The Reaping
Language of the Liar
By Angella Graff
The Reaping: Language of the Liar
Copyrighted © 2016 by Angella Graff
1st Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and characters portrayed are used fictitiously, or are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual persons living or deceased, business establishments, locales or events are purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be printed, scanned or distributed in print or electronic form without permission of the author or amazon.com.
Editing provided by Catherine Taber-Olensky
https://www.facebook.com/ctograntwriting
Other Works by Angella Graff
The Judas Curse Series:
The Awakening
The Judas Kiss
Cry, Nike
The Empty Vessel
Rise of Apollo
For Katy. Without you, this would not have been possible. Were we not already married, I probably would have proposed by now. To our future, Harry Potter World, TFA, and the return of the casting couch. I love you so much.
The Reaping
Language of the Liar
Chapter One
The sole bag filled with everything she owned was slung over her shoulder. Her caseworker was a few steps ahead, standing in the doorway, and her body wanted to move forward, but her feet wouldn’t obey. Rooted to the concrete, she stood in the gentle breeze of the warm July afternoon.
The house was one of the nicest she’d ever seen. Tall maple trees in the front, shading the house from the harsh summer sun, gave way to flowerbeds along the cement pathway to the front door. It was one of those old-style places. Steps leading to a blue front door, shutters to match on all the windows. The white paint shone bright, but it was off-putting. It shook something deep inside her.
The front door was wide open and she saw the couple peering around at her as she stood there. They were the nice, clean type. Pretty white people with perfectly-combed light hair, manicured nails, and shirts you’d see on a golf course.
The woman smiled at her, a row of veneers glinting in a stray beam of sun. Her caseworker turned, giving her a smile and he said, “Dorian? You want to come inside?”
The sixteen-year-old girl gulped, nodding her head as she forced one foot in front of the other. Her body felt like it weighed several tons as she made herself to climb the three steps to the front door.
“I made up some fresh tea,” the woman said. “We can go into the parlor if you want? Have a chat?”
Dorian had never set foot in a place with a parlor. The last home she’d been in over two years ago was a doublewide trailer, and the couple she’d been placed with had seven other kids, all crammed into three tiny bedrooms. They were with some Christian coalition, but a neighbor reported them and they lost their foster license. Dorian was shuffled back to the group home until she could get placed again.
It became harder and harder with the older ones. People wanted babies and chubby-cheeked toddlers. Not schizophrenic teenagers with a rap sheet ten miles long and a history of extended hospital stays. God, she wasn’t sure what she was even doing here, really.
The house smelled clean. And not the ugly, harsh bleach smell of sanitized floors and starched sheets, either. It was a light, floral scent and it permeated everything. The rooms were all furnished with cream colored things, pictures on the walls of blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids doing things like soccer and T-ball. It was no place she belonged.
She felt dirty as she walked into the pristine parlor. There were a few couches, a TV in the corner, a long mahogany bar stretching along the far wall. Sitting on the top was a silver tray with four glasses and a pitcher of tea filled to the brim with ice.
The woman poured it out, adding slices of lemons to the tops of everyone’s glasses, and she set the tray down on the low table. “So Dorian, is it? What a pretty name.”
Dorian grimaced. She’d heard that before. It was an empty compliment. She knew her mother had been high when she left the name on the birth certificate forms blank, then leaving them and her newborn infant at the hospital. Dorian had been born two months early, addicted to crack, her skin see-through, eyes still shut, stuck in an incubator for six weeks before she could breathe on her own.
She was two when the signs of her mental illness started. Talking to herself, moments she couldn’t remember, bouts of violence and anger. She was with long-term foster parents who planned on adopting her. They thought maybe they could love it out of her. Then they realized it would be a lifetime of work and really, they could hold out for a nice, normal baby.
By sixteen she was on four different kinds of medication to take care of her problems. She had violent dreams, but the drugs kept her from remembering them. When she was being a good girl, taking everything on time, she didn’t have episodes. She would behave in school, got good grades, made some friends.
But sometimes she would just… forget. She’d wake up in the middle of a school hallway, mid-fight, beating the hell out of some student and covered in blood. It happened more times than she wanted to think about. Then it was back to the hospital, back to therapy and getting herself under control. Then back to the group home with all the other angry kids none of the good Christian families of America wanted to deal with.
And now she was here. Somehow, after being clean and good for sixteen months, she was here in this living room, drinking this tea, and being studied by these two people she knew deep down would never want her. She was unclean. They were not.
“So, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself? Hmm?” The woman’s voice was light and airy, but it wasn’t genuine. She spoke in a tone like she believed Dorian was a young child incapable of understanding anything around her.
Taking a breath, Dorian bowed her head and spoke with her voice directed at the floor. “Um, I’m sixteen, I’m a junior, but I’m behind in a few classes so I’m taking summer school courses right now through correspondence so I can catch up. I um…don’t know what else.”
