Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4)

by J. Bryan

  “It’s not that.” Mariella opened her eyes. “I can’t see your future at all. Perhaps because I cannot touch you. Pain and death, you said.”

  “Yep,” Jenny told her. “Pain and death. Fast, too.” Jenny noted that Mariella was still holding Seth’s hand. “Let me ask you something. You have a big family in Milan. Tomorrow’s Christmas. Why aren’t you home?”

  “Oh, no. Like you say...a very big family. With too much drama this year.” Mariella shook her head. “I thought I would spend Christmas in Paris. Then I thought of you, Jenny...I wondered if you might be alone on Christmas, too.” She looked from Jenny to Seth. “I was wrong.”

  “You’re going to be alone tomorrow?” Seth asked. Jenny frowned, thinking I’m going to kill him if he invites her— “You could come here if you want. Jenny’s making some French dish with a duck. Then I’m going to heal the duck back to life and let it fly around our apartment.”

  “That’s really sick,” Jenny said.

  Mariella looked at Jenny, then down at the floor. “I don’t want to get in the way.”

  Now Jenny started feeling bad for the girl. If she was telling the truth, she was lonely, she’d only just found the only people in the world who were like her, and they were basically rejecting her. Or Jenny was, anyway. She thought of her dad back home, having Christmas without her, and felt a little sad. She wondered how Rocky was doing. The last time she’d seen her dog, he was much more comfortable around people, much less frightened. That could be dangerous, if Jenny ever saw him again. Which, she reminded herself, she probably wouldn’t. She nearly burst into tears, thinking about her father...the stupid pregnancy hormones striking again.

  “Just come, if you want to,” Jenny said. “There’s going to be too much food, anyway.”

  “You don’t have to invite me over,” Mariella said.

  “Seriously,” Jenny said. “I want you here. Freaks like us should stick together, when we’re not too busy trying to kill each other.” Jenny sighed to herself. Even if the girl was deceiving them about anything, it was better to keep an eye on her until Jenny could figure out what she wanted. Friends close, enemies closer, Jenny thought.

  Besides, Jenny thought she was beginning to remember this girl from their last life. Keeping her around would clarify those memories.

  “Who wants eggnog?” Seth asked.

  * * *

  Later, after Mariella had gone home, Jenny lay awake in bed. She still couldn’t be sure whether she’d made a new friend or met a new enemy, and it worried her. Even if the girl was telling the truth, that meant Seth was in danger, while Jenny’s fate, and that of the baby growing inside her, remained unknown.

  “I think I remember her,” Jenny whispered.

  “Her?” Seth asked, his eyes opening easily. He hadn’t been asleep, but he’d been trying, or maybe faking to avoid Jenny’s inevitable teasing about the other girl. Jenny was holding that in reserve for now, though.

  “Mariella,” Jenny said, as if he didn’t know who she’d meant. “I think she was in our last life. Maybe there’s unfinished business.”

  “What kind of unfinished business?” Seth rose up on his elbow, facing her. His hand went to her hip, then down along the waistband of her soft flannel pajamas. “I can think of some unfinished business we need to take care of.”

  “I’m serious,” Jenny said, though she did nothing to stop Seth from hooking a finger under her waistband and sliding it down her hip. “Maybe her opposite’s involved, too. The one who’s hunting you?”

  “Right. Like I’m hunting you right now.” He leaned in close to the exposed curve of her pale hip, his mouth open like he meant to bite her.

  “Stop being cute,” she said.

  “Can’t help it.”

  “Listen, if she’s telling the truth, we could be in a lot of danger. You don’t know what happened last time.”

  “No, tell me. I’ll be down here listening.” Seth kissed his way from her hip to her lower belly, tugging her pajamas down as he went.

  “This is important, Seth. You should, you know, arm yourself with knowledge.”

  “Arm yourself with knowledge?” Seth looked up at her, laughing. “Really? That’s almost as bad as the time you said ‘unhand me’!”

  “And when did I say that?”

  “It was...” His eyes scrunched up as he struggled to remember. Then he smiled. “The haunted house! Right? On our first date?”

