Just Fire

by Dawn Mattox

  “No,” I hastened to advise Pat. “That would be against my religion. I am a good Catholic.” I wasn’t a good Catholic. I wasn’t a good anything at the moment, but since Satanism was always the antithesis of Christian tradition, mocking Catholic rituals, she nodded with understanding.

  Under Dano’s guidance, Pat handed the reins back to Taylor, who retained no knowledge of anything her alter personality had told me.

  I pondered my options throughout the day. If I gave this information to the sheriff’s office and it turned out to be a setup, my professional life would be zilch. Instead of being respected, I would be ridiculed out of my job, if not out of the county. But if I didn’t notify authorities and the lead turned out to be a trap, I could be . . . What? Sacrificed?

  People around the world would be watching with curiosity and fascination to see the full pale-yellow moon transition through a lunar eclipse into total darkness and then emerge like a flaming red dragon, the color of spilled blood, loosed upon the earth.

  Sunk low in my Volkswagen, I peered over the dash and watched the sky as ragged strips of clouds reached out to pinch the sun, like dark fingers snuffing a candle, extinguishing the last light of day. The street was dark and hours passed. Pat, the stronger of the two personalities, had yet to emerge from the house where she lived, safely ensconced in the body she shared with Taylor.

  And here I sat, spying on Taylor-Pat, and, for all I knew, a couple of other undeclared alters all happily cohabitating in one body—or not. I reconsidered, imagining what it would be like to be trapped in a tiny cell as years dragged by, shoulder to shoulder with people I despised, all fighting for control of the claustrophobic space. I recoiled and sat, fixated on the dark house filled with darker secrets. Poor Taylor, I thought with fresh compassion. Her life must be a living hell. I didn’t have a plan beyond my determination to prove that satanic cults existed and to find out where they held their meetings.

  Fingering the wooden cross around my neck, I wondered if I should have brought a Bible for backup. I had left Chance a message before leaving the house, saying that I was going to follow a client named Taylor Jarreau to a possible cult gathering. I told him not to worry, and I would call him back later with the details. Then I turned off my phone.

  My stomach rumbled. I yawned and stretched, and began to wonder if perhaps Dano had been wrong and Taylor really was delusional when I noticed a shadow in a hooded sweatshirt slipping along the fence line heading toward Taylor’s darkened doorstep. The figure knocked and then stepped back as Taylor exited the house dressed in a dark skirt and a hooded cape. She followed the shadowy figure back along the fence until darkness swallowed them. I got out of my car and ducked low, determined to follow.

  The house where Taylor lived was located in a tired outlying area at the edge of Oroville’s city limits, just below the dam, where rural city abutted brushy foothills dotted with digger pines and valley oaks. The wild inhabitants included coyotes and bobcats that dined on deer and raccoons, and rabbits, squirrels, and skunks that served as take-out for foxes. Predators like bears and mountain lions rarely came down this low, so I wasn’t afraid of being eaten by wildlife. It was people that frightened me.

  I followed Taylor and her cloaked escort along a series of tangled trails that descended into a steep, jagged ravine until arriving at some brush-covered half-hidden railroad tracks. The night was cold, but my teeth would have chattered regardless. The full moon rose, a pale orb that slowly crested the ridgetop.

  Taylor and her escort had made the descent without talking. They turned and followed the train tracks; the crunch of gravel beneath their heels masking the sound of my pursuit. Then, they vanished. Nothing remained but silence.

  Long fingers of cold wind crept under my collar and down my spine. I had almost given up searching for them, when the breeze brought the sound of voices, talking low with intermittent laughter. All I could do was back away from the tracks and lie flat in a thicket of scrub brush, and pray that God would make me invisible.

  Six people came into view—four adults and one child, about seven or eight, holding his mother’s hand and gliding along like a wraith. The woman who led the way held a flashlight in one hand and a baby in the other.

  “Over there!” the first woman exclaimed, using the light to reveal a trail of white rocks. The beam illuminated a row of white crystal-bearing quartz that pointed the way as clearly as a white line down the center of a highway, reminding me of the story of Hansel and Gretel, who followed a trail of white rocks that led them to a witch’s lair.

