The Rising: Antichrist Is Born (18 page)

Marilena was bothered that Planchette did not dispute her. So that was it. No one had considered that a mother could do other than gratefully receive such news. But this mother was increasingly feeling left out of the equation, and she feared this eventuality would complete her alienation from her own flesh and blood.

“The public school that made so much’ sense to you— which frankly surprises me, given your own academic credentials—”

“Excuse me, sir, but I am a product of public schools.”

“Then you know better than I that only five percent of such students are prepared for college. The private school we, er, Mr. Stonagal has selected or would like to recommend—”

“How much time has Mr. Stonagal spent in Romania, sir?”

“I have no idea. I—”

“And he would have no idea what is available. How convenient that he knows just the right private school for my son.”

“He has advisers, of course. Any good manager does.”

“He does not manage me.”

“No, he doesn’t. He’s merely making a most generous offer, ma’am, and if I may be blunt, you’d be a fool to reject it.”

“All right, I’m listening. Where have you and the world’s ultimate manager decided Nicky is to go to school?”

Planchette smiled as if believing that as soon as Marilena heard the news, all her doubts and fears would be eradicated. “Intelectualitate Academic in Blaj.”

“Blaj! That’s more than fifty kilometers from here!”

“Transportation will be provided.”

“What are you talking about? A bus? A limo? Fifty kilometers each way to school every day?”

Planchette’s expression soured. “Be grateful he is not . being sent to boarding school.”

“You would have to kill me first.”

And for the first time, because of what she saw pass over Reiche Planchette’s eyes, Marilena realized she had neared some awful truth. Eliminating her was not out o£ the question. She had no claim to this child. She was transported to when first the maternal instinct flooded her being. The emotion she felt now, the mother-bear instinct—fueled by fear for her own life, made that initial biological-clock trauma seem like child’s play.

She wanted to rail, to challenge, to threaten, to tell this smarmy pretender that neither he nor any American billionaire would tell her what to do with her own son. And yet she couldn’t back it up. They were going to do what they were going to do. Viv was in on it, and Marilena’s agreement to raise Nicky as a spiritualist carried with it all these other obligations. The only way

out was to, in essence, kidnap her own child and spirit him away in the night.

But where would she go? What would she do? She had no money and an income that barely met their needs even with most of their expenses already cared for. And as it was, her meager funds were dependent on her contacts with major universities. There was no way to do her work clandestinely. As she sat across from Reiche Planchette, she realized the awful truth. She had lost whatever freedom she thought she had.

But she couldn’t show weakness now. “I do not want my son riding a bus or being driven to school every day by anyone but me.”

“Not even Ms. Ivinisova?”

“I will do it.”

“But Viviana should at least share those duties so she can begin instructing Nicolae on the ways of our faith.”

“She can spell me occasionally and take over in the cases of emergency or illness. But I will do the teaching as well.”

“You?”

“Of course me. Why not?”

“But I thought—”

“Sir, I have been a faithful student of spiritualism since before Nicolae was born.”

“I know, but—”

“I pledged to raise him in the discipline, and I covet the privilege…”

“Well, that’s certainly admirable. And you can easily do that during the daily round-trips between here and Blaj.”

“That would be my plan. And you say a vehicle will be provided?”

“That’s the best part.”

Sure, whatever it is will make this all worth it.

“You’ll have the use of a new
SUV
. And every expense related to it will be taken care of. Fuel, maintenance, you name it.”

“All out of the goodness of Jonathan Stonagal’s heart,” Marilena said.

Planchette smiled. “Precisely.”

As a sophomore Ray Steele began to come out of his shell. Besides his mother and his doctor conspiring and finally hitting upon the right medication for his face, Ray’s growth spurt slowed enough that he began to feel as graceful in the hallways as he did while playing sports. He recognized that girls seemed to notice him, greet him, maintain eye contact. He had to work at keeping his mind on class and homework, as the opposite sex monopolized his thoughts.

