stars disintegrated, leaving her and David standing in Father Dmitriev’s shadow.
She backed away from David.
Father Dmitriev was standing by the Holy Doors like an icon of God’s wrath. His fuzzy beard was grown out to his chest, and his dark eyes fossilized into an accusing stare.
Even she was horrified by what she had done. She had been holding David like she was—in love with him. She felt like crawling into a hole and never coming out.
“I-I brought Jackie to assess our problem,” David stuttered.
“Are you mad? Get her out of here.”
“But this is the girl who saw the Holy Mother and warned of the fire. Surely, she can help us.”
“She’s a heretic, a diviner. See her for what she is, my son.”
David studied her as if he was trying to see her in a different light.
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice quivering. “I’m done here.”
She jumped off the platform and bolted through the church and out the entrance doors.
Outside, she took long strides and alternate side streets to avoid being followed. No matter how fast she walked or how sporadic her path, David’s scent rose up from her trench coat, and she could still feel his arms around her.
Chapter 17
Jackie rushed to her room so she wouldn’t have to explain to Mom how her “coffee date” went. She dug an oversized sweater and a pair of black yoga pants out of her top drawer and then dashed to the bathroom and started the shower.
When the steam rose over the shower curtain, she stepped inside and let the water rain over her body. She imagined David’s scent slipping o
ver her shoulders, her hips, and her feet, trickling down the drain. She held the mesh bath sponge to her nose and smelled the remnant of shower gel, trying to get David’s scent out of her head. She squeezed more shower gel onto the sponge, and starting at her shoulders, scrubbed her skin raw.
A rap on the door startled her. “Jackie? Is that you?” Another rap. “Jackie?”
Speak, Jackie. She almost had to remind herself how to form words on her lips. “Yes, Mom. It’s me.” Who else would it be? Some bum off the street desperately in need of a shower?
She dried off and then got dressed. Her skin was pink and smelled like strawberry, but she could still feel David. She needed to see Babu, to cleanse her spirit with her light.
In Babu’s room, she searched the dresser drawers and found a scarf with a paisley pattern. She tied the scarf around her head like Babu always did, the ends drawn to the back of her head and knotted over the back flap. Then she grabbed Babu’s satchel, dumped the contents on the bed, and filled it with clean underwear, socks, a housedress, and a warm sweater. She dropped Babu’s chotki in the satchel, too, and put their needlepoint supplies on top.
“Mom,” she yelled. “I’m going to bring Babu some clean clothes.”
Mom was standing in the kitchen doorway. She wrinkled her brow at the sight of her. “I thought we’d go together, later.”
“I don’t want to leave Babu alone.”
“Fine by me.”
Jackie opened the front door. Her dad was lifting the shrine into a wheelbarrow. She closed the door. “What’s he doing here?”
“Who else was I going to call?”
“You called Dad?”
“Jackie, your father doesn’t hate you.”
She could see him like it was yesterday, clutching his hair and looking miserably frustrated at the clutter on his front lawn, asking Mom why their daughter just couldn’t be normal. “He does.”
Mom’s brow furrowed. “He divorced me, not you.”
“Yeah, right.”
The front door opened. Dad stopped at the threshold—knit hat pulled over his ears, Carhartt jacket open, and jean pant legs crumpled over his boots.
They stared at each other as if they didn’t expect to meet head on. She felt like she was an evil force keeping him from crossing the threshold.
“I’ll let you two talk,” Mom said and left the room.
Jackie didn’t want to talk. What was she supposed to say? Oh, thanks for coming out, Dad, to take care of my mess—once again.
He looked at Babu’s satchel. “I hear Babu’s in the hospital.”
“Yeah, I was just going to bring her some things.”
“Want to tell me what happened?”
“Babu had a heart attack. Besides that, no.”
He put his hands in the pockets of his jacket and nodded. “I pulled down some of the TP. You’ll have to wait for a heavy rain to bring down the rest of it.”
“Thanks.”
“All right then. Well, say hello to Babu for me.” He lifted his hand, fingers spread, to say good-bye and then turned and walked out the door.
She parted the curtain on the narrow window. Dad’s truck pulled away from the curb and drove down the street, devil spears poking out from the truck bed.
***
At the hospital, Jackie treaded down the corridor looking like a refugee in her boots and yoga pants combo, the paisley scarf tied around her head. She found it strange that people were staring at her more now than when she was in full goth attire.
Babu was thrilled to see her. She smothered her in her bosom and kissed her on both cheeks, three times. Jackie scooted a chair close to the hospital bed, and she and Babu continued with their needlepoint as if they were at home in the living room. Babu’s light was dim, so Jackie tried not to absorb it. But just being with Babu made her feel good inside. David’s energy had just about faded. Perhaps the only thing sticking to her was the distasteful memory of what had happened between them that day.
Then, David walked into the room.
He stopped when he saw her.
The needle slipped from her fingers and dangled by a thread from the canvas.
He nodded. “Jackie.”
“David.”
