My Soul to Keep

by Melanie Wells

  “You ran,” I said. “I can’t believe you ran. Thank you so much!”

  He unsnapped the walkie-talkie from his belt. “Are you in danger, ma’am?”

  “Not the kind you’re used to,” I said, panting. “Do you have a gun or anything?”

  “What’s the problem, ma’am? Can we start with that?”

  “There’s a rattlesnake in my truck. How’s that for a problem? I don’t know what to do.”

  He blinked. “Are you sure? How do you know?”

  “I heard it.”

  “But you didn’t see it?”

  “Have you ever heard a rattlesnake in person, Jeffrey? It’s not really a matter of opinion.”

  I followed behind him as he strode toward my truck—obviously the scene of the trouble, backed as it was halfway out of the space, door standing wide open, dome light shining weakly.

  We stopped a couple of yards away. I held my breath.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he said at last.

  We inched closer. No rattle. I reached over gingerly and jiggled the door, sure the noisy hinges would set the varmint off. But still no sound.

  “Maybe it got out.” I bent down and looked underneath the truck, then stood and scanned the lot, surveying for possible snake hiding places.

  “I don’t see anywhere it could have gone,” he said, his eyes following mine. “Lot’s empty. No trees, no grass.” He looked around. “What are you doing parked way out here in Oklahoma? A woman really should park a little closer in.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You have no idea. Believe me, I tried. I got here …” When did I get here? I couldn’t remember. “… forever ago. This was the only empty spot.”

  He pointed at my hood. “I see you’ve met our pigeons.”

  We both looked up at the ledge, the thought occurring to us simultaneously. There they were, feathers puffed out, sleeping with their heads tucked underneath their wings.

  “I guess the pigeons didn’t hear the rattler, huh?” he said, doubt creeping into his voice.

  “That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “They would have flown off, wouldn’t they?”

  “I would, if I were a pigeon.” He pulled his flashlight off his belt and shined it up at them. “You sure you heard a snake?”

  “I’ve had a rattler at my house the last few days,” I said. “I keep hearing it, but I never do see it. Maybe it crawled under the hood of the truck when the engine was warm. Don’t they do that sometimes?”

  “How long did you say you’ve been here?”

  “I don’t know. Hours.”

  “And you believe a snake stayed in your engine all the way from—you drove here from where?”

  “I live in Oak Lawn. About fifteen minutes from here.”

  “So a snake stays in your engine block from Oak Lawn to Children’s Medical Center. That’s fifteen minutes, no traffic. Then it sticks around for several hours waiting for a ride home?”

  I could feel my expression tightening, the muscles of my neck starting to contract. The rage was back, rising up inside me and taking over what was left of my brain. I wasn’t mad at Jeffrey, of course. He was merely pointing out the obvious. I was mad at the lousy rotten fink who had gotten me into this mess.

  Peter Terry. The skunk. He loves embarrassing me.

  “Sounds pretty implausible, huh?” I said.

  “Afraid so.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “Let’s pop the hood.”

  We gave the truck a thorough going-over. We looked in the wheel wells and checked behind all the tires, in the bed of the truck, under the spare. We checked every cranny under the hood, Jeffrey shining his flashlight around and humoring me as I pointed at places I wanted him to illuminate. Bless his soul, he even stretched out on the hard ground and scooted himself under the truck for a look at the undercarriage.

  Naturally, we found no snake.

  He dusted himself off and shone the flashlight back into the bed of the truck, illuminating my newly purchased antisnake gear. “Looks like he doesn’t stand a chance if you find him.”

  I shrugged. “I like to be prepared.”

  He switched off his light and wished me luck. I thanked him profusely and prayed once again to disappear into the pavement. Once again, the Almighty stamped “DENIED” on my application.

  I drove home in a cloud of radio static and white-hot anger, giving in at last to the brutish day and to the long, agonizing disaster of this week.

