To the Devil a Daughter

by K. H. Koehler

  I sit down on a high stool near my beecosystem and watch my bees work. The low hum the hive makes has always soothed me like some long-forgotten lullaby. But then I suddenly start to cry. I can’t remember the last time I’ve done that. I didn’t even cry when Tiffany died.

  Sebastian steps into the room. I can see the toll this has taken on him. His shoulders are a bit more hunched, and there are dark, sleepless rings under his eyes. He looks…older. It reminds me that he’s not the cute, silly, twentysomething guy he seems. He’s ancient—maybe a century older than I am. Yet, he’s put so much faith in me—in this—and I can’t even imagine why. Because he’s bored and has nothing better to do with his extensive lifespan? Or because he really thinks I have what it takes to be a successful leader?

  His dark brows knit together and he moves forward to put a hand on my shoulder. “Oi, what’s the matter?” he says in a soft, almost fatherly, voice, and I can feel his physical distress like it’s my own. I know he’s feeling it only because I am. We’re sort of making a continuous loop of pain. An ouroboros of distress.

  I touch his hand touching my shoulder. He doesn’t even seem to be aware he’s close to the hive. And when a honeybee appears out of nowhere and lands on my other shoulder, he doesn’t even react.

  “I’m just tired,” I say, sucking up the tears. “Been up all night.”

  “Go have a lie-down. I’ll finish up here.”

  Maybe I am tired. No, I know I am. Just like how I know that a good sleep—even if it’s a short nap—is usually all it takes to reset my brain and emotions. With a tap on his hand, I get up and go upstairs to the loft to crash out for a few hours.

  We still hadn’t gotten around to getting any furniture. Frankly, I’m too broke. But, hopefully, that will change soon. I throw myself down on the air mattress and lay there for a while, trying to sleep. But my mind won’t stop reeling with all the possible disasters that could occur in the next few days. I also can’t stop thinking about that mysterious man who’s gotten into the shop. I wonder if he’s friend…or potential foe.

  I wonder who he is, what he wants. What if he’s connected to the murder of that man in our back alley? They say criminals always return to the scene of their crimes.

  The possibilities are endless, and they haunt me. But as I lay there, I feel the little tagalong honeybee emerging from my hair where she’s been hanging out and crawl slowly across my face. A normal person would freak, but I’m not a normal person. I feel a wave of comfort and peace as she moves along my cheek and reaches my left eye. She taps my lid as if to say Sleep now. But I can’t. I have this knot in my chest that tells me something bad is coming. Something inevitable. Something that will change me forever.

  After tossing and turning for an hour, I give up on sleep and sit up in bed. My bag is within reaching distance. I drag it over and reach inside and take out the photo album I brought with me from Blackwater. I spend some time paging through it. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmases. An occasional party I can’t place. My parents were always big on taking pictures to memorialize every event, but the sight of them hurts me in ways I’d forgotten about.

  Stan and Kathy Summers meant well when they adopted me. They’d wanted children after Josh, but Kathy had to have an emergency hysterectomy not long after Josh was born, so that blew their plans for a large family to pieces. Adoption was a good, logical step. But after I arrived in their lives, they decided it was a mistake on their part. I don’t hold that against them. They never should have adopted something like me. It wasn’t their fault.

  My parents had loved me—or, at least, they’d tried to. But we were never friends, and the older I got, the more difficult it was for us to get along. I’ve always known in my heart that were I not their daughter, they never would have associated with something like me. The idea doesn’t make me sad or angry. It is what it is.

  On a whim, I started picking pictures of Josh out of the album, but when I was done, I closed it and just looked at the ragged soft material cover and the Our Family engraved in gold leaf and started wondering why I’d ever brought the stupid thing along. I never belonged with these people. They were strangers and always had been.

  The last time I saw my parents, we were fighting. My dad called me a liar for the things I’d said. I needed therapy, my mom said. I needed to get my head straightened out. That was the last thing he said to me after I told her about all the weirdness going on in my life. “Vivian, go call your shrink and get your head straightened out!”

