Dealing with the Devil
The Earthwalker Trilogy
Book One
Jennifer Siddoway
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, locations and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental. Any actual locations mentioned in this book are used fictitiously.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
All rights are retained by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. The unauthorized reproduction, sharing, or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Dealing with the Devil (The Earthwalker Trilogy Book 1) - Second Edition
Copyright 2017 by Jennifer Siddoway
www.duncurra.com
Cover Design: Wit and Whimsy Designs
ISBN-10: 1-942623-44-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-942623-44-1
Produced in the USA
For Natalie
Without whom this book would have never been finished.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
About Jennifer Siddoway
About Duncurra
Other Titles from Duncurra
“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons,
heaven or hell.”
- Buddha
Chapter One
Sleeping Beauty
I always dreaded these visits.
Not that I don't love my mother, because I do; I just find it emotionally draining to sit in her room day after day, week after week, with a smile plastered on my face while everyone knows that she will probably never wake up. I hated everything about it — the stiff medicinal smell, the too-bright fluorescent lighting overhead, even the shiny white floors and generic artwork that hung in every guest room. But most of all, I hated the way that coming there made me feel. Helpless.
It was a constant reminder of how insignificant we all were and how little control we had in the grand scheme of things.
I'd accepted that Mom was gone for quite some time, but Dad still struggled to come to terms with it. He tried to put on a strong face for us kids, but I could see the toll it was taking on him. I looked over and saw his tired eyes after a long night in his office, where he resigned himself to work because sleep just would not come. The firm had given him emotional leave for the first few weeks after Mom’s accident, but the truth was he'd never fully recovered. He went through the motions and managed to pull through, but something inside him had broken.
I was curled up in the windowsill with my French book open in my lap from when I'd been reviewing vocabulary earlier. It was one of my easiest classes since Mom went to culinary school in Paris and spoke the language regularly at home. Our class was studying the terms for members of the family, which seemed painfully ironic at present. The words “Mere — mother” jumped off the page and plunged into my heart like a thousand little pinpricks. My eyes flickered to the frozen form lying motionless in the hospital bed.
I barely recognized her through the light of her heart monitor.
Every week she looked more pale, more fragile — nothing like the headstrong woman who'd raised me. All color had drained from her cheeks and her once ebony hair hung in limp braids across the pillow. Even so, she was still one of the most stunningly beautiful women I’d ever seen.
Barely visible between the creases of her left hand was a subtle reminder of the woman she used to be. A long, thin scar wrapped around the knuckle of her index finger from one of her numerous mishaps in the kitchen. I’d never understood how a professionally trained chef like her managed to nick herself so often, but apparently my clumsiness was inherited.
At the end of the bed hung her medical chart, carrying various lab workups and endless test results. I re-read the cover page for the third time since we arrived:
Name: Michele Hendricks
Age: 53
Admitted: October 21st 2014
Diagnosis: unknown.
I wrapped my arms around my chest and scowled at the inoffensive manila folder. It had been over a year now, and the doctors were still no closer to finding a diagnosis. Originally, they thought it was a stroke, but numerous scans of her head had all come back negative. There just was no explanation for it. All that time we’ve been coming and I still couldn’t get over how weird the situation was. Why can’t they give us any answers? How hard is it to diagnose?
My incessant need for answers kept going round and round in circles, leaving me unsatisfied and frustrated. Why is this happening to us? People don’t just fall into an endless sleep without a reason. This is a freaking hospital, you bring sick people here and the doctors make them better. Isn’t that how it works? Or at least tell them why you can’t. It’s weird; this whole thing is weird.
I hated not knowing.
Over time, I expected the process of elimination would have helped weed things out — but they hadn’t. So here we sat, week after week, month after month, waiting for some fairy godmother to come wave her magic wand and give us the cure that medical science couldn't.
Absentmindedly, I glanced at the clock on the wall to see how much longer we’d be forced to endure this and my stomach began to grumble. At the sound of a melodic fanfare, I turned back towards my brother, pounding mercilessly on the buttons of his Nintendo DS. I didn't play video games much myself, but looking over Nathan’s shoulder as he did was one of my favorite pastimes. I smiled at his furious expression when the musical sting announced that his character died. When my stomach grumbled loudly again, I turned my attention towards our father. “Dad, I’m kind of hungry. Do you think we could start heading back?”
He glanced up from his blackberry and nodded with a sigh, “Yeah, it's almost 7:30. Let’s get you kids home. Elyse, are you coming with us?”
