The Blood of Seven

by Claire L. Fishback

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Teresa said. She cut her pizza into small pieces. “And I don’t think that would be appropriate. We hardly know her.”

  “I know her,” Maggie said in a low voice. Teresa ignored her, and they finished their dinner in uncomfortable silence.

  The rest of the evening passed without event. Maggie played in her room, which left Teresa with the opportunity to do some digging. She went to the garage and pulled down an old box with Derrick’s handwriting on it. She opened it and found his high school yearbooks.

  “Ann Logan . . .” she whispered, sliding her finger down the index. She flipped to the first page mentioned and found Ann’s face among the line of smiling heads. Then she found Derrick’s. There was a heart around his picture, and when she saw the message Ann had written, she dropped the book.

  I will love you forever. —Ann

  She tore through the other three yearbooks and found similar notes in all of them. Except the last one. His senior picture only had a heart next to it. No love note. Even still . . .

  They weren’t just a couple. They were high school sweethearts. Homecoming king and queen, no doubt. They were probably supposed to get married and have a family and grow old in the same godforsaken town they’d grown up in.

  Together forever.

  She put the books away and went back into the house. Upstairs she made an effort and checked on Maggie. The girl slept in the rocking chair in her room with a large book open on her lap.

  The dirty old book had arrived hand delivered from the agency in charge of Maggie’s welfare shortly after she’d moved into the house. A cryptic letter from Maggie’s grandfather accompanied it. Both were written in another language, by hand, with heavy ink characters.

  Teresa only knew who the letter was from because Maggie told Derrick, and Derrick told Teresa. It was Maggie’s only possession from her life before the Harts rescued her from an unknown fate.

  When Teresa shifted the book to get a better look at it, Maggie stirred. The book slid to the floor where it landed and closed with a heavy thump.

  “Maggie,” Teresa said in a soft voice. She touched Maggie’s shoulder. “Time for bed.”

  Maggie woke up just enough to slide off the rocker and climb into bed. She hit the pillow face first and was out. Teresa covered her prone form and smoothed her hair away, surprising herself with the small gesture of affection. It seemed a natural action. Perhaps making an effort was easier than she thought.

  Easy enough when the child was asleep—and Derrick wasn’t watching and analyzing and judging her every move.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. He didn’t trust her around Maggie. She saw it in the way he watched her. Almost as if he were looking for a reason to question her mental state again. To send her back to that hell. Back to Mountain View.

  She shuddered and, with Maggie in bed, went to draw a bath. Nothing like near-scalding water to remove the chills from the day. The day-mares and the thoughts of the baby. Seven years gone. She slid lower into the water and closed her eyes, listening to her respirations and heartbeat in the muffled silence. When she finally sat up in the lukewarm bath, pale moonlight shone through the window.

  Maggie’s voice came through the wall. Teresa got out and pulled on her robe. Maggie giggled and talked, as if responding to someone. Teresa looked at the clock as she passed through the master bedroom. After midnight. Derrick must have come home and awoken her.

  Mother would not have allowed it. Let sleeping babes sleep, she always said.

  Teresa crept down the hall, curious to hear what they were talking about. What was so important he had to wake her? She peeked through the cracked door. Maggie sat on the floor by a large plastic dollhouse Derrick had gifted her for no reason at all.

  “The mommy goes in the kitchen. She likes to make purple Jell-O with tangerines.” Maggie dragged out the last word to a high note. Teresa heard a faint whisper, but it wasn’t a man’s voice. Maggie laughed. “No, silly. The daddy goes in the family room with the horses. I want a horse. If I had a horse, I’d name her Butterscotch and I would ride her to school. My grandpa had goats, but you can’t ride them. They might eat your shoes.”

  Teresa pushed the door open an inch more, and the hinges creaked. Maggie jumped and looked up at her. No one was in the room. Kids had imaginary friends, still, didn’t they?

  “What are you doing out of bed?”

  “I had a bad dream and couldn’t go back to sleep.” She placed the doll from her hand in the doll house bathroom. “I dreamed about the lion man stealing my light again.” She cocked her head at Teresa. “Teresa? Why does the baby go in the basement?” She held up one of the littlest of the dolls.

