by Terri Garey
She looked awful. Dark circles beneath her eyes, lanky hair, all angles and elbows. I was hugely relieved to see nothing in or on the toilet—whatever she’d been throwing up was as insubstantial as she was.
“What are you doing here, Crystal?” I kept my voice level with an effort. My own stomach was doing flips, but I didn’t want her to know it.
She sneered at me, showing those ugly yellow teeth again. “I’m being punished.”
“Punished?”
“He made me eat.”
I didn’t need to ask who “he” was. What a diabolical thing to do—force an anorexic to eat. That was like making a germaphobe lick an ashtray or something.
“Your stupid boyfriend isn’t cooperating with the ‘breakup plan,’”—she used bone-thin fingers to make hash marks in the air—“no matter how hard I make things for him.” Shaking her head in disgust, she wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist and leaned against the wall. “You must be a hell of a lay.”
My chin went up. “Thank you. I am, actually.”
She gave a short laugh, looking very tired. “Some guys like fat girls. No accounting for taste.”
I didn’t bother to argue with her over whether I was fat or not. It wasn’t worth it, not with someone who had body-image issues so severe. Besides, now that I knew the truth behind Crystal’s spitefulness, she’d lost a lot of the ability to push my buttons.
I repeated my question. “What are you doing here?”
She looked away instead of meeting my gaze. “You’re the only one who can see me. The only one who knows I’m still here.”
The only one she can talk to.
Standing there, barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of panties and camisole top, I felt her vulnerability as though it were my own. I should hate her—she’d been making my life a living hell all week. Climbing into my brain, taking over my body, trying to ruin my love life.
But the bottom line was, I still had a life, and she didn’t.
“What did Sammy promise you to get you to make a deal with him?” I asked the question very quietly.
She shrugged. “A chance to get even.” She met my eyes, defiant now. “A chance to be heard.”
“Get even with who?”
“Your boyfriend,” she spat. “The guy who let me die.”
I just looked at her.
“With the world, okay?” She was shouting now. “With the whole fucking world!”
I had a button of my own to push, but it was for her own good. “What about Jimmy Boyd?”
The glare she gave me would’ve shriveled fruit. She was still sitting on the floor next to the toilet, but she moved so that her back was in the corner, drawing up her knees in an unconscious posture of protection.
“You had a chance to help me get even with him, but you wouldn’t,” she said bitterly.
I made an exasperated noise. “Me going to jail for bashing some guy over the head is not what I had in mind. I offered to get your mother to believe you were telling the truth about him, and to keep him away from Amber Marie, remember?”
She looked away, obviously seething. “Yeah, well she didn’t believe you any more than she did me, now did she?” The hurt was there, in her voice, behind the fury.
I vaguely remembered reading that anger and cloudy thinking were one of the classic symptoms of anorexia—lack of nourishment affected the brain as well as the body. “You’re letting your anger control you, Crystal. It’s eating you up inside.” It was the wee hours of the morning, I was half-naked, and I was reasoning with a dead girl. The odds were stacked against me, but I kept going. “Think. There must be some way to expose Boyd for the creep that he is without murder being part of the plan.”
“You don’t understand,” she muttered. “It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”
“Why not?” I refused to give up just yet. She was still here, still talking, so there must be something she wanted, something I could do to help her move on.
“Because I made a deal,” she said, glancing in my direction without meeting my eyes. “I made a deal.” Her voice lowered. “It’s not like I can back out of it now.”
I sighed, almost wishing Sammy were here so I could wring his horny neck. This was his fault—all of it.
Squatting in the doorway so we’d be at eye level, I searched for the right words, hoping they’d come. “You know what I think?”
She didn’t answer.
“I think the Devil only has as much power over you as you give him.”
She started picking at a spot on her jeans, near the knee.
“I think your soul belongs to you, no matter what kind of deal you made.” Taking a deep breath, I plunged in deeper. “I think that once your anger is resolved, your spirit will be free, and you’ll be able to make a final choice as to where you want to ultimately go.”
