Emily refolded the note and set it on the dining room table, next to Megan’s books. Then she opened one of the books and stuck the note inside. She thought about her action, felt the old guilt wheezing back into her chest. Mrs. Beridon had directed her to see that Megan got this very important note. Megan must see the judge tomorrow. She must show up or . . . maybe Megan would be sent away . . .
She pulled the note back out of the book. A thought flashed across her mind, a need to cut herself, but just as quickly it died. She wasn’t going to hide the note; she was going to hand deliver this very important message. She tucked it in her back pocket.
***
Megan agreed to try to skate some more. After all, it was a snow day; the little bit of homework she hadn’t done yesterday could easily be knocked off when they got back. She’d have plenty of time before work. She wanted to enjoy this special afternoon with Ben, but when they reached the rink it was crowded with skaters.
“I think I’d be a hazard to the others,” she said.
Ben laughed. “No you wouldn’t, but we can come back tonight and have it to ourselves again. If you want to, that is.”
“I have to work.”
“I know, I mean after work. There won’t be any kids here then for sure and we can work on your stops.”
“Won’t it be too dark?” Her heart danced at the thought of spending more time with Ben.
“Nope. See that street lamp over there? There’ll be plenty of light and if there isn’t . . . you can hang on to me all you want.”
That sounded more than great to her. “Okay. Guess I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon doing homework then.”
“What, you want to go home already? I thought we could help those little kids over there build their snowmen.”
Megan snorted a laugh. “You want to know something else I’ve never done?”
“You’re kidding. You’ve never built a snowman? How long have you lived in Michigan?”
“I’m kidding.” She gave him a little shove that underscored her laugh.
***
“Come on, babe, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it when I said you were fired. Come on, let’s make up.” He moved closer, still unsure of Cori’s reaction, until he was an arm’s length away. “Babe? You’re so special.”
He was unsure if the look on Cori’s face meant she was ready to relent or not. He inched even closer, puckered his lips and raised his eyebrows.
Cori thawed. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to let it get so out of hand, twirling you around like that. I was just so mad that someone had been in my room.” She stepped into his arms for a reconciliation that would blossom into something else later, he was sure. With her new abilities she should have a bedroom potential beyond hot. He felt himself growing restless at the thought.
Cori stepped out of his embrace and tilted her head. “So, what do you think of my new talent to tell the future?”
Jason tapped his tongue stud on his teeth. “Awesome. How long have you been able to do that?”
“About one minute.”
He pulled her back into his arms. “What do you see in our future? Like in the next hour or so?” He ran his tongue along her neck.
Cori stiffened. “I see the police coming in here.” She shook herself away from him. “Really, I do.” She bent down and stuffed the items back into the bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I’ll bring your shirt back later. I really feel like I need to get out of here now.” She pushed on the door and turned back to ask, “Am I rehired?”
Jason nodded. “Be on time.”
Cori’s quick laugh was baffling. He watched her look left then head right, the opposite direction he expected. A couple of cars slowed for the traffic light and then a police car pulled up right in front of his store.
***
Cori saw the cop car coming and changed her intended direction. She went up the street and turned the corner. After a few seconds, when the cruiser didn’t go through the intersection, she peeked back and saw it parked in front of Jason’s store. She had a pretty good idea of what was happening in there now and it looked like she wouldn’t have a job after all. What was she going to do for money now?
Her eye caught the glittering sparkle of jewels in the display window across the street. It was the store that sold estate sale finds and antique jewelry as well as the modern stuff.
She already knew what they were going to offer her. This fortune telling power was, like Jason said, awesome. Next she’d have to buy a lottery ticket . . . though she’d have to wait to redeem it on her eighteenth birthday. She could see the power ball numbers now.
She stayed frozen to the sidewalk a moment and sorted through all the thoughts that came to her, separating the fantasies from the clairvoyant insights. She had seen ads for psychics. Wow, she could have her own five dollar a minute phone line. Awesome. Who needed Jason anyway? She had thought they clicked, but now she foresaw that he wasn’t right for her at all.
***
Emily finished her homework after lunch and sat staring at the snow outside the dining room. A pair of animated figures came into her view down the street. Ben and Megan. Ben and Megan holding hands. Ben and Megan, faces red from the cold. Faces smiling. Eyes seeing only each other.
Emily looked down, closed her eyes. Prayed to a new god.
Let the jealousy go.
Cut yourself.
No, I’m not going to do that anymore.
She took the note out of her back pocket, opened it, and read it again as the two figures came up the driveway. Megan must be there tomorrow. She must not go to school.
“Hey, Em.” She heard Ben’s voice.
“Hi, Emily.” Megan remembered to use her full name. Only Ben could use the shortened version. Only Ben.
She sat still, considered looking up to greet them, too, but didn’t.
“You okay, Em?”
She nodded.
“There were tracks on the front porch. Was somebody here?”
Her shoulders lifted of their own accord. Her body was lying to Ben. Sorry Ben.
“Hey,” Ben waited for her to look up, “I got you some boots. They were my mom’s and they should fit you all right.”