  The next day, my parents were gone. Head-on collision with a drunk driver. I remember the police officer who came to our house to tell us the bad news. He kept telling me over and over how fast it had been, how they hadn’t suffered at all. How it had been over before they ever realized it. Like that made it better somehow.

  Now, it seems the most natural thing in the world to get up and take the album downstairs. It’s dark by that time—after nine, I realize when I bother to check the clock in the prep room—and the shop is dim and empty. Sebastian has left a hastily scrawled note on the workbench that says he’s gone out to some local pub but that there’s some cold pizza in the fridge if I want it.

  I ignore the pizza and go out into the alley where that strange man died. Was murdered. I might as well be honest about it. Nobody flays themselves alive, right? I’m wearing jeans and shoes this time, but I still feel a chill as the door clumps closed behind me.

  The dumpster is maybe two hundred feet away. I can be there, dump the album, and be back inside in seconds if I hoof it. But before I can even take a single step, I recognize movement at the end of the alley, a sort of shifting darkness that brings me to an instant standstill.

  A slender figure in black stands up too quickly as if it has suddenly realized it’s being observed. I realize it was crouched over the place that man died. The figure looks female, but I can’t be certain. It’s too dark and the eaves of the shop cast long shadows. But as the figure turns to stare at me, I see her eyes. They are glowing with a faint dark light in the dark.

  My mouth dries up and I lurch backward, my back hitting the closed door. My mind screams the word witch so loudly, I jerk from the assault of it.

  The witch starts as if I’ve lunged after her. Her glowy eyes narrow—but not in fear. Annoyance. I’ve interrupted her in the midst of a private ceremony. Turning around, she starts fleeing around the side of the building, her shoes quickly tapping out a rhythm on the wet, broken asphalt.

  I have a decision to make in that moment—and quickly. I can let the witch go and go back inside and pretend the incident never happened. Or I can try to catch up with her. Maybe she knows something about the man who died here.

  No. I know she does.

  Dropping the photo album, I take off after her.

  8

  I’VE ONLY been to Philly a few times—the business section, mostly, to hear the reading of Mike Bartholdi’s will—so I don’t know the city all that well. Mostly, I can navigate the urban areas just fine, but the outlining suburbs are practically alien to me.

  As the shadowy woman weaves in and out of alleys and cross streets, sticking to the darker parts, I have trouble keeping up. It’s obvious she knows the city like the back of her hand. If the sun were up, I might be able to call on my familiars and have them follow her from an aerial view, but most stinging insects are diurnal, and mosquitoes have never been a good conduit for me.

  We leave the lighted business corridor and I see fewer and fewer businesses and more schools, libraries, and a handful of medical and law offices. The buildings look older, more elaborate. They’re made of aged brick, with elaborate turn-of-the-century iron fences around them. The library has stone lions out front. I spot the witch disappearing down a side street that runs alongside it. She’s practically running full tilt now and moving in a fluid way that’s unnerving to watch. As she passes under a streetlight, it pops and goes dark. Others follow. I start following the darkened lamps, listening for her footfalls aga
inst the cobblestone sidewalk.

  Eventually, I spot a tall building ahead with a cross on its steeple. It’s one of several “mini-cathedrals” that this city is famous for. The woman in black disappears around the side of the building and down some steps to a basement door. Myself, I slow down as I approach the looming redbrick building. It has engraved scrollwork around the doors, and the windows are painted with sad-looking saints. A huge stone cross stands silent sentinel out front, lovingly draped in purple cloth. It’s a beautiful building, but I can already feel the drag on my soul and I’m not even standing in its shadow yet.

  One of the most important things that Nick ever taught me was to avoid places like this. He even took me to a church in Blackwater once just to show me how it feels—which is somewhere between having the flu and having a lead weight dropped on your back while meat hooks are sunk deep into your skin. There is the dry, ruthless nausea as if someone has stuck a cold spoon down your throat.

