Possessed (Pagan Light Book 1)

by JoAnne Keltner

  A woman in her thirties, with a baby on her hip, answered the door. Maybe Stephanie had a sister.

  “Hi. My name is Jackie Turov. Me and my friend Jason are doing a piece for our journalism class about the fire at Holy Resurrection, and we’d like to ask some questions about Stephanie Yarrow. We want to write a more humanistic story than the newspaper article we read. We were told Stephanie’s grandparents live here.”

  “They died about two years ago,” the woman said. “We bought this house last year from their daughter.”

  “Oh.” Jackie’s heart sank. Now what? There was no way this woman was going to let them in to look around, not without a really good excuse.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be of any help.” The baby fidgeted in the woman’s arms and tugged her hair.

  Jackie stared at the doorbell. “S’okay.” Maybe she could get insight from Stephanie’s mom. She might even have some of Stephanie’s personal belongings. “Would you know where the daughter is?”

  “Florida, most likely. She’d been flying back and forth taking care of funeral arrangements and the estate.”

  “Would you have her number?”

  “Not really. My realtor handled everything.”

  Jackie’s brow creased in frustration.

  The woman adjusted the baby on her hip and then reached out her hand. “My name’s Debbie, by the way.” She and Jackie shook. “I heard the Yarrows were good people. It’s really nice of you to want to do a humanistic piece.”

  “Thanks, but I guess we’re out of luck.” Her mind raced to make up some story that would require seeing the inside of the house for herself.

  The baby let out a shrill cry. “Sorry. Feeding time.” A three-year-old girl came out of nowhere, hugged he woman’s leg, and stared up at Jackie. Debbie’s shoulders dropped. “Gotta go. Nice meeting you.”

  “Yeah, you too,” Jackie said, stunned that she had gotten nowhere.

  The woman closed the door.

  Jackie looked to Jason and sighed. “Back to the library, I guess.” Just as they turned and started down the steps, the door opened.

  “Hey,” the woman said. She peered out from the half-closed door, the baby’s head pressed against her chin. “My best friend Nancy used to be their caretaker. Maybe she can help.”

  Jackie’s hope returned. “Really?”

  “Maybe. Let me text her. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this to begin with. I guess, when you’re home with kids, your brain turns to mush.”

  “She lives nearby?”

  “Pretty much. Twenty minutes from here.”

  ***

  Nancy led Jackie and Jason to the kitchen where they sat at the breakfast island on white stools. The kitchen was immaculate. And Nancy looked just as clean in her nurse’s smock and pants. Even her gym shoes were spotless.

  “I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this interview at first,” she said to Jackie. “The Yarrows were good people, and the way their granddaughter died was horrific. I just can’t believe she’d be that careless, being pregnant and all.” She covered her mouth as if she didn’t mean for that to slip out.

  “She was pregnant?”

  “Yeah. You’re not going to put that in your report, are you? Mr. and Mrs. Yarrow didn’t want anyone to know. They paid off the editor of the Ravenwood Gazette to keep it hush-hush.”

  “I don’t know. It certainly adds a new twist,” Jackie said, just to make it sound like they were really researching a story for their journalism class.

  Nancy sighed. “Oh, well. I guess it doesn’t matter if anyone knows now. She’s dead, and so are her nearest relatives.”

  “Why would they—Oh, she wasn’t married, was she? And she was a Russian Orthodox working for the church.”

  “You got the picture,” Nancy said.

  “What about the baby’s father?”

  “Are you kidding? That secret died with her.”

  “Was she dating?”

  “No. Stephanie wasn’t all there. She was delusional. Her mother had her when she was forty-seven. By the time Stephanie was in high school, her parents were retired. They moved to Florida and left her in Ravenwood to live with the grandparents. Father Dmitriev gave her a job at the church. Something that she could handle and would allow her to bring in a small income.”

  “That’s cruel,” Jason said. “Her parents left her behind?”

