by Jon Skovron
Regretfully, she withdraws from the fire, pulls herself back into her body and lets the flames slowly fade away. When at last she stands still and quiet, she is just a girl again.
“That,” says Dagon, “is just a dim shadow of what it’s like to feel the last element—spirit. But we’ll save that for another time.”
Jael looks up at him, pleased with herself but still missing the fire. She tries to smile, but it only comes out halfway.
He grins at her, his jagged shark teeth gleaming in the twilight, with one gap. Then he scoops her up in a massive hug.
“You did good, kid. Now you should probably head out. I think your little explosion was visible for a ten-mile radius.”
It takes a while for her to get home. The buses don’t run very often on Saturday nights, and none of them are express.
But Jael hardly notices. Everything around her looks different.
It feels as if the change that began Thursday night is complete.
Life is crowded with potential, with magic. There are so many forces just waiting to be tapped, to be put to some constructive use, and she never realized it before. The world is like a giant toolshed filled with babies who don’t know how to use the tools, and don’t even realize that the tools are anything other than something to stick in their mouths.
As the bus cruises up Eighth Avenue through North Seattle, she watches the rain run down the outside of the window. She draws squiggles and shapes in the condensation with her finger.
The bus is empty. But of course, she’s not alone. If nothing else, there’s the earth beneath her and the air all around her. And in Seattle, more often than not, the rain that falls from the sky. She asks the condensation on the windows if it would like to draw its own pictures. She finds out that it does. So she leans back in her seat and watches images of clouds and mountains and forests slowly appear up and down the bus windows until she’s surrounded by a silvery panorama dimly recalled by raindrops.
When the bus lets her off at her stop, she walks slowly down the sidewalk toward her house, taking in all the life she’s never appreciated before. The cowering grass and potted plants. The skittish wind that slides around houses and cars. She wonders why the wind doesn’t just knock it all down. She knows it could, if it wanted to. If it had a reason.
Then she looks up into the night sky, something she hasn’t done since Thursday. She sees it unfold in all directions, expanding endlessly, and for a little while, she can follow it. But then it dips down like a roller coaster and she gets a nasty jolt of vertigo. So she hastily returns her attention to ground level.
One thing at a time.
When she gets home, her father is still up, sitting in the living room and reading the Psalms from the Bible by candlelight.
She closes the front door softly behind her and he looks up. He seems pale and gray and very ordinary.
“Well?” he says. “How did it go?”
“I think,” says Jael, “that it was the best day of my life.”
Then she smiles slightly. “So far.”
He stares at her for a moment. She can’t tell whether he’s happy she did this or not. But she realizes she kind of doesn’t care.
“Britt called,” he says. “It sounds earth-shattering, whatever it is. I could barely get in two words.”
“Everything is earth-shattering for Britt. Especially when it involves boys.”
“Well, thankfully we don’t have that problem at least,” he says. “Boyfriends.”
“Yeah,” says Jael. “Whew.” Then she climbs up the spiral staircase to her bedroom.
When she calls Britt, it only rings once before she picks up.
“Oh my God, J, where have you been?”
“Uh . . . out?” says Jael.
“With Rob?”
“Um, no.” Jael wants to tell her that maybe things with her and Rob aren’t really going to work out. But she can’t quite figure out how to phrase it in a way that isn’t “because he’s freaked out by my amazing succubus powers.” And Britt is so wound up, she doesn’t give her much time to respond anyway.
“Well,” Britt says, “don’t quote me on this, but I’m pretty sure I met the One yesterday.”
“A new boy? Do I know him?”
“No, he doesn’t even go to Mercy.”
“So where’d you meet him?”
“Some Church thing. It’s not important. What’s important is that he is the real deal. Like so gentlemanly and mature, but not all uptight about it. And he has these blue eyes you could just dive into and get lost forever.”
“Cool,” says Jael. She hasn’t heard Britt like this in a long time. Completely nuts over a guy. It’s a little annoying, but Jael is also relieved that the weird jealousy vibe she was getting from Britt yesterday is gone. “So, are you guys going out or something?”
“He’s picking me up in, like, twenty minutes! He has one of those Prius hybrid cars. You know, because he’s really into environmental stuff. He’s so deep, J. And sooo sweet. I never thought a guy like that would ever be interested in me, you know?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know . . . I guess because they never have been before.”
“Well, you tend to pitch yourself more to the meathead jock types anyway.”
“Yeah, I know,” says Britt. “They’re just so easy, I guess.
But I can totally see now that I was wasting my time. Things with this guy are completely different. When I’m with him, I feel like the best version of me. Does that make sense?”
“Sure.”
“I can’t wait to see him again!”
“That’s awesome, Britt. I hope you have fun. Let me know how it goes.”
“So . . . if you weren’t with Rob today, who were you with?”
The sudden change of topic almost gives Jael mental whiplash. “Uh . . . my uncle.”
“You have an uncle? Since when?”
“Since Thursday. He lives out of town. He and my dad don’t really get along, but he decided I was old enough that I didn’t have to listen to my dad anymore.”
