Be Not Afraid

by Cecilia Galante

  I was in bed at home the next morning when the doorbell rang. The hospital had discharged me the night before with a prescription for painkillers and strict instructions to rest. Nan had seconded the order from her hospital bed, making me promise that I would stay in my bed for the day, getting up only to use the bathroom. I smiled, thinking of her. She looked good when we’d gone up to see her, the color back in her cheeks, her eyes bright again. She’d gripped my hand when I stood by her bedside, her eyes roving over my cast, but I assured her that I was okay. Which I kind of was, somehow. Or at least I wasn’t as panicked as I had been the day before. Something had shifted a little after the talk between Dad and me. If I still wasn’t sure about all of the things he had said, some of it had resonated. Some of it had helped.

  It was early, especially for a Saturday, not even eight o’clock yet. Outside, the morning was full of new light, the sun already low in the sky. I could hear Dad going down the hall, muttering to himself. There was no telling what he might say or do if it was Dominic out there on the porch. My stomach twisted, thinking about it.

  “Hey, Lucy!” He sounded pleased, but my stomach plummeted at the name. I’d treated my friend so poorly, doing everything I could to avoid her over the last few days, and now I would have to answer for it. Well, I deserved to. It was time to pay the piper. “Yeah, yeah, she’s here,” Dad said. “Come on in.”

  I sat up against the pillow, my upper body movements still clumsy from the cast, and crossed my legs. My heart thumped under my pajama shirt, and my palms were sweaty. “Hey,” I said when Lucy appeared in the doorway.

  She hung back for a moment, as if frightened. She was wearing a red T-shirt with a picture of the Grinch on the front and an old pair of faded jeans. Her hair had been pulled back into a half-ponytail, the ends loose and wavy along her shoulders. The red disk in her tooth looked like a flattened raspberry, and the yellow blob in her stomach was twice the size it had been. “You’re okay?” she whispered. Her big eyes filled with tears.

  “Yeah.” My own eyes filled. “I’m okay.”

  Lucy moved toward the bed in a sudden rush. Her pretty face was squished up, the soft skin along her neck mottled with pink blotches. “Oh, Marin, I was so scared. I haven’t heard back from you in like two days, and then my mom told me last night that she heard that you’d gotten hit by a car right outside the Jacksons’ place, and …” Her eyes widened. “Your phone must’ve blown up from all the texts I kept sending you, but I never heard back, and I …” She paused, gulping for air. “God, I didn’t know what to think.”

  “I did get hit by a car.” I motioned my head toward the cast. “But I only broke my arm. And with everything that happened, I have no idea where my phone went. It could still be in the middle of the street, for all I know.” I patted the side of the bed, and Lucy sat down on the edge of it. “You didn’t have to come,” I said. “I really am okay.”

  “Didn’t have to come?” Lucy’s eyes widened. “What, are you kidding me? I ran to the hospital last night, but they said it was too late for visitors, so I waited as long as I could this morning—my mom kept saying don’t go over too early, don’t crowd her, blah, blah, blah—but I seriously couldn’t wait another second. I just left and walked over. I had to come, Marin. You’re my friend.” Her voice wobbled. “I mean, that’s what friends do.”

  I shook my head, my nose prickling with tears. “Oh, Luce, I’m sorry. I haven’t been a good friend to you at all.”

  Lucy sniffled. “You’ve had … a lot going on.”

  “No.” I hesitated. “Well, yeah. I have. But I haven’t been honest with you, either. There’s something about me that I’ve never told you. Something big.”

  Lucy bit her lip. “You’re sick?”

  “No.” I let the truth come out slowly, haltingly, the way it had with Dominic. I watched as the expression on Lucy’s face slid from disbelief into confusion and then wonderment. A long moment passed after I finished, and I twisted a section of the bedsheet, waiting for her response.

  “Wow,” Lucy breathed finally.

  “Yeah.” I coiled the sheet into a rope, pulled it tight around my finger. “Wow.”

  “I mean like, oh my God.”

  I shrugged.

