When my body finally stopped, I felt the answer dripping down my trembling hand.
20
Thick, warm blood spilled down my arm and off the tip of the dagger, creating a morbid pool on the floor. While I mindlessly watched each crimson droplet reluctantly fall from the blade that I fisted with an iron grip, the voices, once again, began to assail me. Swallowing hard, I forced my eyes closed and attempted to shake them out of my head. The sound of faint laughter immediately silenced them. I turned my head toward the noise, and my eyes locked with Mother Superior's, rendering me motionless as I watched her lips. They curved slightly at one corner as she started to speak.
"The door to evil has been opened."
With her words, I compelled my eyes to absorb the sight of the bleeding wound sneering at me from her chest as the dagger I clutched in my hand seemed to burn my flesh in mockery. Then I watched the life slowly drain out of her fiery eyes as Mother Superior's body crumpled onto the floor where Sister Mary Constance's had just been. Suddenly unable to breathe, I dropped the knife. It made a clanging noise as it slipped from my shaking hand to the floor to join the nuns in their repose.
I sped to the room that held Constance to be certain she was dead. The sister who had been my mentor and only friend for so long lay motionless. But somehow, I just couldn't comprehend that she was gone.
"No, no, no, no," I breathed out in distress.
My knees gave out, and I fell on top of her body, weeping. All the while words from scripture played over and over in my head: "Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked: but mine hand shall not be upon thee." I did not want to leave her there in the presence of Mother Superior's evil corpse, but I had no choice.
Bending down to her, I closed her eyes and crossed her, offering no prayer for fear it wouldn't be heard. I then grasped the cherished rosary Constance still held in her hand. As images of the chaotic events began to swim inside my head, my body shook violently in protest, and I knew I needed to be out of that room. Unable to say a final goodbye, I stumbled awkwardly out of the secret room, shutting the door behind me, and clumsily spilled out into the hall. I ran through the corridors of the convent―dismissing all rules of order and decorum―away from fear and death. When I reached the outside and felt the rain on my face and the harsh wind whipping through my hair, I knew they were inescapable.
I continued to run as fast as my legs could carry me down the darkened street, my mind still reeling. Thoughts swirled chaotically around in my head, and I couldn’t seem to force myself to focus on one in particular. I could feel everything crumbling around me, but I had no idea how to stop the tide that was destroying my sandcastle. If only I could think. Stopping to catch my breath, I bent forward with my hands on my knees and told myself repeatedly to breathe. Everything felt wrong, and I knew nothing was going to be okay. I felt as if I was not in control of my mind or body, and a sense of terror gripped me while feelings and images too terrifying to be real overcame me.
My mental anguish, along with the torrential downpour and gusts of wind, obscured the sound of her approach. When I stood up, I found myself staring down at the little girl in the blue dress from the street only days before. She looked identical to how she had that morning, apart from being soaked by the rain. I felt a chill tickle my spine when her ice blue eyes met mine. As I was shocked into silence, the small girl with the pale blonde curls was the first to speak.
“Do you see?” she asked, cocking her head slightly to one side, her face expressionless, though her cold stare still held.
“See what?” I answered, looking around at the empty street.
“Do you hear?” she inquired in the same way.
“I don’t hear anything but this.” I brushed my wet hair away from my face and gestured around as I listened to the raging storm, trying desperately to drown out the words and thoughts that were consuming me.
“Do you know . . .” she trailed off midsentence, looking around in every direction before facing me again with a smile so wicked that I shuddered. “Evil rejoices as your faith weakens and your mind betrays you, Anathema. The final transgression . . . ,” she began twirling with glee, her expression pure malevolence.
“No!” I shouted at her, rubbing my temples to ease the intense throbbing in my head, “No, you’re wrong . . .”
But she kept spinning around in her balletic circles, which only caused the pain in my skull to increase at an alarming rate.
“Stop it,” I cried out. “Please, just stop.”
Yet she just laughed in mockery and kept right on celebrating my misery. Gripping Constance’s rosary with every ounce of strength I could muster, I attempted to calm myself to no avail. Finally, the haunting laugh of the girl became too much for me to bear and I snapped.
“SILENCE!”
Every ounce of emotion I had went into that one word, and suddenly the world was silent. The small girl stood frozen in time, and the rain even gave a temporary reprieve. For just a moment, relief washed over me.
The moment was short-lived though, as I considered the ramifications of the fortuitous events. Staring at her blonde curls and angelic face suspended in motion as they were, I realized that her words were now truer than ever before. I had done it. I had silenced her. I had stopped the storm. I had paused time. I was the Anathema she spoke of.
Everything changed before my eyes while my entire world shattered.
21
Have to get it out . . .
All of it.
Now . . .
He'll find me if I don't.
Evil . . . so evil.
Can't be helped.
Can't be saved.
Pure . . .
Must be pure.
Cleansed.
So much sin . . .
No redemption.
He comes for me . . .
He comes for us all.