  I burrowed deeper into the brush that scratched and tore, keeping out of sight as people continued to pass in groups of six.

  Six groups; each made up of six people, each group with at least one child in tow, had passed. I was beginning to wonder if the procession would ever end, and then, the night was deathly silent. Up in the sky, the eclipse was beginning. Instinct told me to bolt back up the trail, but it was pig-headed determination that anchored me to the spot and burning curiosity that propelled me forward. The trail dipped and turned one more time and then vanished—this time under a shelf of rock exposing a gaping tunnel that looked and felt like a wormhole leading to Gahanna.

  Going back was not an option. Shivering with anxiety, I looked for courage and found none. The next step was a literal leap of faith. Or stupidity. Or both.

  Cold, rough walls bit into my fingertips as I trailed down the tunnel, using my fingers like a blind man’s cane. Step by painfully cautious step, deeper and deeper into utter darkness, until at last a light shone at the proverbial end of the tunnel—except this light was not a light of hope but a light that could expose my presence to people worshiping evil. The tunnel ended, and just beyond, a glowing bonfire flickered and danced. I crouched low, hardly daring to breathe as I watched in fascination from a kind of twilight zone.

  Candles. Lots of candles. A convocation of robed people had gathered in a crescent shape in front of an altar, and what appeared to be a priest and a priestess. The priestess was almost as black as the cloak she wore, and the priest standing next to her looked as pale and cold as death. A ram was tethered to one side of the altar, bleating in nervous agitation. The priestess chanted in what sounded like French, or maybe Latin. The convocation intoned in unison, responding to her invocations as the tempo increased. My breathing quickened with mounting terror. No more doubting—it was time to get the hell out of there.

  Rising, I started to turn—when a powerful arm grabbed me from behind and clamped a hand over my mouth, muffling my cries. Kicking and struggling, I completed the turn, biting the hand and scratching at my assailant’s face as a man’s body pressed tightly into mine, slamming me hard against the tunnel wall, pinning me until the only movement I could make was the violent trembling beyond my control.

  He pressed in even tighter and hissed in my ear.

  “Don’t move. Don’t scream.”

  CHAPTER 16

  I didn’t. And slowly, too slowly, the pressure relented, and the hand that had almost strangled me loosened. Free at last, I swung around, slapping Travis across the face.

  Hours later, I sat glaring at Travis through swollen eyes, trying not to grimace as the doctor injected me with a shot of cortisone. My face looked like I had been dragged by a car down a graveled road.

  “A severe reaction to poison oak,” said the doctor.

  A network of blisters already covered the back of my hands, going deep between my fingers, probably preventing me from pulling a trigger—if I only had my gun. Angry and humiliated, I wanted to cry. Badly. It was probably a combination of everything: from being itchy and miserable to totally embarrassed and humiliated. I was fully prepared to shoot myself—or Travis, before I would cry in front of him. Travis, who sat in the ER looking as pained as I felt.

  Travis had guided me out of the ravine, taking a more direct route back to the highway than I had used to follow Taylor. He practically dragged me up the hill in silence, and I had let him be
cause it was easier than hauling myself and the extra pounds I had put on since Thanksgiving.

  We paused to catch our breath. Then Travis took my face in his hand and tipped my chin up to meet his lips—lips that were pressed into a hard tight line—and abruptly told me to get in the car. Travis drove in his usual steely silence straight to the ER. He didn’t need to say anything.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d had allergic reactions to either poison oak or Travis. If I opened the floodgate with so much as a single word, the dam was sure to burst, and I would go crazy on him. I saved my fury for the ride home. Apparently, he did too.

  “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “My thoughts exactly!”

  Nice to know we are on the same page.

  “You . . .”

  “I . . .”

  “. . . could-have-been . . .”

  “. . . gotten us killed.”

  Our words tangled, fighting for first place, and then dissolved into a stress-busting absurd burst of laughter.

  I searched Travis’s statuesque face. “I was afraid,” I confessed.

  “I was afraid for you,” he replied.

