Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) (7 page)

“Do I need to carry you, too?” he asked, with an amused smile.

“I can manage on my own, thanks.”

“I don’t think you’ll make it to the stairs.” He tilted his head to the far end of
the stage.  Dozens of people, crammed tightly together, blocked her path. “It’s my
way or no way.”

“Then be a gentleman about it.” She held up her arms and let him grab her around the
waist and lift her to the stage.  For a moment, her body was pressed against his,
and the sensation of his strong, firm chest through her clothes made her flush red. 
He set her on her feet.

They waited while the preacher finished healing a man who’d lost a finger harvesting
grain—it grew back, to the great delight of the crowd, who shouted lots of “Hallelujah!” 
So did the chorus of three women.  The piano player kept the tempo moving fast.

“Who else comes for the Lord’s healing?” the preacher asked, scratching his head through
his odd-colored curly hair.

“You’re on,” the assistant whispered in Juliana’s ear.  He steered her toward the
smiling preacher.  As he did it, he pushed back her sleeve and laid his fingers on
her bare arm, before she realized what he was doing.

She gasped and tried to pull away, but he held tight.  Incredibly, his fingers did
not boil and blister where they touched her, and he did not cry out and leap back
in pain.  The boy’s touch was warm and gentle, and caused no unpleasantness for either
of them.

Her eyes widened in awe.  This was truly a place of miracles, because no one had ever
been able to touch her without suffering infection.  She understood now that God truly
was in this tent, and now He could cast the demon plague out of her forever.  She
would no longer be a freak, and she would be free to touch anyone she liked.  She
was more than happy to start with the preacher’s young assistant, whose hand lingered
on her arm even as she faced the preacher.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Lord has brought us another sweet lamb,” the preacher said,
eying her up and down.  He smelled like sweaty armpits and chemical hair dye. “And
what is your name, little angel?”

“Petra,” she said, giving her old, long-abandoned birth name.

“Petra, Petra.  Will you let me lay my hands upon you, Petra?  Will you open yourself
to receiving the Lord’s blessing?”

“Yes...” she replied uncertainly.

“And what is your affliction, dear lamb?”

“I have...all kinds of diseases and plagues,” she told him.

“Afflicted!” the preacher shouted to the audience. “Afflicted by many diseases, many
plagues, ladies and gentlemen?  And do you know who afflicts with many diseases at
once...a legion of plagues?”

Some in the audience shouted back their opinion that “Satan” or “the Devil” might
be responsible.

“I said, do you know who causes such affliction?” he shouted, his face turning red.

“Satan!” more of the audience shouted back.

“Satan, Satan, Satan!” the preacher howled. “That’s right!  And do you know who drives
out Satan?  Can you say His name?  Can you, say, Oh, Lord, cast out these demons?”

The crowd shouted it back. The preacher and crowd shouted back and forth several times,
the preacher giving them an “Oh, Lord, cast out these demons!” The crowd repeated
it back to him each time: “Oh, Lord, cast out these demons!”

Emboldened by the power and energy of the crowd, and the little boy’s healed leg,
Juliana slipped off both her gloves and held her bare hands high.

When the crowd was at a fever pitch, the preacher turned, seized both of her hands,
then closed his eyes and shouted one final “Oh, Lord, cast out these demons!”

Juliana clutched his hands, closed her eyes, and threw back her head, waiting for
God to finally break her evil curse.

A wave of quiet rolled over the room, displacing the shouting, singing, and loud
praying that had accompanied all the other healings.  She didn’t feel any different. 
She opened her eyes.

The preacher stood in front of her, squeezing her hands, his jaw hanging open.  Diseased
sores had opened all over his face, and dark blood drooled from his lips.  His face
and jaw swelled and change shape, as if tumors were sprouting all over his skull. 
His hands, still gripping tight to hers, had turned rotten and leprous.