To punish humanity's evil . . .
Fire.
Darkness.
Shadow . . .
The Shadow comes.
He brings the end.
I bring the end . . .
22
“Aspen?” a soft voice called from somewhere in the room. “Are you all right?”
I stopped writing just long enough to acknowledge his approach.
“Aspen,” he repeated, his voice controlled but shaken. He was proud, that one. He would be punished for his sins. “Aspen, I need you to put down the pen, please . . . hand me your book.”
“Can't. Have to get it out,” I replied, unrelenting in my task.
“What?” he asked, crouching before me, trying to derail my cleansing. “What do you have to get out?”
The evil . . .
“Aspen . . .” His hand encircled mine, forcing it to cease.
I screamed.
Burning. I was burning. The searing of my flesh―the fire. The pain. Hell's fire had finally come to claim me.
But then it didn't.
I looked into his green eyes as he eased himself closer still, afraid to spook me. He didn't need to. I couldn't have been spooked any further.
“He's coming for me . . .” I don't know why I said it. The words just came out.
“Who?” he asked, tossing my journal aside. “Who is coming for you?”
“The Shadow,” I whispered, my eyes jetting around the room as though he was already there.
“Aspen . . . ,” he sighed, stopping himself from saying more. Did he know of whom I spoke?
“You,” I gasped, scurrying away from him backward as fast as my body would allow. “It's you . . .”
“I'm trying to help you, Aspen, but you're not making any sense.”
“You'd like that, wouldn't you?” I shouted, pinning my back against the wall. “You'd love for me to trust you. To follow you willingly, but I won't. I won't do it . . . I won't do your bidding. I serve the Lord. I serve God!”
I snatched my rosary off the floor beside me and started reciting Hail Mary over and over again, squeezing my eyes
shut―to keep the evil away.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
I prayed louder.
“Look at me!”
His voice rattled the furniture in the room, and in my weakness, I did as he bid me.
“Aspen,” he growled, thrusting my notebook in my face, “look at this. Something is wrong. Something is wrong with you. You're not well. You need help.”
His truth brought about a moment of clarity for me. I took what he offered, staring at the page of nonsense in disbelief. It pained me to look at the words, so I closed my eyes and ran my fingers over the indentations in the paper. I'd written with such vigor that the words were carved into the pages more so than written.
'Words' wasn't really an accurate description of what I'd scribbled incoherently in the book―word would have been. Sheet upon sheet of crisp white paper had been tainted, filled by a single noun. The varying styles and sizes swirled around the paper in a beautifully choreographed message to tell me the truth―to be certain I knew just what I was. The word I'd quickly grown to fear most of all.
Anathema.
“It can't be true,” I whimpered, still staring at the spiral-bound notepad. It seemed so innocuous. He reached for me slowly―a gesture of consolation. I wasn't fooled. “Stay away from me,” I snarled, thrusting my crucifix toward him.
He paused.
“I need you to listen to me, Aspen. You're acting crazy right now. We need to take you to the hospital.”
“NO!” I screamed, leaping onto the bed, further away from his grasp. “Liars. They are all liars there.”
“Okay, we won't go there, but we need to do something.”
“You know, don't you? You're trying to trick me―take me! She said if you'd been doing your job, none of this would have happened.”
“Who? Aspen, what are you talking about?”
“Mother Superior . . . she told me. Told me what I am . . . ,” I snarled, crouching atop the bed. “Right before I killed her.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph―”
“Don't you blaspheme! Don't you dare use the Lord's name in vain in my presence. I will not suffer your evil!”
“I'm not evil! I'm trying to help you!”
“Then leave! That'll help me. And take your devil agenda with you. I won't be the reason . . . I won't do what you want me to do.”
He eyed me wildly from the floor below, and I watched as an unmistakable shift occurred in his gaze. Concern bled to ambivalence, then nothing at all. His expression was cold as stone.
“You leave me no choice,” he said, coiling his body to launch. Within seconds I was sprawled on the floor, pressed heavily against it by the weight of his body.
Escape was futile.
I could not fight the Shadow away.
23
When I awoke, my body trembled fiercely while I quickly took in my surroundings. Still on my back, I stared up at the ceiling, enveloped in blankets. The room was dark, with little light intruding through the windows. It was already night. Bile rose in my throat when I remembered what had last occurred before my forced slumber. He had come for me.
As if he had read my mind, he answered my question before I could ask it.
“I am still here,” he called out from the darkest corner of the room.
“Why?” I asked, shivering terribly. His voice had once held a certain comfort that lulled me slightly, but no longer. All I felt was fear.
“Because I couldn't leave you.”
“But I told you . . . I won't do what you want,” I pleaded, wanting desperately for Julian to come through the door and save me like the damsels in all of my favorite novels. I needed saving from many things―myself included.
“And I told you,” he growled, “I'm trying to help you. I am not what you think me to be.”