“Thanks.” A present. He thought of her. That was something.
Ben went on, “You should have seen Megan learn to skate. She’s a natural.” He kept talking, looking at Megan.
His Meg. Praising her.
Touching her hand.
Using all those glowing adjectives to ramble on and on with nauseating accolades.
Now Megan was talking. Saying how great a skater Ben was.
They kept standing there, above her, looking down on her. She was small. She was shrinking. They wouldn’t pay attention to her much longer. She had the note in her hand and it was going to disappear with her.
But Megan had to be in court. The judge was ruling tomorrow.
Now Ben and Megan were heading through the kitchen to the den, talking about getting on the internet, searching out something.
Emily stuffed her textbook in her satchel, rose, and followed them to the den.
She stood in the hallway and held the note out. Take it, Megan, take it now. It’s important. But Megan kept her eyes shut. Ben’s were closed, too. They were standing in front of the computer, waiting for it to boot up as they passed the time so intimately.
Emily dropped the note into her bag. Held out the razor instead and entered the den, noting how the walls leaned in and the ceiling poised itself to tap her on the head.
She cleared her throat. “I have something for you, Megan,” she said. She watched them break apart.
Megan held out her hand and accepted the razor. She clucked and fussed like a mother hen and commended Emily for making a brave choice.
Emily could not smile back. She was closing the deal. Couldn’t Megan see that? She gave her the razor and now Megan would have to leave.
Chapter 19
As soon as she was sure that Emily w
as upstairs and out of earshot Megan talked to Ben again about Emily’s self-mutilation.
“How long do you think she’s been cutting herself?” His repulsion spread across his face to flatten the hollows of his cheeks.
“I don’t know but it’s bad. Really bad. She has cuts all up and down her arms and now she’s cutting her thighs.”
“I knew she was upset about not finding her mom and brother. That must be why she does it. I can’t believe she blamed Cori for the cuts.” He sat down in the computer chair and Megan pulled up the other chair. “Why is she cutting her legs as well?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Jealousy?” She raised her eyebrows high then pursed her lips.
Ben rested his elbow on the desk and put his head in his hand. “She’s gonna need therapy and medical attention right away, isn’t she?”
Megan nodded. “How are we gonna pay for it?”
Ben lifted his head. “We? It’s not your problem, Meg. I’ll figure out something.”
“I want to help. Besides, it’s not like we can float a loan from Mrs. Kremer.” She gave a short laugh.
Ben put his fingers on the keyboard and typed in a website. Megan fixed her attention on the screen with a puzzled look.
“What’s with the baseball cards?”
“Look at these values,” Ben said, “they’re anywhere from a couple of bucks to hundreds of dollars, a few are over a thousand dollars.”
“So?”
“So I have two plastic bins in the trunk of my car full of thousands of these cards. My dad and grandpa were collectors. Whatever it costs to get Emily some help . . . well, I just have to put some cards up for auction on eBay and I’ll have the money in a week.”
Megan’s admiration for Ben doubled. “Why would you do that?”
He waved off her astonishment. “Because she doesn’t have anyone else.”
Megan threw her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear, “You are the best.”
***
Chuck set the knife down on the counter still wondering why he had been sleeping with it in his hand. His stomach woke him with growls that begged for food. He couldn’t remember when he had his last meal. His headache was gone, but there was a fuzzy feeling in his brain like he was forgetting something important.
He stood by the refrigerator and stared at the door handle. He wanted to open it, hoped there were eggs and bacon on the top shelf, afraid there weren’t. He held his fingers an inch away, listened to the voices.
Interesting. Baseball cards. Plastic bins.
Did you hear that, Adam? Those plastic bins you saw Ben get from the freezer are full of baseball cards. Are you listening, Adam? Remember? It was early Sunday morning. You followed him upstairs, watched from the window. He put them in the trunk of his car.
Thousands.
Adam? Do the math. He must have twenty or thirty thousand dollars’ worth of cards in his car. Maybe more.
Cool.
***
Cori marched in the house hauling a bag that was bundled into a square under her arm. She took a moment to wipe her boots on the rug, but left them on.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” She whipped past Chuck leaving wet smudges on the floor.
Chuck stuttered, finally choked out an offer of bacon and eggs, but Cori was already in the next room.
“Well, well, the lovebirds are all cozied up in the den.” She stood behind their chairs and opened the bag. “Megan, will you . . . please . . . look some stuff up for me?” She played on the little bit of camaraderie they had shared the night before.
“Uh, sure, what do you need?” Megan cocked her head at Ben as Cori pulled out the dusty Exorcism tome. Nothing else was in the bag. “Can you look up what this is worth? It’s really old.”
Megan took the book and opened it on her knees. “Is this from the attic?” When Cori wouldn’t nod Megan went on, “It is, isn’t it? It’s not yours to sell, Cori. It belongs to the owner of the house.” She glanced at Ben. “Whoever that is.”
Ben grinned back. “I say ‘finders, keepers’. If there’s stuff up there of value like books, jewelry, art, whatever, then we can use that money for Emily.”
