Tessa nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“Do you remember that I asked you if Eva had the power to move objects with her mind when she was asleep? You said that wasn’t possible because she had to be awake, but with each generation, the powers become stronger. Eva wrote in my notebook. It was her handwriting.”
Tessa’s eyes widened. She faced Theresa. “Eva has the power to use telekinesis whilst asleep?”
Theresa shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. Telekinesis requires a level of control. Eva was not asleep; she was conscious but not aware that her gift was being used. We don’t know the extent of how powerful she is, but we are getting a good indication as her powers are seeping through the block.”
“Why don’t you know?”
“We don’t know because I put the block on before her powers were fully formed.”
“You stopped them from forming? What does that mean?”
“It means I stopped them from maturing. They were already there, but what normally happens is that the gifts take some time to mature. Usually that happens just like a child learns to walk and then run and so forth.”
Zoe tried to make sense of what was being said. She understood the words, but just couldn’t grasp the idea that someone, or in this case, some supernatural being, interfered in a person’s life so profoundly that it would have devastating repercussions decades later. Eva had her eyes closed as she rested against the sofa pillow. Her even breathing alerted Zoe to Eva’s oblivious state. “I’ll have to explain this to her tomorrow morning. I’m not sure how, but I will.” Zoe addressed Theresa and shook her head. “Now, what you are saying is that just like a child learns how to cope with everyday things like walking or running, that’s how a gifted child learns how to handle her gifts?”
“Yes.”
“Eva didn’t have that ability to learn about the gifts because there was this block on?”
“Yes.”
Zoe shrugged. “Well, alright. Now that we know what it is, we can easily fix it, or more to the point, you can fix it. Remove it so she can learn how to deal with it.”
Theresa hesitated before she answered Zoe’s suggestion. Zoe wasn’t sure why since it was obvious to her that the best course of action was going to be to remove the block.
“I don’t want to do that,” Theresa replied. “If I remove the block, it will be worse.”
“Why? What is stopping you from doing what I suggest?”
Tessa moved forward and took Zoe’s hand, which allowed her to see Daphne again, who approached Zoe and stood in front of her.
“The last thing I want to do is hurt my daughter. You do understand this, right?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think I would want to protect my daughter?”
“Of course you do but—”
“If Saint Theresa removes the block from Eva’s mind, my daughter will be unable to cope with everything that she will be experiencing.”
Zoe blinked rapidly and sat down heavily on the sofa when she realized this wasn’t going to be as straightforward as she thought. “If you remove it now, Eva won’t have any control over those gifts?”
“No. She won’t be able to handle all the gifts that will hit her at the same time.”
“So we have a dilemma. If you remove the block, Eva is overwhelmed, ” Zoe reasoned. “If you don’t remove it, what will happen?”
“Eva doesn’t know how to handle the gifts she has. Have you noticed when Eva gets angry—”
“Oh…” Zoe raised her eyes to the ceiling and shook her head. “I saw it, but it just didn’t make sense to me. Eva was upset that I wouldn’t let her use the canes to get around and she was fighting me about the medication. She came into the kitchen and I would swear I had put away the glasses after I had washed them, but there was a glass near Eva’s hand. I saw it move, but I dismissed the idea because I thought I had forgotten it there.”
“You didn’t forget to put the glass away. Eva moved it. Apparently extreme emotion can interfere with the disintegrating block.”
“Are you saying that whenever Eva gets upset, the gifts go around the block?”
“Yes. She wasn’t aware of what she was doing. When Eva is extremely emotional or upset, her gifts will become stronger.”
“Now these gifts she has…”
“Her gifts are trying to come to the surface. Eva’s emotional state is quite volatile at the moment, and the longer it’s taking for her recover means the block will eventually fall away.”
A memory surfaced which made Zoe shake her head. “Oh, now it makes sense.”
Tessa sat next to Zoe and put her arm around her. “What does?”
