Tempted by Evil

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  Peering beyond that room, I could see a very minimalist kitchen with appliances that looked nearly obsolete. A short hallway branched off to the left of the kitchen with two doors ajar, presumably a bedroom and a bathroom. The refrigerator door closing brought my eyes back to the antiquated kitchen and Merrick walking toward me with two bottles of water in his hands.

  “Drink,” he commanded as he handed me one of the plastic containers.

  “I’m really not thirsty,” I protested as I took a seat on the edge of the sofa closest to the door. “Thank you, though.”

  “The doctors at the hospital would disagree with you,” he snarled, pointing to the tape on my hand from the IV he had removed before we left the hospital. “Humor me.”

  “All right,” I conceded, twisting the sealed cap off. I took a large drink, being a bit dramatic. “Happy now?”

  “For now,” he replied, resting against the doorframe between the living room and kitchen, about ten feet away.

  Inhaling deeply, I braced myself for the flood of insight that Merrick was about to unleash. So many unfathomable things had happened since I left the convent that my mind simply could not process them all. I had decided that if he had answers, I would hear him out, no matter how unusual I perceived him to be or how little I knew him.

  I watched him anxiously, feeling like a child on the first day of school, knowing nothing. He returned my gaze, the calm radiating off him to the point that I quickly became a bit agitated.

  “So,” I began a bit more nervously than I’d hoped, practically chewing on my bottom lip. “You said you had some answers for me?”

  “Right,” he responded indifferently. “What were your questions again?”

  “Don’t play games with me, Merrick.” I forced myself to sound braver than I actually felt, though the quiver in my voice betrayed me. “You said to come with you if I wanted answers. I’m here. It’s time you lived up to your end of the bargain.”

  His eyes gave nothing away as they searched mine. I suddenly felt vulnerable sitting before him, as if he were able to read me like a picture book. Feeling the need to shelter myself from his visual examination, I wrapped my arms protectively around my waist and turned my head. Finally, the weight of his stare became too much to bear any longer.

  “Look, if you don’t have anything to tell me . . .” I rose to my feet and placed my hands on my hips. “I’ll walk out that door right now.”

  “Do what you have to do,” he quipped, leaning casually against the doorjamb.

  “Fine,” I snapped back as I turned and headed for the exit. I had my right hand on the knob before he spoke up.

  “Aspen, wait,” Merrick grunted from behind me, the frustration evident in his voice. “Don’t go.”

  “Why not?” Still facing the door, I wasn’t sure whether or not I had any real intention of going through it; I just had to make him believe I did. “If you have nothing to tell me, we have nothing to talk about.”

  “I’ll tell you what you want to know.” He spoke low through gritted teeth as if it pained him not to have the upper hand in the situation.

  Turning slowly to face him, I nearly whispered the words, “Tell me about the medication.”

  “Sit down.” He motioned toward my former spot on the couch as he walked over and sat on the opposite end.

  Nodding my head, I did as he said, positioning myself to face him in my seat. He stared at the bookcase in front of him.

  “Aspen, I need for you to stay calm when I tell you this,” he said while he ran his fingers through his dark hair.

  “I’m calm,” I replied, feeling anything but.

  He turned to look at me, the intensity of his sage eyes burning through me. “Someone you know has been giving you medication, an anti-psychotic drug . . .”

  “But who would do that to me?” I cut him off midsentence, flying off the couch and moving perilously close to Merrick. “And, moreover, why would they do that to me?”

  “Take a deep breath, Aspen.” He stood up and put both hands on my shoulders, guiding me back down onto the sofa. “You were probably too young to remember, but you started having visions at a very young age―hearing voices too. They terrified you, and you’ve been given the drugs every day since to keep them away.”

  His words stunned me into silence, and I sat in disbelief, knowing I had more questions to ask, but uncertain of exactly what I wanted to know at the moment. My mind kept returning to what Merrick had said, and, while I couldn’t recall anything specific from my youth, strangely, I felt as though I knew what he was referring to. And the implications were making me uneasy.

  “Does any of this sound familiar?” The compassion in his voice was disarming, but my mind had already gone in a different direction.

  “I-I don’t know,” I stammered in confusion, attempting to make sense of what he had told me. “I just don’t remember being given any drugs.”

  “You wouldn’t,” he said solemnly. “Does applesauce ring a bell?"

  The truth I didn’t want to hear suddenly slammed into me like a diesel truck. Only one person had brought me a bowl of applesauce every night before bed like it was our own personal ritual. “In lieu of ice cream,” she would say.

  “Who?” I asked dazedly, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice. “Who knew about this and gave me the medication?”

  “It’s not important.” He shook his head, clasping his hands together as he leaned forward onto his forearms.

  “It’s important to me,” I countered, staring right through him, though some degree of normalcy had returned to my voice.

  “Aspen, it’s better if . . .”

  “Tell me!” I practically shouted as I collapsed from the couch onto the floor in front of him.

