Misfit (5 page)

He leaned back against the desk. His first impulse was to refuse. Making himself that vulnerable to a demoness seemed dangerous to the point of stupidity. But then, what did he have to hide? In fact, the more he thought about it, the more appealing the idea seemed. There would be someone in the world who knew and understood him completely. No pretense, no misunderstanding. One person he could

—had to be—

completely honest with.

He looked over at her on his cot. She sat up straight, perfectly stil , no longer lounging or acting coy. She looked at him with her piercing, unnatural eyes and he somehow knew that she would understand him.

“Okay,” he said. “God help me . . . Okay.”

She smiled then. And it wasn’t the sly smile he always saw before, but one more simple and serious.

“I must warn you,” she said. “It can be rather . . .

intense for mortals to experience, perhaps even a little alarming at first. The best thing to do is not panic and simply al ow it to happen. Go with the flow, as they say.”

He nodded, not real y trusting himself to speak.

“Come,” she said, and patted the spot next to her on the cot.

“Sit.”

He hesitated.

“You trust me to look into your soul but not sit next to you on a bed?” she asked, that teasing smile coming back a little.

“Perhaps you need to rethink your priorities.”

He gave her a wry smile and sat down next to her on the bed.

“Good,” she said, her voice soothing. “Now, look into my eyes.”

He looked.

And the world melted into a churning maelstrom, devoid of order or meaning. There was no up or down, no solid ground to gauge distance or perception. A terrifying vertigo took hold and he struggled to scream, except there was no air, no throat, no mouth, no him—

“Paul!” Astarte’s voice pierced through the storm of chaos.

“Paul, it’s stil just me. It’s Okay, Paul. Don’t fight it.”

Her voice was like a warm, firm hand that cupped his leaking sanity and gathered it back together. Far away, he heard his own voice say, “Okay . . . I’m Okay. . . .”

“Good,” she whispered. “Now, are you ready to stop hiding behind this storm?”

“You mean . . .”

“Yes, you’re the one creating it,” she said. “I suspected this was under the surface, but you do hide it wel .”

“So what do I do?”

“Just let me in, Paul. Just let me in.”

“Oh.”

“What are you hiding, anyway?”

“Nothing, real y.”

The storm evaporated in a flash. Behind it, there was pure, joyous light. It fil ed the hol ow chasm of cold loneliness in his heart that he had tried to fil with money, with drugs, with God.

But it had never been enough. This was enough. It expanded endlessly within him, encompassing him until he was just a part of it. It sang in a voice unlike anything he had ever heard.

Then it was over.

He was back on Earth, in the monastery, in his tiny room, on his old, creaking cot, sitting next to the most beautiful and wondrous creature in the world.

“I . . .” He felt exhausted, as if he had just run a marathon. “I didn’t know it would be like that,” he said.

Then he swayed and started to fal backward.

Astarte caught him and laid him gently down on the cot.

There were tears in her eyes.

“Neither did I,” she whispered.

Then he lost consciousness.

He woke up hours later, a hard beam of sunlight streaming in through his tiny window. He sat up slowly and looked over at the clock. He had missed morning prayers. In fact, it was nearly lunchtime.

At lunch, the abbot said grace, but Paul barely noticed.

He ate as if in a trance, recal ing every impossible detail of the previous evening perfectly. It had been like what he always imagined the Apostles must have felt when they had been fil ed with the Holy Spirit. Try as he might, he could not convince himself that the experience had been bad. But what, then, did that mean for him if letting a demon see your soul wasn’t bad?

In fact, the very idea that Astarte was evil seemed absurd to him now. If demons weren’t evil, what about al the other beliefs he had been taught? Was any of it true? He didn’t know what to believe anymore. He had so many questions for her. He waited eagerly for the setting sun, so he could drop his burden onto the graceful but inconceivably strong shoulders of Astarte.

Except that night, she didn’t come.