She finally looked at me, just a little, from the corner of her eye.
I pointed upward. “It’s a whole lot nicer up there, I promise.”
“Gee, you sound a lot like Jimmy,” she said sarcastically. “Streets of gold? Pearly gates and a heavenly choir of angels?” A rude snort followed. “Please.”
Undaunted, I shook my head. “No. It’s not like that. I didn’t see any streets of gold or pearly gates.” Now angels—that was something else, but I wasn’t willing to call the shifting shapes and colors I’d seen angels, exactly. They were something entirely beyond understanding. “It was beautiful, though. Bright, shining. Peaceful. And I wouldn’t call it a heavenly choir, but there was music, of a sort.”
I was at a loss to describe those pure tones, pulsing and changing, color and music and emotion combined. How they filled the air, and how they made me feel part of them—part of everything.
“You’re full of shit,” she said flatly.
“I’m telling the truth.”
Suspicious, she eyed me from her spot in the corner.
“Why should I trust you? The last time I trusted anybody religious, it got me raped.” She shook her head, disgusted, remembering. “What a stupid, fucking kid I was.”
My gorge rose at the mental image that presented. A little towheaded girl, and a man at least twice her age—a man she trusted.
“He did it in the back of a crappy little revival tent in the middle of nowhere.” Another ugly sneer. “Hallelujah, sister. Praise the Lord.”
I forced myself to swallow hard, and not look away from those hard eyes, just barely gleaming with tears.
“I’m not religious,” I said carefully. “I don’t even go to church. I just know what I’m talking about when it comes to what happens when you die.”
“So do I,” she flared, practically snarling the words.
I shook my head no. “You’ve only seen one side of it. I’ve seen the other. Darkness and light go hand in hand, Crystal, and you’re stuck in the Dark.”
She didn’t answer at first. A single tear escaped and slid quietly down her cheek. Her face looked like a death mask.
I waited.
“He’ll never let me go,” she finally whispered.
Taking a deep breath, I said something I knew I shouldn’t. “You let me worry about him.”
“Nicki?” Joe’s voice startled me, coming down the hall from the darkened living room. “What are you doing?”
I rose from my squat and glanced in his direction. He walked into the pool of light spilling from the bathroom, wearing nothing but boxer briefs, holding the remains of a half-eaten apple.
Giving him a halfhearted smile, I said, “Stepped on something. Just looking to see what it was.”
He answered me with a sleepy grunt and took another bite of his apple. “Okay,” he mumbled, around the bite, heading toward the bedroom. “I’m going back to bed.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
When I looked back, it was no surprise to find the corner between the tub and toilet empty. I went in and shut the door behind me.
“Crystal?”
I didn’t
really expect a reply.
CHAPTER 24
“You need to get yourself to church, girl.”
I’d never expected to take advice from someone like Tina Cowart, but the words she’d said when I’d tried to confront her about Jimmy Boyd stuck with me. Going back to Tina’s trailer seemed like a bad idea unless I wanted to be arrested for trespassing, so first thing Saturday morning, I decided to revisit the hallowed halls of every self-respecting Gen-Xer’s favorite church, the Internet. I Googled everything I could find on a certain child-molesting evangelist/creep, and hit pay dirt.
Hearts on Fire Tabernacle, just north of Atlanta, on the outskirts of Marietta. Services on Wednesday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning.
Joe had already left for the gym, and Saturday was our busiest day of the week at the store, so I printed out the address, stuffed it in my purse, and tried to figure out what to do next as I drove into Little Five.
Bright lights, flashing blue and red in my rearview mirror, got my attention. “Shit,” I groaned. “Shit, shit, shit.”
So much for deflecting the Evil Eye with brooms and rhymes and candles. My luck had obviously yet to change.
I pulled over and put the car in park, knowing I was about to get cited, yet again, for an expired tag. With everything that had gone on this week, I’d completely forgotten to get my inspection—hadn’t paid my tickets yet, either.