  As I cautiously approach the building, I can feel a cold sickness growing in my stomach like bad menstrual cramps. I veer around the side of the building and find the steps that lead to the side door. I don’t feel better here, but the nausea isn’t so bad if I stay out of the shadow of the giant cross. I spot a pair of doors painted blue with white crosses on them. I stop a few inches away and just look at them, wondering if I’ll burn if I touch them.

  The idea is both frightening and depressing. Evil things burn at the touch of the cross. But I don’t want to be an evil thing…

  I start to back up when the door swings open. A man stands there—a young priest in a black cassock and white Roman Catholic collar. He’s not very tall, but there is something subtlety virile about him. His dark, lush hair is perhaps a little too long for regulation, and it curls slightly around his ears. And he has the most beautiful black Hispanic eyes. Even though he’s a priest, I find something extremely primal about him. His soft, full lips and the shadow of his strong beard make my heart trip a second.

  “Are you here for the group?” he asks.

  I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I love the musical sound of his voice, the way he rolls his R’s. And I do want to see inside the church. I want to speak to the witch hiding in the Catholic cathedral, so I say, “The group? Yes.”

  He pushes the door open for me. “Please, come in. You haven’t missed it. I’m Father Matthew Garcia. You must be new. Call me Father Matt.”

  “All right.”

  I slip past Father Matt and into a small landing connected to two narrow, twisting staircases, one going up and another down. The tiny landing/foyer is at a lower level than the rest of the church. I can hear someone playing the organ above in what I assume is the cathedral. But the other staircase curls down into the basement, and that’s where the priest goes. He turns once to say to me, “I’m glad you found us, miss.”

  He leaves me an opportunity to tell him my name, but I don’t. Instead, I silently follow Father Matt down the narrow staircase. The basement smells a little damp, but not unpleasant. It reminds me of the rec rooms in my friends’ houses when I was growing up.

  Near the bottom, I see the staircase opens up into a large commons room, a sort of all-purpose basement. The floor is tiled and the cinderblock walls are painted with flowery murals and words of inspiration in both English and Spanish. I wonder if Father Matt painted them. There are posters everywhere for different church activities—bingo, bazaars, charity dinners, potlucks. There are a few inspirational posters, as well, but most of them have vague imagery and not too many crosses. I feel I can breathe a little better as I step into the room.

  Near the back, by some narrow windows, a long trestle is set up for coffee and donuts. There is also a collection of a dozen or so people sitting in folding chairs in a wide circular pattern. I immediately understand what I’ve stumbled across and stop. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong here.

  Father Matt stops, as well. “You don’t have to talk. You can just listen,” he says invitingly. He speaks softly and gently as if he’s afraid he’ll spook me.

  The people in the circle are strangers—all ages, all sexes, all colors. I don’t see the woman in black. But I’ve always felt comfortable—and safe—around strangers, as strange as that sounds. So I discreetly move to take a seat. I make sure to put an empty space to both sides of me, the way you do when you’re in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. But then I immediately regret doing that because it makes me stand out, and I don’t want that. I don’t want anyone looking at me.

  They do, anyway. The women give me small nods. The men cruise me, trying not to be obvious about it. Father Matt takes the seat next to me and that makes me feel better—a little less obvious. If he knew who I was—what I was—he wouldn’t be so welcoming, I think. Thankfully, he does not point out that I’m new but immediately launches into a warm but surprisingly secular welcome to everyone here tonight. He doesn’t talk about God at all.

  I sit there quietly and listen as a few of the circle stand, state their first name, and announce their addiction. They talk about their week, and what they’ve seen and done during the week. Their stories aren’t as sad as I would have expected. Mostly, they’re mundane, but they speak slowly and with great conviction. This daily minutia of theirs is immensely important to them.

  Only one man stands out—Marcus. He stands up, tells us his name, and talks about how he used the money his mom lent him to buy heroin instead of milk for his son. He made his son drink sugar-water this week. He stops speaking after a while and just sits down. No one else in the circle says anything for several seconds, but the priest breaks the silence. He invites anyone else to speak. He looks at me and I cringe.