Stonagal caught Fredericka’s eye and nodded toward the machine humming in the backseat of the stretch Bentley as it waited at a light in midtown. He noticed she folded the sheet vertically without so much as a glance at it, then handed it to him.

  J.S.:

Bearer unimpressed at worst, indifferent at beet.

R.P.

Stonagal slowly and precisely tore the fax into neat ¦ pieces and handed them to Fredericka. “Ask Planchette how crucial the mother is,” he whispered.

The relationship between Marilena and Viv Ivins had finally begun to chill. After years of partnership in raising Nicky, the women’s rapport had begun to fray.

It began when Marilena discovered that the brand-new
SUV
provided by the spiritualism association—through the largess of Jonathan Stonagal, of course—had been registered in Viv’s name. “Why must it belong to either of us?” Marilena said.

“It means nothing,” Viv said. “It’s just a convenience, a technicality. If it needs work or anything, it’s good to have it in one of our names.”

“Then why not mine?”

“Who cares? What’s the difference?”

“It should have been at least in both our names,” Marilena said.

“You’re the one so disinclined to our being mistaken for lesbians,” Viv said.

“Why couldn’t the vehicle have been registered to Mr. Planchette or the association or to one of Stonagal’s companies?”

“Honestly, Marilena, what is your problem? This seems petty, even for you.”

  Even for you? What did that mean? Viv thought Marilena was petty as a rule?

  “I just feel like an outsider, that’s all. I am part of the association too. I come to the meetings. I’m raising Nicky the way I said I would. Why am I treated like a fifth wheel?”

Viv just shook her head. Worse, she had not responded well to the idea of only spelling Marilena as Nicky’s daily driver. “Why don’t we trade off?” she said. “I could take every other day. Or one of us could take him and the other pick him up.”

“Forgive me if I want a couple of uninterrupted hours with my own son!” Marilena said. “You have enough influence on him, and I appreciate that; I really do. But I can teach him what you want taught, and frankly, he and I need to bond more. I think the boy is confused about who’s who around here.”

Viv muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Don’t ask.”

“I’m asking. What are you complaining about?”

“I’m just saying,” Viv said, “that I always have the recourse of Reiche arbitrating this.”

Marilena closed her eyes. “You don’t even want to start with me on that. What am I, an employee of Nicolae Enterprises?

I am his mother!”

“So you keep insisting.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You birthed him, Marilena. You were a receptacle, a carrier. You didn’t add much to the mix then, and you certainly have not found traction as his mother since.”

The truth of that hit Marilena in the solar plexus. “But whose fault is that? You’re the outsider, Viv. No, I couldn’t have done it without you, but shouldn’t you work at maintaining boundaries? You’re not his mother.”

  “Spiritually I am.”

“Well, I intend to change that, and I’ll start by being his driver.”

For the next few years, Marilena and Nicky would rise early every day and were on the road before sunup. When she returned, Marilena did her research work, transmitting her results to various clients. She spent the remainder of the day studying what she wanted to convey to Nicky and, to her consternation, found she often had to consult the expert: Viv.

  Maddeningly, Viv affected an air of helpfulness. Perhaps Marilena would have been even more infuriated if the older woman had proved uncooperative. But Viv was thorough, teaching Marilena not only what needed to be passed on to Nicky but also advising her on how to say it, what to emphasize, what to understand about a young boy and how he learned.

  “He learns like an adult,” Marilena said.

  “But he’s still a child, and you must not forget that. Allow him to grow at his own pace; be sensitive to his limited emotional and spiritual capacity.”

Marilena stiffened. She didn’t need to be lectured about her own child. “He has shown unlimited spiritual capacity. He astounds me every day.”

“Children can be amazing receptors,” Viv said. “Just be careful.”

Marilena wanted to slap her. Was there no way out of this? Could she not dismiss Viv from her own house? But it wasn’t Marilena’s house. It too was being provided.