He waited for her until dawn final y emerged, its wan rays burning away the last of his hope. His body ached and his eyes burned with weariness. He dragged himself to morning prayers and then down to the dining hal for breakfast and this time, when the Abbot said grace, each word was like a hammer. He stared at his food, unable to muster up the effort to eat.

In retrospect, it seemed obvious what a fool he had been.

She had failed to seduce his body, so she seduced his mind, his heart, and his faith. She had gotten what she wanted. Why come back? She had done such a thorough job that even now, he couldn’t bring himself to hate her.

The clink and clank of silverware on dishes was like needles in his ears. He kept glancing at the other priests around him. Had she visited one of them last night? Mark another fal en soul on the tal y sheet and move on to the next conquest? Because make no mistake, he had fal en. He was doomed to love a demoness.

He would spend his remaining days here in this living graveyard of dead faith with al these other broken souls. Maybe, every once in a while, she would visit him again. To taunt him, perhaps.

Or to offer the sin of flesh that he had refused before.

And God help him, this time he would accept. But God would not help him, of course. Because now he was wel and truly damned. He would slowly drift through his life like a ghost until death final y carried him down to the deepest pits of Hel .

No. That wasn’t him. A coward’s defeat might be good enough for these other wretched creatures, but not him. He did not simply sit and wait for things to come to him. He would meet his fate head-on.

He stood up suddenly, leaving a ful plate of food behind.

Some of the priests glanced up at him, but they remained silent as he left the dinning hal . Maybe they knew, maybe they didn’t.

He no longer cared.

Once he was out of the monastery, he crossed the cobble-stone courtyard and passed through the front gate, then turned north into the wide, rol ing meadow that led to the side of the mountain.

It took him nearly until sunset to cross the meadow and hike up the narrow switchbacks that zigzagged up the side of the mountain. His mouth was so dry that he could hardly swal ow and his feet were so swol en that they felt like they might burst through his shoes.

But final y, he reached a spot that was high enough and accessible enough for him to jump.

His one smal hope, which he held in his heart like a clam holds a pearl, was that on his way to Hel , he might see Astarte one last time. If he did, he would look into those sparkling green eyes and show her his soul one more time and maybe she would feel, if only a for a brief instant, the torment she had caused him.

He stepped to the edge, too tired and miserable to feel more than a tiny tremor at the empty space that stretched down and ended far below on a bed of jagged rocks and thorny brush.

He jumped.

Then there was a flash.

Something slammed into his chest and he flew backward onto the ledge. He lay there, gasping for air. A creature of roaring fire loomed over him. It shook its fist at him and shrieked, “You stupid mortal!”

It jabbed a burning finger at him, singeing his robe.

He stared up at it uncomprehendingly for a moment and then he looked past the fire and saw the green eyes beneath.

“Astarte?”

“Of course!” she raged at him. “Who else would it be?”

“Did you come to gloat?” he yel ed. “To taunt me?”

“Taunt you?” she said, her flames calming slightly.

“What are you talking about?”

“Is your demon heart too cruel to even see it?” he said. “I love you!”

“Oh,” she said, and the fire went out completely. She stood before him as he had always seen her, in jeans and a T-shirt, except her hair was unkempt and her eyes were red and puffy, as if she had been crying.

“Wel , that’s it, then,” she said quietly. She sat down next to him on the hard mountain rock. “We’re in deep shit. Because I love you, too.”

Jael stares at the chemistry worksheet in front of her.

Symbols and initials that somehow relate to the periodic table squat on the page, silent and unhelpful.

Al around her, she hears the scratch of other pens on paper. Her pen is poised in the air, ready to begin a flurry of scrawling at any moment. It’s been that way for half the class period.

Al night she kept having this strange . . . wel , “dream”

isn’t exactly the right word for it. It was more like a memory. But not hers. Her father’s? She barely recognized him. And was that her mother that she saw? It seems too much to hope for. One thing she’s sure of, the dream has something to do with the necklace.

She woke up with the jewel clenched so tight in her fist that her knuckles were white.

“Okay, class,” says Ms. Randolph, the chemistry teacher.