Keeping my hands on the steering wheel, I let my forehead fall forward and rest there, too, knowing from past experience that this could take a while.
“License and registration, please.”
I lifted my head, expecting to see another big dumb Deputy Do Right with aviator sunglasses and a bad-ass attitude.
“Nicki? Nicki Styx?”
My mouth fell open. “Billy?” My very first boyfriend from the eighth grade, Billy Babcock, stood grinning at me, one hand on the car and one hand hooked in the belt of his uniform.
“Damn, girl, you are looking good!” he said, pulling off his sunglasses. “How’ve you been?”
The last time I’d seen Billy had been our senior year of high school, almost ten years before, but he still had that boyishly cute quality that appealed to the thirteen-year-old me. Except now he had a crew cut, and a badge.
“I can’t believe it.” I laughed. “You’re a cop!”
Billy had the grace to flush a little under his tan, grinning bigger than ever. “Yeah,” he said. “Who’da thunk it?”
I knew he was remembering the time we almost got caught shoplifting at the convenience store near the school. I’d wanted some lemon sours, and he’d wanted a candy bar, and neither of us had any money. We’d snatched our goodies and run like hell, while the Asian woman behind the counter screamed at us in Vietnamese.
“Billy Babcock.” I shook my head, still surprised to see him looking so grown-up. “My very first kiss.”
Now he really blushed, reminding me again of why I’d found him so cute. He’d always been such a sweetheart.
“I’m married now,” he blurted. “Two kids. Wanna see?”
Before I say “boo,” he’d whipped out his wallet and was showing off his pride and joys. “This is Adam, and this here’s Jessica,” he said, tapping a school photo of a little boy who looked about seven, and another of a little girl of three or four. The girl was perched in the lap of a heavyset, smiling woman with long brown hair. “That’s my wife, Annie,” he added, obviously happy about it. “We’ve been married nine years now.”
“They’re beautiful,” I said, sincerely. “All three of them.” Okay, Annie wasn’t beautiful, but she looked nice, and that was more important.
“What about you?” Billy tucked his wallet back into his pocket, for all the world as if we’d met in the mall instead of him pulling me over.
“Still single,” I said, smiling brightly at him. “No kids. I own a vintage clothing store down in Little Five Points.”
“Still marching to the beat of a different drummer, aren’t you? Pink hair.” He shook his head, grinning. “You need to get yourself a good man, a couple of kids—that’ll settle you right down.”
“It’s all your fault, Billy,” I said lightly, flirting just a little. “You ruined me for any other guy after that first kiss—how many thirteen-year-olds get a romantic moment like that?”
It had been romantic, actually. I’d been spending the night with one of my friends, who was Billy’s neighbor. They lived on a lake. It was a full moon, and while my friend Joy waited on the shore, talking to Billy’s brother, he’d taken me out in the canoe. Somewhere in the middle of the lake he’d stopped paddling and just looked at me. Before I knew it, we’d leaned in and kissed. A chaste kiss, but a sweet one. Looking back, we’d probably been lucky the canoe hadn’t capsized.
He laughed, slipping his sunglasses back on, probably hoping to hide the fact that he was blushing more than ever. “Okay, okay—no need to butter me up. I’m not going to give you a ticket.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re not? Then why’d you pull me over?”
“Your tag’s expired, and you’re burning oil like crazy,” he said. Reaching into the front pocket on his shirt, he pulled out a business card. “You remember my brother, Danny?”
Danny was older, and not nearly as cute. “Sure.”
“He owns a gas and lube place over on Euclid and Belmont. Tell him I sent you, and remind him he owes me a favor. He’ll get you fixed up.”
“Billy, I—”
“No need to thank me,” he said, slapping his hand on the door frame in farewell. “Just get that leak fixed and renew that tag, ASAP.”
I gave him a mock salute. “Yes, sir!”