“Aunt Tessa, you stopped the gun when I was going to shoot Eva up on Athena’s Bluff, right?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t stop the gun from firing in the cellar,” Zoe said as she glanced at her sleeping wife. Her arms goose fleshed as the mystery of what had transpired down in the cellar in 1942 was going to be finally explained.
“When was that?”
“I had come back from executing my cousin for being a collaborator,” Zoe explained. She closed her eyes as she effortlessly recalled the white-hot anger that infused her mind on learning of her cousin’s betrayal. “I was down in the church cellar, where Father H thought my anger would be best served in sorting through boxes. He was also meeting with Eva upstairs and brought her down to meet her new maid.”
“That sounds like an explosive meeting.”
“It was. I took one look at Eva and my brain exploded. I reached for my gun and I fired at her head twice. Both times the gun jammed.” Silence descended on the group as Zoe reached out and touched Eva’s hand. “It wasn’t the same gun that I used on Athena’s Bluff. It was the gun I shot my cousin with,” Zoe said almost to herself as she looked up at Theresa. “It wasn’t Tessa who jammed the gun in the cellar, was it?”
“No.”
“Eva was extremely upset on seeing me. Knowing the Eva I know now, it was out of character for her to confront me that way, but she did. Evy hates confrontation of any kind, yet she taunted me. The more she taunted me, the angrier I got, and in turn the angrier she got…”
“Yes. Eva wasn’t aware of what she was doing, subconsciously, but she did jam the gun.”
“So if extreme anger makes the block slip, did she cause the painters to fall?”
“No. Eva was annoyed, but not extremely angry.” Theresa shook her head. “That was a stupid accident. She had nothing to do with it.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes. For Eva’s block to be circumvented, it requires extreme emotion, similar to what happened in Larissa. Accidents happen and this was an accident.”
Zoe buried her head in her hands and rocked back and forth. “Oh, we are in so much trouble. The damage you have caused,” she muttered. She looked up. “Eva has no control over these gifts. She doesn’t know how to because you robbed her of that ability.”
“Zoe—” Tessa interrupted only to have Daphne put her hand on her shoulder.
“No, Tessa. Zoe is right. We did rob her of the ability to learn to control them. We are guilty of that.”
“Now the question is,” Zoe looked up at Theresa, “what are you going to do about it? You can’t just leave things the way they are.”
“We have a plan to train Eva in controlling these gifts.”
“Who is the ‘we’?”
Theresa quickly glanced at Daphne before she turned back to Zoe. “That is the other part of the puzzle.”
“Oh, goodie, I just love puzzles,” Zoe said sarcastically. “So two dead people are going to teach Eva how to control her powers, something which could easily have been done twenty eight years ago.”
“Zoe, please remember who I am.” Theresa came forward and stood before her.
Zoe stared up into Theresa’s eyes and rose to her full height of five feet four inches. She was a considerably shorter than Theresa. “I know
who you are. You are Saint Theresa Eva, disciple of Jesus Christ. I will respect you because you stood with Jesus and you died for Him. You deserve honor and respect because of that. I will respect you like I respect Mama Daphne. What I won’t do is forgive you for what you did to Eva. Forgiveness is earned. Eva has suffered so much, and to know it could have been prevented…”
“If Eva’s gifts had been as strong as they should have been, it could not have prevented what happened in Aiden. The block actually saved her life, because had these people known about her gifts, Eva’s life would have been over and she would have been controlled by them.”
Zoe took a deep breath. Theresa was right—Eva would have been controlled by her grandmother. Zoe involuntarily shuddered at the realization that her Eva would have been lost. “Evy did know that something was happening at home. It’s why she raced home. What if she had a vision of you being killed?”
“If we dwell on the ‘what if’ we will never get anything done,” Daphne gently said. “She couldn’t have stopped things from happening. Gifts or no gifts.” She came forward and touched Zoe on the shoulder. “It was not Theresa’s fault. It was mine. I wanted to protect my baby and I didn’t think about the consequences. I didn’t care about the consequences. I wanted a normal child.”
