by D A Fowler
She found the idea very disturbing. She hated it when someone she had no interest in, besides friendship, had a crush on her. For some reason it made her feel guilty for not reciprocating. She had already spent a little time trying to imagine the picture Spiro had drawn of her. In her mind it had been fairly graphic, though she didn’t think Spiro was all that familiar with the female anatomy or that good an artist. She wished he hadn’t told her about it.
Bruce was saying that Friday night was up to her; he would go along with her decision about Nancy’s little “party.”
“I’ll see what she says,” Lana replied absently, pulling her eyes away from the shadowy figure behind the glass. Maybe now that Sam was gone, Spiro wouldn’t come over anymore, supposing that his mother would even allow it. That would be a relief. She wouldn’t have to feel she was being stripped every time he looked at her, and maybe not just stripped. But Spiro still didn’t know about Sam. No telling what his reaction would be when he found out.
Dennis was surprised to see Marla’s Cutlass parked next to his Monte Carlo in the school parking lot; he knew she’d been absent from school that day. She was sitting behind her wheel with the window rolled down; seeing his reflection in the rearview mirror, she stepped out, smiled thinly at Wayne, then pulled Dennis aside. “Get rid of him, okay? I have to talk to you.”
Dennis frowned. “We were gonna go to the park for a while. What’s the deal anyway? You in more trouble or something?”
“Can’t you just take him home?” Marla growled. “This is important. I know you won’t think it is, but…it is. Real important.”
Wayne, feeling miffed, strode up to them and ribbed Dennis roughly. “You know it ain’t nice to tell secrets in front of somebody. What’s going on over here? Or is it, like, totally none of my business?”
Marla was about to tell him how extremely perceptive he was, but Dennis spoke first: “Can’t you tell Wayne about it too? He’s cool.” He avenged the ribbing by punching Wayne on the shoulder.
Marla could already hear the two of them laughing their butts off after she shared her news. She didn’t want such a serious matter to be turned into nothing but a joke. But she could sense that getting rid of Wayne would be no easier than getting rid of cockroaches, and she didn’t want to have to sit on her request until Dennis was good and ready to hear it.
She gritted her teeth. “If either one of you laughs, I’m going to slap you both,” she warned. “Come on, let’s get in your car, Dennis. I don’t want the whole school to hear this.”
Just then Nancy and Jennifer Parks strolled by on their way to Jennifer’s car. Nancy was staring straight ahead. Only Jennifer, her dishwater-blond hair fluttering in the mild breeze, glanced in their direction, and immediately looked guilty for doing so. But she saluted Dennis and Wayne anyway, muttering a rhetorical, “How’s it goin’?”
“Same as usual.” Dennis grinned, amused by the fact that Marla and Nancy still weren’t speaking to each other. Girl fights, he thought, were utterly ridiculous; the backstabbing, glaring, silent treatments, divvying up of mutual friends, on and on and on. Guys just punched it out and that was that.
Wayne said hi to Nancy, but she either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him. He shrugged and lit a cigarette. “Well, let’s get on with the conference. We’ve got a football game to do. Can’t make the school team, gotta play somewhere.”
“You could be on the school team if you did something about your grades,” Marla said snidely. “Both of you could. But that’s not what I want to talk about. Let’s get in the car. And remember, no laughing.”
They didn’t laugh, but their mouths were twitching so wildly Marla knew it was all they could do to hold it in. Wayne finally expelled a loud sigh and said with mock gravity, “Wow, that sounds pretty heavy, girl. So, let me get this straight. Nancy can stroke-out teachers now?”
Dennis trumpeted a short burst of laughter through pursed lips, his cheeks puffing out like balloons. Sticking to her promise, Marla’s hand shot out and deflated one of them. Wayne immediately put as much distance between himself and Marla as he could, hunkering against the driver’s side in the backseat.
Dennis, both surprised and enraged, slapped Marla back. “Don’t you ever hit me again, goddamnit. You wouldn’t even have made us promise not to laugh if you didn’t know how fucking stupid this is. I should’ve known this was what was coming…I could see it on your face last night. I told you, somebody’s just playing games. And you’re falling for it, hook, line, and sinker. I don’t give a shit what somebody wrote in a diary a hundred years ago, and I don’t give a fuck what Nancy found in that stupid tomb. There’s no such thing as fucking witchcraft.”
