Misfit (22 page)

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Father!”

“You ask for the mercy of Jesus Christ. And yet, as a communist, you don’t believe in God.”

“I do, Father! I’m baptized! Before the liberation army took me, I went to Mass every Sunday!”

“Even worse, you received God’s grace, and you threw it away for a fickle promise of power.”

“No, Father, I swear! I didn’t have a choice!”

“I know that,” says Father Locke. He turns to the crowd.

“My children, how could God al ow such a horror as the Shining Path to come upon us? He is testing us.

The pagan sorcery of the Incas has not been eradicated completely. We know this.

In the mountains, they stil practice it. Even some of you stil practice it in your own smal ways. The Devil is subtle and often appears in guises we don’t expect.

The darkness of Inca sorcery, fed secretly al these years, has taken shape as an army of cruel militant atheists. The government is fighting a losing battle because they are only using guns and weapons of this mortal plane. But this is a spiritual war, and God expects us to fight.

The stakes are not just our lives, but our eternal souls as wel .”

“Amen!” shouts the crowd.

Father Locke looks down at the bleeding rebel. “But as I said, I realize that you were forced into this.”

“Yes!” said the rebel.

“You are control ed by a diabolical power, a demon born from the pagan sorcery of the Incas. But I wil free you,” says Father Locke. “I wil exorcise the demon!”

“Amen!” shouts the crowd.

Father Locke leads a procession down the street.

They fan out behind him, singing hymns as they carry the possessed rebel out of Iquitos to the area of Belen, where Father Locke lives. It’s during the flood season and Belen is under five feet of water. Al the tiny huts that people live in are on rafts or stilts.

The procession careful y loads the rebel into a smal wooden boat. Then Father Locke, alone, rows him out in the water to his raised hut.

“Please, Father, I’m not possessed!”

“Of course you are. How else could you have committed such atrocities?”

“No, Father! You don’t understand. . . .”

The rebel says more, but Father Locke remembers that an exorcist should never listen to the lies, threats, or bribes that the demon heaps on him.

When they get to Father Locke’s hut, the rebel is too weak to move, so Father Locke lifts him from the boat and carries him into a corner of his hut. Then, he begins the exorcism. He’s never done one before, but he has the rituals and he’s talked to other priests who have done them. He finds the prayers and activities soothing. He hopes that the rebel also finds some smal comfort in them as he battles the demon inside himself.

After a while, the rebel is raving like a madman. Thick yel ow pus seeps from his tourniquets and Jael begins to understand what’s real y happening here.

But this is only a memory and she can only watch.

After another day, the rebel’s arm and leg are purple and decayed in the tropical heat. He has stopped screaming.

Three days later, the rebel dies, and Father Locke takes comfort that at least he saved the boy’s immortal soul.

Word spreads of the miracle. Other rebels are brought to him. Some found, some captured, some claiming not to be rebels at al . They are al bruised, battered, and near death. Father Locke saves them al .

It isn’t until the flood season is over and the waters recede that a passing police officer sees the pile of bodies that has col ected under the stilts of Father Locke’s house. . . .

The memories drain away: the heat, the jungle, and the smel of death. Jael, the Mons, Father Ralph, and Britt stil stand in the Mons’s office with freezing rain spitting down from the sprinklers and a lashing wind that comes from nowhere.

“You . . . ,” Jael says. “And you cal me a monster.”

“Oh, God,” whispers the Mons. “These are tricks!

Demon tricks!”

Jael continues to look into his eyes, pul ing out the memories that have been buried so deep for so long, so that he can’t hide from them any longer. He struggles and pushes against her as she tunnels down into the soft, raw nerves of his identity, taking that image of the pile of rotted, bloated corpses and shoving it as far down as it wil go.

“You are a psycho and a mass murderer,” she says.

A shriek boils up from deep in his gut, “GOD, NO!”

Then his whole body convulses violently with a strength Jael wasn’t prepared for, and he slips from her grasp.

She lunges forward to stop him from fal ing backward, but her fingertips only graze the wet cloth of his robe.

His head smacks hard into the wet marble floor and he lies stil .