“But I―”
“Stop!” he shouted, cutting my objection off at the knees. “Do you despise me so much that you would think this little of me? Haven't I shown nothing more than concern for your well-being? Your safety?”
“Well . . . ,” I started, attempting to think hard on what he had said.
“Well, what?” he asked, stepping into the scant light the moon provided. He continued toward me as he spoke, and I instinctively retreated from his approach. “You fear me, don't you?” His voice was tainted with disbelief.
“Yes,” I whispered. I hated how small I sounded.
“Aspen,” he said patronizingly, lowering himself onto the edge of the bed, “I will not hurt you . . . I can't.”
“I think I'm going crazy . . .” I spoke to the folded hands in my lap. “I am, aren't I?”
He audibly sighed, and the bed squeaked as he shuffled his large frame closer to me. I watched while his calloused hand tentatively reached out for mine, taking it carefully in his as though his touch would hurt me. It made sense, given that only hours ago I thought he'd set me aflame.
“You're not going crazy, Aspen,” he said slowly, choosing his words with great care and incredible tact. “That's what they wanted you to think.”
“Who? Who would want that?”
He eyed me carefully, but said nothing in return. Silence crowded the room while he tried several times to answer my question to no avail. Every time he opened his mouth to try, nothing came out.
“It's going to be okay,” he said weakly, fighting to grind the words out.
“You know something,” I replied accusingly, a wave of realization overcoming me. “You don't think I'm crazy because you know of what I speak. You know about the Shadow .” He did not rebut my observation, so I continued on. “Do you know of the prophecy? The Anathema ?” His eyes avoided mine, which only fueled my growing rage. I grabbed his chin and spun his face around to mine. “You know what I am, don't you?”
His jaw flexed viciously while his silence drew on. He wasn't going to budge.
“How long?” I asked, a fury rising within me. “I want to know how long you've known. It's why you came into the coffee house that night, isn't it? Why you just happen to be around when the voices . . .”
I cut myself off.
“The voices . . . ,” he prompted.
“They tell me things,” I said, balling the comforter up in my hands.
“And do you heed their warnings?”
“I would, if they made any sense.”
“You are not evil, Aspen. You must know that.”
“I know that I killed Mother Superior. I know that I may have very well started the apocalypse, Merrick. Where’s the good in that?”
“She was evil. You did what you had to do.”
“That is not your decision to make any more than it was mine!”
“Decisions . . . ,” he said curiously, pushing his face in nearer to my own. “Always decisions . . .”
His breath came heavy but landed softly upon me. I didn't move.
“There are no more issues to be decided on now,” I whispered. “What's done cannot be undone. What's been foretold cannot be taken back. It's only a matter of time now.”
A silence stretched between us again, lasting longer than before. Again, he looked as though he wanted to say something but censored himself before the words escaped him. I wanted to know what they were.
“I've known forever,” he said quietly, as though hoping I wouldn't hear.
“Forever is a long time.”
“You have no idea . . .”
“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked, unfolding myself from the blanket holding me prisoner.
“I've known long before you, okay?” he snapped.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Oh, yes. There's an easy thing to bring up, isn't it?” he mocked. “Hey, Aspen, I just wanted to tell you that you'll likely damn the world one day. Can I get a sugar packet for my tea?”
“You could have told me at the hospital when you kidnapped me―”
“I did not kidnap you! I got you out of there to somewhere safe.”
“And why wasn
't the hospital safe?” I asked, the nerves in my belly rising while the chaos of my thoughts tried to take hold.
“I can't say . . .”
“Was it the doctors? The nurses? Was the Shadow there?” I rambled, panic taking hold.
“I can't say,” he repeated, staring me down viciously.
“Am I safe anywhere?” I asked, swallowing hard.
He fought with himself before answering.
“No .”
“Not even now?”
“Not even now.”
The thoughts that had disappeared with my slumber returned violently, assaulting my mind all at once.
Not safe . . .
Never safe.
He'll find you.
You cannot escape him.
Evil shall reign . . .
He will see to that.
“Aspen,” he yelled, shaking me like a ragdoll. His grip burned my arms. “Snap out of it. You have to fight. You have to fight this madness. I will help you, but―”
“I cannot win . . . ,” I stated, my fear temporarily quashed by realization. “He will come for me, and you can't keep me safe. Nobody can . . .”
“This is not over yet,” he said softly, pulling me against him while I trembled. My fear had returned as quickly as it had left.
“Can I trust you, Merrick? Can I trust your words?” I mumbled as he rocked me.
“No,” he whispered. “Not even me. You can trust no one but yourself, Aspen. It's the only way to be sure. Treachery and lies surround you. Promises are empty. Words misleading. You have to go with your instincts―your gut―when the time comes.”
My gut
My gut told me that, despite the cacophony of paranoia cluttering my mind, Merrick was not in my house, on my bed, because he wanted to harm me. He'd told me not to trust him because he was maybe one of the few people I could. His advice was selfless. He was willing to be turned away in the name of my own safety. My own sanity.
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