  My house was dark and lifeless when I got home. I unlocked the door, threw my stuff down, and went back out the front door to get the mail. The bulb shattered as I flipped the porch light on, startling me just about out of my skin and fraying the last of my nerves.

  I stood there for a second, forcing myself to stay calm, then turned and walked back into the house, glass crunching under my feet. My house is well supplied, of course, so I opened the door to the garage and flipped the light switch. The bulb burst with a flash and a loud pop. Glass sprinkled to the concrete floor.

  Standing frozen in the doorway, I counted to a hundred, concentrating on each number, determined to manage the panic—the panic that I knew was the object of the game. I absolutely refused to give Peter Terry the satisfaction.

  Using a pair of pliers I found in my truck, I wriggled the shattered bulb out of the socket. Then I pulled a box of bulbs off the shelf, screwed a new one into the socket, and flipped the switch. The warm yellow glow of a 60-watt GE Bug Lite filled the garage.

  I turned off the light and went back through the house to the front door, where I pulled another Bug Lite out of the box, repeated the procedure, and screwed it into the socket. It exploded in the next moment—the switch was still on—and I let fly a string of cuss words that would embarrass a sailor. (Another one of my Top Ten Terrible Traits.)

  I took a deep breath and was grateful, for once, to be alone in the world. Better that than inflict my foul temper and even fouler mouth on any innocent bystanders. I sat down on the porch steps and stared up at the night sky.

  I hate city lights for obscuring the stars. Someone should shut the place down after midnight, just to give city kids a fair shot at seeing the universe once in a while.

  Squinting at the dim points of light, I searched for my favorite constellation, Orion the hunter. It reassures me somehow to see him up there, with his belt and his weapons all geared up for some ancient clash of grand celestial combat.

  I couldn’t make him out tonight. Probably too late in the year. I sighed, feeling strangely abandoned.

  Peter Terry was here. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. The bulb thing was obvious. That was his style—vandalism with a creep-out factor. But the rest of it—the snake, Christine’s strange symptoms, Nicholas’s disappearance—you could choke a horse with all the evil in the air.

  I sat there a long time, for once appropriately reverent, my attention turned toward the heavens, where I knew the answers lay. It occurred to me to pray, so I prayed for Nicholas, for Christine, for Liz and Maria. And for myself. It took the edge off the tension, if nothing else. In the end, I felt a little less forsaken. Though at this point, I’d just about convinced myself the cavalry would never arrive.

  A good half hour passed before I stood and surveyed the damage. I had to hand it to Peter Terry. He got points from me for creativity. On his last visit, he’d vandalized my water heater, which I thought was a pretty innovative way to ruin somebody’s peace of mind. Days of frustration, frigid water, blue-toed showers, inadequate laundry facilities. Not to mention a sizable bill from Paulie’s Pretty-Quick Plumbing Repair.

  There was one more bulb in the box. I decided to make one last stand and see if I could end the day with a victory. I stood tiptoe on my front porch and reached for the socket with my pliers, thought better of it and checked to make sure the switch was off, then wriggled the base of the shattered bulb out of the socket. It took a few minutes, but I wrenc
hed it out of there, screwed the new bulb in and flipped the light on.

  The bulb blew up in a cloud of smoke and sparks, glass tinkling delicately as it landed on the porch around my feet.

  “Nice touch,” I said out loud, and I walked back into the house and locked the door firmly behind me.

  25

  ALL THE LIGHTS INSIDE the house worked. I was grateful for that much. Sometimes Jesus just gives me a little present. Maybe God had posted sentries at the doors and windows or something.

  The rabbits were restless. I couldn’t tell if it was because they’d been alone for so long or because they were afraid of the snake. Whatever it was, they kicked and squirmed when I picked them up. They scuttled under the bed as soon as they hit the floor, then refused to eat anything until I made them a little picnic on my bed and let them munch up there in relative safety.

