Before her dead mother.
First came the dreams. Every night, as soon as sleep took her, a movie would begin to play in her mind. Sometimes it was soft and beautiful, she was an infant, held in the arms of a woman with long black hair and a smile so full of love that it seemed to light the world. Other nights, the movie would switch to terrifying scenes. The same woman, high on a rooftop, arms spread like the wings of an angel, and then falling and falling, ending with her blood washed body splayed over concrete that was cold and wet, the once beautiful features cracked and broken.
“Mother,” Jilly said. Her mouth and tongue fumbled the word. It felt strange upon her lips. Her fingers went to the tiny nugget of rock that hung from a slim gold chain around her neck.
She’d found it one day in the pocket of her jeans, and recognized it at once as the same exact necklace worn by the dark haired woman in her dreams. Mr. Elton, her Science teacher, had noticed her wearing it one day and told her it was actually a piece of petrified wood. Seemed like a rock to her.
After the necklace, other things started showing up. Dead roses were common. She often found them lying on her bed, inside her backpack, or sometimes tucked way back inside one of the dresser drawers. The fragile petals always broke apart as soon as Jilly touched them, their fragrance thick and rich, even in death.
Gradually, the nature of these little gifts changed. No longer were they just arbitrary arrivals. Instead, she found things that she actually needed. Homework not finished? She would wake to find completed assignments waiting on her desk.
Next was the jacket. She noticed it in a store window one day—black and smooth with silvery studs running down the front and along the edges of the sleeves. She had a hard-on for that jacket. And just looking at it she was overcome with sadness. How completely out of her grasp it was. Just a stupid fake leather jacket that would never be hers. Nice as they were, the Gilmores weren’t gonna spring for a two hundred dollar jacket.
The next week she found it hanging inside her closet, and it already had the smell of her, as if she had worn it for months.
A few weeks later, a teacher that had always oozed dislike for her didn’t show up for class. Several days passed with no sign of the teacher. Later the students were told she had suddenly left town, though no one was really sure why.
It seemed that somehow, either Jilly herself, or some unknown entity was sort of clearing the way.
Making things right.
It should have left her worried and afraid, and sometimes she was. Sometimes she was just plain terrified, but she was also excited. It was as if her whole life had been gray, and now it was full of reds, and blues, and yellows, and all the colors in the world.
Jilly put her feet down onto the floor and tip toed over to the bureau on the other side of the room. Her clothes were folded and ready. She pulled on black jeans, a black t-shirt, then pushed her arms into the black studded jacket. For the sake of movement, she left it hanging open. She looked at herself in the mirror that hung on the outside of the closet door. Too tall, and rail thin, I look like some goth-girl scarecrow.
Her blue eyes were shadowed with dark circles, the bones in her face sharp and jutting, made more so by the stark contrast of her long white blond hair. Hair that wouldn’t dye. She had tried many times to change her hair color, but nothing worked.
She pulled a black ski mask down over her head. It would be cold out there tonight.
Crossing back over to the bed, Jilly sat down and put on socks and her black high top sneakers. Then she bent down, put her hands under the bed, patting around blindly until her fingers touched on the bundled rough canvas of her laundry bag. She pulled it out from under the bed and tossed it on the rumpled covers. Eyeballing it, she figured it had way more space than she needed, but it was all she had. It would have to do. If everything went right tonight, it would be loaded down with cash.
She picked her backpack up from the floor and placed it on the bed alongside the empty laundry bag. The backpack was already full to bulging as it now contained most everything she owned that mattered. She opened it up, and with a little rearranging she managed to get the laundry bag inside. She left it right on top where it would be easy to get to. It wouldn’t do for her to have to dig through the bag for it.
Oh my God, the book.
She put her hand under the pillow, and her fingers closed around the thin volume.
Thank god, it was still there. Just as it had been every night since it first appeared.
She picked up the little blue book and ran her fingers across the binding. She liked the way it felt, kind of smooth and rough at the same time. It was old and worn. The cover featured a large brown rabbit, and the title read: Home for a Bunny by Margaret Wise.
“Where could a bunny find a home, under a rock or under a stone….” She began to recite, as she thumbed through the pages. The book had arrived two weeks ago, and with it, a memory—foggy, barely there, but she remembered.
Her mother had read her this book… In a voice like tinkling bells, she could hear her reading this very story. It was just a fragment, but real, and warm.
She’d been two when her mother died and had never before had a memory of her.
When she first found the book, she started at the beginning and read it all the way through to the end. It was a really stupid story about a baby rabbit that wanted to find something better. The moral of the story was: stay the fuck at home… What bullshit, only if you wanted to be bored out of your mind.
She had almost closed it then, but something made her flip through those final blank pages, and on the very last one, someone had written in bold black letters:
September 23, 2000
Mamou, La.
For my darling Jillian
September 23rd, 2000 would have been her second birthday, a week before her mother’s death. With something like longing, she closed the book and tucked it into the backpack. She wondered what time it was, and realized she hadn’t heard the clock strike again. But it had to be close to 1:00 am.
As if on cue, a single bong could be heard coming from deep within the house.