  “It’s not like you think. Stephanie would never have been able to adjust to the move and to a new location. She had to have everything the same every day. She was kind of ritualistic. It kept her as sane as she could be. Plus, she was always close with her grandparents, and they, being in their eighties, had someone else to watch over them when I wasn’t there.”

  “Did you interact with her before the fire at any time?” Jackie asked. “I mean like, how was she dealing with the pregnancy and all?”

  “I don’t know. I barely saw her. She spent most of her time at the church. When she came home, she went straight to her room. I remember her room was like a shrine. Talk about carrying your work home with you.”

  Her room! It would tell them everything they needed to know about Stephanie’s emotions.

  Jackie stood up and reached out her hand. “Thank you so much for answering our questions.”

  With a loose, reluctant grip, Nancy shook her hand. “Could you not put my name down as a source? I don’t want anyone to know I was the one who let the cat out of the bag. I work with people every day. A lot of them confide in me. I don’t want to lose their trust.”

  “Sure. No problem. My lips and pen are sealed. Just one more thing, though. Which room was Stephanie’s?”

  ***

  Jackie and Jason drove back to Ravenwood to Mr. and Mrs. Yarrow’s old house. Debbie was surprised to see them. The baby was still on her hip—poor Debbie.

  “Hi, it’s us again.” Jackie said.

  “Problems?” Debbie asked.

  “Uh, no. We just wanted to thank you. We talked to Nancy and got a good interview. I was also wondering, though, if you would show us around the house. We like to give our articles a feeling of place and character.”

  She looked at them like they wanted to come in to steal something or case the place. “I don’t know. I was just about to start dinner and put the baby to bed. When’s your paper due?”

  “Tomorrow,” Jackie said, before Jason blurted something less urgent, like next week.

  “All right. I hope my kids will be just as involved in their homework when they go to school.”

  “Thank you.”

  They stepped inside the foyer.

  “This is the living room,” Debbie said, pointing to the right.

  Jackie had a pen and paper in hand, but what she really wanted to do was walk around and touch things. She also desperately wanted to go to Stephanie’s room, but Debbie might get suspicious if she acted too eager. “You know, I’m kind of the touchy-feely kind. Can I just walk around and take in the atmosphere?”

  Debbie bounced the baby on her hip. “Sure,” she said. But she was still looking at them like they might steal something.

  Jackie touched the back of the couch, but she could tell the furniture belonged to the new owners. She walked across the wooden floor. Stepped around toys. She detected chaos, but a happy chaos. She touched the bricks on the fireplace, closed her eyes.

  Sickness festered in the walls. The grandparents were very ill before they died. She could taste it and smell it. Bitter and foul. She moved her hand around the bricks while she breathed deeply and exhaled slowly, expelling the negative energy.

  “Boy, she’s really a creative type, isn’t she?” Debbie said to Jason.

  “Can I see Stephanie’s old room?” Jackie asked.

  “I wouldn’t even know—”

  “It’s the last bedroom on the left,” Jackie spouted.

  “You really did your homework.”

  “We want a good grade. Actually, we need a good grade. We got an F on our last assignment.”<
br />
  As they walked up the stairs, Jackie ran her hand over the railing. Too much data, too many hands. The wallpaper in the hallway was old, yellowing, and dense with sickness and despair.

  “That wallpaper’s got to go,” Debbie said. “We started remodeling downstairs first. The kitchen cost a fortune. You know, they still had gold appliances?”

  Jackie didn’t care if they had a coal cookstove and an icebox. She just wanted to see Stephanie’s bedroom. She stepped around Debbie and touched the door handle to Stephanie’s room. It was cold, somber.

  “May I?” Jackie asked.

  “Sure,” Debbie said. “Excuse the mess. It’s serving as a storage room right now.”

  Jackie pushed the door open. Boxes were stacked against the walls. Some were blocking the window. On one wall, there was a white spot in the shape of a cross. If Stephanie had been praying to it, her energies and emotions would have gathered there.