“Actually, I was going to meet Kevin for some coffee,” she answered sweetly. “But I could walk you out if you’d like.”
Dad grunted in acknowledgment and grabbed his coat from the back of his chair. “Sounds great, hon.”
We gathered our things and took one last glance at Mom before we left. The moonlight filtered through the window, casting a ghostly shadow throughout the room as her heart monitor beeped softly in the background. One by one, we shuffled towards the doorway and m
ade our way into the hall. Dad lagged behind to step over to her bedside and give her a kiss on the forehead.
“Goodnight, dear,” he whispered. “We'll see you again next week.”
I looked away uncomfortably when his voice cracked with raw emotion. It was the same exchange that happened every week, yet something in his tone this time made the words seem so sad and intimate, I felt the need to give them privacy. His best friend and lover, his wife for over twenty years, was dying. No amount of “emotional leave” would change that.
Reluctantly, Dad pulled himself away and headed out the door, bringing the three of us with him.
Our footsteps echoed down the tile hallway as we passed the nurse's station, and the familiar scent of morphine came wafting down the corridor. It must have been the end of shift, because they were all quietly typing on their computers and charting patients’ vitals. Several of them I recognized, but they were all too focused on their work to notice our departure.
Elyse skipped ahead to press the call button on the side of the metallic double doors. Her swift, dainty movements always threw our differences into sharp contrast and I immediately became more self-conscious. My dirty tennis shoes, held together with duct tape, would always feel inadequate compared to the perfect stiletto heels that our sister always wore. I arrived at the elevator just in time to see it illuminate beneath her perfectly polished fingernail.
My sister is exactly what society thinks a young woman should be — intelligent, graceful, kind — everything I wish I was, but am not. Even when we were children it was obvious that we were not cut from the same cloth. Sometimes I wondered how we could ever be related. She spent her afternoons picking wild flowers and playing dress-up in her room, while I wanted to be a pirate and practiced by wailing on our younger brother. Had I been born in antiquity, they'd have burned me as a witch for sure. In some cultures, my red hair would have been reason enough, but if that didn't do it my fiery temper would have finished the job — patience was not one of my virtues. I was even starting to lose my cool waiting for the stupid elevator to arrive.
What is taking so long?
I fidgeted impatiently, watching the numbers climb higher and higher, when Elyse's purse began to vibrate. She fished her phone out immediately and with one glance at the screen her entire face lit up. Within an instant she was typing a response and smirking to herself.
Dad and I both shared a significant glance before rolling our eyes, knowing there was only one person that could make her giggle like that. Her fiancé, Kevin, was an EMT that sometimes worked the night shift at the hospital to help pay his way through medical school. He was a great guy, and we all loved him, but they were so cheesy and twitterpated it drove the rest of us crazy. I cringed internally at the thought of whatever sweet nothings he had said to her.
“Tell Kevin we said 'hello', alright?” Dad told her gruffly.
Elyse looked up at him and smiled once her message sent. “Sure thing. You could tell him yourself if you don't mind walking me to the cafeteria.”
“No that's all right, you go on ahead. I need to get these guys home.”
She shrugged and was already busily typing another message, when I noticed a boy staring at us from across the hall. His shaggy brunet hair hung carelessly across his forehead above the bluest pair of eyes I’d ever seen. His expression was friendly enough, but far more intense than you'd expect from a total stranger. Normally, I wouldn't have paid any attention and just assumed he was some other staff member, except he didn't seem to be doing anything. All the other nurses and technicians were dressed in scrubs and busily attending to patients, or involved with some meaningful task, yet he was doing none of this — or interested in it at all.
I watched him curiously for a moment and the edge of his mouth turned up into a smile. It had been such a long time since anything within these walls managed to pique my interest, I couldn’t help but stare back at him, intrigued.
His returning gaze bore into me from across the hall and I felt my cheeks get hot. I quickly turned away before he could see me blush and tugged gently on the hem of Elyse’s shirt, trying to get her attention, “Hey, 'Lyse?”
“Mmm?”
“Do you recognize that guy over there?”
Without so much as glancing up from her phone she asked me, “Who?”
“Elyse!” I hissed impatiently.
I wasn’t sure if Dad or Nate had been listening before that, but my outburst certainly got all three of their attention. Now I had three sets of eyes staring at me, and she finally put the phone away.
“Who are you talking about?” she asked me gently. My eyes flicked back towards the desk and I gestured my head towards him subtly.
“Over there,” I whispered. “Standing by the nurse’s station.”
