The Eternal Ones (8 page)

“Right. I’m supposed to tell the Ouroboros Society that the guy I knew in my last life is now a famous billionaire delinquent? That should go over
real
well. They’ll think I’m crazier than hell. Why don’t I just tell them I’m best friends with Bill Gates, too?”

“Damn, Haven, don’t be so boneheaded. So you leave that part out. Just tell the Ouroboros Society that you might know someone in New York who could back up your story.”

“Okay, but even if that works, how d’you figure I’ll be able to hop on a plane to New York when Imogene’s got me under maximum surveillance? She’d have the cops all over me before I made it to Maryland.”

“Explain to me again why Imogene needs to be informed? Tell her we’re going camping for a couple of days. She’ll never know the difference. It’s not like you can’t afford a short trip to New York. I bet you’ve still got every cent we’ve ever made sitting in a vault in the First Citizen’s bank. And you know as well as I do that we’re set to make upward of five grand off the dresses this year. I’ll even loan you my half of the proceeds if you promise to give it a try.”

“Don’t even think about it. You need that money for college.”

When Beau sighed, Haven knew she’d successfully changed the subject. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to pay for Vanderbilt.”

“Are you saying you might not go to college?”

“I’m saying that if I take classes at East Tennessee, I can drive back and forth every day and save on living expenses,” Beau explained. “And it’ll keep me out of trouble if I live at home a while longer. Look, we’re getting off topic here. We can talk about this later. In the meantime, you can borrow my dress money if you need it. So e-mail the reincarnation people already!”

Haven couldn’t come up with another excuse. “I’ll think about it,” she promised.

Haven was staring out the window when Miss Henderson brought the blinds down with a crash and the classroom went dark.

“I know it’s a gorgeous day outside, but you guys have to keep your eyes on me for the next fifteen minutes.”

Even after nine months on the job, the perky little brunette was still bursting with enthusiasm for English literature. Haven had seen her type before. Fresh out of UT Chattanooga and dying to make a difference. They didn’t last long.

Bradley Sutton raised a meaty paw. “No offense, Miss Henderson, but what’s the point? I mean, there’re only a few weeks left of school. Nothing we learn now’s gonna change anything.”

Bradley liked to brag that the only book he’d ever read was
Green Eggs and Ham
, and he wasn’t about to have some pansy play like
Othello
ruining his spotless record.

“For the right person, a few weeks can change
everything
,” Miss Henderson snipped. She’d come to despise Bradley, who divided his time in class between causing trouble and ogling her chest. “So unless you want to spend this period in the principal’s office, I suggest you let the rest of us get back to work.”

The teacher swiveled and addressed the students on the other side of the aisle. “Iago sets out to ruin Othello’s life. He convinces Othello that his wife has been having an affair with Cassio, and he manipulates the other characters by playing on their weaknesses. But why? What’s his motivation?”

“Gay,” grunted Dewey Jones from the back of the room, and half the class tittered.

Miss Henderson barely blinked. “That is one theory. Some people have speculated that Iago’s actions are driven by homosexual jealousy. I’m not sure I buy that argument. The poet Samuel Coleridge once called Iago a ‘motiveless malignity.’ Anyone know what that means?”

The class was silent except for the sound of two dozen pencils doodling. Haven couldn’t bear the growing defeat on Miss Henderson’s face.

“It means that there was no reason for his actions. That all he wanted to do was create chaos.”

“Thank you, Haven. Can the rest of you think of another character like that? One who plants evil thoughts in people’s minds? Who pretends to help while he’s secretly undermining them?” She waited. “Oh, come on, you guys, none of you have ever heard of Satan? Is Iago the devil?”

“Ask Haven,” Bradley quipped. He’d had it in for her since she’d spurned his advances. “She’s probably got the devil somewhere deep inside her right now.” The class howled with laughter. Miss Henderson slammed her book closed and dropped down in her desk chair. There was no taking back control. When Haven turned around to give Bradley the finger, she saw there was at least one other person who wasn’t laughing—a smart, mousey girl named Leah Frizzell.

BLUE MOUNTAIN WAS a relatively peaceful school. With fewer than a hundred people in each graduating class, it was too small for the typical cliques and tribes. There was really only one clear way to divide the students: There were those who would stay in Snope City for the rest of their lives and those who would run as far and as fast as possible. In each class, there were no more than a dozen students who fell into the latter group. Among them were the kids from Snope City’s tiny African-American community, who tended to vanish the day after graduation and were rarely seen again. Until that blessed day arrived, they and their fellow outsiders tried their best to blend into the background.

For the most part, the strategy worked. In Haven’s four years of high school, she’d heard tale of only a few troubling incidents. One of Blue Mountain’s three goth kids once let down his guard and drank too much beer at a party held deep in the woods. As soon as he passed out, four football players tied him to a tree, wrapped him in toilet paper, and set it on fire. The kid survived with all of his skin, though it took a full year for his eyebrows to grow back. Then there was the time the captain of the girls’ basketball team called one of her black teammates the unforgivable word and received a broken nose in return. And Dewey Jones went through a phase freshman year when nothing delighted him more than imitating the school’s half-dozen Pentecostal students by rolling around on the cafeteria floor and screaming gibberish. Leah Frizzell had put an end to the displays.

Leah had always been a little unusual. Her body appeared emaciated, though she never seemed to stop eating, and thin red hair clung to her narrow skull. She rarely spoke, and when she did, her drawl couldn’t have been cut with a chain saw. Beginning in the fourth grade, whenever Haven got the feeling that something wasn’t quite right, she would often discover Leah’s light green eyes watching her. It made Haven nervous at first. She’d heard kids gossip about the things Leah carried around in the beaten-up backpack that Haven had never seen her open. Those fears seemed justified when, one afternoon while Dewey Jones writhed around on the floor, Leah stuck a scrawny hand into her bag and yanked out a snake.

