The room and the figures were fading from Jamie’s consciousness. Her head was pounding. She lay more and more still, only staring straight up at the ceiling. She did not see the older man at her feet raise the dagger high up above her. She could barely hear his last words: “We are the faithful servants of the dark lord. We have drawn her being into ourselves with his cup. We ask that he complete the transfer of her life force as we offer her to him. May he do with her as he sees fit, and may he grant us the power to carry out his will.”
“We are his servants and his agents forever.”
Having drowned by her own blood, Jamie had already succumbed to the cold abyss and lay dead by the time the lead speaker drove the ancient dagger into her heart. In her last thoughts, she had thought of her parents and of Neal. Then she had prayed for release from this torment; she had prayed for peace. Finally, her prayers were answered.
Part II
The Dark Plan
Chapter I
Penny screamed for help as she desperately tried to revive the lifeless girl on the back patio. She fought back the tears of panic, knowing they would only block her vision. The little girl was soaked in her clothes and jacket, she was cold and pale, and the smell of chlorine radiated from her thin body. Penny pushed into the girl’s sternum, praying to God that she would see the girl vomit out the poisonous water and start coughing. So far, she was not responding, and Penny grew more frightened with every passing second.
Penny called for help again with all her might, but she knew that most of the neighbors in this quiet suburban community were away at work. So far the only replies to her screams were the early spring birds and the gentle wind in the nearby trees, not yet sprouting new life after the still recent passing of a harsh winter. As Penny continued to attempt resuscitation of the little girl, she started to curse herself for leaving her phone inside the house. She was too desperate to cease her efforts to force the water out of the girl’s lungs and leave her to go back for it. All she could do was continue to call for help, praying someone would hear.
“Come on Terri,” she cried in a shaky voice. “Breathe! Mrs. Patterson is gonna kill me if you don’t start breathing! Oh God, please!”
The girl, Terri, did not respond. Penny kept pumping her hands into her. Each thrust became more forceful than the last. Penny did not want to crack her ribs, but she felt that she was running out of time. She attempted mouth-to-mouth after so many thrusts, and still nothing. “Please God!” she prayed out loud. “Don’t let her die! Please help me! Please, please, please, please…” She thrust into Terri’s sternum in rhythm to each “please” as she could no longer keep her tears from welling in her eyes. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!”
Her voice echoed and quieted the singing birds. Only the wind now responded to her cries. She tried mouth-to-mouth again, then back to pushing her locked hands into the girl. Seconds felt like hours. If only she brought her phone outside with her. If only she thought to check on Terri a few minutes earlier. Hope was fading from her. Her actions were purely out of desperation at this point. What would she do if the girl died? How would she ever face the girl’s parents? How would she ever live with herself? Her adrenaline was forcing her weary arms to keep pressing into the little girl. Finally, she stopped. “Terri?” she whispered to the girl. There was no sign of life from the girl. Penny sat stunned as she started to weep in despair.
“Miss?” a voice called from behind her. Penny turned quickly to see a man in blue jeans and a black, long-sleeved tee shirt, under an unzipped, brown, corduroy jacket, standing on the other side of the screened lanai. “What happened?” he asked immediately.
“Oh thank God!” Penny cried. “Please, call 9-1-1! She fell in the pool! She’s not breathing!”
“I don’t have a phone,” the man replied quickly, his hand gripping the handle of the screen door. “Quickly now. Let me in.”
In any other circumstance, Penny would not open a locked door to a stranger, even one who seemed harmless. Even to one as attractive as this man was. She knew that looks could be deceiving. But she had no choice, and did not hesitate to unlock the door and run with him back to where the lifeless girl lay. She had no doubt that he would have easily been able to break through the thin screen anyway.
The man knelt over the little girl and put his fingers to her neck, checking for a pulse. “I tried CPR,” Penny explained, “but I don’t know if I was doing it right. God, please help her! She’s only three.”
“How long was she under water?” the man asked.
