For a moment, she felt free. As if what had gotten a hold of her had let go. The weight of her anger had lifted.
Then, blackness.
Chapter 58
The room burned with a yellow glow. Shadows flickered on the ceiling. Jackie was in bed. Two voices, a male and a female, spoke Russian in low tones, and strangely, Jackie knew what they were saying. She must be dreaming.
She tried to wake up; she struggled to move her arms and legs, but they were bound. Babu and David, at her bedside, stared down at her.
“Let me up!” she demanded.
“No, no angry,” Babu said in Russian.
“Untie me!”
“Babu said not to get angry,” David said.
“I understood her. Say something to me in Russian.”
“I am sorry, Jackie, but I have to do an exorcism on you,” he said in Russian.
“What? No! No exorcism!” She jerked at the restraints, which felt like leather belts.
“Look at how she suffers,” Babu said. “She no eat. It is my fault. The demon do this to punish me.”
“You are familiar with this demon?” David asked, surprised.
Babu nodded. “When I young girl, I was forced to honor it.”
“Who forced you? Your family?”
She lowered her head. “No. Bad people. But I hide from them. I stay in cabin in woods. One day, I find priest wandering forest. He was cursed by sorcerer, by the bad people. His skin, rotting, he forced to leave his village. I take him into my cabin. I wanted to help him. He wouldn’t let me use my herbs or my gift to heal him. He trusted his Christian God to save him. I saw the light in his eyes when he spoke to me. He not give up. He get worse and worse. I took care of him as he lay dying. I could not do nothing. I put my hands on him and prayed to his God that He would work through me to heal him. Healed, the priest brought me to his church to heal others who were sick or who had been spoiled through witchcraft. But the demon put thoughts in their heads that I was working witchery. They dragged us—me and the two sisters who assisted me—out into the church yard, and they beat us with sticks and staves. I ran into the woods, past the priest, my friend, whom they hung from a tree.”
David wiped the tears from her face with his cassock sleeve.
“I am coward. I ran into the forest while my friends were left to die.” Babu crossed herself. “Forgive me.”
Jackie fought back an urge to laugh. What was wrong with her? She loved Babu. The thought of the demon manipulating her and Babu made her furious.
“I will free her and rid the earth of this demon.” He took up his Bible.
Jackie wanted to tell him to perform the exorcism, but her lips wouldn’t move. Jackie’s insides tightened like her organs were being squeezed. Sharp pains shot through her body.
The door flew open.
“Don’t you dare touch her,” Jason said.
Trish, dressed in a dark cloak, a Ouija board tucked under her arm, followed behind him, and Zeta behind her.
“Holy balls of fire,” Zeta said. “This is like a scene from The Exorcist.”
“It’s the only way,” David said to Jason.
“She’s mine now. I’ll take care of her.”
“And what will you do? Call on Satan to expel his demons? I can’t believe you walk in here with a Ouija board. You people, dabbling in the occult, that’s how this started.”
Trish stepped forward. “I brought it through with this. I’ll send it back with this.”
“You think you have power because of your voodoo doll stunt? Without the demon, you have no power.”
Babu put her hands on Trish and Jason’s shoulders. “Please,” she said in Russian, “let David do his work.”
Somebody do something, Jackie thought. Her spine slowly arched until she was bent backward and staring at the headboard. Her body raised above the bed. The restraints cut into her wrists and ankles. And then she crashed to the mattress.
Babu clasped her hands together, “Kill me instead,” Babu begged.
David swung an incense burner over Jackie. The thick smoke caught in her throat, and she coughed. Then he took up the holy water dispenser and splashed water onto her face. The droplets burned like acid and ate through her flesh. She screamed. The bones in her face twisted and pulled. She raised her head and said to David in a dark voice. “Do you like me now?”
It’s not me talking. I can’t control my mouth.
“I love Jackie,” David said, “not you, demon.”
“Trish, do the Ouija board,” Jason said.
“Okay, okay, but I’m not sure what to do.”
“I thought you had a plan.”
“I didn’t plan for this.”
“I don’t freaking believe this,” Zeta said, her voice shifting octaves.
“Give me this.” Jason snatched the Ouija board from Trish’s hand. “Give me the pointer.”
Trish dug the pointer out of her cloak pocket and gave it to Jason.
Jackie laughed at everyone.
The Ouija board ripped from Jason’s hands, flew through the air, and smashed against the wall repeatedly until it splintered. David continued to pray without distraction. He cast the sprinkler at her. The droplets ate into her arms, her neck, and her face.