  Teresa knelt on the floor and took the baby from Maggie’s fingers. “She doesn’t. She goes in the nursery.” Teresa placed the doll in the little pink crib. It rocked back and forth.

  “But . . . she said to move the baby stuff to the basement. Like you did.”

  “She said? She who?”

  “Tiffany. She’s right there.” Maggie pointed to the corner where the rocking chair sat.

  No. It couldn’t be. It had been a dream. A nightmare.

  Tiffany waved at Teresa with only her fingers, her eyes black spots on her face in the moonlit room. Her lips, pulled down into a disgusted frown, eased up at the corners into a sneer full of malice.

  Teresa took a deep breath. “Maggie,” she said. “Would you please come with me?” She didn’t want to alarm the girl, and even though her pulse pounded in her ears, she fought the desire to snatch her up and rush her into the master bedroom. Tiffany’s grin only deepened.

  “What’s the matter?” Maggie asked. Teresa flicked her eyes to the rocking chair.

  “Just, please, come with me.” Teresa held out her hand. Maggie took it, her brows knit together with a blend of worry and curiosity. Teresa took Maggie to her and Derrick’s room and closed the door behind them.

  “I thought it would be . . . fun . . . for you to sleep in here tonight.” Teresa indicated the king-size bed.

  “But . . . I’m not tired. Tiffany—did you see her?” Maggie climbed onto the bed but didn’t crawl beneath the blankets. “Who is she?”

  Teresa didn’t know what to tell her. The truth was more frightening than a lie. That was certain. Teresa touched her golden cross and cleared her throat. “I didn’t see her. Is she your invisible friend?”

  Maggie’s eyebrows screwed up in confusion.

  “Try to get some sleep, okay?” Teresa said before Maggie could say anything else. She pulled the covers back, and Maggie crawled beneath them.

  “I’m not even tired,” the girl muttered.

  Teresa turned off the light. A few minutes later, soft snores drifted from the mound of blankets.

  Teresa went back to Maggie’s room, but Tiffany was gone.

  “Please stay away from Maggie,” she whispered.

  If anything happened to the girl on her watch, Derrick would send her back to Mountain View. Or leave her. She gasped and held back a sob. What would people think of her then? Unable to hold onto a child. Unable to hold onto a husband. Unable to hold onto her . . . sanity.

  Chapter 11

  Saturday

  Ann followed Looney Lou Marga into her house, juggling a grocery bag and the woman’s shawl full of oranges. Inside, a handful of cats looked up from their slumber. A tabby trilled and prowled over to them. It circled Louise’s ankles then jumped on the table.

  Music played from somewhere. A small, tinny sound. A closed door with a heavy bolt took up a section of the wall to the right of the entry. Ann cocked an ear toward it. That’s where the music seemed to come from.

  They went into a small kitchen off the main foyer, and Louise shooed the cat from the table. Ann set the oranges down. She handed the now empty shawl to Louise, who pulled it around her shoulders. A leather-bound book sat in the center of the table. Gnostic Bible had been embossed in gold leaf on the cover. Interesting choice o
f reading material.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Louise said, giving Ann a bony hug. The scent of cinnamon wafted from her. She released Ann but held her arm in a frail grip. “I would have been out my daily vitamin C if it weren’t for you.” She smiled a gruesome yellow smile and then busied herself filling a kettle. She put it on a lit burner.

  Ann had gone for a run that morning and helped Louise when the old woman’s grocery bag split and spilled her oranges into the street. Louise had all but begged Ann to join her for tea as a thank you for her kindness in “wrangling the wayward citrus.”

  “Please sit.” Louise motioned to the table. “Just push her off.”

  Ann pulled the chair out and nudged a ginger cat to the floor. Louise smiled at her from the other end. The kitchen opened onto a sunken living room crammed full of bookshelves and toppling stacks of files, newspapers, and magazines. The room screamed hoarder.

  How many cats are dead among the piles?