  “Can you see anything inside me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well”—I pointed to Lucy’s mouth—“there’s a red shape inside your tooth.”

  “My tooth?” Lucy brought her hand up to the edge of her face, tongued the inside of her mouth.

  “It’s probably just a cavity. I see them all the time in people.” I grinned a little. “But you probably should brush your teeth a little bit more. Especially considering all the candy you eat. Oh, and you have a little yellow glob in your stomach too. I just started noticing that one a few weeks ago. It kind of looks like a Jell-O square.” Lucy was still staring at me. I dropped my head, traced an invisible line across the top of my sheets. “I know it sounds crazy. It is crazy. Do you think I’m a freak?”

  “No,” Lucy answered. “I think you’re amazing.”

  “Yeah. Amazingly weird.”

  “Well, it’s a little weird,” Lucy conceded. “Definitely different. But different doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It’s just …”

  “Weird.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” The annoyance in Lucy’s voice startled me. “Think about it, Marin. For some reason, you’re getting the chance to see things in a way that I never will, not in a million years. You’re literally looking at things through a lens that none of us will ever get the chance to see once, let alone the way you have. Holy cow, if you ever wanted to go into medicine, you’d be able to help people the way no doctor could ever dream of doing!” She gasped, thinking of it. “How could that make you a freak? It makes you special, really. Incredibly, amazingly special.” She shrugged, a flush of pink rising along the skin of her neck. “I kind of just want to give you a big hug right now, you’re so special.”

  We both laughed.

  “I’m sorry I lied,” I said. “I just … I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  Lucy nodded. “It’s okay. I … I …,” she stammered, tugging at the bottom of her hair. “I lied to you, too, actually.”

  “About what?”

  “I’ve been throwing up.” Lucy’s neck turned crimson.

  “You mean on purpose?”

  “Yeah.” She pulled at the skin on her wrist. “I’ve been doing it for a while now. Which is probably why you can see the yellow thing inside my stomach. It hurts all the time, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to stop.”

  “Oh, Luce.” I took her hand again.

  “I know.” Lucy nodded.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “It’s so stupid. But I love candy. I love food. And I don’t want to get fat.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I want to look like my mom, you know? She’s so perfect.”

  “Your mom’s not perfect.”

  “She’s close enough. I heard some jerk on the bus the other day call her a MILF. My mom! A MILF.” She closed her eyes. “It’s disgusting, but you know. They think she’s beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful,” I said.

  “Yeah. On the inside, right? On the outside, I look like a first-class midget with crazy hair and a sugar addiction.”

  I almost laughed at the absurdity of Lucy’s statement. It was incredible how many things people believed about themselves and how untrue most of them were. Including me. “You’re definitely small,” I said. “But I also think you’re one of the prettiest girls in school. And not just on the inside.” I paused. “You’re like an angel with a broken wing.”

  Lucy’s face softened, her whole face giving way with gratitude, and right then and there, I knew that we were going to make it. That she was one of the good ones. And that I was going to hold on to her with both hands.

  “You can call me,” I said. “You know, whe
n you get nervous and think you should throw up. And I’ll remind you of all the reasons why you shouldn’t. We can go for a walk or something. Or just hang out and watch movies in your room.” I paused. “You wouldn’t throw up in front of me, would you?”

  “No!” Lucy looked horrified.

  “Well, okay, then.” I put a hand on my friend’s knee. “You in?”

  “I’m in,” she whispered. “Thanks, Marin.”

  “You got it. Now can you do me a favor?”

  “Yeah, of course. Anything.”

  “Can we talk about something else? Anything else?”

  Lucy laughed once, a burst of relief from the middle of her chest. “Well,” she said after a minute, “did you get my text about the Prom Bomb?”

  “No.” I leaned forward. “Did Randy say yes?”

  “Oh, Randy.” She waved her hand. “I couldn’t ask him after what you told me about the nose picking. I really couldn’t. I went up to him and everything, and then I just turned around. All I could think about was his finger up his nose. I mean, seriously.”

  “So you’re not going?”