  After a few minutes of silence, coughing, and shuffling in their seats, Father Matt concludes the meeting by talking about learning and coping skills, mentioning the support group’s next meeting (in three days), and explaining how no one here is alone. He finishes by reminding everyone to check in with his or her sponsor. Again, there is no religious rhetoric. I feel a great wash of relief about that.

  The group folds their chairs and hangs them neatly on the wall. Then they move to the table for coffee and a snack. They talk in small groups of two or three. Marcus cries on his sponsor’s shoulder and the man leads him away.

  I feel more uncomfortable than ever. I start drifting toward the door, but Father Matt catches up with me. “Would you like some coffee? You look cold.”

  Though I don’t want coffee, I let him lead me to the table. I figure I probably look homeless. I stepped outside the shop in just Hello Again Kitty zombie pajama bottoms, a white tank top, and an open brown plaid shirt, the stuff I’d been sleeping in before I went out to dump the photo album. He makes me a cup of hot coffee and hands it to me, then suddenly takes it back. “Milk and sugar?”

  “Just black,” I say.

  While I drink the coffee, he tells me what days of the week the group meets and insists on getting me a schedule. “They’re good people, all of them,” he explains.

  I think about Marcus. Does what he did to his son mean he’s still a good person?

  I’m not judging. I’m hardly an angel. But I’m curious.

  Suddenly, I say, “I’m not an addict.” I think about that a moment before adding, “I don’t know why I came here tonight.”

  Father Matt nods sagely. “Maybe you were just lonely?”

  The little cross around his neck flashes, distracting me. When the overhead light catches it, I feel a little stab somewhere deep inside my head like someone is putting just the tip of a knife into my temple. This cross thing is a real pain in the ass, by the way.

  I put the coffee down. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m about to say I need to go when the door to the stairs opens and the women I was following walks in. She is middle-aged, Hispanic like Father Matt, and wearing a long black habit and a black and white coif on her head. She wasn’t wearing the coif when I followed her. But now, finally, I know why she
was wearing all black.

  The sight of her freezes me on the spot, but if she recognizes me, she doesn’t react at all. Father Matt excuses himself and turns to her. They pass a few words about a spaghetti supper on Sunday. He calls her Sister Marie and asks her if she’s found the tablecloths that went missing.

  “Yes, Father,” Sister Marie says, her eyes on him—not me. But now I can feel her need to shift her attention to me, however briefly. While they are talking, I stare at her until she can’t take it any longer and her eyes drift in my direction before snapping back to Father Matt, who is asking about the raffle now.

  I wait until they finish. When Father Matt walks away, Sister Marie gives me her full attention for one whole moment before turning on her heel and leaving the room via the stairs. I glanced at Father Matt. He’s speaking to someone else now. Good. I follow Sister Marie up the stairs to the church.

  The cathedral has an arching, ribbed ceiling, but its overall size is relatively small as compared to the gigantic ones I remember from when I was a child, when we went into the city on Sundays. Sister Marie walks down the central aisle between the pews, genuflects and crosses herself, and then continues on her way to the votive candles set up to one side of the altar.

  I follow hesitantly. The altar has a large wooden cross attached to it with another silky white and purple cloth draped over it. The closer I get to it, the weaker I feel. I finally stop about ten feet from Sister Marie, who is lighting a votive with a long matchstick.

  “So it’s true,” she tells me without glancing up. She doesn’t even pretend to not know. “You’re his daughter.”

  It takes me a moment to respond to that. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Very well. We won’t discuss it.”

  I take a step toward her, then stop as a wave of dizziness nearly overwhelms me. “How is it you know that?” I ask because I really want to know.

  Sister Marie finally looks up. She’s perhaps middle-aged, pretty, but there are lines around her eyes and mouth. I can tell she’s been around the block a few times. “We all know.”