Marla held her cheek where Dennis had slapped her, her eyes hot with anger, her breathing shallow, rapid. She wanted to jump out of his car and never speak to him again. But the last thing she needed was for him to go blabbing all over school her suspicions about Nancy. If Nancy wasn’t already planning to do something awful to her, she certainly would after discovering what the grapevine had been turned on to. She managed to calm herself down without inflaming the situation any further. “Listen, I’m not asking you to believe it. I just want you to talk to Jay, when Nancy’s not around, and see if you can get anything out of him. If he has seen Nancy with a book—”
“Who do you think I am, fucking Colombo?” Dennis sneered. “I’m not going to make an ass out of myself because you’ve got paranoid, ridiculous ideas about Nancy and can’t see a joke for what it is. Even if she did find some kind of book in the tomb, it wasn’t in there two years ago, so it damn sure wasn’t buried with the Obers, which means somebody around here planted it for a joke. And maybe Nancy did do some weird hocus-pocus, but it didn’t have anything to do with Dr. Doom stroking out. Pure coincidence. I can’t believe you’re really serious about this.”
“Besides,” Wayne piped up, “I saw Doom going into his classroom today after school let out. He didn’t look too good, but he’s walking around on his own two feet. Guess Nancy needs to polish up her act.”
Marla turned to the backseat, horrified. “You saw Mr. Montgomery? Here? Today?”
“That’s what he said,” Dennis said scornfully. “So what do you think of your little theory now?”
Marla slunk down in the front seat, dizzy with confusion.
Fifteen
They were gathered together in a circle, holding hands, their heads bowed, eyes closed. Brother Carl Mitchell, pastor of Faith Tabernacle, rang out in a deep, clear voice: “O God, our blessed Savior, grant us Thy wisdom. Evil hath reared its ugly head in our very midst; tell us Thy servants how to fight against it, O Lord. We know we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the principalities, spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. We commit ourselves to do Thy will, dear Jesus. Guide us, we pray.”
Brother Timothy Gibson opened his mouth and began to spew out a litany of meaningless sounds, his voice continually rising in pitch. The group listened with growing excitement; God was speaking to them. One of them would be given the interpretation of the message delivered in tongues, and then they would know exactly what to do. Brother Gibson, who might have just recited the Chinese Pledge of Allegiance, finally fell silent. The rest waited in tingling anticipation for the Spirit to move. Finally Cornelia Mitchell, the pastor’s wife, lifted her head and said boldly, “Thus saith the Lord: the girl hath been infested by a mighty demon, an agent from Hell who existeth only to steal, kill, and destroy. I have already given thee the power over this enemy. In my name thou shalt cast him out and sendeth him back to the pit from whence he came. Thus saith the Lord.”
The small mildewy sanctuary rang with praises and moans of ecstasy. A couple melted to the floor “slain by the Spirit” and began to vibrate as though their bodies were being electrocuted. Hands were lifted up in thanksgiving.
Rose Hester shuffled over to the front pew and lo
wered her heavy body onto it, weeping openly. Mitchell and Gibson, awed and overcome by the message, clung to each other like magnets. They had never before come up against an actual demon, let alone a mighty one. The aspect of confronting such a thing and commanding it to leave its host body was rather frightening, but God would be with them, and the Holy Spirit would protect them.
Pamela put down the phone receiver and shuddered, then reached for her brandy snifter. What in God’s name was going on? First at Roger’s, a phone call from Edna something or other, blathering some of the same insanity Pamela had heard from her mother, except that now, somehow, Nancy Snell had entered the picture. And now one of Pamela’s neighbors, Renee Klingerman, calls her at home with a load of the same garbage, asking, “Isn’t that girl a close friend of Marla’s?”