  We drove on in silent agreement back to my house, even as the first fingers of dawn caressed the horizon. There we sat, parked in the driveway like a pair of love-struck teenagers, gazing at each other stupidly until Travis broke the silence.

  “Sunny. You look like shit.”

  I slammed the car door first, and the house door second. Undeterred, Travis followed, making himself at home in the kitchen. He went to work without a word, finding a pot and brewing a smelly concoction of oatmeal, baking soda, and green tea. The mixture smelled disgusting. I watched in silence, wriggling my nose, and then headed for bed when I saw him add ice cubes. Healthy has its limits; I would die before taking a bite.

  Sometime later Travis entered my bedroom where I lay, wrapped in a blanket of pain and misery. Gruel in hand, he sat on the bed next to me and proceeded to gently, tenderly, bathe my tortured face with the cool, soothing potion he had made. Closing tired eyes, I slept.

  Paige’s baby shower was scheduled for the next day, and I woke thinking how I could justifiably excuse myself. Ashley called chatting as gaily as a flock of squirrels, if squirrels flocked, which of course they don’t. Still, she chattered on, and my next thought was that talking to twins was going to come naturally for her.

  The swelling was gone, Travis was gone, and apparently, my excuses were gone too. I peered into the bathroom mirror as Ashley carried on about a velvet sheet cake, wondering whether or not I thought she had bought enough food. All the while Ashley rambled, I stood pitying the stranger in the mirror; the woman who looked sunburned and acne riddled with dark circles under her eyes. I heaved a major sigh. Since the party had been my idea, I was obligated to at least make an appearance.

  I didn’t need to bring a gift. Shane had already helped me haul an ornate crib up to their home for the big event a couple of days ago. It would serve to hold gifts as well as being a gift in itself from both Chance and me.

  Ashley was glowing like the New Orleans Superdome on game night. She paused to tell me how bad I looked and offered a dozen home remedies before hurrying off with her new friends to plan some kind of game or other that had to do with clothespins and dirty diapers. It didn’t sound all that appealing.

  Oma was there, and I wondered what she would say if she knew about Baby Russian Roulette—the real-life game that had everyone guessing which dad in Paige’s arsenal had fired the fateful bullet. God only knew. I was tired of the game and confused by the pang that I felt as thoughts of Paige turned to thoughts of Travis, wondering if he had spent the night with her.

  Shaking my head to clear it, my mind returned to Oma and all the rotten things I had said about her. She stood in a corner looking lost and out of place. As an act of contrition, I grabbed a couple of mini muffins and a cup of coffee and headed her way.

  “Hi, Oma. Nice to see you. You’re looking a little lost.”

  “Do I?” she lifted her brows with a half-smile as she idly fingered her cup of hot chocolate. “I guess I do feel a little out of place,” she added. “If you don’t mind my asking—what happened to your face?”

  “Poison oak.” I hurried to change the subject. “And if you don’t mind my asking—how did you come by such an unusual name?”

  Color rose in Oma’s cheeks. “It’s a Hebrew baby name,” she said. “The word means cedar tree.”

  “How precious! Your father must have thought your life would be upright and enduring.”

  Oma blushed harder. “If you knew my dad, you’d know it was a reference to his manhood.” We laughed together like good friends.

  “I haven’t seen you in church for a while. Are you still seeing Mac?”

  She dropped her eyes, and a soft shade of pastel pink lingered on her cheeks. “We date once in a while,” she said. “It’s a little awkward dating a pastor. I’m not really sure what all it involves or if I’m cut out for the job.”

  I sniffed and rolled my eyes. “Don’t say that! My husband is in seminary school, and I was counting on you for advice.”

  The gray in her eyes deepened in color, looking as sadly out of place as two dark little clouds in a brilliant blue sky. “I tried to fit in,” Oma said, with obvious disappointment. “It’s just . . . the church women are pleasant enough, but sometimes, they seem so—”

  “Pastor possessive? Disdainfully distant? Closed cliques? Reminds you of high school?”