  “Could Jason and I move some of these boxes? I’d like to get a closer look at that mark on the wall.”

  “Sure,” Debbie said, a tone of suspicion in her voice.

  She and Jason pushed two stacked boxes away from the wall. Then, she placed her hand over the white spot.

  “All right,” Debbie said. “What are you doing now? You’re not writing an article, are you? Are you psychic? Are you the Holy Resurrection girl?”

  Busted! Jackie pretended not to have heard her.

  “Yes, but she doesn’t call herself psychic,” Jason said.

  “So why are you really here?” Debbie asked.

  “To get answers,” Jason said.

  “To what?”

  “We can’t say.”

  “This won’t affect the baby, will it?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t think so. She’s just reading right now.”

  “She does other things too?”

  “She heals negative energies with her hands.”

  Freak her out, why don’t you? “Jas, come on now. I’m trying to focus—and no, this won’t hurt the baby.”

  The wall was cold. Most likely due to the heat vents being shut off in the room. Jackie opened up to the stored energy. A ribbon of fear fluttered through her heart, and words poured from her mouth.

  “Theotokos Virgin, I’m so scared. Please, help me. Please take it away.” Jackie dropped to her knees and clasped her hands in prayer. “Mother, please, tell me what to do. You were pregnant too out of wedlock. Please guide me. Send your angels down to help me, to aid me, like they did for you.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach and rocked back and forth. “Theotokos Virgin, rejoice, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee—”

  “Jackie!”

  Jason’s hand on her shoulders nudged her into reality.

  I’m Jackie, she thought. And I’m not pregnant. She took a deep breath to soak up the negative energy then exhaled to release it.

  “Is she okay?” Debbie asked. “Maybe I should get the baby out of here.”

  “I’m okay,” Jackie said, but the thought of being in Stephanie’s predicament sent chills down her spine.

  Jason grabbed her arm and helped her to her feet.

  “She was scared and sad,” she said to Jason. “She may have been desperate, hungering for love when she was at church that day. I mean, she was all alone with this.”

  “You think she committed suey?” Jason asked.

  “I don’t know. But I can’t help but think it’s my fault she died.”

  “You were twelve, and you were scared. You didn’t even know what was happening to you. Besides, what’s done is done. You can’t change the past.”

  “True. The only thing I can do now is put the energy to rest.” That is, if her “science project” worked in church.

  What if it didn’t?

  Chapter 44

  When Jackie came home, Babu was in the kitchen slicing carrots for soup, her chubby arms bulging like sacks of potatoes from her housedress sleeves. Since Jackie had been involved in saving the world, she had slipped in taking care of Babu. She kissed Babu’s cheek as carrot slices dropped from Babu’s knife into the soup pot on the burner.

  “I can do this, you know,” Jackie said.

  Babu brushed her away. She was back to the way she liked it—in control and manning her kitchen. Jackie let her be. Mom was right. There was no changing Babu. Jackie had quit trying to get her to take her meds. She didn’t know how Babu knew when she slipped them into her food, but she did. Jackie thought what Babu was really mad about was that she had refused to pray with her. There was no changing herself either.

  In her room, Jackie dug out David’s card from her satchel. Her heart fluttered when she read his name, handwritten above Father Dmitriev’s.

  You’re not calling to ask him out, she told herself. You’re calling him to update him on what you found out about Stephanie.

  She keyed in his number. As the phone rang, her heart beat faster. She took a deep breath, held it for about ten seconds, and then slowly exhaled. She did this several times until her heart rate slowed—well, until it slowed enough so that she wouldn’t go into cardiac arrest from hearing David’s voice.

  “David Davidovich,” he said.

  “It’s me, Jackie.” Great. She sounded like she was out of breath.

  “Jackie?” The sound of his voice made her forget why she had called.

  Control. “I have some horrible news to tell you.”

  “You’ve chosen the dark side?”

  “Ha, no. It’s Stephanie. She was pregnant when she died.”

