The Reaping: Language of the Liar

by Angella Graff

  Chapter Five

  Stepping out onto the street, Dorian shoved her sunglasses high up on the bridge of her nose, and began her errands. Nothing complicated for the morning. The bank, a new pair of shoes, a few supplies for her next week’s class. She was starting to feel like a real person. A normal, everyday Jane who had a job and a path to walk, and a future. She’d never experienced that before.

  The walk to the bank was short, a few blocks up, and she grimaced at the line. It was necessary though, she had a few transactions to deal with, so she queued up behind a tall man wearing a hat low over his brow. She didn’t give him a second glance, instead pulling out her phone to browse the web while she waited.

  They’d moved up about three spaces when it first happened. The vision in the corners of her eyes began to shimmer. Then she had a heady feeling, like she was floating out of her body. Taking in a gasping breath, Dorian shoved her phone back into her pocket and looked around, her eyes wide and wild. Calm down, she told herself. Relax. It’s just a panic attack. You can get through this.

  There was a feeling of pressing danger though, and the shimmering continued to consume her vision until it looked like she was staring through water. Gulping in a breath, she stared at the man in front of her. He wasn’t in his suit and hat anymore, though. No. He was clothed in all white. He was full of light, but that light didn’t seem to be part of this world. It didn’t touch anything.

  “No,” she whispered. She didn’t need to remember to know exactly who he was. The monster from her childhood dreams.

  He grinned, a row of straight, large teeth, his eyes an amber color, and they were narrow. “Dorian.” His voice sounded like metal dragging over stone, and it stabbed straight into her chest.

  The next thing Dorian knew, she was leaning against the wall, a man helping her shove her head between her knees. Blinking, she looked around at the audience she’d acquired, and her face blushed bright red. “I’m…” Her voice trailed off.

  “You fainted,” he said. Dorian looked over at the man and noted his security guard outfit. He was middle aged, his weary eyes almost bored, like he’d seen this a dozen times. “You okay, miss?”

  “Yeah I just…” She trailed off again. “Sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “My wife went through that before she found out she was pregnant. You might wanna call your doctor.” He ambled off as she reached over with shaking hands to push the button on the drinking fountain.

  The water was tepid and had a strange smell, but she gulped down a few mouthfuls before swiping her hand across her lips and heading out. She couldn’t stand to be in the building any longer. All those faces, those judgmental eyes. They probably thought she was on drugs, or maybe not enough drugs.

  She was trembling all over by the time she made it to the café, and she found a table in the back, sliding in to the booth seat and shoving herself up against the wall. Her fingers shook as she pulled her phone out to dial her friend. Right now, more than anything, she needed human contact and conversation before everything fell apart.

  “Jemma, I’m at the café. Can you meet me?”

  ***

  Being an old friend from the system, Jemma was her go-to when things got strange. She understood Dorian and the issues which came from growing up in homes and foster care that most people could never begin to empathize with. It didn’t change the fact that they were very different people, though. Where Dorian was quiet and wanted to go unnoticed, Jemma was acerbic, her personality too large to contain in one tiny person. She got Dorian in trouble more often than not, but they developed the bond that kids so often do when they’re shuffled through the system.

  And Jemma never seemed to mind Dorian’s particular issues. In fact, she used to find it funny when Dorian would lose time and wake up without memories of who she went after and the things she said. Both Jemma and Dorian never found homes, and though they’d lost touch when Dorian had been institutionalized, they found each other again when Dorian got the job at the church right around the corner from the tattoo parlor Jemma now called her home.

  “Okay, so you fainted?” Jemma’s hoarse tone was low to keep their conversation between the two of them. “Like the kind of roll your eyes back in your head and swoon like a woman in a forties movie kind of fainted?”

  Dorian wrinkled her nose. “No. Like… like the weird crap when I lose time. Everything went all foggy and weird, except I didn’t lose time. There was a man there.”

