“Did you ask her if you could use them?” I asked her with a raised eyebrow.
She looked like she wanted to hurt me—bad. “Yes, you idiot. I didn’t come out of a cave you know.”
“How long is this going to take?” I asked.
“As long as it takes. Right now. I’m just organizing and figuring this out.”
I nodded.
“Why don’t you go in the kitchen with Tor? I know you haven’t had breakfast, and you’ll give Tor something to do.”
“Have you had breakfast?” I asked.
“I wanted to fast before I did this. Now go!” She stood up and pushed me towards the door.
Not wanting to irritate her any further, I went. I didn’t like leaving Tabby alone, but she hadn’t given me a choice. I wanted to help her, I really did, but I guess my questions and reactions were more irritating than helpful.
I wandered into the kitchen. Tor was sitting at the table looking completely dejected. “You okay?” I asked.
She looked up. “Will and I had a fight. He left about two hours ago.”
I sat down across from her at the table. “Need to talk about it?”
Tor scratched her good arm. “Will confessed… He told me about his affair. Somehow he just expected me to give in, to tell him it was all right. Goddamn it, it isn’t all right.”
“Can you forgive him?” I asked.
“Right now, I can tell you that I don’t want to. Do I need to? Probably, but I feel betrayed.”
“Well, if you went by the church, they don’t believe in divorce, but some things about the church need updating. I’m not saying you should divorce Will, I’m just saying that you should explore every option.”
She stared at me. “What would you do?”
“Honestly?”
She nodded.
Given what I’d seen my parents go through, staying together for the kids alone doesn’t work. In fact, it makes everybody miserable. Granted, neither Tor nor Will were alcoholics, but it would still be a disaster. Lucy would grow up in a home that looked normal, but was anything but. I’d been there. I lived it. It sucked.
“I can’t say I would definitely do this because what we think we’ll do and what we end up doing are usually nothing alike. I think I couldn’t stand that betrayal. I would get out as soon as I could.”
“Even if you had kids?” she asked.
“Especially then. I lived in a house where my parents didn’t love each other. Each year got worse instead of better. If I didn’t have the church to escape to, I would probably, at the very least, be a drug addict. Most likely, I’d be dead by now.”
“I just have a lot to think about,” she said. “Want some breakfast?”
I smiled. “Whatever you want to make.”
She got up from the table and walked over to the refrigerator. She opened the door to the freezer and pulled out a container.
“Homemade Danish,” she said.
“Sounds good to me.”
###
After breakfast, Tor went outside. I crept back near the library. Tabby was drawing symbols in the air and stirring a mixture in a small iron pot. I didn’t have any idea what she was doing, but it was interesting.
I heard a noise, like something with great claws scrambling up the wooden steps to the upper level. I turned my head, of course there was nothing there. But, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of green over where Tabby was working. I slowly turned my head. For a little moment, the green that appeared was a symbol. As I turned my head towards Tabby, I saw nothing but her drawing in the air. This time, I could tell that what she was drawing was, in fact, the symbol I had seen. It was strange and it was scary.
I allowed Tabby to believe as she believed, but there was a strong part of me that didn’t take it seriously. For whatever reason, and maybe it was my church training, it was hard for me to believe in magic unless it had to do with black magic. Of course, as usual, I was contradicting myself. Technically, you could call transubstantiation a type of magic ritual, but the church definitely did not view it that way. Doing so would get you branded a heretic. Of course, I was already considered something less than dirt by the church. It couldn't get much worse.
But with Tabby, I always knew that she was anything but. Tabby was a good egg, and I knew, without a doubt, she would never do anything evil to another living soul. That knowledge still didn’t erase the fact that I now knew that Tabby’s witchy stuff was real. Did it scare me? Hell yes, but there was something comforting about being able to see it. I now knew it was there. Her power didn’t need faith for it to work. But what I just thought was blasphemy, wasn’t it?
There was a part of me that pondered over the whole thing. What really was God’s thought on this? I mean, like I was defrocked, and yet I was called in to try and help a little girl who needed divine intervention. Kind of ironic if you think about it.
I turned my head to the side again. This time there was more than one symbol. Each symbol had its own color. They were mostly reds, oranges, blues, greens and yellows. Beautiful to look at, but definitely not something I’d seen before. I wondered if it was only Tabby’s magic I could see, or if something had changed within me.
It was something to think about, all right.
As soon as Tabby finished, she looked up and noticed me. She blushed. “How long were you standing there?”
I grinned. “You would probably say too long, but it was just long enough for me.”
“Long enough for what?”
“Long enough for me to figure things out.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Cocoon
Tabby hunched her shoulders and shook her head. “Wanna give me a hand?”
I walked into the library and began helping her clean up.
After everything was put to rights and the herbs were swept up from the floor, I looked at Tabby. “Tor’s had a bad morning.”
Tabby furrowed her brow and wiped the sweat from her upper lip. “What do you mean?”
I set Tabby’s bag-o-witchyness on her sofa. “Remember how I told you things were bad yesterday?”
Tabby nodded.