Ms. Randolph should be in some research lab exploring cutting edge discoveries instead of teaching basic concepts to unwil ing teenage captives. She even looks a little like a mad scientist, with dark, pouchy eyes and wild orange corkscrew hair. “You may use the second half of the class period to finish up the worksheet with a partner.”

“Need help, Betty?” asks Rob, sliding into the chair across from her at the black wooden lab table.

“In so many ways,” says Jael.

“How was your b-day?”

“It was pretty crappy,” says Jael. “But I did get a cool birthday present.”

“Yeah? What?”

“Oh . . . ,” says Jael. “It’s . . . a necklace.”

“Awesome,” says Rob. His eyes search her neckline.

“So. . .

. where is it?”

“Um.” Jael’s hand goes unconsciously to her throat.

“I’m not real y wearing it. Yet. At least . . . uh . . .”

“Sorry,” says Rob. “I don’t mean to be al up in your business or anything. If you don’t want to tel me . . .”

“No, no, it’s not a huge deal,” says Jael. “I mean, it is, but . .

. wel , my dad gave me this necklace that belonged to my mom.

And, uh, I’ve never had anything of hers before. So it’s

. . . I don’t know. Pretty intense for me. And I guess . . .

it reminds him a lot of her. So he doesn’t want me to wear it.”

“Wow,” says Rob. “So he must be stil total y in love with her after al these years, huh?”

“Huh,” says Jael. “Maybe you’re right.” The idea takes her by surprise. What if the reason he never talks about her isn’t because he’s ashamed of her mother or what she was. Maybe he’s just brokenhearted.

Maybe he loved her mother so much that he’l never get over it. And while it sucks that Jael gets the short end of that stick, it also strikes her as kind of romantic, in that sad, emo sort of way.

“Hel o?” says Rob. “Bets?”

“Sorry,” says Jael. “Just spaced out for a second.”

“Did you eat breakfast today? Because, you know, I used to skip breakfast al the time, but then I started getting these dizzy spel s and . . .”

His expression is so sincere that she laughs.

“What?” he asks.

“How about you help me with this chem stuff,” she says.

“Right, right, right. Lock and load.” He leans over and scans her worksheet.

“Why do you always say that?” Jael asks. “ ‘Lock and load.’ ”

“Huh?” he looks up at her, his blond bangs flopping into his eyes. He brushes them aside. “Oh, just my little thing that helps me get my game face on.”

“Your game face? For chem?”

“When I’m in the zone, it al makes sense. But the problem is, I get easily distracted.”

“ADD or something?”

He shrugs. “Whatever you want to cal it. I don’t do diagnosis and meds. It’s my thing to deal with and I’l deal with it.”

“That makes sense.”

Rob gives her a grin. Then he nods to her worksheet.

“So, like, Bets. It looks like you don’t have any answers written down.”

“That’s why you’re here.” She smiles and pats the worksheet.

“Come on. You gotta try, at least.”

“Rob, seriously. I just don’t get it.”

“You have to get excited about it, that’s al .”

“Excited? About chemistry? I mean, I appreciate it in theory; it makes medicine and things like that. But calculations with the periodic table, not so much.”

“That’s not real y what I mean,” says Rob. “That stuff is cool and al , but what I’m talking about is . . . wel , it’s kinda like magic.”

“Magic?” Her heart skips a beat. “Uh, what do you mean?”

“Okay”—Rob holds up his hand—“I can see you’re total y sketched out. I know it sounds hokey or whatever . . .”

“No, I’m interested,” says Jael. “Trust me.”

“Al right,” says Rob. “Wel , you know, back in the day, there were these people. Sorcerers, witches, shamans, and whatnot, who thought they were making magic potions. But what they were real y doing was chemistry. They just didn’t ful y understand it.” As he continues to talk, his eyes get bright and his usual grin widens into something open and boyishly excited.