  Jemma’s thin eyebrows shot up and she leaned forward, her red lips curving into a smile. “Oh yeah? Was he hot?”

  “Jesus. No. I mean… I don’t know. It was creepy. He didn’t seem human. I thought it was a hallucination, but he seemed so real.” She trailed off, unsure how to explain what she’d seen. “I think knew him. He knew my name.”

  “Maybe he’s the creepy dude you used to dream about,” she suggested. They fell silent when their plates of BLT and fries arrived, and she immediately speared a piece of potato with her fork, pointing it at Dorian as she continued. “Remember that guy? Maybe it was a hallucination of that thing. The one who kept popping up in your head before they gave you the good drugs.”

  She let out a breath and looked up, not wanting to admit that thing had been on her mind a lot lately. Whenever she dreamt of that creature, things went as bad as they could go. “Maybe it was him. I don’t remember, but I didn’t lose any real time. He said my name, and the next thing you know, I’m sitting against the wall with my head between my legs and some big security guard standing over me. When I checked the time, maybe thirty seconds passed. A minute if I’m being generous.”

  Her friend’s face fell into a slight frown and she sat back, crossing her arms. “Well, I’d call the doc. I mean, if your meds aren’t working and you’re having waking dream shit, you need to get that checked out. You don’t want things to get ugly again.”

  “It’s not just that.” When she realized she had Jemma’s attention, she went on. “I woke up and the window was open. And you know how I am with windows.”

  “Yes, I do. I do remember your freaky window and door thing.”

  “So the window was open. Oh and last week during one of my lessons, my attendance book just disappeared. I found it later… in my bathroom.”

  Jemma’s frown deepened. “Okay that’s odd.”

  “Especially since I had it at the beginning of class.” Dorian pushed the food around her plate, but she wasn’t hungry. Her stomach was in knots and she was starting to feel like someone was watching her. Her gaze shifted around the room, but no one looked suspicious. There were a couple of nondescript guys in the booth next to them, but they seemed engrossed in their burgers. An older couple were two tables away, neither speaking to each other, but neither were paying attention to Jemma or Dorian.

  It started to bother her.

  “Maybe it was some kid playing a prank?”

  Dorian’s eyes shot up. “Sorry, what?”

  Jemma huffed in irritation. “I said, maybe some kid took your book as a prank? Stuck it in your bathroom?”

  Rubbing her hand down her face, she shrugged. There was no way a student had access to her quarters, but she didn’t expect Jemma to understand. Not really. “Yeah, maybe. I mean you know me, I misplace crap all the time. But… this feels different. I don’t know. Like it’s happening way more.”

  “When did it start?”

  Dorian chewed on her bottom lip for a moment as she thought. “I guess… maybe two weeks ago?” She took in a breath and shrugged. “Three weeks at the most.”

  “And did you tell the doc?” Jemma reached up to toy with her septum piercing as she thought. “Or are you trying to play it cool?”

  “I have an appointment to check in next week,” Dorian said, trying not to sound defensive. She put her face in her hands and groaned. “I cannot lose this job. I cannot relapse.” She looked up, her hands slapping the top of the table. “I finally have something good, you know?”

>   “I do know. And you pretending like nothing’s wrong is only going to make it worse. You might just need a new cocktail of whatever crap they feed you. Maybe this stuff is going stale.”

  “Maybe,” Dorian said, but she wasn’t so sure. This didn’t feel like it did before. It felt different. Like something outside was wreaking havoc on her mind. And maybe that’s how it always happened when people were schizophrenic. Maybe it always felt like it was some outside force trying to destroy their minds, but the fact remained, whatever was happening, felt stronger than it ever had.

  Chapter Six

  In spite of calming down after her lunch, Dorian walked back to the school feeling a little unnerved. It wasn’t just the fainting spell—or whatever it had been—at the bank. It was everything. The dismissive attitude Jemma was giving the situation was a big one. Jemma had never been an advocate for drugs, so her pushing Dorian to visit the doctor and start on a new cocktail of chemicals was unlike her.

