Tommy Nightmare (Jenny Pox #2) (13 page)

“What do you think of this?” the king asked
the priest. “My advisor’s prattling?”

“It is clear the goddess favors my king,” the
priest said. “Her blessings will be upon you.”

The advisor sneered.

“Before we proceed,” the king said. “I must
satisfy myself with a demonstration of your abilities.”

“I will do as the king wishes,” Jenny
said.

“Let us find a beast,” the priest said.
“Great or small, as the king wishes.”

“I do not wish to send a plague among the
beasts of Athens,” the king said. “But among the men.” He looked to
his advisor, and a cruel smile appeared on his face. “Perhaps she
might demonstrate upon a worthless general, who can himself offer
no means of breaching the Athenian walls.”

“My king!” The advisor shuddered, looking
sick. “You cannot mean this.”

“Lay your hands upon him, lovely girl,” the
king said. “And see what the judgment of the goddess shall be.”

Jenny approached the advisor. He tried to
back away from her, but he had already reached the wall of the
tent.

“Surely you have made your offerings to
Aphrodite Areia, and do not fear her judgment,” the king said.

Jenny reached for the advisor’s hands.

The man screamed and ran along the wall of
the tent.

“Coward!” the king bellowed.

Jenny, wishing to make the king happy, ran
after the advisor and leaped onto his back. She wrapped one hand
around his throat, and slapped the other across his face.

The advisor squealed and fell to the ground.
He writhed on the dirt while Jenny clamped her hands tighter on his
head and neck. His skin turned feverish, the fever spreading to his
fingers and down his legs, and then dark, bloody sores burst open
all over him.

When he lay still, Jenny stood.

“Is he dead?” the king asked.

“Yes, my king, as you instructed,” Jenny
said.

“Can my men touch him?” the king said. “Or
will they grow diseased?”

“There is no contagion in the dead,” the
priest said. “Unless she wills it.”

The king called a guard from outside the tent
and instructed the young man to turn the plague-ridden corpse of
the advisor face up, so that the king might look upon him. The
guard looked at the body, and showed great hesitation at the order
to touch it.

“You need not fear the goddess,” the priest
said. “You will not grow sick.”

The young hoplite soldier hesitated a moment
more, then laid his hands on the dead man’s green-edged tunic,
taking care not to touch his skin. He turned the body, and the king
smiled at the bleeding tumors that had arisen on his advisor’s
face.

The jarring sound of a telephone woke Jenny
from her sleep. She lay on her bed alone. It was daylight, and for
a moment she wasn’t sure what century it was, or who she was.

The phone rang again. It hadn’t worked in two
weeks.

Jenny pushed herself to her feet and stumbled
groggily to the living room. She picked up the phone and mumbled a
hello.

“Jenny?” asked the voice on the other
end.

“Oh! Daddy! Hey!” Jenny said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jenny said. “It’s just the
phone’s been out. All the phones.”

“I’ve been worried sick,” he said. “Couldn’t
even get the answering machine after that first day.”

“Guess it’s working now,” Jenny said. “Where
are you?”

“I’m driving home now,” he said. “The
National Guard cleared out, left all the roads wide open.”

“Oh, good, they’re leaving!” Jenny said.

“I’d say they’re about gone. Haven’t seen
one.”

“So it’s over,” Jenny said.

“I guess,” her dad said. “But nobody’s too
sure what it was all about. What happened, Jenny? Did you see
anything?”

“Um,” Jenny said. The last thing she wanted
to do was tell him what she’d done. “It’s just been crazy.”

“Well, you can tell me about it when I get
home.”

“I’ll be here,” Jenny said.

After the phone call, Jenny chewed her
fingernails. She didn’t know how to explain to her dad what had
happened. She hurried to throw on jeans, a long-sleeved blouse, and
a pair of light gloves. She added a stocking hat, though it was
very warm outside, bordering on hot.

She found Seth outside, pacing in the back
yard, between rows of her dad’s partially finished projects—motors,
furniture, and appliances in need of repair, or else waiting to
have the useful pieces stripped out of them. The stuff used to be
all over the yard, but Seth had helped Jenny and her dad build a
fence, from the house to the shed, to hide her dad’s mini-junkyard.
The front yard actually looked half-decent now.

Seth turned and walked along the fence toward
her. He was talking on his cell phone, looking annoyed.