“I know, Mama Daphne, I know and understand that, and your reasons are the same ones I would have had if I had been you. Saint Theresa should have known better. Did anyone raise any objections? Why didn’t God intervene and stop you?”
“Zoe, God…”
“Yeah, He is too high and mighty to interfere. Sorry, I forgot,” Zoe said sarcastically. She was fully aware she was skating on the edge with her antipathy towards God. She looked up at Theresa and dared her to contradict her. She was in that kind of mood right now—she was ready to argue with anyone, including a saint. “So, did anyone actually say, ‘whoa, stop!’”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Zoe noticed Theresa and Daphne exchange glances. She sighed heavily. “This is getting so much better. Alright, who was it?”
“My sister raised objections to what we were going to do,” Theresa revealed. “She warned me this could backfire, but we didn’t listen.”
Zoe rubbed her temple with her fingers as a headache began to make itself known. “I think I’m going to need Eva’s drugs after this is over,” she muttered. “Well, yay for the sister with common sense.” She glanced at the still sleeping Eva and shook her head. “So now that we have worked out what the problem is, what is the solution?”
“We teach Eva how to manage her gifts, as we said.”
“You can’t take off the block—”
“I don’t want to take the block off at this time.”
“Alright, you don’t want to take it off now. So who is going to teach Evy?”
“Tessa and my sister.”
Zoe sighed. “Who is your sister?”
Theresa pursed her lips and took a deep breath. “You know her as Jana Hester.”
CHAPTER 39
Zoe heard what Theresa had said. She understood the words, but her mind just couldn’t quite grasp it. “Your sister is Jana Hester? Jana Hester, who is Eva’s employer? That Jana Hester?”
“Yes, that Jana Hester is my sister.”
“Um… I was never good at mathematics in school, but Jana can’t be any older than fifty,” Zoe reasoned and got up from the sofa. She was having a hard time sitting still and she needed to pace. “You are telling me that a fifty-year-old woman is your sister?” She couldn’t quite believe she had asked the question. Then again, she was talking to a saint—to a real saint and to a dead woman who happened to be Eva’s mother.
“I think it would have been easier to explain if my sister were—”
“If would be easier if your sister were here and wasn’t coming in late to this meeting.” Jana entered the living room and shook her head. She stood next to Theresa and faced everyone.
Zoe was shocked to see Jana. “How…”
“Henry let me in.”
“That explains how you got in here, but that’s not the mystery I want solved,” Zoe said. “My question is how it is you and the saint over here are related. Who wants to tell me the whole story now?”
“We have been telling you the truth,” Theresa said.
“Yes, but I’m getting it in bits and pieces. I want the full story. The whole sordid truth of what looks like, as my friend Earl would say, a right royal balls-up!”
“Zoe! You’re swearing to a saint!” Stella exclaimed and held up two thumbs to indicate she had approved. Tessa gently nudged Stella to quieten her down, much to Zoe’s amusement.
That amusement was short-lived when Zoe returned to the issue at hand.
“I will explain,” Jana replied. She took a chair that Tessa had brought from the kitchen. “I am what people call a clairvoyant.”
“A palm reader?”
“No.” Jana shook her head. “Not one of those women dressed like a gypsy who read palms at fairgrounds. Far from it.”
“What does a clairvoyant do?”
“It’s a medium,” Stella added.
“Yes, I speak with the dead. I can communicate with them.”
“Spooky.” Zoe sat back down and touched Eva before she looked up at Daphne, who was smiling at her. “Not that I think you’re spooky, but go on.”
“Is that all you can do?” Tessa asked.
“I can also see the darkness. I can see the shadows and those that walk there.”
“That sounds gobbledygook to me. What does it mean? What darkness, what shadows, and who walks there?” Zoe leaned forward.