  “The haunted house where you worked.”

  “Right. The haunted house where I...but when did I do that?”

  “A lifetime ago. Your memories are bleeding through.”

  “Do they have to be ‘bleeding’ through?” Seth asked. “Can’t they be nicely, gently drifting through?”

  “I’m still having trouble with our most recent lives...Alexander didn’t want me to remember those, because of my memories with you.”

  “That bastard,” Seth said quickly.

  “But our last life is coming together slowly. If I tell you what happened, maybe you’ll start to remember, too. And we won’t miss anything, like whether your new girlfriend might be planning to ax-murder us, any details like that.”

  “She’s not going to ax-murder us,” Seth said.

  “You’re right. She’ll probably use those high heels. And I’ll be in my sneakers, unarmed.”

  “You’d just hit her with flying plaguey-pox.”

  “That’s true,” Jenny said. “And she’d do that pouty frown thing until it ate off her lips. Now, listen, I have to catch you up on the story.”

  “Are you sure? There’s an interesting story unfolding down here, too, you know.” He tugged her pajamas down to her hips, and she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. His lips traveled downward, between her legs.

  “Stop!” Jenny squealed.

  “Usually squealing doesn’t mean ‘stop,’” Seth pointed out.

  “First, my turn,” Jenny said. “Then yours. Now, listen.”

  Seth rested his chin in his hand and looked at her. Handsome boy, she thought, for the millionth time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fallen Oak was a large, thriving town, with a tall brick cotton exchange, a crowded stockyard, and a textile mill, plus a large Postal Telegraph Company office and a railroad spur connecting the town to the rest of the world. As they rode through in the detective’s Ford Model 18, Juliana and Sebastian sat in the back seat, looking out at the busy little downtown, full of shops, with a two-story department store on one corner. The courthouse had a marble facade engraved with the figure of Justice, blindfolded and wielding a sword, overlooking a neatly manicured town green with a bandstand. There was also a sparkling white Baptist church on the central square, facing the green. Despite the Depression, Fallen Oak seemed to be bustling and growing.

  “Looks like such a pleasant place to live,” Juliana commented.

  “We should bring the carnival,” Sebastian said. “These people seem like they have money to spare.”

  Juliana laughed. “You’re thinking like a carnie already.”

  They drove eastward out of the downtown, past fields of cotton. Thin, hungry-looking black laborers in patched clothing worked the fields under the scorching sunlight. They didn’t seem to be receiving too much of the town’s swelling prosperity.

  They arrived at a three-story mansion on a hill, largely obscured behind ornamental trees, the entire property protected by a tall, spiked wrought-iron fence. The detective pulled up to the locked front gate, reached out the window, and rang a bell on a rope.

  “This is where we’re going?” Sebastian asked, amazed. “This Jonathan Barrett must have heaps of dough.”

  “I told you that,” the detective replied. “You should listen to his offer.”

  “What will he offer us?” Juliana asked.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  A gray-haired black man in a dark suit and high, starched collar opened the gate for them, and the detective drove up the brick driveway to park
in the circular turnaround, centered on a flower garden and a water fountain. The driveway was flanked by ornamental gardens full of more blossoming, cheerfully bright flowers. Towards the sides of the house, the flower beds turned into kitchen and herb gardens.

  The man who’d opened the gate glanced at Sebastian and Juliana, then nodded at the detective.

  “He’s expecting us,” the detective said.

  “Yes, he is. This way.” The man led them up the front steps and opened the heavy front door. They entered a two-story entrance hall dominated by a massive granite fireplace that lay cold and dark. The room was paneled in dark oak, and heavy draperies blocked the large windows. A wide Persian rug occupied the parquet floor, and a grand staircase circled up along the wall to the second story. A few candles burned in the glittering crystal chandelier overhead, but the room was left in darkness and shadows. Juliana felt as though she’d stepped into a massive, finely appointed tomb.

  They followed the man deeper into the house as the front hall narrowed and darkened. The place didn’t smell like a tomb, at least—it smelled like baking bread, green vegetables, and spices. Juliana’s mouth watered. In these difficult times, she was lucky to eat one meal a day.