  “No, I am! When I went up to talk to Randy, his best friend Pete was there. You know Pete Lorusso? And he followed me after I turned around and asked me right there if I had a date yet for the prom!”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. She was so excited. I was happy for her. I really was.

  “And then last night, he called and told me that he’d rented a stretch limo! Just for the two of us!” Her eyes were bright with excitement. “Oh, Marin, you have to go to the prom! Just ask someone. Anyone! We could double-date. It would be so much fun.”

  “It’d be great.” I struggled to make my voice sound light. “I could sit in a corner in my sunglasses and a big poufy dress and point out all the pain in everyone’s bodies.”

  Lucy’s shoulders sagged, remembering. “You could charge people,” she said, grinning. “Ten dollars for anything you see in the shoulders and up, twenty for anything below the waist.”

  “Fifty for a full-body scan.” I laughed, but it was a hollow sound, wisping away into the corners, the last of it ringing in my ears.

  Lucy reached out and rubbed my good arm. “Things are going to work out with all this. I know they will.”

  “Yeah.” I uncrossed my legs, anxious to move, and got up off the bed. “Hey, you up for a walk?”

  “A walk?” Lucy looked alarmed. “Aren’t you supposed to rest?”

  “We’ll go slow,” I said. “I need some fresh air. Come on.”

  “Just to the water and back, Marin!” Dad called as we slipped out the front door. “Fifteen minutes, tops. Then I want you back in bed.”

  “Okay!” I said.

  Lucy slipped her arm through my good one and fell into step beside me. “He’s worried about you,” she said.

  “Yeah.” I smiled a little. “He does that sometimes.”

  The air had softened a little overnight; the sharp edge to it replaced now with a muted balminess. Birds twittered and swooped overhead, their aerial acrobatics a welcome distraction for the moment, and green was everywhere. I thought about the crested rhizome again, with roots now, buried in Dad’s garden. Now that spring had arrived, who knew what could happen?

  Lucy was talking about what kind of dress she wanted—definitely something pink, maybe with a few sparkles in the front—when a Jeep rounded the corner at the other end. Swirls of dust spun out from beneath the tires, and it veered from one side of the road to the other, as if starting to lose control.

  “Move over,” Lucy said, pulling at my arm. “This guy thinks he’s at the Indy Five Hundred or something.”

  But I already knew who it was. I glanced over my shoulder, scanning the house for any sign of Dad, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Marin.” Lucy tugged at me. “Come on. Move over.”

  The Jeep braked so suddenly that the wheels spun, spitting bits of rock and dirt in our direction. Lucy’s fingers tightened around my arm, but I did not move as Dominic got out on the driver’s side and came toward us. His eyes were luminously large, the circles beneath them dark as shale. “Marin!” His shoulders sagged. “You’re home. You’re okay?”

  I nodded. “I’m all right.”

  He slid a hand through his hair. “They wouldn’t let me into the hospital last night, and after your dad made me leave, I couldn’t find any information about how you were doing.” He shook his head, then glanced at Lucy, who was looking first at me and then back at him, trying to put the pieces together. “Our gardener’s been having a heart attack. You know, the one who hit you. He’s been up all—”

  “It wasn’t his fault,” I interrupted. “He couldn’t have seen me. It was so dark.”

  Dominic’s face eased an inch. “Yeah. All right. God, as long as you’re okay.”

  I hesitated, but only for a moment. “How’s Cassie?”

  His response was interrupted by a shout from behind us. “Get out of here! Now! Get the hell away from her!” Dad had burst out of the front door; he was running toward us, waving his arms over his head.

  Dominic’s face blanched. He took a step back and then another. “She’s dying, Marin.” He held my gaze, and glanced back at Dad. “She won’t make it through tonight. Her blood pressure is already sixty over eighty and it keeps dropping. The emergency nurses are there, and my parents called Father William. He’s on his way.”

  My heart surged. “To do an exorcism?”

  “No.” Dominic shook his head. “To deliver last rites.”

  “An exorcism?” Lucy’s fingers clutched at my arm.

  “You leave her alone!” Dad was fifty feet away, his voice loud and raspy. “I mean it! What did I tell you in the hospital? She’s been through enough! Get out of here!”