He laughed again, backing away as he headed toward his cruiser. “Bye bye, angel eyes. You take care now.”
Angel eyes. I’d forgotten how he used to call me that. “Bye, Billy,” I called, craning my neck out the window to watch him go. “Thank you!”
A final wave before he got in his cruiser and pulled back out on the highway.
I sat there a minute, filled with good memories and feeling more than just a little lucky. Maybe Bijou and her geriatric buddies had been right, after all. Maybe the Evil Eye curse—or whatever it was—had been lifted.
My smile faded, though, when I remembered what I’d been thinking about when Billy pulled me over.
Crystal Cowart’s memories of when she was thirteen were very different from mine.
Tina Cowart, misguided religious fanatic that she was, was right. I needed to get myself to church.
“You’re nuts,” Evan said to me. “You’re likely to burst into flame the minute you walk into that place. Hardly lived your life as a saint, now have you?” He shook his head. “Hearts on Fire Tabernacle—and you’ve got a bad heart. It’s a sign. A bad sign.”
I gave him a sour look. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, smart-ass.”
We were rearranging the racks as we did almost every morning, making sure the sizing was lined up properly. People tended to put things back wherever they happened to be standing at the moment, and nobody wanted to see size 4s in the size 12 areas.
“I’m just sayin’,” he went on, with an innocent air that fooled no one, least of all me. “Bad girls don’t belong in church.”
“I’m not a bad girl anymore, remember?”
He waved a hand, brushing away my words.
The shop bell tinkled, and we both automatically turned to see who’d come in. Evan’s choked gasp barely covered my own.
“What have you done to me?” demanded one of the women who stood there. At least I thought it was a woman—for a minute I thought it was a gray-haired troll. Her face was covered in lumps and ugly red blotches. Combined with her lack of height, extreme roundness, and scraggly long hair, she didn’t look quite human. The other woman looked normal, except for the worried look on her face.
“You won’t get away with this,” the troll said, shaking a finger at me as she advanced. “The Sisters of C
irce are a powerful coven. Whatever spell you’ve cast won’t last for long!”
And then it hit me; this was Shadow Starhawk or whatever she called herself, and she was not happy. I should’ve been freaked—she was certainly scary to look at—but instead I burst out laughing.
“Oh my God,” I said between giggles. “It worked. It actually worked.”
Her face turned redder than ever. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, girl.”
“Oh yes, I do. Climb back on your besom and fly away, you wicked old witch.”
Evan looked horrified, and one look at his face sent me into fresh peals of laughter. I couldn’t help it—I felt so relieved.
“Mind the threefold law you should,” I quoted, dragging the words up from my memory of last night, “three times bad and three times good.” Shaking my head in amazement, I added, “You must’ve cast one nasty spell on me, girlfriend, because now you’ve got it three times as bad!”
I thought the woman’s head was going to explode. “You…you—”
“Now, now.” I shook my head as well as my finger, and recited, “I’m rubber, you’re glue—bounce off me and stick on you.” Childish, but appropriate. I knew what I was doing was like poking a stick at a scorpion, but I couldn’t help it. She’d started it, after all.
“You broke the Rede,” I went on sagely, as if I really knew what I was talking about. “You had to know there would be consequences.”
The woman with her grabbed her by the arm, tugging her backward. “Sally,” she murmured, eyeing me warily. “Leave it alone. Let’s go.”
“Listen to your friend,” I said boldly, deciding to brazen it out, “before I call in my celestial sisters again, the Silver Belles. They’re pretty ticked off about somebody practicing black magic on their turf.” Total bullshit, of course, but Sally Starhawk didn’t know that.
That seemed to shut the troll up. She was still fuming, but she couldn’t quite meet my eyes anymore. The normal-looking one sent me a look of apology, and I was suddenly certain who’d left the white basket of remedies on my doorstep.
“Sorry for the trouble, Miss Styx,” the nicer one said. “We’ll go now.”