by Jon Skovron
She slowly pulls back from the fire on the book, starving it. It flickers one last time and dies. She opens her eyes again, and through the tears that won’t stop coming she sees the charred book and beyond that, Rob’s face, frozen wide in shock. Maybe the books are right after all. Fiery fiend. Menace. She just destroys things.
“Jael?” Rob’s voice is quiet.
She shakes her head, wiping tears away with her sleeves. “I gotta go,” she says, and tries to brush past him.
“Hey,” he says, and he pulls her to him.
For a moment she resists.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says and wraps his warm arms around her.
He has no idea what he’s talking about, of course. But somehow she believes him. She sinks into his arms and they stand there like that for a while, her wet face pressed into his flannel, the burnt book dangling from one hand. Finally, he carefully eases her back. He takes the book from her hand and places up on the top shelf.
“Good thing this section is all the way in the back,” he says, a little grin sneaking in. Then he grows serious again. “Now, you want to tell me what just happened there?”
There’s a little café a few doors down. It’s quiet and empty, which is exactly what Jael needs. The few tables are a worn, scratched wood. The place seems purposefully rundown, with old photographs of Seattle hanging lopsided on the walls, and a chipped and faded totem pole by the entrance. The only person in the café is the woman at the register. She’s so engrossed in her paperback romance novel that she doesn’t look up until they get to the counter. Rob orders a cup of coffee and Jael orders freshly squeezed orange juice. While the woman is pressing the oranges, Rob says, “Hey, is Max working today?”
The woman squints at him for a second. “You’re a friend of his, right? I’ve seen you here before.”
“I’m Rob,” he says.
“Right,” she says. “He’s off on Sundays, but I’ll tell him you stopped by.”
“Thanks,” says Rob.
Jael notices that when the cashier rings them up, she only enters the juice. They grab their drinks and head over to a table in the corner.
“Is it always like that for you?” asked Jael. “Free stuff?”
“What, the amazing McKinley hookup? Yeah, pretty much.
It’s one of the few advantages of living in the same place your whole life. You know lots of people.”
“But don’t you feel like you owe them, or something?”
“More like they owe me,” says Rob. “I’ve been doing people’s math and science homework since first grade.”
“Huh,” says Jael.
They sit in silence for a little while. Jael stares into her orange juice, stirring it listlessly with her straw.
Finally, Rob says, “So are you going to tell me what just happened?”
“You’re not going to let it go, are you?” she says.
“What, that a book spontaneously combusted in your hand?
And you didn’t even flinch at it? Uh, what kind of scientist would I be if I let that slide?”
Jael sips her juice through the straw, mainly to give herself a moment to gather her courage. Then she says, “Do you really believe all that stuff about how magic is just unexplained science and we don’t really know what’s possible?”
“Sure,” says Rob. “I mean, it’s just a theory. I’ve never actually seen it in action. Well, maybe until today.”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re saying that what just happened there was magic?
Like actual magic?”
“Okay, so what if there were certain . . . people who bridged that connection between science and magic?”
“Like a witch?” asks Rob. “Are you going Wicca on me?”
“Not exactly,” says Jael. “So, for a long time, people thought witches were evil. Just ’cause they did magic or something that most people couldn’t understand.”
“A lot of people still think witches are evil. They just don’t kill them anymore. At least, not in America.”
“Right. There’s a lot of . . . prejudice to that name. People make assumptions about them.”
“Sure, like riding brooms, ugly with warts . . .”
“And evil,” says Jael. “Most people assume they’re evil.”
“Bets, are you sure you’re not going Wicca?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then just spit it out.”
“Rob, I’m a demon.”
“Uh . . .”
“Well, half demon. On my mother’s side.”
“A demon,” he says, his eyes getting wide. “As in . . . a creature from Hell . . .”
“Here,” she says. “Maybe I should just show you.”
Jael looks down at the orange juice in front of her. The juice isn’t quite as responsive as water, but it seems interested in her idea. The air in the straw is downright excited about it. So she asks the air to leave the straw, which creates a vacuum that sucks the juice up. It jets a small fountain a couple of inches into the air, then freezes. For a brief, lovely moment, it almost looks like an orange crystal flower sprouting from the glass. Then the weight of it tips the glass over. The flower hits the tabletop and shatters into tiny flecks of frozen juice.
Rob stares at it for a second, his eyes and mouth wide. “Oh shit . . . ,” he whispers. He leans in close and touches the shards with his finger. “It’s still just juice . . . You froze it?”
“Yep.”
“You can control things on a molecular level?”
“Not control. Influence.”
“Bets,” says Rob, his eyes bright in that weird way they get during math or chemistry class. “That is so badass.” He looks back at the scattered juice crystals. “Will it thaw at some point, or do you have to push it back in the right direction?”
“I think it’ll eventually get bored of being like that,” says Jael. “But it might take a little while.”
“And you can do this with anything?”
“As long as it has some natural element in it. And big stuff like gravity would probably ignore me.”
“And this is what demons do?”