Madam Sophie had told her to let him into her heart. He was in, and she knew it. But maybe she wasn’t talking about the demon. It was inside her, controlling her, but it wasn’t in her heart. Maybe Madam Sophie had meant someone else. Was it David she should let in? He quelled the demon’s power over her before at the church, though it didn’t last. She still had fallen victim to its power. Was it Jason? There was no way he had any power to fight the demon at all.
“Heal yourself, Jackie,” Jason said. “Please. I know you can do it. Fight him.”
Her neck abruptly twisted. She stared at Jason and hissed. She couldn’t control herself.
“You want to eff with someone,” Jason said, “eff with me.”
That a boy, Jason, stand your ground. She couldn’t believe how much he loved her. She was so sorry for the way she had treated him. Only you know me, Jason, and I know you.
“You think she can hear us?” Zeta asked Jason.
“She’ll hear me if I send her my thoughts.”
Yes, come to me so I can talk to you. If I could send you my thoughts like I did when we were practicing, I could tell you how much I love you, before the demon destroys me.
Jason took her hand. She couldn’t stop her own hand from crushing his. He closed his eyes. His face squinted in pain.
She read him. He asked her what he could do to save her. She just wanted him to go and save himself, but not until she told him how she felt about him.
She tried to shut her eyes, but she couldn’t control her body. The only thing she had power over was her thoughts. She thought about Jason and how much she loved him. That he was her best friend in the whole wide world. The love burning in her heart grew stronger. She felt the light. It was similar to what she used to pick up from Babu.
I love you, Jason, she continued to think. You are my best friend in the whole world. She opened her heart to him and focused on sending him the energy of love. The energy grew stronger with each thought she sent to him. The light burned inside her and radiated through her hand to Jason.
Her head dropped to the bed.
Something hit the wall. Jackie rose up. Jason was crumbled on the floor by the door, his face sallow, and his eyes yellowed and glaring at her.
Oh, shit! She had sent him the demon. “David, untie me! It’s not in me anymore!”
David stopped reading from the Bible and looked at her hesitantly.
“Someone untie me.”
“No. It’s trickery,” David said.
“No tricks. It’s in Jason. Look.”
Trish and Zeta quickly unbuckled the belts that bound her.
Jason lunged from a sitting position at David, knocking him and his Bible to the floor. Jason’s fingers tightened around
David’s neck. “How strong is your faith, seminarian?” Jason said in a dark, demonic voice.
Babu threw her hands to her face. Jackie could no longer understand the words she was saying. Babu looked up at the ceiling, pleaded in Russian, and then made the sign of the cross.
Freed from her bonds, Jackie jumped out of bed and fought to hold Jason, concentrating on taking the demon back.
“What’s up with Babu?” Zeta said.
Babu was holding a crystal paperweight in one hand. In her other hand was a pewter letter opener. Babu pointed the letter opener at the floor. She chanted in Russian. The crystal slowly lit until it brilliantly glowed with a pure white light.
“Holy shit,” Jackie whispered.
Jason looked up at Babu, relaxed his fingers from around David’s neck and chanted in Latin to counter Babu.
The light flowed from the crystal through Babu, into the pewter opener, and to the floor. The spot on the floor where Babu directed the light appeared to open. It swirled with red and green clouds of energy.
Babu looked at Jackie, and Jackie knew what she was saying. Babu had unlocked her mind to her.
“Help me restrain, Jason,” Jackie said to Trish and Zeta.
Trish and Zeta rushed to help. David latched on to Jason to hold him.
Jackie put one hand to Jason and the other to the edge of the swirling energy. She envisioned the demon flowing through her, out her arm, and into the portal.
Jason struggled to free himself from Zeta, Trish, and David, but the demon, more concerned with stopping Babu, continued chanting.
The light flowing from the crystal weakened. Jackie opened up her heart. She thought about Jason, about Babu, about how much she loved them. The love burned inside her, and the light grew stronger.
Jason’s body contorted, and a shrill scream projected from his mouth. The demon, in the form of a black mist, was sucked out of Jason. It ripped through Jackie and funneled through her fingers into the energy hole.
The light in the crystal went out, and the portal closed.
All was quiet.
The crystal fell from Babu’s hand and hit the floor, breaking the silence. Babu dropped to her knees.
Jackie rushed to Babu, and kneeling beside her, threw her arms around her.
Jackie hugged Babu and whispered, “I heard what you told David. No more secrets, for either of us.”
David helped her lift Babu from the floor.
Jason touched Jackie’s back. “I got your message.”
“I didn’t mean to send you the demon.”
“It’s okay. Really. And I understand now.” He looked at David and then at her.
Oh, no. Here it comes again, the jealousy.
“You love me, but as a friend,” Jason said. “You tried to tell me before, but I just didn’t listen. I wanted it to be something more, but it can’t be. Your heart told me so.”
