Sole Possession

by Bryn Donovan

  Andi’s aunt pointed at the pretty, orange-gowned teenager at the head table. “That’s our daughter Olivia up there, on the left.”

  “Oh,” David said. “That’s great. It was a beautiful wedding.”

  “Wasn’t it, though? So, how long have you known Andi?” David wasn’t sure if the glint in the woman’s eye was innocent or evil. “Will there be another wedding soon?”

  Andi’s eyes widened. “We’ve just started dating.” She turned to David. “I’d better go sit where I’m supposed to.”

  He nodded and sat down as she retreated.

  “So. Cleveland,” David said to Phil. “How do you like that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?”

  “Haven’t been there,” the man said.

  More people joined their table, and soon they were discussing a local political scandal. David barely took part in the conversation, because the out-of-towners had most of the facts wrong anyway. He watched Andi up at the head table, talking to the teenager, laughing. After all he and Andi had been through lately, it felt strange to be with her at such a normal, cheerful event. Strange in a good way.

  The teenaged girl glanced in their table’s direction, and he reflexively looked away. When he looked back again, she was taking a huge drink of wine, almost downing the whole glass at a go. It wasn’t so surprising for someone underage to indulge a little at an event like this. If she didn’t slow down though, she would be under the head table instead of behind it.

  Caterers set out a buffet dinner. Halfway through the meal, when the discussion turned to football, the old woman in a maroon outfit sitting at the next table tapped David on the wrist and leaned over as though she had something private to tell him.

  David looked at her placecard: Marta Krol. Andi’s great-aunt, he recalled. Perhaps she wanted to let him in on some charming, quirky information about the family, or maybe she hoped do a little friendly interrogation about his qualifications for dating her great-niece.

  “I’ve been watching you.” Her sharp eyes narrowed in her square face. “It’s no wonder you wouldn’t take Communion. I know what you are.”

  He froze. Could she see the curse on him? Andi had psychic abilities; other people in her family might, as well. Maybe this woman could tell that something was trying to possess him.

  Still, David felt compelled to defend himself. “I’m not Catholic, that’s all. They don’t want non-Catholics to take Communion.”

  “Not Catholic is right,” she hissed at him. “You’re a devil worshipper!”

  “Um. Well, there’s been some kind of mistake. I’m definitely not a devil worshipper.”

  “I may be old, but I’m not senile yet,” she told him. “What do you call that thing around your neck?”

  David’s hand went to his throat. He realized the top button of this dress shirt was undone, and he felt the silver of the pentagram on its chain around his neck. “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “Don’t you use that language around me!”

  Shit. He buttoned the top button of the shirt so the amulet wouldn’t show. “That’s a pentagram. Early Christians used to wear those,” he said. He didn’t tell her about how they were supposed to protect against demons. Bringing demons into the conversation wouldn’t help anything. “I got it from a priest.” It wasn’t completely a lie.

  She shook her white-haired head. “I don’t believe you for a second.”

  “You’ve got the wrong idea,” David said. “Could you please just not make a big thing of it?”

  “I’m not going to make a scene,” she murmured furiously. “I’m not going to ruin Lissa’s wedding. But mark my words, I’m going to tell their mother and father about this. They have a right to know.” She turned away from him.

  David’s only hope, he realized, was to track down Andi and ask her to try to talk some sense into her great-aunt Marta. He got up and made his way to the front of the banquet room but saw Andi wasn’t in her place at the head table. Well, he would catch her soon enough. He decided to find a bathroom.

  Outside the banquet room, the hotel hallway was mostly deserted. He turned the corner to the restrooms when he heard a muffled female voice say, “Stop it.”

  One of the guests had backed the teenaged bridesmaid up against the wall. He jammed his hand down the front of her strapless gown. She tried to turn away from him, but from the way she lolled against the wall, her eyes half-closed, David could see the kid was seriously wasted.

  Loathing for the man coursed through David’s veins. He hauled him off of the girl in an instant. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The man had to be in his mid-thirties at least, David’s own age. He looked like an aged, sullen frat boy. “What, I wasn’t doing anything.” He was more than a little drunk himself.

  “You stay the hell away from her,” David advised him.

  The man pulled away. “Whatever,” he muttered, backing off. As he staggered back toward the banquet room, David heard him say, “Douche.”

  The girl flushed with embarrassment. “I told him to leave me alone.” Panic crossed her face. “Oh, God.” She ran into the restroom.

  David felt sorry for her, but at least no one was bothering her now. He started to head back to the banquet hall himself to look for Andi, thinking she could look after her younger cousin. As he reached the doorway, he felt a hand on his arm and turned to see the bridesmaid again.

  “Hey,” she said. “Don’t tell my mom and dad I was drunk. Okay?” Mascara smeared her cheeks, and she smelled like wine and puke. If she went back to the party, no one was going to have to be told that she was drunk.

  “Listen,” he said, “are you staying at this hotel?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay. You know what I think you should do? Just go upstairs and wash up and go to bed.”

  “But I’m supposed to stay for the bouquet toss.” She cast a fretful look in the direction of the banquet hall.