  “So lovely to see you, dear,” she said again. “I read the article about you in the paper. Our small-town hero.” She smiled at Ann. “I wondered if you would ever come back. I know your father was awfully sad when you left.”

  “Yeah, he was. He didn’t want me to go.”

  “Well, with your mother gone so many years, you’re all he has.” Louise looked up at her. “When people get older, loneliness can take quite a toll.” A tear dribbled from her eye. Ann didn’t know if it was from sadness, or because they were just watery old-lady eyes.

  The kettle whistled. Louise poured hot water into two delicate tea cups. They rattled on their saucers as the old woman turned and set them down. Ann pulled one toward her. Her eyes lingered on the book on the table.

  “The Gnostic Bible,” Louise said. She pulled the book closer. “I studied the secret texts in college. Comparative Mythology major.”

  “Are these the codices from the Nag Hammadi library?” Ann asked. Louise nodded and smiled, her eyes crinkling. Ann’s father had been big into the secret texts, which shed new light on the Bible. The texts were found in Egypt back in the 1940s. Bram had tried to teach her about them, but she was a rebellious teen when he broached the subject, so she didn’t pay attention.

  What I’d do to hear his voice now.

  She ventured a sip of tea. Spicy cinnamon. It tasted like she was drinking Louise. She gently pushed the saucer a few inches away.

  “Every culture has a creation myth.” A black and white cat jumped into Louise’s lap. She stroked its head. “Usually an entity of some kind creates the world, and in one way or another, life is born unto it.” Louise sipped her tea with a noisy slurp. Her eyes grew serious. In a low voice, she murmured, “There are things we cannot see. Great forces that tug at the world and its fibers in directions we cannot fathom. Beings that have been fighting a war since the creation of the material world.” Her eyes shifted and met Ann’s. Ann flinched. “I have a story you must hear.”

  Ann leaned back in her chair to distance herself from the serious lunacy that had entered Louise’s voice and expression.

  “Okay,” Ann said. Louise flipped through the pages of the book but didn’t read from them.

  “The creator of the physical universe was a demiurge,” Louise said.

  “Demiurge?”

  Louise paused in her page-turning and met Ann’s eyes. “A heavenly being, subordinate to the Light, or Supreme Being, if that makes more sense.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Uh, no.

  “The demiurge’s mother, Pistis Sophia, Faith Wisdom, created him without the help of her partner, nor the consent of the spirit, the Supreme Being.” She paused and sipped her tea, her other hand still on the cat. “He was born disfigured, with the head of a lion and the body of a snake. When Pistis Sophia saw what she had created in her ignorance, she cast him from her and hid him in a cloud with a throne at the center. It’s rather sad, really. She cast her child from her. She did not love him.”

  Ann furrowed her brow. Was this an allegory for what Ann did to her father? To Derrick? Or was she reading too much into it? No, she loved both of them when she left. Even though it hurt her to go, she had to. She needed to live her own life.

  “The demiurge was known by three names.”

  “Why three?” Ann asked. She tried the tea again but couldn’t get past the taste. Cinnamon tea would never be the same again.

  “Mythology, dear. No reason for anything, really.” Louise shrugged her shoulders. “He was called, Samael, meaning blind god, Sakla, meaning fool, and, as I like to call him, Yaldabaoth, meaning child of chaos.” Her eyes twinkled.

  “When Sophia cast him away, he stole some of her power, and with that power, he created the seven heavens and seven sons to rule them. When one of them left to be with Pistis Sophia’s daughter, Zoe, Yaldabaoth created Death as his replacement. Death created his own children, all named after undesirable things, like jealousy, wrath, and suffering. Zoe countered Death’s progeny with her own virtuous children, whom she named after good things, such as truth, love, and faith. Do you need more tea?”

  Ann glanced at her still-full cup and shook her head.

  “It can be said, then, since Pistis Sophia created both Zoe and Yaldabaoth, she is in fact responsible for creating all the bad and all the good in this world. In humanity.”

  Louise paused and took a sip before continuing. “Yaldabaoth and the rulers of the seven heavens feared mortal man. They feared he would eat from the tree of life and learn the rulers weren’t as powerful as they claimed to be. Yaldabaoth claimed to be god. He believed he was the greatest power of the aeons. He didn’t know there was anything before him.”