  “Wait,” he whispered. “Let me find a better place to talk.”

  His footsteps echoed as if he was walking through a church or rectory hall.

  “Jackie?” he said in a low voice.

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “So, you are sure about this? I mean, how do you know?”

  “Her grandparents’ caretaker told me. And, I felt it when I was in her room. She was scared and desperate. She prayed to the Virgin for help.”

  “So now what?”

  “Well, now that I know what she was going through, I’ll be able to put myself in her place and counteract the energy.”

  David was silent.

  “You still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you good with this? You know, if Father Dmitriev catches us, he’s not going to recommend you for priesthood. You’ll be out the door looking for another career. You do realize what you’re risking?”

  “I do. I trust God will prevail. Are you good with what we bargained?”

  She gritted her teeth. “I… I would give it a try… if it came to that,” she said, her jaw clenched.

  “It is all I ask. Then I will see you Thursday, at five?”

  “Yes.”

  ***

  Wednesday at school, Jackie was still parting crowds and getting fearful glances. She really hated this. She had wanted everyone to stay away from her, but this was ridiculous. In study hall, she caught Trish glaring at her. Jackie thought about going over there, telling her that she talked to Jason, but at this point, she didn’t really care. Trish was being childish about this whole thing. Let her suffer. Let her think that Jackie and Jason were a couple.

  In American Lit, Jackie was so happy to see Jason, she wanted to hug him. He must have seen it in her eyes because when he talked to her there was a content smile on his face and his aura was bright. Yesterday, working through the Stephanie Yarrow investigation, it felt like they were a team again.

  While Mr. Davis explained the symbolism in The Awakening, Jackie wrote a quick note telling Jason it was on for Thursday. She crumpled the note and dropped it to the floor. He picked it up, read it, and mouthed something to her.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “What time?” Jason whispered back.

  “Is there something going on here?” Mr. Davis asked.

  “No,” Jackie said abruptly.

  “Don’t you two see enough of each other after school? D
o I have to separate you?”

  The class was laughing.

  “No, we won’t disturb the class anymore,” she said.

  “You’re not disturbing the class. You’re disturbing me. Makes me feel like I’m not as interesting as Jason.”

  The class roared.

  Jackie shrugged. “What can I say?”

  Mr. Davis stared at her with his bloodshot eyes. The lines around his mouth and eyes had deepened since the beginning of the semester. He looked as if he had aged ten years. His aura was pure black. Cramps tugged her stomach lining. She wished that whatever was going on with him would get resolved because he was really being a pain in her butt lately.

  Chapter 45

  Thursday morning, Jackie awoke with a killer headache. She felt like the back of her head was being squeezed in a vice. When she sat up in bed, the blood drained from her face and the pressure in her skull made her feel like throwing up. She made a dizzied rush down the hall and to the bathroom.

  Kneeling on the cold bathroom tile, she dry heaved over the toilet.

  Caffeine. She needed lots of caffeine.

  In the kitchen, she held her head until the coffee was finished brewing. She poured herself a cupful, leaving it black instead of diluting it with cream like she normally did. She needed the full effect of the caffeine, and she needed it fast.

  It tasted like shit.

  At the kitchen table, she took a few more sips of the bitter brew and then leaned her head back slightly and closed her eyes. Minor relief.

  “Meditating?” Mom asked.

  Jackie’s eyes snapped open. Mom was already dressed, which was unusual because it was six in the morning and she didn’t start work until nine. She was in some get up—yoga pants and a camisole.

  “Headache,” Jackie said.

  “Probably stress. You really haven’t been yourself lately. Is something going on with you?”

  “Uh, no. Nothing’s been going on.” If she only knew. “I just woke up with a killer headache.”

  Mom looked worried. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it?”

  “I don’t know. It hurts too bad to think. Oh, God, I think I’m going to puke.” She rushed to the sink and spewed coffee like dragon fire. She tore off a sheet of paper towel and wiped her mouth. “Ten.”