“J, that is major. An uncle. Family other than your lame-ass dad. Is he cool? He must be if he hates your dad. Would he adopt you?”
“He’s very cool,” says Jael. “But I don’t think he could adopt me. He works weird hours and lives way out in the middle of nowhere.”
“But he’s going to be coming to visit a lot?”
“He said as much as he can.”
“That’s awesome.”
“It is,” says Jael.
Finally, a moment of silence.
Then Britt says, “Sorry I was such a butt yesterday. I don’t know what my deal was. Just grumpy, I guess.”
“It’s okay,” says Jael. “I was kind of out of it too. I didn’t get much sleep the night before.”
“We’re both going through some stuff right now,” says Britt.
“Yeah,” says Jael.
“It’s good, J. Change is good. For both of us.”
“Totally,” says Jael.
THE FIFTH ELEMENT 13
After learning how to harness the power of the elements, Jael thought finding a history textbook wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But she stands in the doorway of the used bookstore on U Dub campus, and she has no idea how she’s going to find this book. There are no neatly organized aisles, no alphabetical order by author. Instead, bookcases are unlabeled and rest at odd angles, some of them close to tipping over, and all of them are crammed full.
She sees a guy stocking shelves, just tossing stuff randomly into the bookcases. It doesn’t seem like he’s being lazy, though.
It’s like he’s purposefully being random. He looks like a college student—that scruffy scholar type—a little unshaven, with shoulder-length black hair.
“Excuse me,” she says.
The stack of books in his arms tumbles to the floor.
“Oh, sorry!” she says.
“Um,” he says as he juggles the few book
s he’s managed to hold on to. “Don’t worry . . . it’s . . . let me just . . .”
She reaches out and takes the books. He smiles at her.
“Thanks,” he says.
“It was my bad anyway,” she says.
He bends down and scoops up the fallen books. “No, no, I’m trying to learn how to be more flexible.”
“Oh yeah?” she says. “I could use a lesson in that.”
“I think a lot of people could,” he says as he takes the last of the books from her and slides them onto a shelf. “So . . .” Now he seems to look at her for the first time. His eyes are a piercing pale blue, like a desert sky. “Do you need help with something?”
“Uh, yeah,” Jael says. “I can’t seem to figure out how to find anything in this place. I was hoping you might be able to point me in the right direction.”
“Sure, what are you looking for?”
“Uh . . .” She suddenly feels like the dorky high school kid she is. “My, uh . . . history textbook.”
He doesn’t seem fazed. Maybe he assumed she’s in high school. That’s almost worse.
“Do you have the title and the edition?” he asks.
“The book’s in my bag . . . ,” she says. Then she realizes that she’ll have to pull it out and show him. She wishes she’d just tried to look for the book herself, but it’s too late now. She pulls the book out and hands it to him.
“Ah,” he says as he stares at the large burn hole.
She’s not sure why she cares what this random guy in a bookstore thinks, but suddenly she’s blushing.
“It was an accident,” she says.
“I kind of assumed that,” he says. Then he grins, like he understands completely. “Come on. Let’s go hunting for books.”
He leads her through the maze of shelves and she’s glad she asked for help after all. It would have taken her hours to find anything. But he takes her directly to the textbook section, cleverly hidden behind the romance section. In just a few minutes, he’s located the correct edition. He pulls it from the shelf, looks at the glossy picture of the bald eagle on the front, and smirks.
“These books are pretty ridiculous.”
“Yeah?” she says. “Why’s that?”
“Well, it’s such a slanted view of history. And I’m not just talking about the chapters on Vietnam or that ‘Manifest Destiny’
crap, which was just an excuse for the government to take land from the American Indians. I’m talking the whole thing.
Columbus? He didn’t do anything except set a precedent for subjugation. Washington? He didn’t believe that the common people could actually elect decent leaders. That’s why they set up the electoral vote. FDR? The guy pretty much cornered Japan into bombing Pearl Harbor so that he could get America into the war and out of the Depression.”
“Wow,” says Jael. “I guess you’re a history major.”
He rolls his eyes. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for old stuff.
Anything else you need?”
“Um . . . do you have a section about, uh, demons?”
She expects him to give her a weird look. But instead, he just says, “Fiction or nonfiction?”
“There are nonfiction books about demons?”
“Sure. Angels, demons, ghosts. All that.”
“Huh,” she says. “Yeah, sure. Where’s that?”
She follows him all the way to the back of the store in a corner that seems even quieter and more cluttered than the rest.
“This is all the religion and occult stuff,” he says. “Were you looking for something specific?”
“Not really,” says Jael. “I, uh . . .” She doesn’t want him to think she’s blowing him off, but she also doesn’t want him looking over her shoulder. “I just wanted to browse for a bit.”
“Excellent,” he says. “That’s what this store is for, really.
The accidental discovery. So, I’ll leave you to it.” He turns to go, then stops. “If you need anything else, or, you know, if you get trapped under a bunch of angel books or something, just give me a shout. I’m Jack.”’