  While they dined on their crunchy food, I unloaded my five new snake traps and my twenty-eight-pound tub of Snake-A-Way from the bed of my truck and began placing the traps strategically around my yard. One under the front porch, one under the back porch, one beside the back gate (as though a snake would bother with a gate), one in the garage, and one under the hood of my truck—just in case.

  The lid of the Snake-A-Way snake repellent had apparently been sealed with concrete. I broke two fingernails and a screwdriver before I budged the thing. I scooped out a cupful and walked the perimeter of my house and backyard, sprinkling as I went, my peace of mind blossoming as I moved. I felt better somehow, hedging my bets. I sprinkled the garage, returned the cup to the tub, hammered the cap back on, and got ready for bed. I decided to leave the glass on the porch for later. I’d dealt with enough messes today.

  I slept like a stone that night, the sentries guarding, perhaps, my peace of mind as well as my doors and windows. I needed the sleep badly and woke up feeling rested for the first time in days.

  After a quick breakfast, I sliced some apples for the rabbits, then walked the perimeter of my house, checking my snake traps. They were empty, as I knew they would be, though one had attracted a number of fire ants, which were now entombed in the brown, smelly glue. That left a phone call to the hospital on my morning to-do list—all was well—and I was out the door for the pool, looking forward to a long swim.

  I settled quickly into a good rhythm and had finished my first mile when a group of college kids started doing cannonballs into one of the lap lanes. The lifeguard blew his whistle and kicked them out. I waved a thanks and was poised to push off the wall when I realized I recognized the face. I knew that kid.

  I peeled off my swim cap and dunked my hair in the water, then hiked myself out of the pool, wrapped up in my towel, and walked to the lifeguard stand.

  “Gavin,” I said, craning my neck and squinting against the sun.

  “Professor Foster!”

  He hopped off his chair and was down the ladder in two big steps, standing in front of me, his bare chest tanned and smooth, with big Hawaiian flowers on the swim trunks skimming his knees. His hair—dyed a bright yellow blond but black at the roots—stuck out everywhere. An ankh gleamed on a leather rope around his neck.

  “That was you in lane four? You have a pretty stroke.”

  I blushed, embarrassed that he’d been watching me. “It may be pretty, but it’s slow. I’m just back in the pool the last week or so. I’ve been out of the water for a while.” I pulled my towel tighter around me. I felt awkward standing in front of a student in my bathing suit, hair dripping. “I didn’t know you were lifeguarding here.”

  “Hey, good sun, bikinis …” He grinned and gestured around the pool. “And hardly any little kids to yell at. Easiest summer money there is.”

  “You look great,” I said. “How are you? I haven’t seen you since … what, December before last?”

  “Yeah, thanks for the C,” he said, laughing. “I bombed the final. Thought I’d flunked the class.”

  “I get generous around the holidays. Don’t tell anyone,” I said. “Besides, you’d had a tough semester. I figured you could use the break.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, tough semester.” He shifted his feet awkwardly and crossed his arms.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  “No, that’s okay. I just don’t like to think about it. I don’t have too many fond memories of the loony bin.”

  I smiled at him. “We call it an ‘inpatient psychiatric unit.’ ”

  “You can say inpatient whatever. I say loony bin.”

  “You’re doing okay, though, huh?”

  “Doing great.”

  “Are you still in touch with the DeStefanos? Did you know they’re in Guatemala now?”

  “I’m housesitting for them.”

  “You’re kidding! That’s great. I’m surprised they kept their house. I thought they were gone for good.”

  “It’s just until it sells. It’s a slow market, I guess. Or something. I was there all semester.”

  I pointed at the necklace. “I’d forgotten you wore an ankh. Was it a gift?”

  “My mom gave it to me. The day before she died. For luck.”

  “I didn’t know your mom was dead.”

  “She died my freshman year of high school.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  There was an awkward silence, which I decided to plug with a little fair-play self-disclosure, just to even things up. “My mom died a few years ago too. Cancer. It was awful. I’m still not over it. It’s hard to watch someone deteriorate like that.”