“I guess. I mean, I don’t actually know very many demons.”
“What about possessing people and all that?”
“I don’t know. Some demons maybe do it. Like the weaker ones, I think, that can’t be here on their own.”
“What about the horns and tail?”
“I could make them, if I wanted, but I’m not sure why I would. . . .”
“What you’re telling me is that everything I’ve been told about demons is wrong?”
“Pretty much.” She waits. If he’s going to turn on her, this is the moment.
But instead of getting angry, he looks kind of hurt.
“What?” she says.
“So . . . all this time, you’ve just been pretending to be normal?”
“No!” says Jael. “Well, sort of. See, I’ve known for a long time that my mom was a demon. I just didn’t know what that meant for me.”
She does her best to condense the past five days into something that makes sense. It feels really good to get it all off her chest, but telling it to a “normal” person for the first time, she feels just how bizarre her life really is.
“So what are you going to do about this Belial guy?” asks Rob.
“What am I going to do?” repeated Jael. “You mean, other than spend my life hiding from him?”
“Hide? Are you kidding? He deserves to get his ass kicked!”
“If my mother and my uncle couldn’t beat him, how would I do it? I’m not even a real demon, just a halfbreed.”
“But you can’t let him get away with it. He killed your mom.”
When he says it, it hits her in a way it never had before.
Hearing it from her father and her uncle was one thing. But when Rob says it, it slips through her defenses somehow, and her eyes suddenly well up with tears.
“Can we . . . ,” she says, bli
nking hard. “Can we just talk about something else?”
“Yeah, sure,” he nods. “Totally. So . . .” He thinks for a moment, then says, “Oh! I got it. How does this element thing relate to whatever was going on last Friday? You know, when I couldn’t talk to you.”
“I don’t know,” Jael says. “Maybe it doesn’t relate.”
“Of course it does. Everything relates. That’s the whole point.”
Jael thinks about it for a moment. “Maybe it has something to do with spirit.”
“Spirit?”
“The fifth element.”
“Quintessence?” asks Rob.
“What?”
“It’s an alchemy thing. Plato called it aether. He thought that the heavens, where the sun and moon and stars were, was filled with aether, and it was also within us. Kind of like the life spark, or the soul.”
“I guess that sounds about right,” said Jael. “If it really is like another element, then I can influence it. And on Friday, I was accidentally influencing people’s spirits.”
“Can you see them? People’s spirits?”
“I don’t think so . . . ,” she says, but then remembers that glimpse into Father Ralph’s mind. Not something she really wants to repeat.
“Maybe you just have to . . . I don’t know.” He wiggles his fingers. “Do some magic.”
“Maybe,” says Jael. “But I’m not sure I should be messing around with stuff too much.”
“Are you kidding?” says Rob. “That’s the best way to learn!
Come on, Bets.” He’s giving her that look again. The earnest, heart-melting one.
“You do that on purpose,” she says.
“What, me?” he says. Then, “Seriously, come on, try.”
“Well . . .” Her mother did this once with her father. When they first met. She leans in. “Okay, I think if I can just look into your eyes, maybe I can see something.”
Rob props his head up on his hands and stares at her. He flashes a goofy smile and she laughs.
“Stop making that face,” she says.
“What face?”
“I don’t know, like you’re all excited about this.”
“I am excited. How could you not be?”
“Fine, fine,” she says. She doesn’t want to admit that she’s actually really nervous.
She looks into his eyes. At first she only notices details, like the black specks in his hazel irises and the streaks of green around his pupil. But the longer she looks, the more she relaxes into it. . . .
She feels a dizzy rush, like when she looked into the necklace. It’s as if she’s falling through the black pupil of his eye into a long tunnel.
And then she sees it.
It moves like flame.
It shimmers like water.
It’s as light and free as air.
It’s as rooted and strong as earth.
It’s the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. It sings to her—not with a voice, but with something simpler and more pure than any sound she knows. The song throbs in her head and she starts to hum along. The spirit grows brighter and louder in response to her accompaniment. As if from far away, she hears Rob’s breath, loud and heavy.
“Should I stop?” she hears herself ask.
“No,” he says hoarsely. “Don’t stop.”
So she sings along with his soul and it grows even brighter and more beautiful with each moment, so raw and full that she wants to touch it and she can’t help herself. She reaches her hand toward his chest and it passes through without resistance.
Her fingertips brush against his flickering spirit; it shivers and so does she.
When she felt fire, it was ultimate freedom. When she touches spirit, it is ultimate communion. Every moment of Rob’s life is laid out before her in heartbreaking simplicity. In this moment, she knows him and understands him completely. His inner radiance is the most wondrous thing she has ever seen and she can’t help herself. She grabs it with both hands.
Then Rob cries out.
Jael lets go and pulls back into herself. Her pulse pounds in her temples and her face is flushed.
“Rob?” she whispers.
Rob sighs. Then his eyes roll back into his head and his face hits the tabletop with a wet smack.
“Rob, are you okay?” She reaches out and shakes his shoulder.
Nothing.