Penny hesitated. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted and started to cry. The man looked at her sternly. “I was inside making lunch in the kitchen. I didn’t hear her go outside. The T.V. was on, and… I just didn’t hear! I came to the living room to tell her that lunch was ready, and that’s when I saw the sliding glass door open. I ran outside and saw her in the pool, tangled in the solar cover. Oh God!” She was sobbing.
“Okay calm down,” the man instructed. “I can hardly understand you.” He started to administer CPR to the girl, but she was so far, unresponsive. “Now what’s your name?”
“Penny.”
“And the girl?”
“Terri… Theresa, but we call her Terri.”
“What’s the longest length of time she could’ve been out here? Can you guess?”
“I… I don’t know,” Penny answered frantically.
Still working to resuscitate the little girl, the stranger gave Penny a quick, doubtful look. “Not even a guess? What were you making for lunch in the kitchen?”
“Peanut butter and jelly,” she replied, trying to get a grip on herself.
“A sandwich? How long does that take? A few minutes maybe?”
“I… I guess so…”
The man bent over to fill the girl’s lungs with two breaths of his own, hoping for a response. When he came up again, he resumed his questioning, when was suddenly making Penny quite uneasy. “So then, she couldn’t have been out here longer than a few minutes, right?”
Penny said nothing, only nodded with hesitation.
“Right?” the man repeated.
“I… think so,” she finally stuttered.
“You don’t sound so sure.” The man, not letting up on the girl turned again and focused a hard gaze into Penny’s eyes. “What are you not telling me?” He quickly placed his hand on her own and squeezed gently. “Penny. Tell me the truth. Now.”
The sound of his voice when he said her name was strangely lulling and captivating. And his eyes… the brightest blue that were almost shining and yet hard and cold like steel. Penny didn’t even realize he reached for her hand when he spoke because she was unable to notice anything other than the piercing sapphire orbs that seemed to penetrate her very soul.
Despite her reluctance, she found herself speaking: “I was… also… on the phone with my boyfriend,” she sobbed again. “I wasn’t paying attention like I should have been, so I honestly don’t know how long she could’ve been out here.”
“Okay, better…” the man said in a less entrancing voice than before, letting go of her hand and resuming CPR on Terri. “So, are you her sister, Penny?”
“No,” she sobbed. “I’m the babysitter. I couldn’t afford to go to college after high school, so I started sitting for Mrs. Patterson to save up. Mrs. Patterson works the day shift at the nearby grocery store.”
“You’re the babysitter?” the man replied, “Mrs. Patterson hired a sitter who doesn’t know CPR?”
Penny looked down at the concrete patio, still crying. “I told her I did, but that I had to get recertified. I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”
The man shook his head and continued to work on the girl. “Okay. Penny, listen to me. I need to you go inside and get me a blanket. She’s freezing.”
Penny stood up to run into the house. “Should I call 9-1-1 too?”
“No time,” the man answered, “just get a blanket. Hurry now.” Penny hesitated again. “It’ll be alright,” he assured her wi
th a calm reassurance. She nodded and ran into the house.
The man stopped pressing against the girl’s sternum. He watched Penny run until she retreated into the house and was out of sight. Then he turned back to the little girl and held her wet head up with his left hand. Her bright blonde hair was dripping with cold pool water on his fingers. Gently, he pressed his right hand against her chest where her heart lay still underneath. “Teresa,” he spoke softly as he closed his eyes, “breathe.” He knelt there, a still statue save for deep breaths flowing in and out of his nostrils in a slow, constant rhythm. “Breathe,” he spoke softly again. For several seconds, he remained silent and only focused on the cool, spring air flowing through him. His right hand against the girl’s chest, as if attached to her. He felt warmth in his arm, and allowed it to pass into her. He willed all feelings of love and compassion to overwhelm him as he breathed methodically; tears started to trickle down his cheeks.