  “Aspen . . .”

  “No, Merrick.” My voice sounded more sure and steady than ever before. “I may be praying that I’m wrong, but I

  deserve the truth.”

  His expression was weary as he said the last name in the world I expected to hear.

  “Sister Mary Constance.”

  My entire universe collapsed the instant he spoke her name. Thoughts and emotions raged within me, and suddenly, nothing made any sense. Constance had been the one person in the world who had always been there for me―a mother when I had lost my own. She strove daily to teach me the value of love, compassion, and honesty so that I might grow to be a woman of God. To think that she would deceive me in such a grand way caused a sense of betrayal to swell that I could not allow myself to feel.

  “How do you know this?” I asked incredulously.

  “I know things,” he replied, repeating his earlier mantra. “And I know people.”

  “Take me home,” I murmured as I struggled to stand.

  “Why don’t you just stay here tonight?” he asked gently as he stood to tower over me.

  “I just want to be alone . . . ,” I answered, tucking my hair behind my ears. “Or with someone I trust.”

  “But Aspen . . .”

  “No,” I stopped him again, tears running down my cheeks and the exhaustion dripping from my voice. “I don’t know you or if I should believe a word you’ve said. Take. Me. Home.”

  Merrick hung his head and tightened his jaw as if he were keeping himself from saying something more. It didn’t matter to me. I was certain the look on my face told him I couldn’t handle any more.

  “All right,” he conceded as he retrieved his keys from his pocket.

  The ride to my apartment was quiet, and though the terrain was just as rugged as before, I had been too anesthetized by our earlier conversation to notice. Merrick pulled his jeep to a stop in front of my porch entrance and kept the motor running while he came around to help me escape the passenger seat.

  “Thank you,” I said softly as I headed for the entrance, checking my pockets to make sure my key was still there. Pulling the door open, I thought I heard him say “I’m sorry” just before the jeep drove away.

  The stair
s might as well have been Mt. Everest with the way I was climbing them. It was evident that both my mind and body were overcome with fatigue. When I finally reached the top, I already had my key in hand so that I could walk directly into my apartment and plop down onto my bed. Instead, Julian was sitting outside my door, his head resting against the wall, his eyes closed.

  His angelic features never failed to make me smile, even in the throes of such mind-blowing revelations.

  “Julian?” I uttered his name as though it were a secret, hating to disturb the peaceful expression he wore.

  He sprung up from the ground and bounded over to me in a heartbeat before pausing to look me over. His beautiful blue eyes tentatively searched mine with worry before taking what seemed like his first breath since I arrived.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he continued to inspect me with his eyes.

  “I’m all right,” I lied, seeing how worried he was. “Julian, I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said as he pulled me into his arms. “I just needed to know you were okay.”

  I pulled away to unlock the door, and he followed behind me into my loft. Sitting down on the bed, I took a deep breath and attempted to digest everything that had happened so that I could explain it all to Julian. Becoming quickly overwhelmed by the idea of it all, I decided to gloss over the hospital occurrence and skip straight to the part about the medication, since Mrs. Casey was already privy to some of that information.

  “I overheard your mother talking with a doctor today about my medical history,” I began tentatively. “It sounded as if he believed I was experiencing withdrawals from some sort of medication.”

  “That’s strange . . .” Julian furrowed his brow in confusion, stroking my hair in order to soothe me. “Wouldn’t you know if you were taking any drugs?”

  “One would think so,” I continued in a small voice, my lip quivering a little. “But apparently not.”

  “What does it mean?” he asked intensely, while continuing to smooth my tangled tresses.

  “It means that the person I trusted most in the world was giving me medication my entire life without my knowledge,” I blurted out, a single tear rolling down my cheek.

  “Sister Mary Constance?” He couldn’t mask the surprise on his face. “Oh, Aspen, I’m so sorry. But how do you know it was her?”

  “I know,” I replied softly.

  “Who told you?” he asked, catching my chin in his hand to lift my gaze to his.

  “This guy . . . he's been in the café a couple of times,” I replied, realizing how ridiculous my explanation sounded. “His name is Merrick.”

  Julian stiffened as soon as the name was out of my mouth and the hand that had been caressing my head ceased. I stared into Julian’s eyes, which were filled with disquiet and doubt. Guilt quickly assailed me, and I realized that I had just practically admitted to spending the night with another guy. All the while, Julian was comforting me after he’d spent the night sitting on my doorstep, waiting for me to come home.

  “I’m so sorry, Julian.” I threw my arms around his neck and held him close for a long moment. “I never meant to make you worry. Merrick came to the hospital claiming he had answers and then told me that Constance had betrayed me.”

  “It’s all right, Aspen,” Julian whispered into my ear. “We’ll figure all this out in the morning. For now, you need some rest.”

  “But I—”

  “No 'buts,' Aspen. I'm worried about you. My whole family is. Mom said the doctors weren't anywhere near ready to release you when you went missing. So, I need you to sleep and get better. Please . . . for my sake, if not your own.”