The sprinklers shudder off, the fluttering objects drift back to the ground and the temperature in the room returns to normal. Jael stands over the Mons, her hand stil outstretched as she looks down at him. She smel s blood. A line of red seeps from the point where his head hit the floor. The blood thins and spreads as it mixes with the melting ice crystals. She sees her reflection in a puddle tinged with red and she doesn’t look like some righteous creature of magic. She just looks like a scared little girl.

There is a loud pounding at the door, then the hinges break free from the frame and the door fal s forward with a smack.

Father Aaron stands on the other side, breathing hard from exertion. He holds an enormous iron cross in his hands, splinters from the door stuck on the corners.

He surveys the room for a moment, then he tosses the cross on the couch and runs to the Mons. He kneels down and checks his breath and pulse.

“Is he . . . ,” whispers Jael. “Is he . . .”

“He’s alive,” says Father Aaron. Then he turns to look at Britt and Father Ralph. They stare back at him like they don’t know him.

“This little adventure of yours is over,” says Father Aaron.

“Don’t speak of this to anyone. Now, go.”

They just stare at him.

“GO!” he barks.

They flinch and run out the door.

“Father,” says Jael. Her voice trembles. “I didn’t mean

—”

“You’ve had a hard day,” he says quietly. Almost gently. “Go home to your father.”

“Y-Yes, Father,” she says. She turns to go.

“Miss Thompson,” says Father Aaron.

Jael stops.

“See you in school tomorrow,” he says. “Right?”

“If you think that would be—”

“I do. I’l handle this. That’s why I’m here.”

It is a long, slow, dark walk home in the rain. School must have let out hours ago, but she can’t bring herself to rush. The sound of the Mons’s screams stil echo in her ears and she can stil smel the blood. She feels raw al over, and she has no idea if she just won or lost or if winning or losing even means anything anymore.

When she nears the house, she sees someone huddled under the awning on the front step.

“Dad?”

His head jerks up. Then he runs out into the rain and sweeps her up in a fierce hug.

“Aaron cal ed and told me that you missed your afternoon classes,” he mumbles into the top of her head. “Then you didn’t come home. I thought . . .” He lifts his head and looks at her, squinting as the rain pounds on his face. Jael has never seen him this frantic before. This openly concerned.

“I’m okay, Dad,” she says, although she’s not real y sure if she is.

He pul s her into the house, pats her down with a towel, and takes off her shoes. She can’t help but wonder, who has replaced her father with this kind, nurturing human being?

“Let’s get you dry and fed. Are you hungry? Thirsty?

Tired?

What happened?”

“I’m not real y sure what happened,” she says. “The Mons locked me in his office and he tried to do an exorcism. And I . . .

I think I might have screwed him up. Permanently.”

“What did you do?”

“I showed him what his soul looks like.”

“Oh,” says Paul. He’s quiet for a moment as he looks at the damp towel in his hands. Then he tosses the towel on a doorknob and says, “So, are you hungry?”

“That’s al you have to say about it?”

He looks at her with a strange calmness. “What is there to say? Are you asking me if you did the right thing? Wel , if he was so self-deluded that the truth drove him mad, then perhaps it was exactly what he deserved. On the other hand, who can truly say that they know their own soul? I can’t. I don’t think you can.

Perhaps we al delude ourselves. Perhaps we al deserve that fate. Or perhaps no one does.” He looks at her. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yeah,” says Jael. “Sort of.”

Yep, it’s definitely stil her father.

“Great. So, food?”

“Yes, please,” she says.

Apparently squash is on sale, because the fridge is packed with it. Jael sits down and has a feast with pumpkin squash, acorn squash, butternut squash, and spaghetti squash. The next hour is devoted to peeling skins and eating pulp, seeds, and al . In between bites, she tel s her father the details and he listens intently without comment. After she’s finished with the story, she quietly eats her squash for a little while.

Then she says, “Dad, I don’t understand how al that stuff with the Mons happened.”

“I’ve never done missionary work like that,” says her father,

“but I’ve heard that it can be very hard to stay out of local politics.” He looks at her for a second. “But that’s not what you mean.”