Glancing up, she saw the couple give each other that look she’d seen a thousand times. The look full of pity which said, ‘Oh this girl just needs some love. That’ll fix everything.’ She knew it wouldn’t last. “Anything else?” the man asked. “Hobbies? Anything you like to do in your spare time?” When Dorian stayed silent, he let out a small sigh. “I myself love to golf. My dad put me in lessons when I was eight, and I had a knack for it.”
Dorian shrugged one shoulder up and down. “I like art, I guess. I’m pretty good at drawing.”
“Aww that’s just sweet. Our own little artist in the house,” the woman said.
Dorian felt her cheeks grow hot and she glanced over at Mike who was giving her one of his patented, ‘be nice’ looks. “Mr. and Mrs. Browne have a room just for you, and I’m sure after you get settled for the summer, maybe we can look into some art supplies.”
“Absolutely,” Mrs. Browne said. She clapped her hands and stood up. “So, shall we go see where you can put your things?”
It was too good to be true. The entire time she was there, she felt it. A taste of what a normal life could feel like. Every laugh, every joke, every time one of them squeezed her shoulder or hung one of her drawings up on the wall, it felt like borrowed time.
She found herself wanting it though, and that was so dangerous. When she hated it, it didn’t hurt so much when she got sent away, and it was only a matter of time. She was overdue for something bad, for going dark and drawing blood, and the thought kept her up at night.
But time was passing. And things we
re fine. School started a few months later and the Brownes even took her shopping for clothes and supplies. They wished her a good day, made her lunch, and welcomed her home every afternoon. She was getting good grades, she was making friends, and when their college-aged kids came home to visit, they treated Dorian like she was one of the family.
It was though, too good to be true. When she stepped in the living room that October afternoon and saw him sitting on the couch, she was overcome with a feeling it was all going to change.
“Dorian, I’m glad you’re here. This is Grant and he’s going to be staying with us for a while.” Mrs. Browne had an unfamiliar tone in her voice, one of apprehension, and Dorian understood why.
Grant had green hair, a pierced eyebrow, and a couple of home-done tattoos on his wrists. Strange symbols and a pentagram, and it shifted something in Dorian, made her stomach squirm. He had a nice smile though, and his gaze immediately locked on her like he was dissecting her with his eyes, and she realized it didn’t bother her.
Four weeks later, when Dorian was dragged from the house covered in blood, kicking and screaming, the only thing in her head behind the blind rage was acceptance. She’d known it all along. Nothing that good would ever belong to her. Her world was pain and darkness. It was strange lullabies sang from the shadows of the room that took her to distant worlds of fire and pain. That was her reality. Not this home-grown, fresh brewed iced tea life. And the sooner she accepted that, she knew, the sooner she could become the thing she was always meant to be.
Chapter Two
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Dorian said, sitting in the office chair with her thumbnail in her mouth. “I mean, how did this guy even find out about me?”
“Well, I told him.” Her therapist, Maria, was sitting back in her chair, her legs crossed primly, fingers steepled under her chin. “I’ve known Father Stone for a long time and I think it would be a good fit.”
Barking out a laugh, Dorian’s head shook. “Me? Working for a church?”
“They’re not looking for a nun,” Maria said, leaning forward a little. She clasped her hands on top of her desk where Dorian’s file was sitting. “They’re looking for a teacher.”
It was the dream. Or well, one of many Dorian secretly stored away deep inside her for safe keeping. Dorian didn’t live a life where dreams came true. Not for a girl like her. She was lucky to have made it this far without succumbing to a drug addiction or suicide, and that was still on the table. There were nights when shooting herself up into oblivion seemed like the only viable option to her problems.
And yet, she had to consider that things had been okay for a while now. Her condition had hit a plateau, and her medication was working. She finished her art degree through an online university and in spite of being in and out of a half-way house geared toward people like her, she managed to complete a distinct and sizable portfolio.
“You’re selling yourself short,” Maria said after the continued silence. “I wouldn’t recommend putting you in a room full of children if I didn’t think you could do it.”
Letting out a breath, Dorian met her gaze. “And if the pressure becomes too much and I freak? You of all people know the consequences of those… episodes.”
Maria had come in the night Dorian attacked the Browne household. She didn’t remember much of it. She’d been standing in front of the mirror practicing what her therapist called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. She’d never been able to stand mirrors, open doors, or open windows. Often times, they sent her into a spiraling panic attack which led to long black-outs and violent outbursts.
Then Grant came along with his punk hair and smudged eyeliner and some pseudo-religious Pagan ritual trying to cast out a demon he said was responsible for her schizophrenia. She believed him. Of course she believed him. At seventeen she wanted to think she was special and could be cured. She wanted to know that whatever was wrong with her wasn’t her body’s fault. He said all the right things.
And she was fine afterward. For two whole weeks, she felt great. So she quit taking her medication in secret and felt like she was on top of the world.