“Okay, time to ride.” Or walk, in her case. Walk through the woods in the dark, perfect bait for some deranged serial killer, or maybe something even worse. She had to do it, though. This might be her last chance. Billy Ray’s trailer would be empty tonight for sure.
She prayed the money would be there.
She grabbed her purse, and threw the backpack over her shoulder. She looked one more time around the lonely little room, feeling a twinge of guilt—the Gilmore’s would worry when they realized she’d gone missing.
They won’t worry much, though.
Outside the house, and down the gravel drive, Jilly crossed the blacktop of the highway, then entered the woods. She began walking, following the highway, but still hidden from view. She lit a cigarette and drew in a long lungful, savoring, then exhaling the smoke. She had never felt so alone in her life, but there was excitement too, and a hope that she might be on the way to answering so many questions.
There were two miles of woodland to cover before she reached Billy Ray's trailer. She didn’t like the woods. There were things in the woods, of that she was sure. She found that she wasn’t afraid.
In fact, she almost felt like turning and shouting, “Come on out and get me, you fuckers!” The thought of it made her laugh into the darkness. Yeah, you’re a brave one alright. What would you do if something laughed back? Shit your pants, that’s what.
The gloom of the night brought with it a crisp dry chill. As Jilly walked, she thought of Mamou. She dreamed of it all the time now.
She didn’t know what any of it meant. Not the dreams, not the little gifts, so obviously from a mother that was dead. She had no answers. But maybe when she got to Mamou she could figure it out.
Somewhere in the darkness she heard the hoot of an owl. Shivering inside her jacket, Jilly kept her eyes on the ground and walked on.
C
hapter 3
The sleepy little Cajun town of Mamou was little more than a single street flanked on each end by the soaring steeples of two churches. They could be seen as sentinels, perhaps protecting the town from any evils that might dare to enter. In truth, most residents of the little village saw the placement of their churches more as two opposing gladiators, readying themselves for battle.
On the southern end of Main Street stood Mamou First Baptist, the larger of the two churches and obviously home to the more prosperous congregation. If a beauty contest were held, featuring all the buildings in the town, it would surely be the winner. The church was red brick, with sparkling white trim surrounding tall stained glass windows. Well-tended rose bushes flanked polished marble steps leading up to an entry of wide double doors.
The spire was tall and narrow, and deep within the recesses a hidden sound system broadcast various hymns twice a day—at noon and then again at six in the evening. Preacher Simmonds had experimented with having the hymns play at the stroke of every hour, but even the most devout in the town had considered these hourly gospel serenades not only annoying, but also a bit showy for their tastes.
The northern end of main street was home to the Catholic church, a church to which the huge majority of Mamou belonged. Unfortunately for Father Labonne, many of his parishioners were more than casual about attending mass. On any given Sunday, while the Baptist church would be standing room only, St. Mary’s usually played to only a handful. Regular attendees consisted of a few of the elderly—some devout, others just covering their bases as the shadow of their own mortality grew longer. Then of course there was a smattering of small children forced to attend by parents, as if offering up their flesh and blood would show they still had a stake in their God.
Though St. Mary’s was well tended, it had about it an air of gloom. The church was constructed of stone, and in defiance of frequent scrubbing, moss and mold covered much of the lower half of the building. The grounds surrounding it were marshy, and despite frequent attempts by both Father Labonne and some of the more restless parishioners, nothing seemed to take hold beyond the ferns and cattails that grew with wild abandon.
The rear of the church yard led into a small but pleasant park. Though the land was actually owned by the church, the town council paid for its maintenance. It was a loose arrangement that had been in effect for a couple of centuries, and seemed to suit both the diocese and the town.
Inside the park were picnic tables, a few scattered stone grills, and a couple of jungle gyms for the children. In the center of the park was a large fountain which sat adjacent to a cavernous outdoor pavilion. Though the pavilion could have easily accommodated dozens of people, it most always stood empty. More than a decade earlier, sometime very late on a Saturday night, a well-liked young woman named Mindy Freemont had entered the darkened pavilion, rope in hand, and hung herself from the exposed rafters. The hanging had shaken the town to its very core, and the pavilion became nothing more than a reminder of the gruesome tragedy. Many in the town had lobbied both the council and the church to just “tear the damn thing down,” and though this deliberate demolition never occurred, the pavilion had been left untended, and nature now threatened to do what the town had not.
In the past few weeks, however, the abandoned pavilion had received at least one frequent visitor. He was tall, measuring six-foot three in his stocking feet, and though a lean looking fellow, his body was in fact covered in muscles that were toned beyond what could be achieved by mortal men. There was about him an unmistakable hint of danger, coupled with an indefinable element of wrongness.
Being in his presence for more than a few moments at a time could leave a human feeling that the world had somehow gone out of kilter. Fully understanding the impact his presence had on these lesser evolved brothers and sisters, he’d spoken to almost no one. When communication was unavoidable, he kept it to an absolute minimum.
