I opened my eyes and saw Noah carrying Nadia’s body to his car on the adjacent side of the parking lot. I watched him gently place her in the back seat and then drive off. I supposed he was going to Miles for one last desperate attempt to save her. I hoped he could, but knew it was impossible. I took Nadia’s car back to the convent and then switched with my car. For a brief moment, I wanted to tell the sisters what happened, but I wouldn’t know where to begin. I decided to let Miles handle it because I was still the outsider.
I went back to Cee Cee’s, thankful that she was gone when I got there. I don’t think I had it in me to talk about what happened. I cleaned off in the bathroom and checked out my head. I probably had a concussion, but didn’t care anymore. I went to bed and cried myself to sleep.
When I woke up, a cold rain was falling outside, and there was a visitor in the shop downstairs.
10
Ain’t No Sunshine
The tall, slender man glanced nonchalantly at the shelves, picking up bottles here and there and placing them back without much interest. When I saw him, I stopped cold in my tracks, peeking out from the storeroom. He was probably around six feet, five inches and looked to be in his thirties. He wore a long, black overcoat which was a contrast to his pale skin. His hair was shoulder length, platinum blonde, and he had slicked it back to where just the very tips made ringlets around the collar of his coat. He was not unattractive. There was something beautiful about him, but not in a sexual way. He had the kind of beauty of a Renaissance painting.
I studied him for awhile as he moved on to the front counter, glancing peculiarly at a large jar of pickled eggs that sold for fifty cents each. He turned away with a slight huff and then leaned against the counter with his hands folded. He seemed to be waiting for someone. I scanned the store, but didn’t notice Cee Cee anywhere. I didn’t think she would have stayed gone all night. I supposed it was possible she just stepped out for a minute, but I couldn’t imagine anyone out in that cold rain for even a second. Maybe Miles had called her while I was asleep and told her what happened. That brought a fresh guilt over me.
I sighed and stepped into the front of the store. “Hi,” I said.
The man straightened up and gave me a friendly smile. “Hello.”
“If you’re looking for Cee Cee, she’ll probably be back soon.”
“Who?”
“Cee Cee. She owns the shop.”
“Oh,” he replied, looking a little embarrassed. “I just stepped in to get out of the rain.”
“I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to be caught in that, either.”
“So,” he said, gesturing with his hand, “What kind of store is this?”
“It’s a Voodoo store.”
He nodded his acceptance. “Interesting.” He glanced at the right side of my head and furrowed his brows. “Are you all right?”
For a second I didn’t know what he meant, and then I remembered the wound from last night. I touched it and winced from the bruise. “Yeah. I’m fine. Rough night.”
“Apparently so,” he said, coming closer to me, examining my wound. He started to put his hand to my head, but stopped himself. “May I?” he asked. “I’m a doctor.”
“Um, okay.”
He gently touched his fingers to my head. He studied my eyes. “You don’t appear to have a concussion.”
“My eyes were a little bloodshot last night.”
“You should have gone to a hospital.”
“It’s okay,” I said, gently pulling away, but his eyes held mine, and I found it difficult to look away from his intensely ice blue irises. “I just had a little loss of consciousness at first, but my pupils are the same size, and I’m not experiencing amnesia.” I wished that last part was true, though. I’d love to never remember last night again.
“You know your concussions.”
“I had a lot of medical training.”
“Ah. Nursing?”
“Med school. I was going to be a doctor, but …”
“Didn’t quite work out?”
I shook my head. He regarded me in a curious way, looking me up and down. “Do you have a natural inclination for healing?”
While he awaited my answer, it suddenly seemed the patter of rain was too loud outside and that the chilly air was meandering through the cracks in the door. Yet I still could not bring myself to look away from his gaze. I managed a half nod to answer his question.
“They say those with a natural gift are predisposed to do God’s work. Are you?” he continued.
The more I stared into his eyes, the more it seemed as though the icy irises were moving on their own, looking like reflecting pools with a slight ripple. His pupils bore into mine, and again I nodded in answer to his question.
“Do you ever think how unfair it all seems? You spend your life helping others, and what do you get in return? Some kind of reward in the hereafter? Sometimes, it makes more sense to reward yourself in the present.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know—” I started, beginning to look away from his gaze, but I couldn’t. There were only his eyes, his words, the patter of the rain and the chill in the air. I was aware of nothing else.
“Sometimes, it is better to let the lower creatures fend for themselves. Sometimes, it is more … humane that way. Wouldn’t you agree?”
I wanted to say no, tried to say it, but I felt myself nodding again. It was starting to make sense to me; his logic was something I could grasp. I felt the bitter chill seeping into my bones. I began to shiver. My breath puffed up around me, and still I could not tear my eyes away from the empty, deathly blue before me.
“I—” I began. The door opened then, the tinkling bell jolting me from my intense concentration. I turned to the door quickly and then glanced back to the tall man who was in front of me. He was gone. I was dizzy and steadied myself against the front counter. Cee Cee, alarmed, rushed to me.
“You okay, my baby?”
I looked up at her and saw her eyes were red and puffy. She must have heard about Nadia. “Yeah,” I managed. “Where did you go?”