  “Marin.” Dominic spoke quickly, his words streaming out of his mouth. “I’ve been up all night, thinking. There’s a reason why the iris and the bird didn’t work. They weren’t the right things. The book said a single being, remember?” He took another step back as Dad got closer and raised his voice. “A single being with a fractured heart, a hidden trinity.” His voice choked as he lifted his arm. “My wrist doesn’t hurt anymore. The pain inside it is gone. Don’t you see? It’s you, Marin. You’re the buried heart. The hidden trinity. Your gift—seeing, holding, healing. All three. In one being. It’s you, Marin.”

  “Get out of here!” Dad’s nostrils flared as he stopped in front of the Jeep. He pointed a finger across the hood of the car. “I’m not kidding. I’ll call the goddamned police right now if you don’t leave.”

  “Okay.” Dominic lifted his hands up next to his ears and took a few steps backward. “I’m leaving. I’m leaving.” The blue shape inside his wrist was gone. There was nothing there but skin and bones, clean tendon and muscle. I thought back to all the times we’d held hands, each one gingerly, quickly, as if the other might pull away. Had it been enough to heal him?

  “Now.” Dad was breathing through his mouth, panting like a dog.

  Dominic got in the car. Looked at me through the thick pane of glass. Slammed his door shut.

  “Let’s go, Marin.” Dad’s voice was terrible.

  “No.” I stepped forward. “I have to help, Dad. I have to. She’s dying.”

  “Wait, Cassie’s dying?” Lucy’s voice went up a notch.

  “You don’t have to do anything.” Dad shook his head, breathing hard. “You don’t owe anything to that girl. The last time you went near her, you almost got killed. Now get in the house. I’m telling you, Marin, if I have to carry you …”

  It had all led to this moment, I realized, the long, slow agony of it, the terrible dance of doubt. It was time now to take a stand. To make a decision between despair and denial. It was time, as Dominic had said once, to try and trust the thing inside and go with it. See what happened.

  I grabbed Dad’s hand. “You told me last night that you thought this thing inside me was good. That I was good. That it might even have b
een God working through me. Now it’s my turn to try to believe that, Dad. It’s the only thing left. I have to try.” I took a breath. “I can’t let her die, Dad. I can’t.”

  He clenched his fists as I opened the passenger door and grit his teeth as Dominic leaned over to help me inside and shut the door. Through the window, I could see the lemon-yellow orbs in his cheeks, both of them getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror as Dominic turned the car around and sped away. Lucy stood next to Dad, the top of her dark head a few inches shy of the middle of his chest, her mouth in the shape of a little O.

  The Jeep gunned its way down the road, cresting the small hill.

  And then they were gone.

  Twenty-Four

  “The snake,” I said, remembering again as Dominic careened down the hill. I gripped the edge of the seat. “Oh God, Dominic, I can’t see that thing again.”

  “Listen to me.” Dominic sat up straighter, taking my hand in his. “I was up all night, reading about exorcisms. The stuff the priests have to do …” He paused, shaking his head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They have to wait.” Dominic’s tone was ominous. “I mean, really, really wait.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They have to wait for the real demon to come out. For him to manifest.”

  “What do you mean, the real demon?” I repeated. “You’re telling me that snake wasn’t it?”

  “No.” Dominic shook his head. “There’s all this other stuff that demons do to try to throw the priest off during an exorcism. All the weird voices, the eye rolling, the laughing and jerking the body around. It can even appear as other things, like the snake we saw. They do all that to try to scare the priest off. But it’s not real.”

  “You can’t tell me that snake wasn’t real. It was moving, Dominic! It was spitting at me with its tongue!”

  “It wasn’t. I mean, it was, but I’m telling you, it was just a mirage, a smoke screen. Demons are actually really stubborn about staying quiet. They hate being found out more than anything; their discovery is actually the first sign of defeat. If they could spend the rest of a human being’s life hidden inside them, just to torment them, they would be ecstatic. It would be considered a win on their part, a complete taking over of a human soul.”