“Emily?” Cori barked. “Why should she get the money? She’s got a job. I don’t.”
“You lost your job?”
“Let’s just say Jason’s tattoo parlor might be closed for a while.” She sneered. “Anyway, what’s with Emily?”
“Shh, keep your voice down. We were just talking about her and all the strange stuff going on. Like you levitating people and Emily cutting herself,” she gestured toward the computer screen, “and we’re looking up stuff in the Bible about demon-possession because that seems to be what’s going on here.”
Cori scoffed at them. “The Bible? Really?” A strange look replaced the scorn on her face, she crumbled the bag in her hands. “That’s full of prophecies, right? Well, you can add prophesying to my talents because now I can predict the future.”
“What?” both Ben and Megan said together.
Cori tossed the bag in the corner and turned. “I just remembered something,” she said over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”
***
Chuck walked on numb feet toward the den as soon as Cori went upstairs. His face was chalky white, his jaw slack. It took tremendous effort to walk all the way into the den and speak to Ben while ignoring the book in Megan’s lap and the scriptures on the computer screen.
“Help me, too,” he breathed. The color drained from his face, his cheekbones were sunken, his eyes dead. He took a step back.
“Sure, buddy,” Ben answered.
***
Cori searched through the pockets of the clothes she had worn the first time she went into the attic. The wedding ring and the packaged pin were stuffed in the deep pocket. When Ben had mentioned jewelry and art she thought of these and didn’t want to forget them. Finders, keepers. That’s what Ben said. She didn’t have a smidgen of guilt for selling the other things in town today; these would be next.
She hurried up the ladder and wrestled a few of the closer boxes down through the opening and hid them under her bed. She’d check them later for valuables. She thought maybe Ben would ask to go up in the attic today – she couldn’t exactly foresee it though. But she could predict that he wasn’t going to find anything of worth.
She left her room and headed to the bathroom, then went instead to Emily’s room, drawn there by the sniffling and sniveling she heard.
Cori was gruff as she pushed open the door. “What’s your problem? Why all the tears all the time?” She stared at Emily, trying to get a read on her future, but saw nothing.
Emily sobbed out an angry response that included profanities Cori never expected to hear coming from Emily’s mouth.
“Yeah, girl. That’s the spirit. Get angry.” Her attempt at levity was ineffective in raising a smile. She fixed her eyes on the pile of shredded paper that littered Emily’s blanket nest. “What were you tearing up?”
Emily kept her head low, but looked out from under half shrouded lids. There was something ominous in her sudden calm. The small room filled with expectation and alarm.
Cori could see it form between them, an empty, hollow shape at first, and then a blackened corpse. It moved. It writhed in pain, gnashing its teeth and wailing soundlessly, moving charred limbs as if trying to free itself of tethers and chains. She wanted to scream, could see Emily’s mouth wide and neck thrown back, but neither girl could force out a beckoning squeal. Even if they found their speech, who would they call? Who could save them?
Then Cori heard the screams, not just one voice, and not Emily’s, but a cacophony of dissonant groans and grunts and howls and keening screeches. As if there were a million mouths agonizing a painful sorrow of eternal torture. As if they were being burned alive. As if their skin was being peeled away in careless ribbons.
As if they had seen glory once, but had no hope of salvation.
No deliverance.
No rescue.
No escape.
***
Emily woke to a suffocating silence. Cori’s body was stretched across her room, her left hand close to Emily’s nest, reaching out. Not quite touching the blanket. Asleep.
The tiny strips of Mrs. Beridon’s note were blown away, scattered throughout the room. Only two pieces were left in her lap, the simple words a message: the judge . . . here.
“I’m sorry, Cori,” Emily touched the hand that was close. “I’m sorry. Wake up.” She spoke softly as Cori raised her head, “You had one of my nightmares. I’m sorry. Really.”
She twitched back as Cori exploded to her feet. She stood in front of Emily for a moment, opened her mouth to speak, then held her hands out as if to levitate the entire nest.
But nothing happened.
Emily spoke again. “Sorry. The memory will fade. It’s fading already, isn’t it?”
***
On an afternoon break Mrs. Beridon gave a quick call to one of her team members. Her guilt had mushroomed throughout the day as she thought about how fast she had left poor little Emily after her awful incident of violent shaking and cursing. She wanted to return, but her friend’s advice was to wait until Emily reached out to her.
She wondered if Megan was part of the bigger plan to help Emily somehow, or maybe Emily would be the catalyst to get Megan to move back with her parents. Things always worked out in strange and unexpected ways. She couldn’t worry too much about it. Mrs. Beridon and her friend prayed together over the phone.
***
Megan observed Chuck as he held a patchy conversation with Ben. Her reaction to being this close to him surprised her. Perhaps it was Ben’s presence that blocked any apprehension; maybe it was Chuck’s harmless demeanor that eased her nervousness. His eyes were like chunks of lifeless coal, empty, yet full of despair. His face had acne scars she had ignored before, but now the paleness of his skin drew her attention to the spotty marks.
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