She did not answer me. She instead looked around the room, alarmed. “Were you here alone?”
I shook my head and shuddered, still freezing. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t keep my head up.”
“Who was with you?” she asked, reaching behind the counter while still holding me up with one arm. She took out some holy water.
“Some man. He said his name was Sam and that he was a doctor,” I said, my words starting to slur. I had a sinking feeling, like something was pulling my head down to the ground. Cee Cee propped up my head with one hand and, with the other, tipped the bottle of holy water upside down with her thumb placed over the mouth of the open bottle. She put down the holy water and used her thumb to make the sign of the cross on my forehead.
I felt myself being gently lowered to the floor, but it felt like the floor wasn’t low enough to the ground. I felt I could keep sinking forever, teetering on the edge of consciousness. I could faintly hear Cee Cee reciting the Hail Mary prayer.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” She repeated this eight times and, each time, making another cross on my forehead with holy water on her thumb.
I no longer had the sinking feeling. I was no longer freezing. Before long, I could open my eyes again. Cee Cee looked down at me, worried. “Are you okay, my baby?”
“What happened to me?”
She hesitated before answering. “You were poisoned.”
“Poisoned?”
“That man who was in here with you marked your forehead with an upside down cross with belladonna dust. That’s deadly nightshade. It’s a poison. You gonna be alright now,” she said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “C’mon. Let’s get upstairs.”
She helped m
e up the stairwell and then drew a hot bath for me; she added sea salt, a handful each of hyssop and rue, and then, lighting two white candles, she held my hand and recited the fifty-first psalm. She instructed me to get in the tub, duck my head once under the water and then rest for about thirty minutes.
The steady, slow drip of the faucet made me sleepy. I could feel myself nodding off. As I started to drift away, I could faintly hear Cee Cee in the living room, talking to someone on the phone. “…don’t think she’s ready. Maybe … go home … this is all …” I strained to hear more, but my eyelids soon fell and in no time, I was asleep.
I found myself staring at an icy blue reflecting pool. Before my eyes, the water turned black, mirroring the dark sky above. I had never felt so relaxed, so calm, despite the sudden darkness.
Far away, I saw a figure running toward me. I strained my eyes to see who it was. I couldn’t make out his face, but I saw him waving his arms, trying to shout something to me, but I couldn’t hear him.
That’s when I felt the arms drag me into the reflecting pool. The water should have been shallow, but I sank deeper and deeper, barely able to see through the surface. I tried to scream, but water filled my lungs. I tried to swim, but the arms held me back. I thrashed and pulled, but they wouldn’t let me go.
I felt the oxygen leaving my body, panic setting in as I slowly suffocated. I was able to crane my neck around to see my captor. There, behind me, laughing in the depths of the water was Ruby.
I struggled to break free, but I grew weaker as my lungs threatened to burst. I opened my mouth to scream, but water gushed in. I opened my eyes, panicked, to see the bathroom ceiling above me and a partition of water less than an inch above my face.
I felt a pair of arms struggle to pull me up. As soon as I broke the surface of the water, I gasped for breath, but could not find it. I felt Cee Cee hit me on the back and lean my body forward to help me get the water out. I coughed and coughed and at last the water was mostly gone from my lungs, though I would be coughing for a few more hours.
“Leigh Leigh! Are you okay?”
I nodded, splashing water in my face, hugging my knees to my chest, and started to cry. She positioned herself in front of me. “It’s okay, chère. I heard you scream and when I came in here, you were thrashing around under the water with your eyes closed. You go right ahead and cry. It was scary, but you going to be okay.”
“That’s not why I’m crying,” I sobbed. “Nadia …” I couldn’t finish. I tried to wipe tears from my eyes, but it did no good with wet hands.
Cee Cee pushed the hair out of my face. “I know. Miles told me what happened.”
“I’m so sorry, Cee Cee.”
“It’s not your fault, my baby. There was nothing you could do. You weren’t ready yet.”
“I should have been ready to help her.”
I heard her sniffle a little. “Not your fault,” she repeated. “It was the Grigori. They the ones that did that to her.”
She grabbed a towel and helped me out of the tub. “I’d like you to come to the funeral with me this evening.”
“Already? Shouldn’t they wait a day or so?”
She shook her head. “The sisters were the only family Nadia had. Well, them and us,” she said, looking sadly at the puddle of water I had splashed onto the floor. She grabbed another towel to wipe up the mess while I dried myself off.
“I don’t think I’m up for the funeral, if you don’t mind.”
She nodded her understanding but said, “I really would like you to come, if nothing else so that you’re not alone today. Remember, it’s not your fault. No one is blaming you.”
I agreed to go to the funeral, but I didn’t believe her when she said no one would blame me. I certainly blamed myself, and if the others decided it was my fault, I don’t think I’d argue with them.
The rain had stopped a few hours before the mass which ended at sunset. After mass, a walking procession ensued toward the cemetery a few blocks away down the wet, glistening, city street.