“They’d mix this frog skin with that leaf, and poof, it cures some disease. They thought it was the prayers they were saying or the spirit of the lizard or whatever that did it. But it was actual y the chemical reaction between the skin and the leaf.”

“I can kind of see that . . . ,” says Jael. “So magic is real y just science we don’t understand yet?”

“Exactly!” says Rob, excited in a way that Jael’s never seen before. “And, and, and—there’s stil so much that we don’t understand. Fifty years ago, we hadn’t even mapped the genome.

I mean, what’s it going to be like fifty years from now?

Theories as big as a multiverse or as smal as subatomic particles? We just have no idea! We can’t even imagine!”

“So . . . do you think this is just about potions, or could it be other kinds of stuff? Like . . .” She can’t bring herself to look at him as she asks the next part, so she picks at the hem of her skirt. “You know, like, uh . .

. I don’t know . . . magic talismans.

Or, I don’t know . . . magic people?”

“You know what I think?” asks Rob, and his voice is so quiet yet so raw that her eyes are drawn back to him.

“I think that al these barriers we put up between us and what we believe is impossible? It’s al bul shit.

Like putting on blinders. Because we’re scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of what we’re capable of. You know?”

“I . . .” She doesn’t want to be scared. She wants to feel the open excitement she sees in Rob’s eyes instead. A slow blush creeps up onto her face, but she forces herself to keep looking at him. “I don’t know if I get what you’re saying. But I real y want to.”

His smile is like the sun after a storm.

“Cool,” he says. “Now, seriously. Let’s lock and load.”

“And that was it?” demands Britt. “Then he just started doing the chem worksheet?” There’s a mound of little white packets of Parmesan cheese next to her plate, and she begins slowly, methodical y tearing them open and dumping them on her spaghetti noodles until the powdery white cheese sits like a tiny Mount Rainier.

“Yep,” says Jael. She stirs the dry, orange spaghetti noodles on her plate without much interest. “Not another word about anything other than the periodic table.”

“Boys,” Britt says. She twirls a big mound of spaghetti on her fork and takes a bite. Then she says, “I never pegged Rob for one of those New Age freaks, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know. Those hippie types that believe in magic crystals and shit.” She wiggles her fingers at Jael, like she’s casting a spel .

“Yeah . . .” Jael gives a forced little laugh. “Pretty weird.”

“And total y a sin.”

“Right,” Jael says.

Religion is the one topic that Jael and Britt don’t real y talk about. Despite the fact that Britt hooks up with boys on a regular basis, she is hard-core Catholic.

Obviously, that would kind of conflict with Jael’s parentage.

“But he’s total y cute. And super sweet,” Britt adds quickly.

She stirs the mound of Parmesan into her noodles for a moment and a frown starts to wrinkle her pale forehead.

“How’s, uh . . . what’s his name? Varsity Nose-guard guy,”

Jael asks.

“James Gregory?”

“Yeah, him.”

“Douche.”

“Whoa, what? I thought you liked him.”

“I did until yesterday after school when he told me he couldn’t take me out anymore because he was getting too much shit from the rest of his team. But get this: he said we could stil fool around if I want.”

“He actual y said that?”

“Yeah.”

“Britt . . . I’m sorry. That’s real y shitty. He sounds like an idiot. You deserve way better.”

“Yeah,” says Britt without much enthusiasm. But then she takes a deep breath and works her face back into something that looks kind of like a smile. “So what about you? How was your night? My mom was hogging the phone, talking to some guy from Chicago al night. So what was that ‘We Have to Talk’

note al about?”

Jael gives a bitter little laugh. “That’s funny. I kind of forgot about the note. But what’s even funnier is that we hardly talked at al .”

“Wel what did happen?! You’re kil ing me here!”

“Um . . . he just gave me this necklace from my mom.”

“Oh my God, that’s amazing!” Britt says. “I bet it’s gorgeous!

So where is it? Why aren’t you wearing it?”

“He said I can’t wear it.”

“What? He is such an asshole!” She looks pissed, like she’s the one being banned from wearing it. “Did he say why?”