Elyse repositioned her purse and looked past me down the hall before eying me suspiciously, “Wynn, there's no one there.”
I scoffed at her incredulously. “He's staring right at us. How can you not see him?”
She looked around again before turning back apologetically. “Sorry, I don't see anyone.”
I whirled around to point him out myself, only to find that all the lights were off and the patient’s doors were all shut tight, like he vanished into thin air. I gawked at the empty hallway and turned back to her confused. “He was right — there….”
Elyse shrugged and stared at the metal doors in front of us. Frantically, my eyes darted back and forth down the hall, but there was no one. My mouth dropped slightly in defeat, and I turned back towards the elevator. The doors opened with a cheery — ping! — and I entered them reluctantly, still looking for him out of the corner of my eye.
~ * ~
The car ride home was completely silent — all of us exhausted from the day and the emotional upheaval that always came with our weekly visit. I was grateful to leave the stiff, sterile environment and have a warm bed waiting for me at home. My cheek pressed against the cool window in the backseat of our car as I watched headlights pass along the road. I noticed my eyebrows were knit together in my reflection on the glass and mouth pursed into a thin line. I’ll admit it wasn’t an attractive look for me. One day my face will freeze like that, I thought to myself bitterly.
My dark humor was cut short when the shadows grew darker on the road ahead, casting eerie designs across the windshield. We were coming up on the corner I hated. No matter how much I tried to push it from my mind, memories from my car accident last year surfaced and swamped my thoughts. I raised my fingers to my scalp and found the hidden scar concealed beneath my hairline.
It had happened so suddenly I’d barely had time to react when the driver of the car in front of me slammed on their brakes. My tires screeched against the wet asphalt as I swerved to avoid them and ended up spiraling out of control into a muddy ditch on the side of the road. The windshield shattered as the car rolled down the embankment and broken glass sprayed through the air. When it finally stopped, I was suspended upside down with the noxious fumes of the deployed airbag in my face and a metallic taste in my mouth — blood.
I remembered the rain pelting me through the broken window as I unlatched the seatbelt and crumbled to the ground. When an unusual crackling glow caught my attention I began to panic, realizing the engine was on fire. There was no time to wait for an emergency crew to rescue me, I had to get out of there immediately. I tried the door, but it was too bent to move. Looking around for another exit, I noticed the smell of gasoline and saw it start to pool around me. Panic turned to desperation at the thought of that fuel reaching the burning engine.
Use the back door, a voice had told me.
Frantically looking back, I saw the rear passenger door had remained unscathed. I coughed, struggling into the back and crawling out the passenger side window. I managed to shuffle away from the twisted wreckage just in time to hear the car burst into flame and feel the heat on my back.
A light shudder ran through me as my mind returned to the present. My accide
nt was the same week Nate found Mom collapsed on the kitchen floor and dialed 911 — we’d had a string of bad luck that year. But, what were the odds of that happening? How could we both be in life threatening situations that close to one another? It was an odd coincidence — and I don’t usually believe in coincidences.
I hadn’t thought about the accident for quite a while, let alone how it and my mother could have been related. Yet, something pricked at the back of my mind as I wondered if maybe … maybe they could be.
The crash had left me with whiplash and a few scrapes and bruises, but otherwise I was fine, nothing that wouldn’t heal. I was discharged from the hospital in a matter of hours. Mom however … well, she didn’t recover the way we hoped.
I sighed, pulled out a pair of headphones, and rested my head against the window. It was a long, familiar drive we’d taken many times along the rolling hills of southern Alabama, leaving the inner city hospital and heading to a small country town. The sweet smelling hay and fresh cut grass were second nature to me now, along with white picket fences and livestock grazing in the fields. I began to relax into the seat when the phone in my pocket began playing the Imperial March from Star Wars. “Dammit, Ryan! Stop changing my ringtone,” I grumbled to no one in particular. “Oh, and apparently he's a Stormtrooper. Nice.”
Dad and Nate snickered, so I stuck my tongue out at both of them. I answered with a roll of my eyes and spoke into the receiver. “Hey there, ya scruffy looking nerf herder.”
Ryan chuckled on the other line, “Hey. Anything to get a rise out of you.”
“How many times do I have to ask you to stop doing that?”
“Oh, I will never stop doing that, your reactions are always priceless. Just be glad I didn't change all of your settings into German. I got my hands on Neil's phone the other day and he still hasn't been able to change it back. Heh, noob.”
I rolled my eyes at him again and chuckled, “Now that's just mean.”
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