They sang a French song, a haunting melody that told of an afterlife. Miles and Ruby walked in front of us, singing along. I walked with Cee Cee and countless mourners, each carrying a white candle; hundreds of flickering flames in the early evening, fighting to illuminate the darkening January sky. I had not realized the impact Sister Nadia had on the community. Most everyone was dressed in black, but all the nuns wore white; ghostly sisters bidding farewell to one of their own.
I nodded toward the nuns who were up in front, walking with the casket. “Why aren’t they wearing black?” I asked Cee Cee.
“They don’t mourn because they know there’s no death. They wear white to celebrate Nadia passing on to the next life, the real life with the Father. That why they dressed her in white, too.”
Our procession led to the St. Geneviève Cemetery a half mile into the city. We walked along the southern border of City Park where Nadia was so violently killed, and I could not tear my eyes away from the growing shadows, sure that there were creatures lurking there, amused perhaps at the death of a paladin. The thought of anything taking pleasure in the death of someone as purely kind as Nadia made a quick, hot anger rise up inside me.
Just before we reached the edge of the park, I noticed something was indeed there in the shadows. My breath caught in my throat, and I noticed Cee Cee in the corner of my eye. She glanced where I was looking and then looked back in front of her, continuing to sing, unalarmed.
As we got closer, I could make out the figure from behind one of the live oaks deep in the park, far from the street where the procession passed. Noah watched, his jaw clenched, his eyes pained, as the casket was carried away, never to see Nadia again—not in this life. The brief spell of anger that had arisen in me a moment ago was doused by another wave of guilt.
I kept my eyes on Noah as we neared the edge of the park. Soon, I was in his line of sight. He caught my gaze, and I wished he hadn’t. The pain in his eyes quickly flashed to hatred, and he was gone in less than a second, disappearing further into the shadows.
Cee Cee put a consoling arm around me, never breaking chorus.
At the burial, many people cried. Cee Cee was one of them, and I also could not stop a couple of tears from passing through my lashes. The sisters, I noticed, did not shed a single tear, though they did look grief stricken. Miles did not cry, but I could see the hurt behind his eyes. Ruby cried a little. She never looked at me, even though Cee Cee and I were directly across from her and Miles. He looked at me once, but it was hard to fathom his thoughts, though I did see a great disappointment behind the sorrow.
After Nadia’s casket was entombed, a Second Line ensued, where mourners danced down the street to jazz music, waving white handkerchiefs to bid farewell to the dead. The sisters did not partake in the Second Line, choosing instead to go back to the convent. Cee Cee and Ruby were into it, waving their handkerchiefs to the beat of the music, tears in their eyes. I walked back with Cee Cee, but refrained from feeling as elated as the others felt, and it looked like Miles had made the same decision.
11
Heroes and Villains
We were at the convent for almost two hours. It had been nearly two weeks since Nadia’s death. Miles pushed me harder, and I let him. Tonight, he had me trying to heal every person who came in. I managed to cure a fractured wrist, bring down a very high fever and stop a bad case of chronic hiccups, among other ailments. I even healed someone’s best egg-laying chicken that had been attacked by a neighbor’s dog. I had made a special note to remind myself to tell Lyla about that one.
Though some part of me believed it was all just a coincidence. The wrist was probably nearly healed anyway, and the old man with the fever had probably gotten over the worst of it before he came in. As for the hiccups, chronic cases have been known to suddenly stop. Just coincidences. It seemed Nadia’s death was having more of an effect on my confidence than I thought.
I wearily looked out at the remaining line of peop
le waiting to be cured of whatever it was they had. It took a lot out of me to heal the dozen or so people I did, and I was becoming exhausted, feeling the power draining from my core.
The monotony was soon broken with the sound of the back door swinging open. Sisters Wendy, Alice and Melanie rushed in, carrying Sarah, the middle-aged woman I recognized as the homeless lady who slept across the street from the convent. She was covered in blood and so were the sisters’ white habits.
“She was hit by a car! They just kept driving,” said Sister Wendy as she and the other two laid her down at Miles’ feet.
“You should have called 911! She needs to get to a hospital,” I said, frustrated that they moved her instead of keeping her stable.
Sister Melanie looked up at Miles with pleading eyes. “Can you help her?”
“It’s not too late,” he said. He then turned to me. “Leigh. Hurry.”
“Me?! I—”
“Hurry!” he commanded. I stood there for a moment longer, dumbfounded. He kneeled next to Sarah and pulled me down next to him. He forced my hand over her heart and left it there as he took his hand away. “Concentrate,” he instructed.
My mind was a flurry. I tried to assess the situation, trying to get my head in order. “We—we need a blanket and some bandages and—”
Miles stopped me, putting both hands on either side of my face. He looked me in the eyes and softly said, “Just focus on stopping the bleeding.”
I slowly nodded, my concentration becoming sharper. I looked down at Sarah and my hand on her heart. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I pictured a blue flame between my hand and her heart. Slowly, my hand started to heat up, but it did not hurt. It was much more intense than the mere tingling I had with the small ailments I cured earlier in the night. My hand could have been touching the sun for all I knew, except for the complete lack of pain. I opened my eyes again, concentrating on where my hand was and was vaguely aware of the sisters beside me, their heads bowed in prayer. The remaining people in line were doing the same.
Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 02 - Dark Carnival Page 10