Jenny Pox (The Paranormals, Book 1) (33 page)

“
And we think you’re so cute,” Ashleigh said. “Don’t we, Neesha?”

“
The cutest,” Neesha agreed.  She tousled Shannon’s hair, and Shannon giggled and blushed a deep red.

They reached the parking lot.  Neesha hugged them both good-bye, in front of all the students walking to their cars, announcing publicly that Shannon McNare was now in the club.  As she hugged Shannon, Neesha gave Ashleigh a half-smile.  To control the story of what happened at the farm with Jenny and Seth, they needed to control Shannon.  That had proved incredibly easy.

Ashleigh led Shannon to Ashleigh’s Jeep.  Once they were inside, with the doors closed, Ashleigh said, “Shannon, tell me something.  I need you to be honest.”

“
Okay.” Shannon looked up at her with a serious, earnest look.

“
Are you a virgin?”

Shannon gasped. “What?  Of course!  Why would you even ask that?”

“Never had one in you?  Not even at a party?  Like a Halloween lock-in party?”
“Oh.” Shannon blushed. “I guess you saw me there.  I did make out with these two guys, and they wanted to take my pants off, but I didn’t let them.  I kind of wanted them to, a little, but I didn’t let them.  I actually ended up hiding alone in a closet most of the night.  Wow, I’ve never told anyone about what I did!  A lot of people got way crazier than me. Want to hear about them?”

“
It’s okay, Shannon,” Ashleigh said.  She didn’t believe the girl’s story.  Why would this little country brat be so resistant to Ashleigh’s power?  “You did the right thing.  Will you lift up your shirt so I can see your belly?”

“
Uh…”

Ashleigh held Shannon’s hand. “Just for a second.”

“People will think we’re lezzing out.” Shannon cast nervous looks among the students who were still coming out to their cars.

“
Please.” Ashleigh pushed more energy as she said it.

Shannon bit her lip.  She pulled up her sweater, revealing a very flat, lightly freckled stomach.  She didn’t look pregnant.  Ashleigh laid her hand across Shannon’s belly and pumped the love-energy hard.  There was no extra drain, as far as she could tell, no extra life force sucking down Ashleigh’s energy.

“Ashleigh!” Shannon was giggling her head off, her face the color of tomato sauce. “Now we really look lezzie!” But Shannon touched her fingers to the back of Ashleigh’s hand and caressed it.  She leaned back in her chair, spread her knees a little, and gazed at Ashleigh’s face.  She lay a tentative hand on Ashleigh’s thigh.  Suddenly, she was more serious than giggly.

Ashleigh felt relieved.  Shannon wasn’t resistant to Ashleigh’s power.  She was just resistant to boys.  Perfect. 

Ashleigh took her hand back from Shannon and cranked the car.  They were one of the last cars to leave the student lot.

“
What are we about to go do, Ashleigh?” Shannon whispered.

“
We need to talk,” Ashleigh said.  “First, you should know I’ve been looking at you for a long time.”

“
Really?” Shannon smiled. “Me, too.”

“
Next year, I’ll be gone, and we’ll need new leaders for the Crusaders.  You’ve worked hard and I know you’re devoted.  What do you think about joining Leadership Committee?”

Shannon’s smile fell, but only a little. “Really?  Me?”

“Definitely.  But listen, and this is top secret: Darcy Metcalf is pregnant.”

“
No!” Shannon was mortified.  “Not her!”

“
Right. So we need someone to jump into a leadership role right away.  What do you think?”

“
Me, on Leadership Committee with you and Cassie?”

“
It would be effective immediately,” Ashleigh said. “Someone has to take Darcy’s place while she focuses on her new purpose in life.  Are you up to it, Shannon?”

“
Gosh, yes!” Shannon said. “Whatever you want, Ashleigh, I can do it.”

“
That’s my girl.”

Shannon turned away to hide her smile.

At the McNare farm, Ashleigh stopped at the field where the tractor had overturned and asked Shannon if they could look at it.  Shannon was happy to show her.