  I watched him consider whether to tell me more about himself. “My mom wasn’t sick. It was kind of sudden.”

  “Was it an accident?”

  “You could say that.”

  I pursed my lips, unsure what to say next.

  He saved me the trouble. “She overdosed.” He said it bluntly, without emotion.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” I was batting a thousand bringing up awkward subjects.

  He shrugged. “She had a lot of problems.”

  “It was intentional, then?”

  “I think that’s why she gave me the necklace. She knew she was taking off. She said it would keep me safe.”

  I felt a surge of adrenaline shoot through my body. “What did she mean by that?”

  “She was kind of a nut.” He smiled and glanced away. “Obviously.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Gavin. I didn’t know.”

  He shrugged again. “No worries. It was a long time ago.”

  I took a breath. “Well, it was good to see you. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon. I’m determined to spend as much time as possible in the pool this summer.” I slapped my thigh. “I turned thirty-five this year. Things are starting to slide south on me.”

  He grinned. “You don’t look a day over thirty-four.”

  “Thanks. You’re a real pal.”

  We said our good-byes, and I walked back to my lane, hopped into the pool, and pushed off the wall, my mind spinning.

  Gavin had been a student of mine a couple of years ago. The two of us had wound up in an odd tangle with the dark side after Gavin found himself in Peter Terry’s target zone. He’d almost lost his battle. I’d arranged for him to stay with the DeStefanos—to keep him safe, come to think of it. But he’d tried to hang himself in Tony’s bathroom and done a little time at one of the local psychiatric hospitals.

  The DeStefanos are good people, though. They’d apparently stuck with him, and today he looked whole and healthy.

  I finished my swim and said good-bye again to Gavin, who promised to keep in touch, then I showered, changed, and walked across campus to Bridwell Library.

  The reference librarian pulled some books from the shelves and then helped me haul a stack of them to the study area, where I settled into my favorite spot. The sun had already started moving across the table as I cracked open the first book.

  I had two missions today. The snake, of course. I had to find out about the snake. I pulled Christine’s papers
from my bag, unfolded the pages, and smoothed them onto the table.

  My second mission was to find out how the ankh fit in. Not that I was certain it did. It’s just that it tended to show up when Peter Terry came around.

  On his last visit, ankhs had appeared in the graffiti-like art of a murdered co-ed and in the weird mythology of her nutty psychic mother, Brigid, who had given the girl an ankh on a chain to wear around her neck for protection. I’d also discovered it stamped on the back of a necklace I’d received the day I first met Peter Terry.

  And now Gavin was wearing one. An ankh his mother had given him. To keep him safe.

  If I remembered correctly, Joe Riley had also worn an ankh on a thin chain underneath his hospital gown that day in the radiology lab. It hadn’t seemed like a big deal at the time. But since he’d become the incredible disappearing man, it had taken on an eerie significance.

  I’d spent some time studying ankhs last winter. They turned out to be an ancient symbol of protection, of life, and of immortality, and the mark of an apocryphal being named Anael—possibly an angel—whose name I’d never heard before. I’d turned up a little dirt on him, but not much. Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer are the only celestial beings actually named in the Bible. The rest of the angel lore comes from questionable sources, at best. I’d waded through hundreds of years of speculation and pieced together some odd bits of information—just enough to make me wonder if Peter Terry could be Anael in disguise.

  The protection thing confused me. Were ankhs good or bad, angelic or demonic? The whole mess was just a jumble of guesses stuck together like a big wad of gum.

  As the beam of sunlight made its way across the table, I searched every reference I could find that listed ankhs and snakes in the same volume. Those wacky Egyptians, not surprisingly, were crazy about both. Many of the pharaohs—who believed, of course, that they themselves were gods—had incorporated the symbol in their names. Steve Martin’s fave, Tutankh amen, for instance. Interestingly, the pharaohs often wore crowns with snakes on them—to keep them safe, it turns out. Apparently a snake is an asset when it’s on your side.