  “Okay,” I sighed, kicking off my shoes and climbing underneath the covers.

  Julian lay on top of the comforter beside me and continued to comb through my hair with his fingers.

  “Julian?” I asked before closing my eyes.

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Julian replied as he turned off the light.

  18

  My bed felt larger than it had the previous night as I rolled over, expecting to see Julian lying beside me. He wasn’t there. The disappointment I felt at seeing the vacant space brought with it a frightening chill of emptiness.

  Lingering in bed a moment longer, the reason for Julian staying with me in the first place hit me like a ton of bricks. My stomach sank instantly and my hands began to tremble as the nightmare that was the day before began to replay itself frantically over and over in my head. I kept hearing Merrick’s voice say the one person’s name I thought would never harm me. Sister Mary Constance.

  I covered my ears in an attempt to block out the noise and scrambled out of bed to pace around the room. Talking to Constance would be the only way to get the answers that I needed. Too many strange things had happened to me since I left the convent, and, if she were the one drugging me, she would be the one with the answers I needed.

  Retrieving my cell phone off the nightstand, I dialed the number to the convent; the exact same number I had memorized since I was four years old. The phone rang and rang and rang ad nauseam. Why was no one answering? Finally, a small voice answered the phone and informed me that Mother Superior had restricted any of the other sisters from using the phone. The way she handled the call, it seemed more like they had been forbidden to speak with me. I just couldn't be sure. The conversation was over before it started; the woman on the other end refused to answer any of my questions and literally hung up on me.

  Frustration overwhelmed me, and I threw my cell phone to the ground and watched several pieces of it fly off in different directions. Falling to my knees in exasperation, I pondered the many things I wanted, needed, to ask Constance. It was no coincidence that I’d been receiving strange messages from even stranger people since the moment I stepped foot out of my old life, and I was determined to have the answers I sought. If I was going crazy, I deserved the chance to know why it was happening and exactly what I needed to do to stop it.

  I knew I had to work the long shift at the café that day, so going to see her was out of the question. But there was another option. Lifting myself up off the ground, I walked over to the nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out a white sheet of paper and pen. The chair at my desk made a slight scraping sound against the wood floor as I pulled it out and sat down to write.

  My pen flew fast and furiously across the page, not even allowing the ink to dry before my left hand dragged through the line I’d just written as I continued. I’d never felt so desperate and alone—so vulnerable and afraid. If half the ramblings that ran through my mind were accurate, perhaps I truly needed the medication the good sister had been accused of dosing me with. Once finished, I read the letter aloud, my voice cracking with emotion as I began the first line:

  Sister Mary Constance,

  I miss you terribly.

  I need your soothing words of wisdom now more than ever before. You always encouraged me to listen to my heart and believed that it would guide me, but I am afraid my heart and my mind are leading me astray. I am not the girl you once knew, Constance.

  If only this were a dream from which I could awaken . . . but dreams are for children, and I am not a child anymore. You've long told me that we have nothing to fear in death, for the Father so loves us that He will welcome us with open arms into His kingdom one day. It is not death I fear, Constance.

  I fear my own failing mind.

  It's becoming cluttered and confused with messages I can't decipher, and I pray that what they imply just cannot be true. I think you know of what I speak. We need to meet. You must tell me everything you know about the lost prophecy and the Chosen―the Anathema.

  Sister, you long professed that we were all God's children. But what if I am not of God? What if I am a culmination of good and evil, sin and salvation―heaven and hell? The scales are tipping, Sister, and I fear for the direction they are headed. The
voices are everywhere, and I feel I am surrounded by those who would seek to corrupt me for their own purpose. I do not know who I can trust. Can I still trust you, Sister? There are things happening now that I cannot control. Things that I must understand.

  I desperately need to see you.

  I believe that Mother Superior has forbidden any of the sisters from having any contact with me, but you are my only hope. I know what I'm asking of you and I'm sorry . . . but I have no one else to turn to. I don't dare write what I truly feel is happening. I do not want others to see, but you must believe me, Sister. Something dark is upon me.

  I feel it slowly consuming my mind.

  Aspen

  Tears rolled down my cheeks as I sealed it shut.

  Although my eyes were a little red and swollen, I attempted to pull myself together enough to head downstairs, place my sealed envelope in the outgoing mail, and step into the café to begin my shift. My thoughts were all adrift, and I could hardly keep them straight enough to tie my own apron, but I had a scheduled shift to work and refused to let anyone down. Grabbing both the regular and decaf from the coffeemaker, I began to make the rounds through the room, refilling cups with a smile as necessary. The rest of the day continued much the same, with my wandering mind ambling back to Constance, medications, lies, secrets, and revelations from strangers. By the time the day was over, I was exhausted, and I closed up the café without even bothering to use the checklist that my coworkers gave me so much grief over.