  The servant led them straight through to the enormous back porch, shaded by the equally large veranda above it. A fine dining table had been set out, with a dozen hand-carved wooden chairs facing a dozen place settings with spotless white china and silver.

  The long dining table was empty except for a man who sat at the head. He wore a black suit with a white silk shirt, tailored perfectly to his lean, fit body. He was immaculately groomed, like a king, every hair in place, his fingernails spotless, his golden cufflinks glittering. Two very dark-skinned young women in skimpy dresses waved large paper fans, which cooled him from the South Carolina heat and blew away the countless tiny insects that swarmed in the air.

  Juliana had a strong visceral reaction when his dark, deep eyes looked at her. It wasn’t clearly a good or bad feeling—it was delicious and guilty at the same time, like the times when she’d let Sebastian reach his hand under her dress.

  “This is Jonathan Barrett,” the detective told them. “Mr. Barrett, those kids I’ve been looking for. Sebastian, Juliana. Those are their stage names, anyhow.”

  “You’ve brought my guests. Good work,” Jonathan Barrett said, rising from his chair. He looked over Juliana and Sebastian, then gestured to chairs on his left side. “Just in time for dinner, too. Please sit, both of you. Are you hungry?”

  Juliana nodded. The answer to that was always “yes.”

  “They’ll serve you in the dining room, if you’d like anything,” Barrett told the detective, who tipped his hat and returned inside. Barrett looked them over again, slowly, as if absorbing them into the darkness in his eyes. “Did you have a good journey?”

  Sebastian and Juliana looked at each other, neither wanting to speak first.

  “It was good,” Sebastian finally said. “I’ve never ridden in such a fast automobile.”

  “Excellent.” As Barrett spoke, two large, much older black women brought out food in such copious amounts that Juliana could have drooled all over the table. A basket of puffy rolls the size of her fist, a cake of cornbread, a pot of boiled greens with peppers, slabs of ham preserved in salt. They filled wineglasses with a strange orange-colored drink. Barrett raised a glass of it. “I should warn you, this punch is made with real Caribbean rum, nearly impossible to find with the absurd dry laws. We add the juice of watermelons and peaches grown right here.” He nodded out to the sprawling land beyond the back porch.

  The back yard sloped down to a peach orchard with small irrigation canals, where workers were picking the last fruits of the season. Beyond that, a hill rose up behind the house, where some kind of construction was underway. Juliana squinted her eyes, trying to see better. It looked like they were erecting a brick wall around several rows of tall, thick granite columns. She couldn’t fathom what they were building. It clearly wasn’t a barn or a smokehouse; the materials were far too heavy and expensive. A church, maybe.

  “My family necropolis,” Barrett said, with a sharp smile. Juliana found the smile unsettling and strangely appealing. The man radiated an aura of power, as if his presence charged the air around him with electricity.

  “What is a necro...necro...one of those?” Sebastian asked. His eyes kept darting from Barrett to the plate in front of him, which one of the women was piling with freshly cooked food. Clearly, Sebastian was struggling not to grab up the meal by the double handfuls and cram it into his mouth.

  “Are you familiar at all with Egyptology?” Barrett asked, looking from Sebastian to Juliana. They both shook their heads. “It’s a fascination of mine. An indulgence, really. The study of such ancient civilizations. How do you suppose they built those pyramids, so many thousands of years ago, without the benefit of modern industry? It seems impossible.”

  “One rock at a time, I suppose,” Juliana said, which earned her a powerful smile from Barrett.

  “True. All things must be built that way, mustn’t they, from the humblest home to the widest empire.” Barrett cut a slice of ham, which Juliana and Sebastian took as the signal to start eating as fast as they dared. The food tasted even more delicious than it smelled. Juliana knew they would both eat until they were ready to burst, and then try to smuggle more home with them for later. She’d never had such a bountiful meal placed before her.

  “What impresses me about the Egyptians was the scale of their ambition,” Barrett said. “A pyramid hundreds of feet high, just to serve as a tomb for a single king. They outfitted them with everything the king would need in the afterlife. Gold, food, clothing, servants....They believed all of this went with them to the other world.”