Babu was all smiles. She called him to the bed and took his hand in hers and kissed it. He was going to think they were both nuts, Jackie thought.
David pulled up a chair and glanced at her several times while talking to Babu in fluent Russian.
In between glances, she fled to the bathroom, locked the door, and sat on the edge of the toilet, waiting for him to leave. After about ten minutes, she pressed her ear to the door, hoping for a lull in the conversation, for the sound of closure.
She hoped he wasn’t waiting for her to come out. Seeing each other was not a good idea. Besides being totally embarrassed about what happened that day, she was scared to death of the way he made her feel. She barely knew him, and yet, she wanted him more than anybody could ever want another human being. That feeling had to have come from the candlestick. But then, the candlestick exuded sadness. What she felt for David was more than sadness.
After another five minutes or so, she heard the conversation come to an end.
There was a rap on the bathroom door. No!
“Good-bye, Jackie,” David said.
Just go.
“Are you okay in there?”
“Yeah.”
“I would really like to talk to you. Tomorrow, maybe?”
Would you just go away?
“Jackie?”
No way in hell.
“Okay then. Call me.”
***
Sunday, Jackie missed Jason more than ever. She wished things could be normal between them again. She called Zeta.
“Have you seen Jason?” she asked her.
Silence.
“Is he okay?”
“Looked fine to me. At least what I could see with Trish hanging all over him.”
A hot breath escaped her lips. She had sighed so heavily, it came out as a low growl.
“Jackie?”
“Do you know where they were Friday night?”
“Trish said something about going to Jason’s house.”
“Those dogs.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Someone vandalized my front yard. Babu saw it and had a heart attack.”
“Is she…”
“She’s fine. Mom picked her up today. She’s supposed to be on medication.”
“I know Jason. He’d never hurt you like that.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Ironically, she brooded for the rest of the day. Her hope that by Monday everyone would have forgotten about her lie and she and Jason would be friends again was looking bleak. In fact, she got a bad feeling that things were going to get worse.
Chapter 18
Jackie’s intuition was dead on. Monday morning, she was greeted by “Burn, witch, burn” spray-painted onto her locker door. The energy these words exuded pounded like fists against her chest.
“Whoa!” Zeta said.
Jackie quickly turned the tumbler on her lock, thirty-five left, two to the right. The lock released with a twelve to the left. She opened the locker door wide enough to hide the hideous words. Inside the locker, dropped onto a pile of books and stuff, was a tarot card.
Zeta picked it up. “The Hanged Man. This is just plain mean.”
Jackie’s name was written across the man hanging upside down from a tree by one foot. The other leg was bent, forming a triangle with the hanging one. His arms were drawn behind his back, and a halo surrounded his head. He looked like a crucified saint.
People were moseying around their lockers and staring at her as if waiting to see her reaction.
Zeta took a step toward them and stomped her thick-heeled Mary Jane to scatter them. “Why don’t you take a freaking picture?”
It worked. A few of them burrowed their heads into their lockers; others scurried down the
hall.
Zeta studied the tarot card again. “What moronic maniac would do this?”
“Any one of them, I guess. Everyone hates me.”
“Count me out. I can never hate you. You’re too weird to hate.”
“Thanks.”
“What are friends for?” Zeta smiled, her devious eyetooth showing. “Hey, too bad they didn’t dump the whole deck in here. I can use a set of tarot cards.”
“Seriously?”
“No. Come on. I’ll walk down to the office with you. Maybe they can trace fingerprints or question the local hardware stores to see who recently purchased black spray paint.”
“I’m not going to the office.” The only thing she wanted to know was that Jason didn’t do it.
“You can’t go the rest of the school year with a vandalized locker either. Besides, the graffiti is bringing down the value of the hallway.”
Jackie slammed her locker shut. “I’m sure when Mrs. Zinko comes out of her hole, she’ll make sure someone takes care of it.”
“Be that way. Leave it for Mrs. Stinko.”
Jackie headed toward B-building for American History. On the B-building stairs, she hugged her books to her chest and kept her elbows tucked to her sides to avoid physical contact with the other students. She wished she could carry all of her books with her so she didn’t have to return to her locker for the rest of the day, or for rest of the school year.
At the top of the steps, some jock pushed Pete, the kid who was in her American History class. Pete’s notebook flew out of his arms and papers fluttered in the air and dropped onto the steps and landing. People laughed and trampled his papers. He stooped to pick his things up. A girl shoved him with her knee.
Jackie reached for a paper, but then stopped. She was a victim too, and if she touched his papers or touched him, she’d take on his pain and maybe his low self-esteem.
He glanced at her and shrunk into the corner.
You dope. I’m the last person you should be afraid of. I’m not the evil person you think I am. Well, not that evil. Not like the people who did this to you.
When she came out of the stairwell, Will shot her an awkward look and then strode down the hall and disappeared around the corner. Students glanced at her and moved away like she had a contagious disease.
Possessed (Pagan Light Book 1) Page 9