“Sure, Jack. Thanks.”
He smiles again. “Nice talking to you.” Then he wanders off.
If all the guys in college are like Jack, she can’t wait to get there. Assuming that she can convince her father that she doesn’t need to be locked away in an Arctic fortress.
She squares her shoulders, takes a deep breath, and plunges into the stacks of demon books.
Jael probably should have expected that every book she picked up would describe demons as evil, nasty, and ugly. But somehow it hurts anyway. And it’s unfair. She’s not like that.
Her uncle isn’t like that. Well, ugly, sure, and maybe he smells a little nasty. But he’s definitely not evil. And while she never met her mother, she knows she wasn’t evil.
She looks down at the book in her hand. A Catalogue of Demons and Fiery Fiends from the Netherworld! She doesn’t actually know any other demons. And she’s already gathered that she and her family doesn’t fit in with the crowd. So it could be that her little family are the only nice demons. But if the books got Hell wrong, if it isn’t a place where bad people go to be punished when they die, maybe they got demons all wrong too.
She’s just about to put the book back on the shelf and give up looking for something helpful. But then she catches sight of a familiar blond skater at the other end of the aisle.
“Rob?”
He glances up at her from a stack of books, and for a brief moment the same frightened expression she saw on Friday clouds his face. But then his smile breaks through.
“Bets!” he says. “You cut your hair!”
“Uh, yeah,” she says. She touches it self-consciously.
“Looks awesome,” he says.
“For real?”
“You bet.”
“Yeah, well,” she says. “Guess I needed a change.”
“Now you look like a real Betty. Skater chicks usually have short hair.”
“Rob, does anybody else use that name? Betty?”
Rob shrugs. “Some people. It’s a little old-school.”
“And anyway, I’ve never even been on a skateboard.”
“But if you ever were, you’d slay it.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s my skater Zen.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re such a geek. So what are you doing here anyway?”
“Speaking of geek,” he says.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Hey, it’s cool. You’re in the same place. So we can be geeks together. Of course, I come here all the time. So that makes me a bigger geek.”
“I didn’t realize it was a competition, but I’m pretty sure I have you beat. What are you looking for?”
“Oh.” He suddenly looks uncomfortable. “Old, out-of-print stuff you can’t find anywhere else.”
“Like what? Old chemistry books?”
“Yeah, sort of. Stuff that bridges that connection between what they knew back in ancient times about magic and what we know about science.”
“Sounds cool.”
“No, it’s totally weird. You don’t have to humor me.”
“It isn’t weird,” says Jael. “Not to me, anyway.”
“So, what are you doing here?”
“I accidentally thrashed my history book, so I have to replace it. How’s that for geeky?”
“And so . . . you were looking for it in the occult section?”
“Oh,” says Jael, glancing down at the A Catalogue of Demons and Fiery Fiends from the Netherworld! book she’s still holding. “Just, uh, browsing.”
“I thought you might be doing some extra credit for the Mons,” says Rob.
“Oh yeah, because it’s religious stuff?”
“Well, that and the demon thing?”
Jael stares at him for a moment. “Demon thing?”
“You know what the Mons did before he taught at Our Lady of
Mercy, right? He was an exorcist.”
“Shut up. That’s got to be just some dumb school rumor.”
“No, it’s true,” says Rob. “He told me himself.”
“The Mons,” says Jael. It’s a struggle to keep her voice level.
She remembers the look he gave her on Friday. “The Mons was an exorcist?”
“Yep, just like those old movies. I guess it started when he was in Peru. The people in his congregation there thought he was some kind of saint, I guess, because he was just performing exorcisms left and right. He was like some granddaddy master exorcist. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Uh,” says Jael. Her heart is suddenly pounding in her ears so loudly, she hardly hears herself say, “Yeah.”
“Sorry.” Rob says. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“I’m not freaking out,” she says, a little too quickly.
“You totally are. I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff.”
“Nothing. It’s nothing,” she says. But it’s everything. All at once, that feeling of isolation comes back, like she’s hemmed in by all the lies just like she’s surrounded by all these books that hate her and her family. She wants to knock down the lies and tell the truth to the few people who actually matter to her. But they wouldn’t understand. They’d all turn on her. Her father said so.
She looks down at A Catalogue of Demons and Fiery Fiends from the Netherworld! She can picture all the authors of all these books: a bunch of old white guys with beards and tweed jackets looking down on her in disgust from their dusty little offices. The whole world hates her and they don’t even know her. All because of shit like this. Even her father buys it in his own weird way. But it’s nothing but hateful anti-demon prejudice. The anger boils up in her so fast and furiously that it takes her by surprise. It wipes away the doubt, the isolation. It makes her feel powerful and free, just like yesterday when she held—
“Shit, Bets, that book is on fire!”
The fear in Rob’s voice brings her back. She looks down at the book, which crackles with bright blue-white flame. And she realizes that she’s not free like a fire. She’s just a lonely girl with a lot of problems. She closes her eyes as the tears begin to flow.