  And she still couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. She glanced over her shoulder a few times, but the sidewalk was crowded with afternoon pedestrians, and no one looked particularly suspect. Unable to relax, she paused by a coffee vendor and ordered a decaf with extra milk.

  As she paid, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. A person in an olive green jacket walking by. It struck something in her, something familiar, but when she turned to get a better look, he was gone.

  Shaking her head, she chalked it up to feeling a little extra paranoid and moved to a nearby bench. People watching was always soothing, in spite of her anxiety issues. So long as no one crowded her space on the bench, she could usually get herself back to center. She sipped on the hot brew as she leaned back, crossing one leg over her knee.

  It was almost the weekend and everyone was in a rush. It was all go, and she could see it on their faces. Busy people with busy lives, so many plans. It was all so foreign to her. Even with this job and this life now, she always felt like she was playing pretend, like a normal human existence would never belong to her.

  Maybe she was being melancholy. Maybe it was just…

  Her thoughts trailed off when she saw it again. The jacket. This time she saw it attached to the man from the café. He’d been one of the two in the booth nearby. The ones eating burgers. He wasn’t looking at her. He was sitting on a bench engrossed in a book, his head bobbing along to whatever was pumping through his headphones. She stared at him for a good three minutes, but he never once looked up.

  He seemed fairly benign as far as people went. Average looks, long black hair, five o’clock shadow, jeans, a black t-shirt, and that God awful olive green jacket. There was something about his hands though, that struck her. They moved over the pages precisely, like they had purpose, like he was trained in some sort of exact martial art. He turned pages with such sharp motion it felt almost rehearsed.

  Insisting she was being paranoid, she got up and started away. She deliberately moved past him to see if he would react, but he didn’t look up. At a few hundred feet away, he was still there on the bench, reading his book, not saying a word.

  She looked ahead this time, shaking herself out of the paranoia. “Maybe I should call my doctor,” she told herself aloud. She got halfway down the sidewalk and turned, only to find the man gone.

  Refusing to give in to her anxiety, she turned away and hurried back down the street toward the church. She bypassed the school entrance, instead heading for the chapel. It was her safe space during the day, sanctuary as it were. She had never been a church goer, but Father Stone insisted she use it if she needed a quiet place to reflect, and she took him up on the offer more than once.

  Saint Benedict’s wasn’t a large cathedral. It was built in the Old World style, but the neighborhood congregation was small. It was competing with a few other churches in the area, and people had been drawing away from Catholicism since the dawn of fundamentalists preaching loud about hellfire and brimstone on their televangelist networks. It worked in Dorian’s favor right then, because she needed quiet. On the weekdays, the chapel doors were always closed, and every window was sealed stained glass. It gave her a sense of security and completion.

  She lowered herself into her usual pew and closed her eyes. Kicking down the prayer bench, she rested one foot on top and let herself relax. Father Stone was in his office for the afternoon, and though there was always the chance of a visitor coming in to light a candle or have a confession heard, she had a better chance of being alone in this space than at the school.

  Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Her fear of being followed by strangers was diminishing and she started to feel better, getting ready to head back to her apartment. Just as she sat up, the chapel doors opened. Her breath caught in her throat as the green-coated man strolled up the center aisle and went right for the rack of prayer candles.

  The nuns kept them well stocked. Paper bags full of tealight candles lining each one of the racks, and Dorian watched with bated breath as the man reached into the bag, pulled out four, then laid them down on an empty row. Grabbing a match from the little bucket, he swiped it across the stone wall, and watched it flare to life.

  Just for a second, so fast she thought maybe she imagined it, he glanced over at her. Then he lowered the flame to the wicks. The flames rose, then settled down into the pool of wax to burn for a few hours before going out. Only a third of the candles on the rack today had stayed lit, the rest just the absence of light.

