The Atheist's Daughter (22 page)

“Seriously?”

“Yes! No. No, not seriously. Where are you?”

“Galilee Church.”

“Pull the other one.”

“Hawkins is inside, teaching some kind of study class,” Kristin said. “I’m supposed to meet him here.”

“You really meant it? Wow.” Her mother was quiet for a moment. “How long will you be there?”

“It might be awhile.” True enough. She’d spent the last ten minutes trying to find the courage to open the car door.

“Make it a short while,” Becky said. “We have visitors coming over. I need you to pick up donuts or cinnamon rolls on the way home. Or do you think we should go healthy?”

“Who’s visiting?”

“Mrs. Norton. Martin is tagging along, I think.”

Kristin’s mind spun, her thoughts a jumble.

From somewhere in cyberspace, a crackle rolled over the line. “That was thunder, wasn’t it? We’ll have lightning soon.”

She said, “Mom, I don’t feel good about Mrs. Norton.”

“She’s not very warm and fuzzy, that’s for certain. Hang up the line. It’s dangerous to be on a phone during a thunderstorm.”

“Mrs. Norton –”

“– will need something to eat once she gets here. Martin will, anyway. He’s skin and bones since Chandra left him. Pick up something before you get home. A veggie platter!”

The phone line went dead.

Overhead, the rain fell more heavily. Unconcerned, Mickey swayed on his coiled spring leg.

I’ve got to do this,
she told herself.
I have to do it right now.

Pellets of cold water spat at her legs as she climbed from her seat. Before she could close the car door, a gust of wind yanked the handle from her hand and slammed the driver’s side shut.

Lightning streaked overhead, followed by a crash of thunder. She ran for the church walk, feeling as if buckets of water were falling upon her.

Drowning is not an option.

She’d never seen the weather turn nasty so quickly. With the wind howling around her, she bent into it, marveling at the struggle it presented.

At the end of the path, the church’s oak door swung open. Hawkins appeared in the vestibule. “Kristin!”

Her hair pressed wetly against her cheeks. Nausea hit her, suddenly, and she gagged dryly.

Nice try, ecclesiophobia, but I’m ready for you this time.
I skipped supper, didn’t eat breakfast. You might make me as sick as hell but I’m not visiting the bushes this time.

Reverend Hawkins stepped behind his son. He pulled on Hawkins’ shirt and the younger man stumbled backward.

The Reverend stared out at her, his eyes wide. Hawkins cried out as his father pushed the big door closed.

The door boomed shut as a black shadow passed over the walkway. The shadow was so large and dark that Kristin wondered if an eclipse had occurred. Shielding her eyes from the rain, she looked up at the sky.

Thick, black clouds floated above her. As she watched, the large, thick drops of rain weakened, transforming into a fine mist. The wind continued to blow but its ferocity was gone. It caressed her, tugging at her clothing.

Wiping the hair from her eyes, she realized she was standing at the doorway of the Galilee Church. She’d been so distracted by the events around her, she’d almost forgotten her fear of the structure itself.

Hawkins shouted something loud and angry from inside the building, only to be answered by his father’s deeper, more commanding, voice. Silence followed whatever had been said.

Kristin reached for the door’s curved handle. As she touched it, there was a sizzling noise and a searing pain licked across her palm. Crying out, she yanked her fingers away.

A bright red stripe marked where the skin had met the metal handle. Blood bubbled up from the burn line, dripping from the wound and running down her wrist.

“Hawkins!” With her uninjured hand, she banged her fist against the closed door. She pounded her fist again, hearing the sound echo inside the church. “Help me!”

The door remained closed.

Chapter Thirty

Paying for her cup of coffee, Liz wondered,
Why is so much of a life a good news/bad news kind of proposition?

The good news was, she wasn’t going to waste the morning taking a calculus test. The bad news was, she wouldn’t graduate from high school, get into the university, or ever qualify for a decent job. In time, she’d end up homeless and begging at street corners for change.

Plus, and this weighed on her heavily, Nana Beggio was going to kill her.

The good news was, she was about to enjoy a fresh cup of half-caff. The bad news was, she was officially broke.

Good news: It had stopped raining. Bad news: If it hadn’t stopped raining, she might not have snuck out of Dr. Silva’s rear kitchen door and run for freedom. She might even have taken his stupid test.

She wouldn’t have
passed
the test, she wasn’t kidding herself, but she’d have been present and accounted for.  However, important side note, she wasn’t entirely to blame for her escape. It was Dr. Silva who uttered the words, “Calculus Pictionary”.

My God,
she thought,
what kind of warped mind considered joining those two concepts? Calculus Pictionary is worse than it sounds and it sounds like Zombie Death. It’s Chinese water torture with math symbols. Drip, quadrant, drip, intercept, drip, Cartesian coordinates.

It’s inhuman, that’s what it is. Taken in that light, I should actually be admired for taking a stand and running for daylight.

She sipped at the coffee. Nana Beggio had warned her, if she didn’t pass the test and get into Ashfork U., she’d have to find some kind of employment, no matter how menial.

“Completely right and fair, Nana.” She raised the coffee cup to the corner stop sign.

Bad news: She lacked any kind of job skills. Good news: Nobody was hiring, anyway.

Opening her cell phone, she saw a blank screen. Bad news: The battery was dead. Worse news: She’d spent the last of her money on hot water and coffee beans.

Worser news: It was a helluva long way home.

She wondered if any of the nearby business owners would let her make a phone call. If so, it wouldn’t be those cheap bastards at the coffee shop. They wouldn’t even stock toilet paper in their unisex bathroom.

Her eyes searching the stores around her, she spotted a brown tabby walking along the sidewalk ahead of her. “Mouser?”