“I said all that?”
He nodded.
“I didn’t mean to lie. I really believe we belong together.”
“It’s okay. Everything you’ve said about me is true. I am shy, and I guess, in a weird way, I like to suffer. It’s like the only thing I expect in life.”
“Are we still friends?”
“Best and always.” He hugged her.
Babu groaned.
“I gotta help Babu,” Jackie said. “We’ll talk later.”
“Sure.” Jason slipped his hands into his jacket pockets. He followed Trish out the door.
“You gonna be all right?” Zeta asked her.
“Yeah.”
Zeta looked around the room and then struck her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Why didn’t I take pictures?” She walked out the door, grumbling about missed opportunities.
Jackie and David walked Babu to the bed. “You need to rest,” Jackie said to her. “I know how much energy it takes.”
Babu smiled weakly and lay down.
David quietly gathered his Bible, incense burner, and holy water sprinkler while Jackie picked up the crystal and letter opener. By the blank expression on his face, it looked like he had been knocked off-kilter.
Their tools in hand, she and David stood at opposite ends of the footboard silently looking at one another.
Babu waved her arm in the air and bantered something in Russian.
“What did she say?” she asked David.
“She said they are just instruments. The real power comes from the heart.”
Chapter 59
The heart monitor and ventilator bleeped as the thin blanket spread over Jackie’s dad narrowly rose and fell with each breath he took. He wasn’t the same man who came to her door in his Carhartt jacket and cleared away the toilet paper, devil spears, and shrine. The hard lines on his face had softened. With a ventilator tube in his mouth, he was asleep, at peace.
His hand was open and lifeless beside him, a plastic clip on his index finger. She gently laid her hand in his and closed her eyes. Her memory took her back to when she was five and she, Mom, and Dad went to the beach. He led her to the water, her tiny hand swallowed by his, her toes caressing the wet sand, and the sun warming her shoulders. Her heart warmed, too, with love, and the love burned as brilliantly as the sun. The warmth from her hand spread to his. When the water washed over her feet, Dad lifted her onto his shoulders. As he slowly submerged in the water, Jackie knew she wouldn’t drown. He was her pillar, her support.
“I forgive you, Dad,” she whispered.
The love inside her grew more intense, turned to light, and flowed from her hand into his. Goose bumps rose on her arms and the tiny hairs stood on end as the energy in her palm and fingers grew stronger. A white light illuminated her mind’s eye, and she was at peace.
Dad’s fingers twitched. His eyes opened and stared blankly at the ceiling. She gently set his hand into a gathering of bedsheet and blanket and then grabbed her coat from off the chair.
Out in the hall, she found his nurse. “He’s awake,” she said.
A surprised look on her face, the nurse jumped up from her station and rushed to his room.
Jackie let her go in on her own. She and Dad would recover their relationship one step at a time. Forgiving him and waking him from his coma were the first steps.
When she turned, David was standing at the end of the hall, his rumpled cassock as lax as the jeans and gym shoes he was wearing, his hair tousled, a backpack slung over his shoulder. He smiled, his eyes gleaming.
Jackie couldn’t keep the corners of her mouth from turning up into a smile or wipe the glow from her face. What the hell was wrong with her? What was it about him?
“That’s a new look for you,” he said.
She knew he was talking about her white blouse with the flared sleeves, and the fact that she had curled her hair. She’d been hoping to make a good impression on her dad, had he been awake, and had borrowed the blouse from Mom.
He glanced at her black pants and combat boots. “Well, it’s a start.”
She threw up her hands. “What can I say?”
“How about, that you will have coffee with me?”
She wrinkled her mouth. They absolutely did not belong together. And if she said yes...
“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand. I just thought that…”
The energy she felt whenever she was around him was tugging her now, drawing her to him. She couldn’t explain it.
“The crystal thing... what Babu and I did... you’re good with it?” she asked.
He pressed his eyes closed momentarily and said, “I am good with it.”
“Well, then, sure. Coffee would be wonderful.”
He extended his elbow. She linked her arm in his. His energy channeled through her, making her body quiver. She didn’t fight it. Instead, she hugged his arm and let the energy flow.
***
Far, far away, in a remote Russian village, a red candle burned. Beside it, two faceless cloth dolls, a red ribbon binding them tightly together.
About the Author
JoAnne Keltner is a novelist and freelance editor. She has published YA titles Obsession (Musa Publishing, 2013 ed.) and Goth Girl Virgin Queen (Solstice Publishing, 2015). She currently lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she enjoys gardening, tending to her chickens, and spending time with family. Every evening you will find her obsessively streaming popular series.
www.joannekeltner.com
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