Juliana gasped and released him, realizing too late that the preacher didn’t have
any power over the demon plague, after all.  It was eating him up.  The preacher staggered
toward the front of the stage, groaning and raising his decayed hands.  He fell to
his knees, and the audience screamed and drew back.  The chorus girls grabbed each
other and screamed.

The piano player took one look at what was happening and wisely grabbed his hat and
darted out through the canvas flaps at the back of the stage.

The crowd continued shrieking, panicked but not sure whether to run or pray or just
shout.  Many pointed at Juliana.  She felt glued to the spot where she stood, though
she knew she ought to leave the stage.  There was nothing she could do.  The preacher
would die, and it would be her fault.

The preacher’s assistant hurried over to the horribly infected preacher and knelt
beside him.  He took the man’s contorted, blistered face in both hands, showing no
fear at all.  He spoke quietly to the preacher, and though Juliana couldn’t hear his
words over the frightened crowd, she could hear his tone—calm, measured, focused.

Then, incredibly, the demon plague was reversed.  The preacher’s face and neck healed,
and his hands returned to normal.  In less than a minute, it looked like he’d never
been infected at all, except for the splotches of blood and pus on his suit and tie.

The assistant helped the preacher stand.  The preacher looked down at his hands, turning
them back and forth, then held them up for the audience to see. “Healed!  Healed,
by the grace of God!” he shouted.  The crowd shouted back with hallelujahs and amens.

Then the preacher turned to Juliana and scowled as he pointed one trembling finger
at her.

“The devil is here today!” the preacher announced. “This is no girl.  She’s a demoness,
sent from Hell!”

The crowd roared and surged toward the stage, shouting all kinds of filthy names and
curses at Juliana.

“I’m not!” Juliana said, though she doubted anyone could hear her over the din. “I
can’t help it! I don’t want to hurt anyone, I came to be healed...” She realized she
was crying.  Why not?  She’d been foolish, letting herself hope for too much.  She
turned toward the preacher’s assistant, giving him a desperate look.  He was the one
with the miraculous power, she now understood, and not the preacher.  Maybe he could
still help her.

“Devil!” someone shouted from below.

“Witch!” screamed someone else.

Men and women from the crowd clambered up onto the stage with fear glowing in their
eyes. 

“Destroy her!” the preacher shouted. “Drown the demon in the river!  We’ll baptize
it back to Hell!”

The crowd swarmed the stage, all of them closing in on Juliana, and she realized they
would kill her, unless she killed them first. 

“Stop!  Get back!” she shouted.  She raised her bare hands and let the demon plague
appear all over her skin, even her face, mutating her appearance into something infernal.

The crowd slowed.  Suddenly, nobody wanted to be the first to grab her.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Juliana said. “I’m here for healing...but I can kill
you if I want.  Please don’t make me.”

One person advanced toward her, the preacher’s assistant.  He grabbed her hand and
pulled her toward the back of the stage.  She noticed that her boils and blisters
vanished where he touched her, and she felt a warm glow there instead.

“I have the touch of God, as you have just seen,” the young man told the confused,
edgy mob. “I will take care of the girl.”  He tugged Juliana toward the canvas flaps
that served as the backdrop of the stage.

“Don’t you take that witch out of this tent!” the preacher shouted. “She’ll use her
devilry on you!”

The assistant gave Juliana a long look.  The crowd, emboldened by the preacher’s words,
advanced on her again.

“We ought to run,” the assistant whispered to her.

They dashed away through the canvas curtain into the dim area behind the stage, where
a number of preachers and their supporting performers had crowded to escape the rain. 
The snake handlers were still there, kneeling on the dirt floor and praying, their
snakes rattling and hissing inside the basket.  They looked up as Juliana and the
preacher’s assistant leaped over the stage’s back steps, landed in the muddy dirt,
and ran out of the tent into the rainy night.

A few trucks and automobiles were parked behind the tent, as well as a number of wagons,
their horses hitched under tent tops to keep them out of the rain.