During the blackout, the only thing she remembered was a mixture of pure rage and delight as she felt blood running down her fingers. Mr. Browne would live with the scars on his face forever, Grant had been left unconscious on the floor, and the physical damage to the house went into the thousands.
These were all the things Maria told her a week after her hospitalization. Dorian never confessed about the exorcism ritual, or about Grant. She admitted to stopping her medication but no one needed to know the boy had anything to do with it. It was her fault, after all.
“You haven’t had a single episode, nothing close, for three years. Three.” Maria opened up Dorian’s folder and glanced over a few pages. “No, four. It will be four this June. I don’t know what else you need to hear to give you the confidence for this.”
Dorian shoved her thumb in her mouth and picked at the edge of her nail with her bottom teeth. When Maria gave her a withering look, her hand dropped back into her lap and she sighed. “I didn’t get my degree to be a teacher. I don’t…it doesn’t feel safe. I mean, how can this guy even want me there, Maria? You showed him my entire history, right?”
Maria gave her a slow nod. “Every single word of it. And he’s not afraid.”
Dorian rolled her eyes. “Religious dudes are morons. They think if you pray hard enough, God’s gonna come down here and wipe you clean of whatever affliction you have, and that is obviously not going to happen.”
Maria let out a small laugh, surprising Dorian, and her head shook back and forth. “Trust me, I don’t think you’re going to find any sort of faith healing with Father Stone. He’s a good guy. A smart guy. His reasons for joining the church are, I’m sure, very personal. I’m only asking you to give him a chance, okay? Go on the interview, sit and talk with him, get a feel for the situation. I know you’ve been desperate to get out of that house…”
Dorian shivered and couldn’t help her frantic nod. She was tired of feeling like a child being babysat. She was twenty-four, and it was wearing on her the amount of restrictions in that place. She needed permission to eat, to sleep, to leave, to work, to shower. The routine was meant to help, but instead she felt suffocated and trapped. She had to feel free for once in her damn life.
“Fine,” she found herself saying. “Just… tell me when and where.”
Chapter Three
It was a sunny afternoon a week after her therapist meeting. The Parish was a few blocks away from the half-way house, so she made the walk in only a few minutes, arriving early. She followed the directions Maria scribbled on a yellow post-it Dorian stuck to the side of her portfolio, and went in through a side gate.
The grounds were gorgeous, and Dorian felt like she could stay there forever. Tall, looming citrus trees lined the walkways, providing shade and the fragrant scent of the blooming season. There were flowerbeds lining the walls, and vines growing wild up the bricks.
Something about the grounds was soothing, and it sent shivers up her spine. A sense of wellness was creeping through her limbs as she made her way down the cement pathway to the heavy, wooden double doors of the Parish offices.
Taking a breath, she stepped into the foyer and looked around, unsure what she was going to find. Dorian had avoided churches for most of her life, having several bad experiences at the hands of zealous foster parents trying to get her healed. The ones she’d been dragged to carried the same scent—a musty, stale cologne and they were all empty rooms with large crosses and uncomfortable pews stretching across the chapel.
This place was more like an office. The inside was expansive, tall ceilings with three fans wafting a cool breeze downward. The walls were a cream color, more soothing than the usual stark white, and the floor was covered in a burgundy, thin hotel-like carpet which stretched from the door to a reception desk.
A woman behind a computer looked up and shot Dorian a frie
ndly smile. Having expected a nun in a thick habit, she was put off by the low-cut yellow blouse and trendy black-framed glasses perched on her nose.
“Can I help you?”
Dorian shifted from one foot to the other. “Yeah. I um… I have an appointment? With Father…Father Stone?” She hated her inability to sound confident. She was tired of being perceived as the terrified child, and yet she couldn’t seem to escape it.
“Of course. I’ll page him and he’ll be right out. Have a seat.” The woman pointed to a row of chairs under the window, and Dorian walked over.
Just as she took a seat, she felt a breeze across the back of her neck and saw one of the windows cracked open. Gulping, she turned away, her eyes screwed shut, and she began to count. It was a way to combat a panic attack before one occurred. The fear was less in a large room like that, but knowing the window was behind her and sitting open, leaving her vulnerable…
“Ms. Hawthorne?” The soothing, low voice shook her from her spiral, and Dorian’s eyes flew open. The priest stood there looking just like she expected. He wore all black, the little white square sitting at his throat, and his iron grey hair was gelled and combed to the side. His face was young though, hardly a wrinkle, and his light eyes were friendly and warm as he extended his hand.
Dorian pulled herself together long enough to stand and she took his hand with her clammy fingers. “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I was um…”
“Why don’t we go to my office,” he said, saving her from an explanation.
She let out a long breath of relief as she adjusted her portfolio under her arm, and she followed him into a tiled hallway. It was narrow, a door to an office every three or four feet, but they were all shut and instead of feeling claustrophobic, she felt safe and warm.
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