“Well,” I said, “Will fessed up to Tor. We are either already in the middle of World War Three or waiting for it to start.”
Tabby tapped her chin with her fingers. “Do you think that’s why things were calm last night?”
“I dunno. It doesn’t seem to be insane enough yet to make up for last night. Of course with this whole thing, I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
Tabby brushed her hair off her forehead. “So, what’s on the agenda?”
“Today, we see if Lucy will speak to us, really speak to us. It’s about time we had more proof.”
Tabby nodded. “Lead the way.”
I grabbed my notebook and a felt tipped marker. I hadn’t forgotten what Lucy had done to her mother with a razor blade, and I wasn’t about to take any chances.
I looked at Tabby. “Okay, let’s go.”
We left the library. I paused at the bottom of the stairs and took a deep breath.
I began ascending and Tabby followed. There were no sounds, just the sound of us walking up the stairs. The old wood creaked with every step, but it wasn’t a scary creak. I wondered how this house looked when Black had it. Granted the furniture was Black’s, but somehow I felt like the house looked darker, more sinister when he lived there. I was speculating too much again—letting the ‘special something’ of the house distract me from the real issues. It didn’t matter what the house was like when Black had it—except for maybe the attic room, but the house, at this point, really had nothing to do with Lucy at all. Mr. Black, however, I think had a lot to do with Lucy.
As soon as I reached the top and turned towards Lucy’s wing, the laughter started. Then, she began to sing: “Where oh were has my little priest gone. Where oh where can he be!”
Then, it was like the lights went out of my vision. I was blind. I could hear nothing. The void
was so intense that I felt like I’d been transported to a space of nothingness. I was alone. It was like I completely disappeared.
Demon tricks are many, I reminded myself. It wants fear. You need to relax.
Soon, I could feel Tabby’s hands on me. I opened my eyes. Things were back to normal.
“Jimmy?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
I could feel her hands against my arm. I smiled at her. “Yep.”
“What happened?”
“Just Lucy playing a trick. Nothing more.”
Tabby’s eyes darkened. She stared at me for what seemed like forever. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Come on. I think Miss Lucy’s a bit bored.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked, trying to keep up with me as I started down the hallway.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not,” I said. “It’s the only option we have.”
Tabby ran in front of me and stopped, putting her hands on her hips. “What are you blathering about? There are always other options.”
I shook my head. “Not for Lucy there aren’t. Time is running out, Tabby. You’ve seen her. She isn’t well. I don’t know if the possession is causing her health to fail or if she had other health problems that came on because of the stress of the possession, but what I do know is that this little girl is dying. There isn’t time for me to be chickenshit.”
She paused, then nodded grimly.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
###
When we got to Lucy’s door, it was so cold that I could see the puffs of my breath when I exhaled. “She’s getting stronger.”
Tabby stared into my eyes. Her eyes had that wild look of fear. Hell, I was scared. Lucy was something I hadn’t faced before. She was creepy as Hell, and I think she knew it. She seemed to get a charge by making people feel uncomfortable, not like a six-year-old at all. I think it was that more than the supernatural stuff that had me truly believe that Lucy really was possessed. She once was a normal kid, and now she wasn’t. She didn’t have the same personality, the same voice. There was nothing in there that made me think “Lucy.” All I thought when I saw her was “it.”
I reached towards the door, and as soon as I touched the doorknob, I jerked my hand away.
“What’s wrong?” Tabby asked.
“It’s cold. Ice cold.” I used the hem of my shirt and opened the door. Lucy was in her bed, grinning like a Cheshire cat. I could tell already, this was going to be interesting.
“So you’ve come to visit me, Priest?” Lucy asked.
“Yes, Lucy,” I said. “Tabby and I thought that we would sit with you for awhile and visit. I’m sure you’re bored.”
Lucy laughed her choppy laugh. “Oh, I find things to keep me entertained. A little chaos here, a little thanatos there.”
Thanatos, now that was a word I knew. It was classical Greek for death. There was no way at all that Lucy could have learned about “thanatos.”
“What is it about thanatos you like, Lucy?” I asked. I wanted to show that she understood. I could only hope that she would comply.
Lucy fixed her ugly eyes on my. “Thanatos, dear Father Holiday, is the point to everything. Through thanatos, I get what I want, and each time I experience death, I get to go after another soul. Through that I get reborn.”
I nodded. “Does thanatos liberate you?”
It cackled then. “Liberaté me, Liberaté me!”
Okay, we had Greek and Latin, what was next?
“Du bist interessant, Vater Holiday,” Lucy said.
I paused. Holy crap, now she was speaking German. This was proof.
“Thank you, Lucy,” I said.
“Nechevo,” she answered.
Good God. Greek, Latin, German and Russian in the space of five minutes. It would be so difficult for the church to deny this.
I tapped my fingers on the footboard of Lucy’s bed. Then, I looked at her. “We’ll go now, Lucy,” I said. “You need your rest.”
She smiled.
Tabby and I left the room as nonchalantly as possible. I waited until we were downstairs in the kitchen before I exploded. “I can’t believe it!”
“Shh,” Tabby held her finger in front of my mouth.