He led her into the horse tent and drew a knife from his boot.  He cut free one horse
after another as they moved down the temporary hitching rail.  The crowd burst out
through the back flaps of the tent, shouting and looking for them.

“What are you doing?” Juliana asked, as he cut free yet another horse. “We have to
run!”

“Then let’s run.” He climbed up onto a tall brown horse, then held out his hands.
“Hurry!”

She hesitated.  She couldn’t risk her legs touching the horse, or she would poison
the poor creature.

The mob shouted and ran towards them.

“Now!” the young man said. “Or they’ll kill us both.”

“Give me that knife!” Juliana didn’t wait, but snatched it from the sheath in his
boot.  While the mob approached, she sliced the bottom hem of her dress at the front
and back, and then she ripped the dress all the way up to her waist.

“Now, what are
you
doing?” he asked.

“Protecting the horse.” She sheathed the knife, took pins from her hair, and fixed
the torn sides of her dress around her legs like breeches.  Then, finally, she let
him grab her hands and haul her up, and she slid into the saddle behind him.

“Take those reins,” he said, pointing at a horse to her left.  She grabbed the horse’s
reins, knowing there was no time to ask why.

They rode off, flanked by an extra horse on either side.  The preacher’s assistant
held the reins of the horse on their right.  He yelled at the other horses, trying
to get them to follow, and a couple of confused-looking horses actually did trot after
them.

She looked back over her shoulder as they rode out of the horse tent.  The loose,
wandering horses were slowing the crowd’s pursuit.

They turned onto the muddy road, riding north along the Mississippi River, toward
St. Louis.  The two extra horses they’d captured galloped alongside them, making annoyed
sounds at being woken and forced to run in the rain.  Two additional horses followed
at a distance, not eager to run but apparently not wanting to miss the party, either.

She heard the sounds of engines cranking.

“Maybe we should have taken one of those cars instead!” Juliana shouted to be heard
over the pounding rain and the commotion behind them.

“Those can’t go anywhere but roads.  We wouldn’t be able to escape.  Drop those reins!”

Juliana released her captured horse, and so did he.  He shouted “Yah!” at them a few
times, and then turned and rode off along what looked like a muddy deer path into
the woods.  No truck or car could follow them here.

He slowed a little when they were out of sight of the road. “Any luck, they’ll follow
those other horses down the road before they figure out they’ve lost us.”

“Where does this trail go?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t know, we’re just passing through town.”

“Where are you from?  Do you have a name?”

“I do.” He leaned forward and shouted, “Yah!” The horse picked up speed, galloping
away from the trouble behind them.

Juliana held tight to the boy’s waist.  Her fingers wanted to trace the shape of the
muscle under his shirt, and she let them explore as much as she dared. 

As they rode through the rain, under the bright harvest moon, she couldn’t help noticing
how she felt bounding against him again and again with each stride of the horse’s
leg, with only her rain-soaked underpants separating her from his scratchy woolen
trousers.

She snuggled her arms tighter around him and rested her cheek on his strong back. 
Despite the rain, she hoped the ride would never end.

Jenny stood in her studio, staring at the mannequin.  It was an androgynous, hairless,
waist-up model clamped in place by a sawhorse.  She’d carved and painted all kinds
of symptoms into it, dark sores and dripping wounds.  She’d glued ugly plastic black
flies here and there all over the body, and cut out magazine pictures of people with
horrified expressions and pasted a dense collage of them over the mannequin’s heart.

She could never show it to anyone, for a number of reasons, but she had no desire
to share it.  It was a confession of her evil, a splattering of all the haunting memories
of death and suffering that crawled inside of her.  The point was in the making of
it, in doing something with the guilt fed by the horror movies that never stopped
playing inside her mind.  If she didn’t find a way to let them out, they would eat
her up.  She’d seen her dark side, with Alexander, and she wasn’t going to be that
person again.