“I know you are not ready to believe…”
“No, it’s not that I’m not ready to believe. Trust me, over the last few months, I’ve seen a lot of things that normally would make me go racing to find a priest for an exorcism, but you need to tell me what this all means.”
Jana nodded. “I understand, Zoe. I can see demons.”
Zoe blinked and looked at Eva, who was fast asleep. “Well, that’s saying it plainly,” she said as soon as she found she was able to speak.
“I can see those that walk with demons that are mortal.”
“How?” Stella asked.
“I don’t know how. I just do. I’ve always been able to see them.”
“You told Eva that during Kristallnacht you were alerted by her mother.”
“Yes,” Jana replied and gazed at Daphne. “I saw Daphne in the office. What I didn’t tell Eva at the time was that I also saw the demons on the factory floor. The demons were standing shoulder to shoulder with the Brownshirts.”
“Wow,” Zoe exclaimed. “You were going to be killed by them.”
“That was their goal, but they would not have succeeded.”
“The Brownshirts were going to kill you; that’s why they were there,” Zoe reasoned. “Why wouldn’t they have succeeded?”
Jana quickly glanced at Daphne before she turned her attention to Zoe. “They wouldn’t have been able to kill me.”
“Mrs. Hester…”
“Call me Jana.”
“Jana, I don’t understand. Isn’t that why you were being warned by Mama Daphne?” Zoe asked.
“I went to tell Jana that Marlene and I had had the Brownshirts visit, and that it had all happened the way I had seen it in my vision.”
“You were dead, right?”
“Yes, I had been killed. I wanted Jana to find Eva, to protect her.”
“So if Mama Daphne was dead, you were next?” Zoe asked Jana.
“The Brownshirts and the demons can’t touch me.”
“Why?”
“I cannot be killed,” Jana quietly revealed. Tessa, Stella, and Zoe were staring at the woman in surprise by that revelation. “I can see the darkness, I can see those in the shadows that worship the darkness, but I cannot be killed by them.”
“You’re immortal?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Jana replied
with a wry smile. “The only being that can kill me is God.”
“You’re an immortal, like angels.”
“Yes.”
Zoe looked over at Eva and envied her for being oblivious to the entire conversation. She could not believe she was having this conversation with two dead women and an immortal. She pinched herself and winced. “Ow. I’m not asleep. This is bizarre!”
“What Jana is saying is the truth.”
“If that’s the truth, then you’re dead like Mama Daphne and Saint Theresa.”
“I’m not dead.”
“Then how is this possible? No one wakes up one morning… Oh, dear God.” Zoe put her hand over her mouth and stared at Jana. “No, really? Theresa and you went into a room with one hundred and eighteen other people, and you were given the Holy Ghost. You came out with extraordinary gifts.”
“Right. Those gifts were passed on to the generations that followed, but only Theresa’s descendants.”
“The demons can’t touch you. You’re an immortal. Alright…why? How did that happen to you?” Zoe asked in complete amazement.
Jana took a deep breath and exhaled. She closed her eyes. “I don’t know, except that I helped wrap our Lord’s body for burial and got His blood on me.”
“You helped with Jesus’ burial?”
“Yes.”
“Wow.”
Stella, Tessa, and Zoe all looked at each other and then at Jana with a mixture of shock, bewilderment, and astonishment. Zoe was the first to find her voice again. “You are an immortal with special abilities.”
“Yes.”
“You have been alive for two thousand years.”
“Two thousand and thirty five years,” Jana replied with a smile.
“You’re over two thousand years old and the demons can’t touch you. You can’t be killed—” Zoe repeated still trying to understand the new development.
“They have tried. I have died, but I haven’t been able to stay dead.”
“Wow. How is it possible for you to know who the demons are?”
“It’s a gift that activated on the day of my first death. It brought so much confusion. I could see the demons standing next to the Romans. I could see their faces, their eyes, I could sense their hunger.”
[Intertwined Souls 05.0] No Good Deed Page 28