They left the car on the paved road and walked up the clear, freshly plowed dirt road leading into the field.

“When the ground dried up,” Shannon said, “Mr. Morton came back and finished repairing the tractor.  It was weird.  He and Daddy didn’t speak one word to each other.  It was so creepy to see him again, after I just about watched him die.  Oh, and here’s what else.” Shannon pointed to a particularly gouged-out part of the road. “Jenny Mittens left her car stuck here in the mud, and they had to come back and tow it.  I don’t know if they got it working again.  That was a whole lot of mud.  One time, my uncle did that, his truck got caught in the mud over by Excel, Alabama and he had to stay in a Motel 6 and share a room with this biker guy he knows and then…”

Ashleigh let Shannon chatter until they reached the back corner of the field.  With the dirt roads freshly plowed, there wasn’t much evidence of what had happened, just an indentation next to the road, inside the field, where the tractor had lain on its side with Mr. Mittens underneath. 

“It’s strange to think about, isn’t it?” Ashleigh said, interrupting Shannon, who had somehow gotten on the topic of how her cousin was into cross-dressing.  Shannon looked around.

“
Oh, yeah,” Shannon said. “I have bad nightmares about it.  You know what else gives me nightmares?  Guinea pigs.  We had one in our second grade class, with Mrs. Lessing, and his name was Bubba Boy, and he smelled like—”

“
You know what gives me nightmares, Shannon?”  Ashleigh turned to face her. “I worry people will hear about what happened, and they’ll think witchcraft is cool and makes you powerful.  I’m kind of an expert on witchcraft, you know.”

“
Right.” Shannon’s forehead crinkled as she thought this over. “So, we shouldn’t tell people what happened?”

“
No, people should know,” Ashleigh said. “As scary as it is, they really should know.” Please, Ashleigh thought, please blabber up and down every room in school for the rest of your life.  “But what’s important, Shannon, is that people understand it was evil.  Jenny has been into Satan a long time, I mean since she was a kid.  Some people are just born evil.  Demons disguised as people, really. They get born as people, but they’re evil inside.  And Seth has been doing evil with her, but he kept it secret from me.  That’s the real reason we broke up.”

“
Oh, wow.”  Shannon’s eyes had become huge. “I didn’t know that!”

“
So, anyway,” Ashleigh said. “Make sure people understand it was evil.  And if you can’t remember something, just make up something if you have to.  Just remember that Satan was present that day.  People have to learn to watch out for Seth and Jenny’s black magic.”

“
Okay,” Shannon said. “But I can talk about it, right?”

“
Oh, you have to talk about it, Shannon,” Ashleigh said. “We all have to talk about it.  It’s the only way we can heal.”

Ashleigh hugged Shannon close, giving her another big boost of love.  Shannon kissed her cheek, and Ashleigh tolerated it.

Ashleigh started walking back to her car.  When she was several yards away, she turned and said, “Oh, you can walk to your house from here, right?”

“
Sure,” Shannon said. “Bye, Ashleigh!  Thanks for everything!”
“Bye, honey!” Ashleigh turned away and started towards her car again.

She wore a tight little satisfied smile.  Shannon was under control.  Darcy was pregnant.  And for Seth and Jenny, Ashleigh was planning a sharp little counterattack.  Not the kill move, not yet, but definitely the first step.

Jenny spent Friday and Saturday nights at Seth’s house.  It was the longest time she’d ever spent away from home.  She called Saturday to check in with her dad, who wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear she was spending the weekend at her new boyfriend’s house--but he didn’t order her to come home.

Jenny couldn’t keep her hands off Seth.  She felt more alive than ever before, sated and deliciously hungry at the same time.  She had never expected to fall in love, and certainly never expected to be loved back.  She’d never thought anything could feel as good as falling asleep in Seth’s arms.

When she finally went home on Sunday, she found the kitchen at her house unusually bare.  Her dad sat at the kitchen table, drinking iced tea and reading the newspaper.

“
You cleaned up the kitchen,” Jenny said.