  Oma leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms. She shrugged with a short huff that made her curls dance. “Maybe little bits of all that.” She lowered her voice to confide in me. “If you can believe it, they think I’m . . . I was . . . a prostitute.” She gave another huff. “Why would someone say anything so despicable? So hateful? So hurtful?”

  The muffin caught in my throat, making my eyes water as I coughed a chunk into my napkin. Kindhearted Oma thumped me gently between the shoulder blades—right where she should have been plunging a stiletto.

  “Ughm.” I cleared my throat, swallowed some coffee, and sniffed. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you,” I said with a slight cough. I scrambled to undo some of the damage I had helped to create. “They aren’t the people who matter the most. They won’t be the ones to share your dreams or your hopes . . . or your fears.” I coughed again; another crumb of truth had caught in my throat. “Just focus on Mac.” I tried to encourage her. “He’s a good man. Whatever is going on with everyone else is their problem, not yours.”

  A ray of hope peeked out from between her clouds. “You must be the counselor—the advocate from the district attorney’s office. And your husband must be Chance?”

  A powerful engine that sounded like Paige’s ride drowned out our conversation. Pulling the gauzy curtain aside, we looked out the living room window at the candy-apple-red Beemer as the driver wheeled into an open space.

  It was Paige all right, and my mouth dropped when a crisp-looking Travis pulled in behind her and got out, walked to the Beemer and opened the car doors. First came Paige, and then a very elegantly dressed platinum-haired woman stepped out and walked around, laying an affectionate arm across Paige’s shoulders as she shepherded her toward the house.

  I opened the door to let them in. Paige was in full bloom. She looked like a child from the Make a Wish Foundation whose big dream had come true. We hugged, and the wondrous, joyful look of appreciation that Paige gave me melted the polar ice cap that gripped my heart.

  “Sunny, this is my mother, Cali. Mom, this is my . . . good friend, Sunny.”

  It was easy to see where Paige had gotten her good looks. If a pre-pregnant Paige could have been the cover girl for Seventeen magazine, her mother could be a cover model for More, a glamour magazine for mature women of style and substance. Cali was as gracious as she was beautiful.

  “So this is Sunny. I have heard so much about you. I can’t thank you enough for throwing this
party for my daughter. It means so much to her and to me.” I looked down, wondering if she could see the rags of guilt that covered my party clothes. I didn’t deserve her praise. New guests arrived, and I slipped out.

  “Good morning, Sunshine!” Travis threw me a dazzling smile that reached all the way up to his Oakley’s. Dressed in casual denim pants, topped with a dark-green shirt under his russet-colored suede jacket, Travis was more appetizing than the stirring smells of the breakfast buffet that drifted from the house.

  I growled, and his smile broadened.

  “I take it that’s your first cup?” Travis asked, gazing pointedly at the coffee in my hand. Then he reached out with unexpected tenderness and caressed my inflamed cheek while clicking his tongue in sympathy. “Come on, help me bring in gifts.” He took my cup and set it aside, then circled the car and popped the trunk open.

  “I didn’t know you and Paige were talking, much less . . .” I waved my arm at the car.

  “Chauffeuring? It’s for Cali. She’s a good woman.” He lowered his voice as another guest walked past. “Not at all like her daughter.”

  I tried to read Travis’s mind. Never an easy task, and was now even more complicated. Until very recently, Cali had been Travis’s mother-in-law.

  “Do you think Cali can get Paige to disclose who baby’s father is?”

  Travis shrugged. “If she can’t, no one can.”

  It was with reluctance that I dragged myself to church the next morning. It wasn’t just what Oma had said at the party but the growing understanding that I also felt outside of the group. I was the zebra in a herd of horses, a pair of mismatched shoes, a lone kite on the end of a string. Always trying to fit in but destined to fly alone.

  I missed Chance and resented his absence. I could be a pastor’s wife—if the pastor would only come home.

  Ashley was volunteering at the Sunday school nursery these days, and while I was certain she made the Lord smile, she made me pout. I missed her sitting next to me. Shane volunteered on Wednesdays to work with the teenagers and was enjoying rock star success. All the girls had a crush on him and the boys were in awe of the reformed outlaw biker.