“What is it?” Jenny asked when he was
done.

“They’re saying it was a chemical leak at the
old Lawson dye factory,” Seth told him. “Which our bank owns. But
that’s crazy, because the factory was just a little concrete shell.
It’s been totally empty forever. My dad’s worried about the
liability now, with the insurance company or something, and he
wants me to go out to the factory with Mr. Burris. Talk with the
Homeland Security guys. Or listen while Mr. Burris talks,
anyway.”

“When do you have to go?”

“Right now,” Seth said. “Before they leave
town.”

“Wait—who came up with that story?” Jenny
asked.

Seth shrugged. “Let’s just be glad there’s a
story, and it doesn’t involve you. Want to come with me? Should be
long and dull.”

“Not really,” Jenny said. “And I can’t,
anyway. My dad will be home any minute.”

“Wish I could stay, but I have to do this. My
dad’s so worried, he’s flying up from Florida to try and get
control of the situation.”

“What happens when he figures out there
wasn’t a chemical leak?”

“I don’t know,” Seth said. “I just hope he
doesn’t start prying too deep.”

Jenny slouched. “I wish your parents didn’t
hate me.”

“They don’t hate you.”

“Right.”

“I don’t hate you.” Seth took her hands and
looked into her eyes. “Not at all.”

He kissed her, and Jenny felt herself relax.
She always felt as if she were feeding on him somehow, as if his
touch made her stronger. Sometimes it made her too strong, maybe.
Strong enough to wipe out a town square full of people.

Her dad’s Dodge Ram rumbled into the
driveway.

“I have to go,” Seth said.

“Great,” Jenny said. She’d been dreading
telling her dad what had happened, but she’d imagined Seth would be
there with her. Now she would have to face it alone. “Seth, how
much do you remember from when you were dead? On Easter?”

“Not much now,” he said. “Right after I came
back, I could have told you all kinds of things. But it’s like my
brain couldn’t hold all that stuff. Past lives. Crazy stuff.”

“I don’t remember very well, either.” She
heard her dad get out of the truck and walk up the front porch
steps. “Do you ever have dreams about your past lives, since
then?”

“Maybe,” Seth said. “I don’t remember my
dreams for long. Except this one where I was a giant rubber duck,
being chased by soap bubbles. That was weird. You think it means
anything?”

“Jenny?” her dad said. He walked out the back
door to join them in yard.

“Daddy!” Jenny ran to him and hugged him
tight, careful to keep her exposed face against his shirt. He
arranged his hands cautiously on her back, avoiding the skin of her
head and neck, and hugged her back.

“It’s so good to see you, Jenny,” he
whispered. He sounded like he was about to cry.

“I missed you, Daddy.”

“I missed you, too.”

Seth watched them for a minute, then he said,
“It’s good to see you, Mr. Morton. I actually have to run into
town.”

“Take care, Seth,” Jenny’s dad said, not
deeply interested. To Jenny, he said, “I got some groceries in the
kitchen. Figured you might have been running low on things, with
the town cut off.”

“That’s great!” Jenny said. “I’m tired of
baked beans.”

“How could you get tired of those?” Seth
asked.

They went inside, and Seth hugged Jenny and
continued on out the front door.

Jenny helped unload the groceries. Her dad
had picked up a sizable brick of hamburger meat.

“Thought Seth would be eating with us,” he
said. “That boy can put it away.”

“I bet I could eat two hamburgers right now,”
Jenny told him. She opened the Piggy Wiggly bag on the counter.
“Oh, and fresh lettuce, fresh tomatoes…this is great!”

Her dad made patties and took them out to
grill. Jenny took cabbage and carrots and put together a slaw, and
then she grabbed a pitcher and squeezed juice from the plump lemons
he’d brought.

She carried two glasses of lemonade outside,
gave one to her dad at the grill, then relaxed on a lawn chair,
soaking up the sun.

“You feeling okay, Jenny?” he asked.

“I guess.”

“Sure you don’t have any idea what
happened?”

“Well…” Jenny said. “I didn’t want to say on
the phone.”

“I figured.”

“Did I ever tell you Ashleigh Goodling had a
power like ours?” Jenny asked. “Like me and Seth?”

“The preacher’s daughter? No, I think I’d
remember if you said that.”