Mouser ignored her call, his tail twitching as he strolled down the boulevard. Liz grabbed him, spilling splashes of coffee as she picked him up.

“You are in such trouble, mister,” she told the cat, not caring about the coffee stains decorating her Elena Garcia blouse.

In her arms, she held the meowing return of her allowance. It was as good as in the bank. Her escape from the Silva Combine wouldn’t be forgotten but much would be forgiven.

Because, as incredible as it sounded, Nana Beggio loved this useless cat. She let him sleep on her bed. She wouldn’t care –

– how
rancid
he smelled. Crinkling her nose, Liz lowered the animal from her chest. “What did you get into?”

Behind her, a horn blurted loudly. Held loosely, the cat leapt from her hold, jarring the coffee cup from her hand. Liz jumped as steaming liquid sprayed the sidewalk at her feet.

Mouser ran across the street before disappearing over a chain link fence. Liz spun around angrily.

Behind her, a dusty white Chevrolet idled in the center of the street. The car’s driver was obscured behind streaks of dirt crisscrossing the windshield.

Walking to the driver’s open side window, Liz said, “Were you born a dick?”

“Watch your mouth, girl,” the driver told her. “I wasn’t
born
.”

He was in his twenties and handsome in an arrogant, full-of-himself kind of way. Normally, Liz liked a little attitude in a guy. With this one, she wasn’t so sure. “What’s your name?”

“Mr. Locke.”

“Oh, like I’m going to call you ‘mister’.” There were reddish-brown splotches on his shirt and pants.

Probably some kind of wood stain,
she thought,
which is vaguely sexy if you’re into handymen. Which, on reflection, I absolutely am.

He seemed familiar to her but, then, so did the car. “Isn’t this Barry Collison’s car?”

“Was. I put him in the trunk.”

“Not funny.” She noticed a hand-lettered FOR SALE sign taped to the car’s rear window. She wondered if Barry had bothered to tell this guy that his car had leaked oil on every driveway in town.

“You know the brown-haired girl, right?” Mr. Locke asked. “The snoop, the one who hangs out at the café.”

“That’s where I’ve seen you. You work there.”

“You know her. The brown-haired girl.”

“If you mean, Kristin Faraday,” Liz said, “then maybe.”

Grimacing, Mr. Locke sagged against the driver’s door. Sweat beading his forehead, he thrust an envelope through the open window. “Give her this.”

He jerked with pain and the packet fell from his fingers. Striking the ground with a slap, it rested on the street.

Across the front of it, in block letters, he’d written the word, CONFIDENTIAL. A brown fingerprint was imprinted where a stamp would normally be.

Liz pirouetted away from the car. “See ya.”

“Wait!” Then, as if the word was foreign to him, he added, “Please.”

She stopped at the curb.

“You want money?” He held a pair of bills out to her. When she didn’t move, he let the money drop to the asphalt. “That’s for you. Just give the brown-haired girl the envelope.”

A crumpled fifty dollar bill stared up at her. Folded in beside it was a twenty, a pink smear discoloring Andrew Jackson’s image.

“That’s a fairly serious bribe for such a small favor.”

He put both of his hands on the steering wheel. “The envelope’s for your friend, not you. You’re not to open it.”

Liz shrugged. Behind the car, a pick-up truck blew its horn.

“Give me your promise,” Mr. Locke said. “I want to see you swear it.”

“It says ‘confidential’. I get it, it’s none of my business.”

The pick-up truck’s driver blared his horn a second time. Mr. Locke gunned the car’s motor, sending hot air from the engine and sucking the paper bills beneath the Chevy. He drove off, tires squealing, as Liz went into the street for the money.

The truck’s driver glared at her as she collected the cash and the stranger’s oh-so-important secret message. The truck swerved around her, its horn beeping.

She flipped her middle finger into the air then looked for the handyman. Barry Collison’s car had vanished.

Ripping open the tip of the envelope, Liz found two sheets of paper. Unfolding the top sheet, she started to read it.

Halfway through the first page, she began to laugh.

* * *

Miss Sweet entered the bedroom. Unmoving, Alice Poe lay atop her bed’s bare mattress, her eyes pointed at the ceiling above her.

A star burst of cracks was visible on her upper left shoulder. Through the cloud of her body, Miss Sweet could see similar markings on her torso and upper legs.

Mrs. Norton had been exceptionally angry this time.

“I’ve packed our belongings,” Miss Sweet prompted.

“You haven’t taken my things.”

“It won’t take long. You don’t have much.”

“I have a little doll. Did I show it to you?” Alice Poe rolled onto her side, facing the seer. “It has the biggest eyes and the smallest mouth. Because I’m so quiet.”

“You keep a toy?”

“Mr. Locke gave it to me.” Sitting up, she rested her hands on her knees. “I know he thinks his gift didn’t mean anything.”

“What do you think?”

Alice Poe touched a sad finger to her lips.

“I can’t do this alone,” Miss Sweet said. “Get dressed and we’ll carry the boxes downstairs.”

“What about the Other?”

“What of her?”

“I wish she wasn’t here. I wish we’d left, the instant we saw her.”

“Mrs. Norton will take care of it.”

“What if she doesn’t? What if she can’t?” Alice Poe hugged herself. “It was foolish to return here. It was arrogant.”

“I don’t remember you sharing such thoughts before.”

“It’s the Dark Ones who empower Mrs. Norton. They give her the ability to do the things she does. Sometimes I wonder if she forgets who she serves.”

“Never,” Miss Sweet assured her.

“She should have been more careful. She was greedy.”

“What good is a power if you don’t use it?” Miss Sweet asked. “You worry too much about the girl.”

“Because no one else worries about her at all!”