“Not real y,” says Jael. “I guess I didn’t real y give him the chance.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wel , when he said that, I kind of flipped out and told him to go to hel .”

“Damn right!” Britt says. “You go.”

“Yeah,” Jael says. “I went.”

“J, I am so proud of you for sticking up for yourself, final y.

How does it feel? I bet it feels amazing.”

“I definitely feel . . . I don’t know . . . different,” says Jael.

“Talking to boys, standing up to your dad.” Britt reaches across the table and squeezes her arm. “You keep up this momentum. I can just feel it, J. This is going to be your year.”

The next class period is canceled for the Al -School Mass in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Jael isn’t an expert on saints, but this particular one was permanently burned into her brain when she was little.

Her father bought her a picture book cal ed The Life of Saint Francis. Saint Francis was this rich guy who gave up everything, including his clothes, then ran around naked in the forest with the animals. She stil remembers page seventeen, which showed Saint Francis’s naked ass as he preached in front of a smal cluster of animals. The picture embarrassed her so much that she shoved the book up on the highest level of her bookshelf. But that night, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She wanted to make sure that she real y did see it. So once her father was asleep, she took it into bed with her, pul ed the covers over her head, turned on her flashlight, and stared at the drawing in a book that her father had bought in a religious bookstore of a naked saint in the woods exposing himself to a bunch of animals. To this day, whenever anyone mentions Saint Francis, she thinks of that picture.

The chapel takes up an entire wing of the school and looks even more gloomy and gothic than the rest of the building. The tal stained-glass windows don’t let in much light and the slick slate floor seems to hold a lingering chil . At the far end is a massive crucifix with a statue of a bleeding, nearly naked Jesus, suspended by thick chains over a simple stone altar.

Despite being half demon, Jael doesn’t mind Mass.

For one thing, she hopes that it chil s out any weird demon stuff that might creep up in her. But probably even more important, it’s just always been one of the few constants in her life. For about an hour, she knows exactly what’s going to happen and how she’s supposed to respond. When the priest gets to the middle of Mass and she’s down on the hard kneelers, staring at nothing, muttering the Nicene Creed along with every other student in the school. She’s reached that mental place of absolute zone-out, total y on autopilot as she mutters, “We believe in one God, the Almighty Father, maker of Heaven and Earth, of al that is seen and unseen . . .”

Then she smel s something burning.

She looks around, but none of the altar servers are burning incense. And anyway, it’s not that spicy sweet smel . This is more like a fireplace mixed with melting plastic. Other people start shifting around in their seats, and someone behind her coughs.

“Your bag,” hisses Britt next to her. “It’s something in your bag.”

Jael looks down and sees a tendril of smoke curling out from under the flap of her messenger bag. She doesn’t know what’s going on in there, but she’s sure that she doesn’t want to deal with it in the middle of Al -School Mass. She grabs her bag, climbs over Britt and out into the aisle, then heads toward the exit at the back of the chapel.

“Miss Thompson,” says Father Aaron as he holds up a hand to stop her, a frown beneath his walrus mustache.

“Sorry, Father,” she mutters. “Female trouble.”

He flinches and immediately steps aside. It’s a cheap shot, but as long as she uses it sparingly, it’s always effective.

Once she’s out of the chapel, she sprints down the main hal way of the school and into the bathroom. She checks the stal s to make sure no one is hiding out, then she dumps everything from her bag onto the floor. She swats away a puff of smoke and scans the contents.

She sees her necklace first and grabs it. She should have left it at home. What was the point of carrying it around with her if she couldn’t wear it? But moments before she left that morning she changed her mind and shoved it in her bag anyway.

She examines it careful y now, but it seems fine. Then she looks down at the rest of the stuff and sees a roughly circular shape burned into her history textbook. It’s stil smoking a little, and the edges of the hole glow orange. She kneels down and flips through the book. It’s one of those thick, five-hundred-page monsters, and the hole goes down to about page three hundred, with brown scorch marks another twenty pages deep.