“Well…she was like us. Only a lot worse.”

“What kinda sickness did she spread? Or could
she heal people?”

“Neither one,” Jenny said. “Her touch made
people feel love. That’s why everyone in town loved her and did
whatever she said.”

“Hell, I can believe that,” he said. “I
always thought there was something off about them Goodlings. Dr.
Goodling puts me in mind of them people that travel with the
carnival.”

“So, here’s the thing,” Jenny said. “Ashleigh
turned the whole town against me and Seth. Or maybe not the whole
town, but a lot of people. And she had them all together at the
courthouse, ready to hang us for being witches. Honestly.”

“Like Gabriel Joe?” her dad asked. That was
the name of the slave that had supposedly been hung from the giant
gnarled oak in front of the courthouse in the 1700s, on the charge
of practicing sorcery. There hadn’t been a courthouse then, just
the giant oak.

It was a story usually told at night, by a
campfire, somewhere around Halloween.

“I’m not kidding,” Jenny said. “I think that
old story helped get everybody together. Kind of made it easy for
Ashleigh to tell everybody what to do. And then she killed Seth
with a shotgun.” Jenny pointed to her chest, to show where Seth had
been shot.

“What?”

“He got better,” Jenny said, thinking of
Monty Python. “And then everybody tried to hang me from the tree.
And then…don’t you need to flip them?”

Her dad was staring at her, the metal spatula
in his hand forgotten halfway to the grill.

“What happened, Jenny?”

“Then I lashed out.”

“Did people get hurt?” he asked.

Jenny didn’t say anything.

“Did people die, Jenny? They said on the
news…” His mouth dropped open. He understood now. “How many people,
Jenny?”

“A lot.”

“What’s a lot?”

“I don’t really know. A hundred? Maybe
more?”

“
A hundred people?
”

“Yeah, I’d say…at least a hundred people. The
Goodlings, and Mayor Winder, the police department, a bunch of kids
from school, Coach Humbee and some other teachers, some deacons
from the church, that realtor guy with his face on the benches all
over town—”

“You killed Dick Baker?” her dad asked. “He
still owes me a check.” His voice was detached, as if he were
mentally drifting away. “That’s a lot of people, Jenny.”

“I know!” Jenny said, and then she broke down
and began to sob. She rested her elbows on her knees and buried her
face in her gloves.

A fatty lump of the neglected beef fell
through the grill and ignited in a gout of greasy flame. Her dad
set the metal spatula down on the little platform attached to the
grill, and he turned to walk inside.

“I got to think this over,” he muttered,
walking toward the house.

“What about the hamburgers?” Jenny asked.

“You can finish them if you want them,” he
said. “I tried to teach you better than this, Jenny.”

“I know, Daddy! I should never touch people.
I know.”

He walked into the house, looking tired and
old.

A few days after the quarantine ended, Jenny
took some new clay pots down to the Five and Dime, to see if Ms.
Sutland wanted to put them out for sale.

She arrived to find the door propped open and
half the store’s inventory packed into boxes. A couple of men were
moving furniture out on hand trucks.

“Ms. Sutland?” Jenny asked, though the bell
had tinkled loudly when she entered.

Ms. Sutland emerged from the back office,
dabbing at her eyes.

“What’s happening?” Jenny asked.

“Oh, it’s the Morton girl.” Ms. Sutland
brightened a little. “How’s your mom and dad?”

“They’re fine, ma’am,” Jenny said. Jenny’s
mother had died at birth, but Ms. Sutland was foggy about anything
outside her store. “What’s going on?”

Ms. Sutland looked around, puzzled. “What do
you mean, Jenny?”

“Why is the store all packed up?”

“Oh, let’s have a nice cup of tea,” Ms.
Sutland said. “I’ve only just brewed it. Have you ever been to a
ladies’ tea party, Jenny?”

“I don’t think so. But why is the store all
packed—”

“You just sit right here.” Ms. Sutland pulled
out a chair at one of the remaining antique tables. Last time Jenny
had been here, the furniture was crammed together so tight you
couldn’t begin to think about actually using any of it. Now the
maze of furniture had thinned out considerably.

Jenny sat, and Ms. Sutland brought out tea
cups, along with sugar cubes and tongs. She returned with the tea
pot, poured some for Jenny and herself, then set the pot on a
quilted square of cloth.