“No,” she says. “I want to know how a crazy mass murderer can become my high school religion teacher.”

“Perhaps the locals real y did see him as a holy man,”

says her father. “Perhaps the police were too frightened of the Church in Peru to bring charges against him. Perhaps the Church simply wouldn’t listen. You have to remember, every time a priest is convicted of a crime, especial y one that seems rooted in the traditions of the Church, the power of the Vatican slips slightly.”

“So they could have just covered it up?”

“Possibly,” says her father.

“The Church hid a murderer?”

“More likely, those who made the decision simply chose not to learn the details.”

“Details? I wouldn’t cal those details.”

“I agree that sometimes it’s a terrible practice.”

“Sometimes? Please, when is it not terrible?”

“When it saves your life,” he says.

“What?”

“After that incident with Amon and the Baron, I fol owed Poujean’s advice and asked the Church to shelter us. How else do you think I could have gotten jobs al over the world on nearly a yearly basis? I contact the local bishop, tel him we need to move. He contacts the cardinal, and it goes up the chain until someone in the Vatican finds me a new teaching post.”

“But they don’t know what I am, right? Not for sure.”

“Father Aaron does.”

“What? For how long?”

“As long as we’ve lived here. He receives my confession once a month.”

“Jesus, Dad, that’s probably something you should have told me.”

“Probably,” he says.

Jael is about to say something more, but she stops herself.

She just criticized her father, swore at him even, and he agreed.

No excuses, no denials. He just agreed. So she decides to let it go at that.

“Okay, but it’s not like he’s tel ing the pope or anything.”

Her eyes narrow. “Right?”

“Jael, do you real y think, as cautious as the Church is, that they would offer sanctuary to a creature as potential y powerful as you without keeping a close watch? Father Aaron isn’t just some parish priest.

He’s a high ranking member of the Vatican with an extensive background in military intel igence.”

“Father Aaron is an undercover spy?”

“Not exactly. It is true that no one else at Mercy is aware of what he real y is. But a spy wouldn’t let the people he’s spying on know who he truly is, and he’s never made it a secret to me.

He’s actual y been quite helpful in keeping me informed of Church politics that might affect us. You could even say he’s our advocate at the Vatican. In fact, he’s one of the main reasons we’ve stayed here this long. No other Church contact has been this supportive, and that counts for quite a lot.”

“So . . . okay, what does the Church want from us?

From me?”

His eyes grow distant and he shakes his head.

“That, I don’t know,” he says.

Then the doorbel rings.

They freeze for a moment.

Jael says, “Who—”

“I’l go see,” says her father.

Jael listens to him walk out to the hal way and open the front door. There’s a long silence. Just when she’s getting real y worried, she hears Rob’s voice.

“Hi, Mr. Thompson. You don’t have to let me in or anything, but can you just tel me if Jael is okay?”

There’s another long silence. Then she hears her father say,

“Come inside out of the rain, Rob.”

“Thanks, Mr. Thompson.”

Jael throws down her half-eaten squash and runs out to the hal way. Rob is there, rain dripping from his jacket onto the front mat.

“Jael,” he says. “Are you—”

That’s as much as he gets out, because she grabs him and hugs him fiercely. After a few moments, he whispers, “Ribs, Bets. Super demon strength making it hard to breathe.”

“Oh, sorry.” She lets him go.

Rob takes a deep sigh of relief, then says, “So, you’re okay, obviously.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I am now.”

“It was the weirdest thing,” he says. “I get this cal from Father Aaron. He wouldn’t tel me anything other than that I should check in on you. Total y had me freaked out. So what happened?”

“Are you hungry, Rob?” asks her father.

“I’m always hungry, Mr. Thompson.”

Her father smiles slightly at that. “Wel , come on. I’l make you something. We have al this lunch meat that Jael won’t eat now and it’l go bad before I get to it al .”

Jael fol ows them silently into the kitchen. She doesn’t want to say anything that might screw up this sudden change in her father’s attitude toward Rob. She and Rob sit down at the table while her father makes him a sandwich. During this surreal y normal activity, Jael describes the exorcism again. After she’s done, Rob says, “I can’t believe it. Britt was your best friend.”