  “It doesn’t matter. No one will care. You can just tell them later that you had a migraine.” When she still looked unconvinced, he said, “You might get sick again.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” she admitted. She sighed. “I hope I can find my room.”

  “What’s your room number?”

  She fished in her purse and found the key card in a paper envelope with the room number written on the front. “Four twenty-six.”

  “I’ll walk you up,” David offered. Concerned that he might seem as creepy as the guy he’d just rescued her from, he added, “I’m David Girard, by the way. I’m here with your cousin, Andi.”

  “Oh, I know,” she said as they headed to the elevators. “I mean, I knew you were here with her. We were all, ‘Oh my God, who’s that gorgeous guy with Andrea?’ Everyone’s been talking about you.”

  “Great,” he said as they got on the elevator.

  When they reached the fourth floor and went down the hallway, the girl reeled and put a hand on the wall for support. “God, I suck,” she said, laughing and cringing at the same time.

  “You’re all right. Hang on to me.” David put her hand on his arm.

  She clung onto him as they went to the room. At the door, as the girl fumbled with her key, David looked up to see an older man in a tuxedo a few room doors down, glaring at him.

  Andi’s father. Shit. This looked bad. Marching over to David and the bridesmaid, the man asked, “What’s going on?”

  The drunken girl, believing she was the one in trouble, said, “I’m sorry, Uncle Leon. Please don’t tell my dad.”

  “She’s had a little too much to drink,” David explained. “I was just making sure she got to her room okay.”

  “David got rid of that jerk,” she told her uncle. “This guy, he was totally grabbing me. But please don’t tell my dad. Or my mom!”

  Andi’s father visibly relaxed. “You promise me you’re not going to do this again, Livvy?” he asked the girl.

  “I promise.” Her eyes were round.

  “All right. Go to bed, h
on.”

  “Lock the door,” David said to her just before the door shut, and he heard the latch turn.

  Leon scowled. “Who was grabbing her?”

  “Some guy old enough to know better? I think she’s all right though. It didn’t get too far.”

  “Good.” He tilted his head. “Thanks for looking out for her.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “You headed back downstairs?”

  “Yeah.” They walked toward the elevators. After a moment of silence, Leon said, “That’s good, cause Andi’s going to want to dance.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t head back.”

  Andi’s father chuckled. As the elevator doors closed he said, “So, my aunt Marta tells me you’re a devil worshipper.”

  David looked at the man closely and ascertained that he was amused by this. “Yeah, not so much.”

  “I figured.” He shrugged. “Every family’s got their eccentric, right?”

  “I guess.” After another moment of silence, David ventured, “You guys seem to have a really nice family, though.”

  “They’re all right,” Leon said with obvious affection. “Andi says you don’t have much family left.”

  “No,” David answered, not sure how to respond. “I, um—I have a father in town.”

  Leon gave him a keen look as the elevator doors opened again. “I thought your father died. Left you that big mansion.”

  “He wasn’t really my father.” David wished to hell he hadn’t said anything. “It’s complicated.”

  Leon shrugged. “Not so weird, I guess. It’s people like my wife and I who are the weird ones these days. Been married thirty-one years.”

  “Wow,” David said. “Congratulations.”

  “Yeah, I hope it’s the same way for Lissa and Greg,” he said as they went back into the reception. “For both my girls.”

  The deejay announced that they were about to cut the cake, and people streamed over to the table. David saw Andi at the same time she saw him and gestured for him to come over. “Good talking to you,” David said to her father before joining her.

  “You’re hanging out with my dad?” She grinned at him as he reached her side.

  “Yeah. I asked him if he wanted to hit some strip clubs later. I don’t think he was into it.”

  “No? That’s so unlike him,” she teased back.

  Andi’s sister and her new husband sliced the cake together, both hands on one knife.

  “Oh God, I hope they’re not going to do the smash-it-in-your-face thing,” Andi fretted. “I hate that.”

  “It’s stupid. People don’t still do that, do they?”

  “I think they do,” Andi said, but he could see his agreement pleased her.

  David felt an unspoken undercurrent to their conversation: the possibility that they might, someday, be doing this themselves. Hell, this was one of the reasons he’d been reluctant to go. Right now, it didn’t worry him. It was just there. And maybe that was all right.

  Lissa neatly fed the cake into Greg’s mouth, not so much as smearing the frosting.

  The bride and groom danced their first dance, and then Andi and several other women and couples got out on the floor. David headed to the bar to get his first drink of the evening, outside of a sip of champagne for the toast to the bride and groom. He hadn’t much felt like drinking at dinner while sitting with Andi’s relatives.

  He ordered a Scotch, put an extra five in the bartender’s jar because it looked a bit neglected, and turned around to watch the proceedings on the floor. Andi seemed to be enjoying the loud and, actually, somewhat rude hiphop song. So did the other guests, even though some of them were a few decades older than her.

  Andi was, David realized, a good dancer. Or at least, she was an uninhibited one, arms in the air, shaking her hips…that made her a good dancer as far as David was concerned. She mesmerized him.