  “What was before him?” Ann asked.

  “The Light.”

  “Like, god?”

  “If that’s what you believe.” Louise’s smile disappeared behind her tea cup.

  “I believe in science,” Ann said. “Evolution and facts.”

  “Of course, dear.” Louise reached across the table and patted her hand. “Your father believes in angels.” The patting became bony fingers clenched around Ann’s hand.

  Ann sucked in a breath. The cat fled.

  “You were drawn here,” Louise said. Her eyes widened and her face went slack. “Drawn by a force greater than you or me. Listen to me, Ann.”

  Ann pulled at her hand, but Louise had a tight grip. Maggie’s words drifted through her mind.

  I’ve been waiting for you.

  “There are things in this world. Terrible things. The worst is yet to come.” Louise took in a wheezing breath, released Ann’s hand, and sat back, breathless.

  “Are you okay?”

  Louise adjusted her shawls and nodded. She brushed her hair out of her face.

  “Upon hearing Yaldabaoth claim to be god,” Louise continued as though she hadn’t just had some strange out of body demon possession thing happen, “Pistis Sophia called forth a fiery angel to bind Yaldabaoth and send him to Tartaros.”

  “Tartaros is . . . Hell?” Ann asked.

  “Why, yes dear. Aren’t you clever.” Louise smiled.

  “It’s an interesting story,” Ann said. “Thank you for sharing it. I should probably get going now.”

  “You were unaware of this story?” Louise asked.

  “I think some of it seemed a little familiar,” Ann said. “But for the most part it’s the first I’ve heard it.”

  Louise cocked her head. “Interesting.”

  “How so?” Ann asked.

  “I thought your father would have told you about it.”

  “I think he tried.” Ann’s skin prickled. “Why do you think he would have—”

  “Because of who he works for, Ann,” Louise said.

  “My dad? He’s retired. You know that. Frank McMichael took his place years ago.”

  Louise’s brow furrowed. Then she smiled. “Of course, of course. What was I thinking?”

  Chapter 12

  Teresa woke in the not-so-plush armchair i
n the corner of the bedroom, her neck and back stiff. She looked at the bed.

  Maggie was gone.

  Teresa jumped to her feet, shoved the door open, and ran to Maggie’s room. Not there, either. Then she heard giggles from the first floor—and Derrick’s voice. The scent of bacon wafted up the stairs.

  Teresa sat on the top step and listened to them. Even though she couldn’t hear what they said, their tones were joyous. She wanted to cry. With relief? With fear? With jealousy? She didn’t know.

  She went to the bathroom and prepared herself to greet her husband. When she finished the final touches on her hair and makeup, she went downstairs. Typically, she would be up well before Derrick and Maggie, and she would go into the basement. Maybe read one of the baby’s books to the silence. Maybe hold the nursing pillow on her lap. Maybe just sit in the rocker and wish.

  In the kitchen, Derrick was at the stove making pancakes. He flipped them over singing, “Pancakes, pancakes.”

  Maggie giggled. Teresa wanted to smile, wanted to be in there with them, happy, laughing, taking part in the family.

  Making an effort.

  She would walk in, kiss Maggie on the top of the head, sing along with Derrick. Hug him from behind. Kiss him. She would smile. They would smile with her. They would all be happy. Yes.

  After the events of last night, her effort with Maggie, she could see those things happening more easily than ever.

  She positioned a smile on her face and stepped into the kitchen.

  “Hey.” Her voice cracked.

  Maggie looked at her. Derrick paused mid-flapjack-flip. Neither one of them smiled. Neither one of them greeted her. It was stupid of her to think she could walk in and become part of them.

  The pancake on Derrick’s spatula dropped onto the floor. He turned his eyes to Maggie.

  “Man down!” he said. Maggie beamed.

  They were happier without her. She should just leave. Go to the basement and lock herself inside and not come out until they left to go do daddy-daughter stuff together. Things she wasn’t allowed to do with them.