Pamela couldn’t, of course, say anything about the call she’d received at the Snells’, that would possibly open the floor for questions she didn’t want to answer. But this was different. Taking another gulp of brandy to bolster her courage, she left the library in search of her daughter. She finally found her alone in the clubhouse, thumbing through a Bible, the white pocket-sized King James with a zip-up cover she’d gotten for Easter almost a decade earlier. Pamela had never seen her open it before.
As if caught red-handed with contraband, Marla quickly hid the book behind her back. “What’s the matter, Mom? You look upset.”
Pamela stared down at her, unable to completely focus. She weaved slightly from side to side. “What’s going on with Nancy?”
Marla’s face went ashen. “Oh crap. How did you find out?”
“I just got a call from Renee Klingerman. Don’t ask me how she found out—I have no idea. But I have the distinct feeling you started this. You did, didn’t you?”
Marla put on a look of defiance. “I was afraid…I had to talk to somebody. But maybe I was wrong. I could have sworn…but Mr. Montgomery’s okay, I guess. I would have talked to you about it, but I know how you feel about things like that. I couldn’t—I felt I had to do something, just in case…”
“Just in case Sharon Valley was about to be overrun by witches…or is it demons? I can’t seem to keep them straight,” Pamela cackled drunkenly. “I see you’ve got your Bible out—what’s the matter, still not convinced? Think you’re gonna find the answers in that stupid little book? That book was written two thousand years ago, Marla! It has nothing to do with today. What they thought was demon possession was nothing but epilepsy and lunacy! I find it simply amazing that twentieth century modern men still hang on to that…that fairy tale. They drive Lincoln Town Cars and fly in Learjets, but they think there’s a demon behind every bush! Don’t you find that extremely amusing?”
“Mother, you’re drunk.”
Pamela began to cry and laugh simultaneously. “You’re damn right I’m drunk. And I’ve also had it up to my ears with this…this witchcraft business. I don’t want to hear anymore about it, you understand me?” Marla tossed the Bible across the room. “There, are you satisfied? You don’t have to get hysterical, Mother. It’s over now, so just leave me alone.”
Across the street and one house down from the Snell’s residence was a nondescript white house with light blue trim and sagging eaves under which hung empty wire flower baskets. The flowers had long since died. It was a house typical of the east side of the valley; nothing, in fact, set it apart from any of the others. At least, nothing outside.
Inside it was not so typical. The walls were painted black, and on them, painted in white, were the same markings that were on the back wall of the Obers’ tomb. By night the rooms were lighted with candles placed on the various pieces of mahogany furniture that smelled of dust and age. A grandfather clock ticked loudly in the living room, a heartbeat in the silence. Tonight, as always, a chair rocked back and forth on a handwoven rug in sync with the ticking.
The sixty-nine-year-old woman cocked her head and listened. There were footsteps coming up her sidewalk. A familiar pain tugged inside her chest: fear. She was well-acquainted with it. She had been born into it.
She should never have come back to Sharon Valley. But her mother had insisted that she come to help; for the time was at hand. Living temples had to be provided for Myrantha and Nathaniel.
At the age of nineteen Morganna Ober had moved to Rapid City, where she wasn’t known as “the witches’ daughter.” She never worked, for she had learned her childhood lessons well, and there were several good spells for cultivating generous benefactors. One of them had given more than money. He’d given his seed, and nine months later Eliza was born. But from the time Eliza understood what her mother was, she had secretly abhorred her, her and her deplorable craft, and had often desired to leave. Why she never did was still a mystery to her. Perhaps spells had been used on her as well. So in the later years, as Morganna planned festively for her parents’ return, Eliza considered how she might bring those plans to naught.
Together they had returned to Sharon Valley a couple of months earlier, Morganna calling herself Maude Chandler to avoid any unwanted attention that the name Morganna Ober would surely attract. For all anyone knew, they were just two average elderly ladies, the same typical gray matrons you might expect to meet at any quilting circle.
She should have just burned the infernal ledger, in spite of the curse. Eliza had a terrible feeling that what she had done to stop the return of her evil grandparents hadn’t been enough: killing her mother along with her power to invoke satanic assistance; scattering the remains of Myrantha and Nathaniel within the same grave she’d dug for their daughter and sprinkling the foul lot with blessed water; painting the symbols on the tomb walls, which would bind any spiritual entity that entered to retrieve the ledger. She’d also tried to turn the inverted cross, but found it impossible.