“
Got started.”

Jenny looked around a moment, then got out the Pine-Sol and a rag and started cleaning the counters and cabinets.  She was bursting with extra energy and didn’t know what to do with it.

“Have a good time with Seth?” he asked.  She turned to see his face, to determine what he meant by the question, but he was just giving her a tired smile.

“
I did, Daddy.  He’s so good to me.  He’s sweet.”

“
Jenny, I need to tell you about something.  After that tractor fell on me, it hurt like nothing ever hurt before.”

“
I bet!”

“
But that only lasted a minute.  Next thing I know, I’m just kind of laying there all calm and peaceful, and didn’t feel nothing.  And I wasn’t afraid of nothing, not even dying.  I was just looking up at the sky.”

Jenny nodded and sank into the chair across from him.  She wiped down the table and chairs while she listened.

“And I started to see things, up above me, in all that lightning and rain.  Your momma’s face smiling down at me, looking just as pretty and happy as I remember her.  And then I could see my whole life up there, every second of it, like a bunch of pebbles spread out across the beach.” He wore a distant, thoughtful look, his glass of tea forgotten halfway to his mouth. “I never drank so much when I was young, you know that?  Not in the mornings, never during the day.  Not until she died.”

“
When I was born,” Jenny whispered.

“
Don’t think like that.  I drank for losing her, not for gaining you.  You was the only thing kept me alive all these years.”

Jenny felt like crying, but somehow it wasn’t an altogether bad feeling.

“When I could see all the moments of my life like that, all at once, I realized something,” he said. “All the moments I spent drunk was just a rotted black color.  They wasn’t worth nothing.  They was all wasted moments, time I could have spent with you, love I could have given you.  I messed things up for myself, Jenny, and so I messed things up for you, too.”

“
You did fine, Daddy,” Jenny said.  She stood up and embraced him with her gloved hands, keeping her bare head away from him. 

“
I could have done a lot better.  And when I was laying there, seeing this, I wanted nothing but more of those moments.  I thought, if I had just a few more to spend, I’d spend them on Jenny, and I wouldn’t let another one rot like that.  And I wished to God I just had some more moments to spend, even though my body was wrecked and couldn’t live no more.”

“
But Seth healed you.”

“
And that’s how it all fell together,” her dad said. “I asked to live, and I lived.  So I poured it all out, Jenny.  There ain’t nothing left.”

Jenny looked around the kitchen—no liquor bottles by the stove.  No case of Pabst on top of the fridge.  No empty cans and bottles scattered all over the place.  He’d cleared out everything to do with drinking.  No wonder the kitchen looked so bare.

“Daddy, that’s great!” Jenny said.  She poured her own glass of iced tea from the pitcher, then sat by him. “That’s amazing.  I’m really proud of you.”

“
Funny thing is, I don’t miss it.  I ain’t even really been able to drink since I died.  I’ve poured a few, and look at ‘em, but I never wanted to drink ‘em.  I’d always end up pouring them out.

“
Maybe it’s too late,” he said. “But I still want to try and be a good father to you.  If there’s any time.  If you ain’t all growed up already.”

“
There’s plenty of time, Daddy.” Jenny covered his hand with her glove.  Her eyes were full of tears now, but not the bad kind.  “Just cause I’m about grown up don’t mean I don’t need a daddy.  I’m going to need you for a long time to come.”

“
And I’m gonna be here for you,” he said. “I promise you.” He looked at her a long time, and it looked like there were a lot of thoughts wheeling in his brain. “It’s amazing what that boy Seth can do, ain’t it?  You sure he’s immune to what you got?”

“
I guess he heals himself,” Jenny said. “Or it just don’t bother him.”

“
And you’re happy with him?” 

“
Yes, Daddy.  Happiest I’ve ever been.”  Jenny couldn’t resist the chance to talk about Seth.  “He’s the most amazing boy, Daddy.  There’s nobody else like him.  He understands me.  And I feel like, this is strange but, I feel like we can learn a lot from each other.”