“Breathe!” he commanded one last time…
****
Penny flung open the door to the linen closet in the upstairs hallway, roughly pushing sheets and pillow cases aside, until she grabbed a hold of the thickest blanket she could find. She was crying uncontrollably, and she wanted to grab her phone and call the paramedics immediately, but she felt an unnatural trust in the stranger outside. Against her instincts, she obeyed and did not stop for the phone, but she ran as fast as she could down the stairway, almost stumbling as her feet tangled a corner of the blanket that was dangling in front of her. She caught the banister and regained her balance, then took flight again to the first story. “Please, God. Please, please, please, please,” she sobbed over and over in a mantra fueled by panic as she ran for the open sliding glass door.
When she finally made it back outside, she stopped in disbelief. Terri was sitting up; coughing, crying, and shivering. The man was holding her tightly, rocking her back and forth and singing softly to her. Penny dropped the blanket at her feet, covered her nose and mouth with hands in a prayer-like position, and started sobbing even harder. Both relief and guilt had overtaken her, and she herself was shaking all over.
The man stopped singing. He continued to rock the little girl back and forth in his lap while sitting on the cold concrete, and his eyes were closed. Without turning his head, he spoke gently, “She could really use that blanket now, Penny.”
Chapter II
Terri was sitting peacefully at the kitchen table eating her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Penny, as she had grown accustomed to the little girl’s particulars, had made it exactly the way she knew her employer’s daughter wanted it: quartered into triangles, not squares, and like most little girls and boys want, the crusts of the whole wheat bread cut off. Mrs. Patterson, though not one to receive much of an income working as a shift manager at the local Food Lion grocery store, would not lower her standards to any cheap, nutrient-lacking white bread, and was willing to pay the extra money for “the good stuff.” Now, Terri displayed her satisfaction of the preparations by eating while humming to herself.
After the ordeal in the pool, Penny helped Terri’s rescuer get her out of her wet clothes, then get her dry and warm as quickly as possible. She was now in a new pair of 3T size jeans and a pink, long sleeved shirt that was decorated with a picture of a golden tiara, along with the words “Everybody loves a princess!” Penny had thoroughly dried the girl’s blonde hair with a towel, then switched to Mrs. Patterson’s blow-dryer. The young man slid clean socks that Penny retrieved for him out of Terri’s dresser, over her cold, wrinkled, tiny feet.
The man now sat in a chair at the kitchen table next to Terri; his brown jacket hung over the backrest. Penny offered the man a sandwich and raspberry iced tea, but he had respectfully declined. She was overwhelmed with emotions, and still quite shaken up by the incident. If not for the heroic actions of the stranger, now sitting with her and Terri in Mrs. Patterson’s kitchen… she couldn’t even fathom the possible outcomes and consequences. Just trying to think of what might have been, had he not been there, made her shiver as if she had been the one who fell in the pool. She knew that she would be eternally grateful for the man’s intervention. “Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” she asked.
“Thank you,” the man replied, “I’m good. I really can’t stay long; just want to make sure Terri is ok.” He smiled at the little girl.
“Nothing at all?” Penny persisted. “I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for helping me… for saving her. Is there anything I can do to thank you, sir?”
The man continued smiling at Terri as he spoke: “Yes. You can get certified in CPR.”
Penny looked away. Guilt began to fester inside her. “I’m not judging you Penny,” the stranger added. “Just giving you some advice.”
“Okay,” she responded. She believed what he said. At no point did she get the feeling that he was judging her for her neglecting to watch Terri more closely, or for not getting around to get the proper training to handle emergencies like the one that just happened. But she couldn’t help but to judge herself, and so the guilt inside the pit of her stomach remained. She tried to ignore it by focusing more on her overwhelming curiosity of the strange man sitting in Mrs. Patterson’s kitchen. “I haven’t seen you around here before,” she mentioned after a brief silence. “Do you live in this neighborhood?”
“No,” the man answered, “I’m just visiting some friends. They had to run some errands, so I decided to take a walk to pass the time. I was on my way back to their house when I heard you calling for help.”