  Dorian felt her entire body go tense when the man turned. He met her gaze full on this time. For a second, she thought he was going to pass her by, but at the last moment he stopped and lowered himself onto her pew. They were at least four or five feet apart, enough room for her to jump up and run if she needed to, but she felt paralyzed.

  “I’m sorry if I scared you.” His voice came out smooth, lighter than she expected, with a heavy Scottish brogue. She hadn’t anticipated that. “I know you saw me earlier in the café.”

  “And on the bench. Reading.” Her voice sounded much stronger than she felt. She could feel the metal of her keys pressing against her leg and she knew it would only take seconds for her to whip them out. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but she could make do.

  His face broke out into a smile, and he shook his head. “You know those days when you wake up and you just know something is going to get funky?”

  Dorian wanted to tell him to go, to leave her alone, to get out of her safe space, but she nodded instead. “Yeah, I do. Unfortunately.”

  “I guess it’s a bit silly asking you that. I was there at the bank when you fainted.”

  Dorian’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “I know it was creepy of me to follow you into the diner, but I was worried. I thought they should at least phone for an ambulance, but the next thing I knew you were just strolling right on out of the bank like everything was fine.”

  “It was fine,” she insisted, her voice going harder. “You stalked me because you thought I was some damsel in distress?”

  He laughed, throwing up his hands in surrender. “Not at all, dinnae get your knickers in a twist. I thought maybe there was something medically wrong with you. Since you were all alone, and if you fainted again, you might have hurt yourself.”

  Dorian’s lips pursed as she thought this through. She supposed it could be true, but it was unlikely. “Why didn’t you just say something? Why go all creepy on me?”

  “I was shy.”

  Rolling her eyes, she let out a small laugh. “Yeah right. The stalker guy is shy.”

  “I was. And a bit intimidated. You’re a very bonnie lass, after all.”

  Dorian almost laughed. Now, she never felt particularly ugly, but she’d always been awkward. Apart from skeezy dudes in halfway houses who really just wanted to get laid, people tended to steer clear of her. There was something about her eyes, a friend once told her, something that said she could see deeper into people than most, and no one liked that. She alway
s felt like it was a polite way of saying she had the Crazy Eyes.

  “You dinnae believe me?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t get accused of being too pretty to talk to very often. Or like… ever.”

  The guy shook his head. “That’s a pity. But it also could be they’re just too intimidated to tell you.” Before she could retort something sarcastic, he stuck out his hand, “I’m Lennox, by the way.”

  After a moment of hesitation, she took his hand and was surprised by the gentle way he shook it, and by the callouses on his fingers. “Guitar?”

  “Indeed. Good guess.” He grinned at her as he let her hand slip from his. “Was that your way of deflecting so you can avoid telling me your name?”

  Dorian flushed and she shook her head. “No.” Pursing her lips, she did consider not telling him, but his wide dark eyes were pleading and she gave in. “I’m Dorian.”

  “Pretty. Irish, are you?”

  “Wouldn’t know. I was abandoned at the hospital after I was born, and some nuns gave it to me.” Her eyes went wide right after spilling that little tidbit of information. Dorian had never been forthcoming about her background, especially her birth, and to just spill it to some stranger, even if he did have dreamy eyes, was unusual for her. “Um. Anyway.”

  “Sorry. Clearly a touchy subject.” He took a long pause, staring at her in a way that should have been unnerving, but she found it oddly captivating and almost soothing. “So, can I interest you in a coffee sometime? Or maybe dinner?”

  “Are you asking me out?”

  “Well… that depends on your answer,” he said with a wink.

  She smiled, then took a long breath. “Listen, it’s very sweet of you…”

  “Ah okay. Mind if I save face and bail now? Before you deal my manhood a serious blow?”

  “I don’t think being rejected by a woman has any impact on your gender, but I won’t fault you for leaving.”