“You know, we don’t just talk in tongues—we’re snake handlers, too,” she’d said as she shoved the serpent down the front of Dewey’s football jersey. Unaware that it was nothing but a harmless black-snake, Dewey had soiled his pants in front of the entire school. Leah was suspended for three days, and when she returned, she went right back to lurking in the shadows.

By senior year, Haven barely noticed Leah Frizzell. When the girl was named the school’s valedictorian, Haven had to think for a minute to place the name. It seemed likely that they’d finish high school without exchanging a word—until that day in Miss Henderson’s class, when Haven turned around to see the girl glaring at Bradley Sutton.

“Shut your mouth and leave her alone,” Leah warned Bradley Sutton and the snickering stopped. “Or you’ll
wish
you had the devil to deal with.”

After the last bell rang, Haven pushed through the doors of Blue Mountain High School and set out to walk the half mile to church for her appointment with Dr. Tidmore. Snope City’s sidewalks, usually quiet, were momentarily jammed with giddy students set free into the warm May afternoon. A couple of freshmen on skateboards raced recklessly around Haven. A group of girls giggled behind her. A junior in a baseball uniform scurried out of the sporting goods store, grasping a new athletic cup in one hand. One by one, the kids disappeared into shops or up driveways until the only other student left on the sidewalks was Leah Frizzell. She was walking on the opposite side of the street, a physics book clutched to her chest and her eyes fixed on the path ahead. Not once did she glance in Haven’s direction. Haven quickened her stride, but Leah kept pace. Haven stopped to gaze in the window of the town pharmacy, but when she turned around, Leah was no more than a few steps ahead of her. It wasn’t until Haven had reached the front door of the church that the strange redheaded girl turned down a side road and vanished from sight.

 

HAVEN’S NERVES WERE still jangled when she dropped down into one of the hard leather chairs in the preacher’s elegantly appointed office. Every decorative touch had been paid for by donations from Snope City’s finest citizens. Imogene Snively had personally commissioned the stained-glass window behind his desk.

“I’m glad you made it,” the preacher said warmly. “It’s been a while since we had a heart-to-heart.” Dr. Tidmore beamed at Haven from across his enormous oak desk. In the years since they’d last sat in these same spots, the preacher’s hair had started to silver and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses now rested on his nose. His harsh Yankee accent had even softened into a subtle drawl. “It seems like yesterday that you were just a little bitty thing. And now here you are, a stunning young woman.”

Haven managed a smile but said nothing.

“Your grandmother seems to think that you’re in a bit of trouble.”

“Did she tell you she’s not going to let me go to school in the fall?” Haven’s temper flared. “That evil old lady wants to trap me here for the rest of my natural life.”

“Now, now.” Dr. Tidmore chuckled. “I know you and your grandmother don’t get along, but let’s not go overboard. There are some things even Imogene Snively can’t control. As soon as we take care of your little problem, I’m sure she’ll let you go off to New York City for college.”

“I’m glad
you’re
sure,” Haven said with a huff.

“Well, I’m going to try my best to see that she does. Do you think you can tell me what happened over the weekend?”

Haven folded her arms against her chest. “Imogene’s told you everything there is to tell. I fainted.”

“You had another vision?”

Haven hesitated. “Yes.”

Tidmore nodded. “Did you see the same girl? The one called Constance?”

“Yes,” Haven said, surprised that he remembered.

“And the boy, too?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Tidmore’s mood darkened, as if his worst suspicions had been confirmed. “There’s something I should tell you, Haven. Your grandmother stopped by to see me this afternoon. She brought something with her.” He slid open a desk drawer and pulled out a shoe box. Haven could see a slip of paper peeking out from under the lid, and she gasped when she recognized the handwriting that covered one side of it.

“That stuff is
mine
. Imogene must have gone through my room. She had
no
right to give you that!”

Tidmore placed one long, thin hand on the box. “Your grandmother is only trying to help you, Haven. She thought I needed to see this.”

“I want it back!” Haven insisted.

“In time, Haven,” Dr. Tidmore said more firmly. “But I think we should talk about what’s inside here. I’m afraid it’s proof that Ernest Moore was not a well man.”

“All it proves is that my father believed I’d been reincarnated.”

“Reincarnation is not a Christian concept, Haven. Christians believe that God judges us all when we die and sends us to either heaven or hell.”

“And I’d say that the Lord works in mysterious ways,” Haven shot back.

Tidmore frowned. “This is not a conversation I ever hoped to have,” he told her. “But now that it’s come to this, it’s time you knew the truth. Your father was spiritually ill, Haven. Toward the end of his life, his behavior became impulsive and he began to imagine things. He must have taken innocent comments of yours—ones that any young girl might have made—and turned them into proof of a previous life.

“Ernest came to see me right after I moved here. He was rambling about reincarnation and devils and all sorts of crazy things. He wasn’t even making sense. I tried my best to help him, but I could see he was already lost. I spoke with your grandmother about it. I was worried that he would lead you down the wrong path as well. I’m afraid that’s what ended up happening. Ernest was your father, and you wanted to please him, so you went along with the story he’d concocted. Even added to it and began to believe it. Think about it, Haven. Haven’t you ever wondered why the visions stopped after your father died?”

She refused to see the preacher’s point. “If that’s all true, then why have the visions come back? My father has been dead for eight years.”