Now there was a knock at the door. It wouldn’t be a neighbor. She was hardly acquainted with any of them. They thought she and her mother were strange but uninteresting recluses. And they kept to themselves, going out in public as little as possible, and only to buy food and supplies. Eliza had no friends here. Never had. So who could it be…?
Ever since she had performed her deeds in the old cemetery, Eliza wondered what might happen. On the worldly side, there was the possibility of someone discovering the grave. A hungry animal could dig it up. Maybe the neighbors were more observant than she suspected, and would note the unexplained disappearance of the eldest “Chandler.” But even the worst she could suffer at the hands of the law couldn’t compare to the terror of what might happen on the otherworldly side.
The caller knocked again. Her fingers twitched on the smooth arms of the chair. Perhaps, if she just sat very quietly, whoever it was would go away and leave her alone. But she didn’t think so. No, she had been right to fear. It was almost time. From the depths of Hell, they had sent someone…
Slowly, the doorknob began to turn. The door was locked, as always, and the caller became frustrated. The mechanism jangled as the intruder tried to force it. Trembling, the woman rose to her feet. But before she could reach the door, blue sparks burst from the keyhole in the knob, accompanied by a crackling sound and the smell of ozone. She recognized the odor immediately. It was inseparably linked to the fear. The door began to open.
The face was unfamiliar but the presence was unmistakable. Her mother had summoned it many times. It stepped in, dark eyes glittering in the candlelight. The door closed behind it of its own accord. “Good evening, Eliza.”
“Go away,” she whispered, arthritic fingers digging into the flesh of her forearms. “Leave me alone. I command you to leave.”
It laughed, a deep, guttural sound, almost a belching. The stench of ozone became stronger. Taking a step forward, its eyes locked defiantly to hers. “Is that any way to treat an old friend? Besides, I can’t leave yet…the bungling novice who summoned me directed me to this flesh using the Ixantra pentagram, of all things. Ah…I see you
r interior decorator appreciates the same design. Or are you perhaps inclined to keep your guests in bondage? How rude. Come now, Eliza, let’s sit and have a chat. I command you. ”
Her bones became rubber. Eliza felt herself sinking to the floor. The thing caught her and helped her to her chair, its touch scorching her through her sweater, its strength making her weaker, as if her energy were being sapped from her body into its borrowed mortal flesh. How could such a thing have happened?
It sat beside her on the black velvet settee, striking a gentleman’s pose. Behind the piercing black eyes, sapphire flame danced. The rest of the features were dead. Its hands were folded calmly over a crossed knee. “Dear, dear Eliza. What have you done?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing.”
“Nothing?” One eyebrow arched. “Come now, Eliza, you know better than to try to lie to me. Your mother is with us. Did you really think killing her would do any good? That destroying the High Priestess and her consort’s bones would nullify their contract? What a fool you are. It is the Gate incantation you should have destroyed. Why didn’t you destroy it, Eliza?”
“You know why,” she hissed.
The demon smiled slightly, apparently enjoying its game of cat and mouse. “Ah yes; Myrantha’s curse. To destroy the incantation was to die…your mother’s little insurance policy. She never trusted you, you know. Didn’t it ever occur to you to bury it in a strongbox of some sort in hallowed ground? I suppose not…you always were rather dull. Well, I must say your actions have made us very unhappy with you.”
“What would things like you care?” she asked, her pulse beating visibly at her temples and throat. “What is it to you if they don’t come back?”
“What?” The demon drew back, its voice a reprimand. “You assume that the Master thinks nothing of it when his promises go unfulfilled? He honors all of his contracts, my dear. The last thing he would do is disappoint a High Priestess. He wouldn’t dream of it. But there is another reason. Thanks to you, dear Eliza, we now have the opportunity to reclaim what is rightfully ours. You should never have hidden the book in the tomb. You might just as well have placed it right in our hands.” It laughed and leaned closer.