  “Sounds expensive,” Sebastian said.

  “If they wanted to destroy a dead pharaoh’s soul, they destroyed any image of him, every painting and statue. They struck out his name wherever it was carved. Removed him from history, as though he had never existed.”

  “There’s an Egyptian strong man in the carnival,” Sebastian told him, biting into a floury biscuit. “Cheopus the Magnificent. Shaved head, pony tail. He can bend bars of iron.”

  “He’s not really Egyptian,” Juliana said.

  “I don’t think the bars are really iron, either.” Sebastian sipped the rum punch. “This is so good. Try it, Juliana.”

  Juliana took a drink. It was so sweet she could barely taste the rum. It was cool, too, probably from sitting in an icebox somewhere. She nodded and smiled. “I’ll have to be careful not to drink too much.”

  “Drink too much? Such a thing is not possible.” Barrett raised his glass and took a long drink.

  “Mr. Barrett, sir.” A middle-aged black woman emerged onto the porch, with a scrawny, big-eyed white boy of six or seven clinging to her skirt. “Jonathan Junior wants to go and see the pigs.”

  “The pigs!” Barrett glared at his little son, who tried to hide behind the big woman. “Are you sure you don’t want to see the horses instead?”

  The boy shook his head, not saying a word. He looked scared.

  “Pigs!” Barrett shook his head. “Go roll in the mud and be a swine. What else are you good for?”

  The boy looked like he would cry as the woman led him away.

  “Scared of horses, scared of goats, scared of his own shadow.” Barrett shook his head.

  “Is there a Mrs. Barrett?” Juliana asked. Sebastian looked at her as if he didn’t like the sound of that question.

  “She’s upstairs, not feeling well. She had to take laudanum.”

  “Is she sick?” Juliana asked.

  “She gets sick if she doesn’t take her laudanum,” Barrett said. “I’ve lost my appetite, and it’s time we talk about why you’re here.” He stood and walked past them into the house. Juliana and Sebastian waited until he was out of sight, then crammed their pockets full of biscuits and salted ham before following him.

&
nbsp; Barrett’s study was a spacious room at the back of the first floor, the walls hung with animal heads: a lion, a wolf, a leopard, and a jaguar, among others, all of them angled so that they seemed to snarl at visitors as they entered the room. A wall of wooden filing cabinets and pigeonholes ended at a 19th-century, saloon-style liquor cabinet in the back corner. The black petrified-wood slab of his desk held a heavy Comptometer mechanical calculator, as well as a telephone and a teletypewriter.

  Barrett sat behind his desk, checking a printout. He quickly put it aside when they entered, and he directed the older black man from the front gate, who stood at his elbow, toward the liquor cabinet.

  “I have Canadian whiskey,” he said to Sebastian. “Like one?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “I would, too,” Juliana added.

  “A woman who drinks whiskey,” Barrett said. “I’m starting to like you already.”

  Juliana did her best not to blush at his smile.

  The older man poured the illegal drink into three very old, handmade glasses. He placed a cigar box on Barrett’s desk, gave the man a cigar, and lit it for him with a match.

  “Cuban tobacco.” Barrett smiled as the smoke curled out of his lips. “At least they still allow us some indulgences. Have one.” Barrett nodded at Sebastian, who reached for a cigar, then sat awkwardly as the servant lit it for him. He coughed miserably at the smoke. Barrett smiled at Juliana again. “Does the lady smoke cigars, too?”

  “She does not,” Juliana replied, giving him a coy smile she did not actually intend. She didn’t know where it came from. Sebastian regarded her over his smoldering cigar—he’d clearly seen it.

  Barrett made a slight gesture with his cigar, and his servant left the study, closing the door behind him.

  “To the future,” Barrett said, raising the glass. Juliana and Sebastian joined the toast, though they weren’t sure exactly what he meant by it, and then they drank. The Canadian whiskey had bite, but was much smoother than most of the liquor she’d tasted, like moonshine and bathtub gin. She tried not to let the men see her shudder as the whiskey kicked her in the stomach.