True, Nicky was full of questions, and the spirit world captivated him like nothing else, though he had limitless interests. Even in the hoity-toity private school, he proved head and shoulders above other students his age and even older. He had been the only first-year student who could read and was now certainly the only one already fluent in three languages. His teachers, reminding Marilena of Viv, cautioned her not to push him, telling her that “children develop at their own pace. The others will catch him soon enough.”

Not a chance. This boy was a born leader, and no one would ever equal him.

The day of his first solo flight at age sixteen, Ray Steele told himself he could do this. He knew he could. He’d been dreaming of it for years and training for it for months. And he had done it countless times with an instructor next to him. What would be different this time? Solo. No instructor. No safety net. The last dozen times he had flown, his instructor had done nothing, said nothing. He had merely been there, ready to help if anything went wrong.

Still, there was no denying his butterflies. But was that all these were? Could butterflies make you vomit? Ray was sick to his stomach and couldn’t quit fidgeting. And the grin. If he felt so bad, why couldn’t he wipe off the grin?

“Any questions before I step out?” his instructor said, unbuckling.

“Nope. Don’t think so. Ready. Eager. Want to get going.”

“Don’t let your excitement cloud your judgment.”

“I won’t.”

“And I don’t just mean in the air.”

“Sir?”

“First thing you’ll forget is something on the ground. Use your checklist. You’re trusting your life to this craft/’

Ray checked and double-checked. Fuel was topped off, electrical systems go. Everything seemed fine.

“What if I told you, Ray, that I misadjusted something on purpose, just to see if you’d find it?”

“Did you?”

“I asked you first.”

“Uh, I’d be confident I covered everything?”

“You asking me or telling me?”

“I’ll check again if you want.”

“If I want? Think, Ray. Of course I wouldn’t let you take ‘er up if I knew you had missed something. But this has to matter more to you than it does to me. I mean, I’d hate to have to break bad news to your parents, but what about you? You have a death wish? You want this to be your last flight?”

“Not a chance. I want it to be the first of many.”

“Well, then, you strapping in or checking again?”

Ray studied the checklist and sped through it again in his mind. He was sure he’d verified everything. And he was also sure his instructor would not let him take up a bird that had something wrong with it. Flashing a thumbs-up, he settled in behind the controls. The instructor pointed to the runway, and Ray taxied to where he would wait for clearance to take off for a thirty-minute flight.

Fear, nervousness did not do justice to what he felt. He had to admit he was ill at ease, eager to be on the ground again, to have the maiden voyage behind him. But he had no doubt about his proficiency and knowledge. Unless something went terribly wrong with the weather or the craft—and of course he had double-checked both—he would land safely. Ray’s goal was to do it smoothly, to impress his instructor, to be cleared to fly solo from this point on.

As the small prop plane hurtled down the runway, Ray saw something in his path. A small animal? Something metallic? A bolt? Should he swerve? abort? Too late. His right tire hit it hard, just as the drag over his wings lifted him gently from the earth. He fought the craft to keep it straight and wondered if his instructor had seen what happened.

His radio crackled to life. “That was a little shaky,” his instructor said.

“I think I ran over a bird.”

“Everything okay?”

“Perfect.”

“Carry on.”

It had been just a little fib. That had certainly not been a bird. It had rattled loudly against the fuselage and gone bouncing off the runway. But Ray didn’t want to admit to anything that would force him to cut short his first solo. There seemed no damage to the plane, and everything was going fine now.

Half an hour later, as he circled the airstrip and maneuvered for landing, Ray regretted not telling his parents how big a day this was. No, this was best. He would tell them at dinner, and their response either way could not dampen the thrill of this accomplishment.

Ray fought to hang on, praying the plane wouldn’t flip. In a flash he was grateful there was not enough fuel to even register on the gauge. If the prop hit the runway and the plane pitched, the sparks could ignite the fuel.

By the time the plane finally skidded noisily to a stop, Ray could see his instructor sprinting down the tarmac, followed by a couple of guys from the tower and a vehicle with lights flashing.

His instructor was pale as he helped Ray from the plane, asking over and over if he was all right.

“I’m fine,” Ray kept saying.