“Shit, sorry. I … I just never expected that. Four languages she has no way of knowing. I feel so damn lucky.”
Tabby looked at me, her eyes worried. “Why should you feel lucky?”
I must have sounded like a cross between a madman and an idiot. “I meant I can’t believe how this has turned out. We couldn’t have better luck for Lucy. The church is going to have a hard time ignoring this evidence.”
“I don’t know, Jimmy,” Tabby said. ”Is it really enough?”
It hit me then—what she meant. I was so excited by Lucy’s capacity for language that I was missing the point. The church, depending on their mood, will do what they like. We just had another piece of the puzzle that would make it hard for them to ignore. Hard, but not impossible. “You have a point. I just got a little carried away.”
“A little?” Tabby asked.
I chuckled. “Okay, I got way ahead of myself.” I ruffled Tabby’s hair. She smiled.
###
Soon after, Will came into the kitchen. “Where’s Tor?” he asked.
He looked a little rumpled and kind of sad.
Tabby and I were playing solitaire. She was winning. I was doomed, as usual. She’d run out of books to read, all my projects had been transferred to other artists and we were left with nothing to do. Before all of this, it would have upset me to know that I essentially had been replaced at my job, now I felt kind of numb about it. Of course, I hadn’t been concentrating on my bills or my rapidly depleting bank account.
“I think she might be either still wandering around the garden, or she went upstairs to lay down. I don’t remember,” I said. “Tabby and I visited Lucy for awhile, and we haven’t seen her since.”
Will took off his coat and draped it over the back of a chair. “She tell you?”
I nodded.
“It wasn’t right to keep her from it. I should have told her sooner, Hell I shouldn’t have done it to begin with.”
Tabby shook her head. “We aren’t here to judge you. You made a mistake. You owned up to it. Now, it’s up to Tor as to what she wants to do.”
Will pulled the chair back from the table and draped his coat on the back of it. Then he sat down.
“So when did the affair happen, anyway?” I asked.
“Before we left D.C. I met another freelancer at a conference and it just happened. It was a one-time thing.”
“Freelancer?” Tabby asked.
“I used to be a columnist,” Will replied.
I paused. “Used to be” wasn’t what I expected to hear. “You aren’t anymore?”
Will sighed. “When we moved up here, we thought it would be a good idea to completely get away from the rat race. I was … am supposed to be writing a novel, but then Lucy…” He scratched his eyes. “Financially, we’re fine. Tor got a Hell of an inheritance. Though, I might have to look for a job soon.”
Tabby and I exchanged glances. If he was having to look for a job, finances were not fine.
“Want me to go check on Tor?” Tabby asked.
Will’s face relaxed. “That would be great.”
I watched Tabby walk out of the room. I couldn’t ignore the way her hips moved in her jeans. After a moment, I turned and looked at Will.
“How was Lucy this morning?” he asked.
I took moment to answer. Did he want the truth? Or did he want something else? “She was interesting.”
“How so?”
I interlaced my fingers together. “Well, while Tabby and I were there, she spoke Greek, Latin, German and Russian.”
“What?” He grabbed the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white.
“I take it you have no idea how she knows any of those languages.”
&nb
sp; He shook his head. “I took Spanish in college. Tor took French, I think.”
“So, you can say definitely that no one in this household, or your parents spoke Greek, German or Latin.”
“Like I said, my mother used to speak Russian, but when she came over, she had to learn English.”
I nodded. “Are you sure she didn’t know Latin?”
Will sighed. “Almost positive. I know she always went to church, but you gotta' remember, when she was in Russia, the communists were in power. Religion was frowned upon.”
That was something I’d never thought about before. “If she wasn’t religious in Russia, how did she find God?”
He paused, staring at the table, tapping his fingers against his chin. “I think the family took her to church.”
“Her family?”
“Yeah, I think it was an aunt who helped her get out of Russia. The aunt went to church here, so when Mama came, she went to church too.”
It made sense now. I just wished it all wasn’t so complicated.
“You hungry?” Will asked.
I laughed. “You know, it seems like all we do in this house is eat.”
Will smiled. “Tor loves to cook so much. I keep telling her that if she wants to start her own restaurant, I’d help with Lucy.”
“And then I wouldn’t get to see my daughter enough,” Tor said from the doorway. Her eyes rimmed with red.
Will smiled sheepishly.
“I gotta' tell you Tor, you are talented in the kitchen,” I said.
She smiled. “You all will have to keep up the meals for awhile yet.” She looked at her bandaged wrist. “It still hurts too much.”
Tabby ushered Tor into the room and placed her at the table.
“Okay, all this talk about food is making me hungry,” Tabby smiled.
“We’ve got tons of everything,” Tor said. “Make what you want.”
Tabby started rummaging in cupboards and I got a chance to take a good look at Tor. There were huge dark circles under her eyes. She looked like it had been awhile since she’d slept. Her blonde hair was brushed, but it lacked luster. It looked dull, to be honest.
I was beginning to think that this thing with Lucy was beginning to affect Tor physically now instead of just mentally. And this shit with Will didn’t help.