Carefully, she turns his head to the side. His eyes are closed, but he’s breathing.
“Rob, please, wake up.”
His eyes flutter, then open. They’re a little unfocused, like he’s had a concussion.
“Jael,” he says, only a little louder than a breath.
“Yeah?” She leans in to hear him better.
“Will you marry me?”
She stares at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he’s joking. He doesn’t look like he is.
“It couldn’t have been that cool,” she says.
“It was even cooler, but I don’t have anything better to offer.”
“Excuse me,” calls the cashier. “Everything okay over there?”
“Listen, we gotta get out of here,” says Jael. “The cashier is totally watching us.”
“Yep,” says Rob. But he doesn’t move.
“I’m serious,” says Jael.
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks. “Should I call 911 or something?”
“I’m totally fine,” says Rob. “It’s just going to take a little while to recover, I think. It was like . . . an orgasm . . . times a hundred.” He sighs again, and continues to lie on the table.
“Really?” says Jael. “Like a . . .” She isn’t sure how she feels about that at all.
“Miss?” says the cashier.
“We’re going now,” Jael says to the cashier. Then she grabs Rob by the armpits and hauls him out of the café, wondering if she’s just royally screwed up everything.
“Wow,” Rob mumbles. “Super demon strength.”
The cool early evening air brings Rob back somewhat, and he’s able to walk, with her help, to the bus stop. By the time they board the bus, he seems to have recovered.
During the ride, they’re both quiet. Rob stares out the window at the darkening sky, a look of sleepy contentment on his face, eyes half-veiled by blond bangs.
Jael tries not to stare at him. She can’t stop thinking about his soul. Its strange, beautiful song lingers in her fingertips. She presses them to her cheek and closes her eyes, remembering the feeling. It was amazing.
Yet, it also makes her feel . . . dirty. Is it just some weird Catholic guilt thing because he compared it to an orgasm? Or is the mortal part of her trying to tell her that what she did was bad? Because the thing is, she wants to see his soul again. She wants to touch it again. She wants to . . . she doesn’t know what, exactly, but it worries her. Some kind of demon hunger has woken up within her. Something ancient and primal that doesn’t give a shit about right or wrong. Something that really scares her.
The wind starts to pick up as Rob walks Jael to her house.
She finds herself wishing it was only as simple as a walk to her house. That they were just normal, boring teenagers with normal, boring problems. They could be talking about TV right now or wondering if they would pass their math test. It could’ve been that easy. But it’s not.
The breeze pushes gently through her short hair, as if trying to soothe her. It helps a little. She takes a breath of sharp night air and lets it out slowly.
The sound makes Rob look at her.
“Have you told Britt?” he asks.
“No.”
“Isn’t she supposed to be your best friend or something?”
“I guess. I mean, I promised Dad I wouldn’t tell anybody, so he’s already going to be pissed I told you. I kind of knew you’d be okay with it for some reason. But honestly, I don’t know how she’d handle it. What if she freaks out and tells the whole school?”
“Woul
d she really do that?” He looks doubtful.
“Well, she goes to Mass and all that.”
“Are you kidding? She believes all the pope and Jesus stuff?”
“It seems like it,” says Jael. “I mean, once, she told me some rumor that one of the varsity soccer players was gay. I didn’t really understand why she cared, so I just said ‘So?’ And she totally flipped out on me. Started yelling all kinds of crazy stuff about homosexuals being an abomination and a blight on the world. I tried to argue with her about it, but she wouldn’t listen, so I just gave up. She doesn’t really talk about it that much, but underneath it all, she’s hard-core conservative.”
“But isn’t she, like . . .” Rob clears his throat. “I mean, I’ve just heard that she gets around.”
“I guess that’s what confession is for.”
“Yikes,” says Rob. “I almost feel like, what’s the point?”
“I don’t know,” says Jael. “The whole Catholic thing is so weird. Sometimes I think it’s more like a culture than a religion.
Like, even though I don’t believe the prayers or the pope and Jesus stuff, I still kind of feel Catholic. You know? I can’t just cut it off. And I since I know demons are real, what if the Church got some other parts right too?”
“What, like the Mons being a real exorcist?” asks Rob. “Are you worried he’s going to do something? Is that why you flipped out in the store and started burning stuff?”
“Yeah, I guess,” says Jael.
“But he just seems so peaceful and old,” says Rob. “I bet he doesn’t even kill bugs.”
“I don’t know,” says Jael. “The look he gave me on Friday .
. . he was like some other person. It was freaky.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I promised my dad that I would tell him if someone started getting suspicious. But if I do . . .”
“You’ll have to move again,” says Rob.
“Yeah.”
They walk in silence for a moment. Then, slowly, Rob reaches over and takes her hand. She tenses up at first. But slowly, she forces her hand and arm to relax. As they go, it gets easier, until it starts to become nice. Even comforting.
“Hey,” he says after a little while. “Maybe you just get on the Mons’s good side. Bring in your uncle for show-and-tell to talk about what it was really like during biblical times.”