The visitor had changed his visage several times since arriving in this strange new world. He’d arrived wearing a suit and tie, his long black hair transformed into a steel gray comb-over. With an age progression formula, he was able to add thirty years to his appearance. This particular look was believed to be inconspicuous and common in the human world. His information, however, proved to be flawed. The habitants of this town favored much more casual attire, and suits, ties, and careful grooming were not the norm. After much trial and error he’d finally discovered that in many ways, his true appearance blended in about as well as anything he could have devised, which was fortunate, because though shape shifting was one of the few abilities he still had access to in this world, holding to the change for long periods of time resulted in tremendous physical pain.
Most days the visitor walked among these people in his true form, in clothing suited to conform to what they would incorrectly perceive as his age—somewhere between 18 and 25, though in his world, his age would be counted in centuries. Various thrift stores, of which there seemed to be an inordinate number, had provided more than enough t-shirts and ragged jeans, and he blended in well.
His true name was Adamel, but in this world, he had decided to call himself Adam—Adam Everly. Not only did the alias remind him of his true name, but choosing the name of their first man also paid homage to the ancient lore of these primitive humans.
Uncanny, really, how close they were to the overall truth of things, and this without the type of guidance received by the dwellers of his dimension.
As Adamel made his way along the gravel path that wound through the park, he was once again struck by the emptiness surrounding him. Such a beautiful place, yet enjoyed by so few. Where were the families gathering with their young, or the lovers, their blankets spread beneath the canopies of these huge and ancient trees? With lives so fleeting, it was incomprehensible that these people would not take more time to enjoy themselves. They seemed uniquely unaware of the need to ensure the blossoming of their spirits. Such peculiar beings, always hurrying this way and that. Being amongst them was an exhausting experience.
He entered the pavilion, his eyes instantly adjusting to the gloom within. A great evil had taken place beneath this roof, leaving behind an eternal mark upon the rotted timbers. Judging from the putrid effervescence that literally glowed within the shadowy darkness, the perpetrator of this evil had been strong—so strong that even humans, though lacking his ability to see these unmistakable tracks of the beast, could sense the stain of it’s passing.
He took his customary seat on top of a worn wooden table situated near the outer edge of the structure. Here, a curtain of vines covered the outside openings, blocking out all but the faintest rays of light. Above him, the girl hung from the rafters, opaque and dim, her body swaying slightly, an other-worldly breeze turning her body this way and that. Her skin was gray and mottled in death, her face a mask of terrible sadness. He imagined in her final moments she must have realized all that had been taken from her. She must have seen the woman she might one day have become, the children she’d been meant to bear, the life that could have been hers. She would have seen and tasted the anguish her passing would bring to those who loved her. Though he had not known her in life, he felt a stirring that may have been mourning, and the significance of her passing troubled him greatly. The perpetrator of her passing had not placed the noose around her neck, but he had killed her just the same. Killed not only her body, but her soul as well. He’d not done this out of anger or madness, nor some warped sense of necessity. The murder of this girl, just on the brink of becoming a woman, had served but one purpose for the servant of evil who had committed it. Plain and simply, it had been fun.
Adamel had discovered the remaining imprint of the dead girl within hours of coming to this world. The trace of her had been strong, a beacon that had led him here to this lovely park, and into this terrible pavilion. Her death had not been an easy one, and though she’d slipped the noose around her own neck, he knew she’d been under the influence of evil, her true self los
t to the beast that led her to this spot. Like so many humans, her inner self was of two beings. The light and the dark. Of all the species in the universe, only humans could play host to such conflicting truths. From the moment of their births, the universal battle between good and evil began to play out in their souls. They were doomed to have this battle launched every second of their lives.
He wondered what that must be like for them. His race never had to face such inner struggles. Good and bad, right and wrong, darkness and light—all of those things were understood by his kind, but were not a part of them. They were simply truth. By following the path of truth, they were never burdened with questions. To do evil would lead to downfall, so it was not even a temptation. It helped that they were universal in spirit, however, and had long ago learned the pain of inflicting hurt on others. It caused an immediate corresponding pain to themselves.
If Adam chose to slap one of his brethren, he would feel an immediate slap upon his own face. If he chose to kill another of his kind, he would immediately suffer the same death himself. There was simply no choice for his kind to do wrong.
His time spent here had clearly shown him that the spirit bonding of his people was clearly preferable to the terrible choices these humans were confronted with. Under the circumstances, it was amazing that they had been able to advance even to this level of civilization. The temptation to give in to greed, lust, or any of the other deadly sins must be huge without the threat of immediate consequences and punishment. What was truly amazing was that most of them seemed to be walking on the side of light. Sure, there were plenty of petty infractions, lightly treading into darkness. A little lie here and there, vanity, greed, cruelty. But most went no further, somehow drawing a line against the larger evil such as murder and torture. Indeed, though most would face no true reckoning here on this plain of existence, they seemed for the most part to be drawn to the side of goodness. They had so much of The Maker in them, that was their gift, and for a moment Adamel almost felt jealousy. He could feel the faint stirrings of the strange and lost emotion just beneath his consciousness. But that was all, just a stirring. For a moment it made him wonder what it would feel like to be consumed by such a thing. He shuddered, repelled by even the idea of what such a loss of control could mean.
Beasts in the Garden Page 2