  This time David could feel the evil flow into him like milk flowing into a glass. But not milk. Black bile, filling him up to behind his eyes. It wanted him to steal Andi away from the crowd, wipe that smile off her face and make sure she never came back to the house again. It wanted him to be a part of it: the death, the architecture, the terrible, magnetic pull from below.

  Fight it, Morty had told him. His grasped the pentagram at his neck. Fuck you, he said to the evil.

  It didn’t budge.

  Desperately now, he concentrated on Andi. He thought about how happy and carefree she looked at the moment, her cheeks flushed, smiling, and thought about how he would do anything to keep her that way. He thought of waking up in the middle of the night to find her curled up in bed next to him sleeping, as peaceful and sweet as a kitten. Peace…he focused on that. Warmth. Life. Andi.

  He felt the evil leak out of him, as though there ought to be a toxic puddle around his polished black shoes. David felt a grim satisfaction, even as he thought he heard a voice say, We’ll be back.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  As the song wound down, Andi wandered away from the dance floor to talk for a few minutes with her mom and dad. David set his empty glass back on the bar and when he turned around again she was coming toward him, smiling.

  Her skin had flushed pink from her dancing. He was a normal man, at a normal wedding reception, with a beautiful woman. There was nothing wrong with this night.

  “Having fun?” he asked her.

  “I get a little crazy when I’m dancing, huh? I’m a dork.”

  “You look great.”

  The deejay played a slower song, and Andi tugged on his hand, saying, “Come on, dance with me.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Everyone can dance to slow songs.”

  One they were out on the dance floor, she said, “So, my dad seems to like you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It doesn’t happen too often. Not with guys we date.”

  “Huh. You didn’t mention that before.”

  “I didn’t want to scare you off. I think it took a year before he was nice to Greg.” She inclined her head in the direction of the bride and groom.

  “He just wants to make sure you wind up with someone who deserves you.”

  She smiled and lowered her eyes for a moment. He took the opportunity to pull her in a little bit closer.

  “Have you noticed how they always play this song at weddings?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “I think I’ve only been to maybe two in my life.”

  “You’re kidding.” She peered up at him. “I’ve been to dozens. If you were in this family, you’d be used to it.” She tensed in his arms and quickly added, “I mean, big Polish Catholic families. They’re all like this.”

  David’s phone rang. “Probably something about work,” he said, ignoring it.

  “It might be Morty,” she pointed out, stepping back so that he could check.

  David saw the psychic’s phone number on the screen. He covered up one ear to block out the music as he answered, “Hey, Morty. What’s up?”

  A nearby couple gave a sympathetic, amused look at Andi. He supposed he looked like a jerk who didn’t know better than to take calls in the middle of a romantic dance. Andi leaned closer to hear the conversation.

  The psychic told David, “Yeah, the good news is I’ve tracked down my friend in Utah.”

  “That’s great. Can he come out soon?”

  “Well, the bad news is, he’s dead.”

  “Dead? You’ve got to be kidding me,” David said.

  Andi’s face registered shock.

  David remembered belatedly to act like a decent human being. More quietly, he said, “Listen, Morty, I’m really sorry. This was a friend of yours.” He took Andi’s hand and led her off the dance floor and outside the banquet hall, so that he could hear a little better.

  “Yeah, he was. Well, I hadn’t seen him in a few years. But it was a sad thing. And…it makes things a little complicated.”

  “What do we do?” David asked.


  “Is that your car radio?”

  “What? No. I’m at a wedding reception. Andi’s sister’s.”

  “Andi’s there? Let me talk to her.”

  David’s defenses went up immediately. “No. You don’t need to talk to her.”

  Andi looked reproachful. “Does he want to talk? David, give me the phone.”

  “No. It’s my phone,” he said, pulling away from her when she reached for it.

  “What are you, six years old?”

  “Listen, Mr. Girard, we’re out of options,” the psychic on the other end of the line said.

  David hung up on him.

  “David! That is so rude!”

  “We’re not talking about it,” David said. “You’re not doing it.”

  Andi looked around them—to make sure that no other guests heard their quarrel, he supposed. The hallway was empty for the moment. “David, there’s something you should know,” she told him. “This…what Morty does…that’s what I’m going to do. I mean, all the time.”

  “What?”

  She folded her arms. “You heard me.”

  “Let’s go to the lobby,” he said.

  * * *

  Andi fumed as she half-jogged to keep up with David’s long strides. He was completely overreacting. And after all they’d been through, why should he be so surprised that she wanted to be a psychic?

  They reached the lobby and David sat down on one of the chairs, jutting his head to the nearby sofa.

  “Are you ordering me to sit down now?” she retorted. “It’s not enough you’re going to tell me what to do with my life? You’re not the boss of me, you know.”

  “All right. Please,” David growled. “Would you please sit down so we can talk about this?”

  “Fine.” Andi flounced down on the sofa. When David didn’t say anything, she said, “So. What?”

  “Why would you say that?” David asked. “About doing this—whatever you call it—full time?”

  “Because I thought you might like to know!”