“Lucky me,” Penny commented.
“Lucky Terri,” the man replied, gently rubbing the little girl’s back as she ate.
“Can you fing me that fong again?” the little girl asked the man with delightful eyes, a mouthful of sandwich smacking her lips.
The man still smiled gently: “Sing? Not right now sweetheart. You should finish your lunch. It looks good.” Terri smiled back while chewing, holding a smile triangle up to him in verification of his observations. The man nodded to the yellow Sippy Cup next to her plate. “And what are you having to drink, Terri?”
The girl put her triangle down on her plastic plate and picked up the cup to show him. “Trawberry milk!” she announced.
“Mmmm… strawberry milk’s the best!” the man said. “My favorite drink with peanut butter and jelly.” The girl giggled as she stole a sip from her beverage.
“Sometimes,” Penny informed, “she doesn’t stress her “S” sounds at the beginning of some words. Other than that, she talks really good.”
“Well,” the man corrected her softly with a smirk. “She talks well.”
“Well,” Penny corrected herself with a timid smile back. She watched quietly as Terri and the man conversed a little more in the same, playful manner. She studied him while they did so. It was difficult to determine his age; he looked rather young, maybe in his twenties she thought, yet carried himself with a confidence and wisdom of a Buddhist monk. And the way he spoke to her was not of a condescending nature, but still with a tone that one would expect to hear from a teacher or parent, as if he were much older than his twenties. Part of him seemed older than he looked, like he had been through some years of struggle, especially in his facial features, but youthfulness emitted from his general physical shape and his bright, blue eyes, both cold and warm at the same time.
He had a slender build, but she could tell through his jeans and black, collarless shirt, that every muscle in his body was fine-tuned. She also noticed that he was rather tan for this time of year, with light, short brown hair. His hair style was very “military” looking, with the back and sides clipped at a very low level. The only difference between his hair and her older brother’s, who was in the army, was that the top of this man’s hair was slightly longer than a traditional “high and tight.” He also allowed the slightest presence of bangs to hang over the top of his forehead. Nevertheless, all of his features, though attractive, were quite dull compared to t
hose commanding and beautiful eyes; eyes that she felt could peer into the darkest night like a predator, and at the same time shine like a beacon of goodness and hope. Yet sadness lay in them too. Nevertheless, looking into them almost made her head spin.
“So,” Penny returned from her thoughts, “I don’t remember getting your name.”
The man didn’t respond for a moment. He took a napkin from the holder and wiped a small glob of jelly from Terri’s “Princess” shirt. “Mr. Dawkins,” he finally answered.
“Well that’s formal introduction,” Penny commented as she took a seat on the other side of Terri.
The man, Mr. Dawkins, said nothing.
“Usually a person gives their first name when asked. You answered like one of my teachers or something.”
“I am… was a teacher.”
“Really? Did you teach elementary school kids?”
He shook his head. “High school.”
“Oh, I thought you to be an elementary school teacher. You seem to have a way with little kids.” She put a gentle hand on the back of Terri’s head as she ate and quietly hummed the same song the man sang to her near the pool. “What did you teach?”
Mr. Dawkins placed the napkin on a section of Terri’s plate that was not inhabited by any remaining triangular sandwich pieces. “History,” he said.
“Oh,” Penny grimaced, “I would’ve guessed English. After the ‘Well’ remark.”
“I also coached the swim team,” Mr. Dawkins added.
“Oh,” Penny said more quietly, lowering her head a bit.
“I suppose you should’ve guessed that one too,” the man said with a smile, not taking his eyes off of Terri’s plate and cup.
Penny didn’t speak for a moment, almost in disbelief in her blind luck that it was this man who happened to show up at the right time. Had anyone else been there, she doubted Terri would be alive right now. Again she shivered at the thought of how terribly close she came to losing the little girl, and ruining her own life. She tried to shake the anxiety of the memory by continuing the casual talk; “So now that you no longer teach, what do you do?”
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