Be Not Afraid Read online

  Lucy gave me a knowing nudge as Dominic moved past. I nudged her back, annoyed and secretly pleased that she knew I thought Dominic was cute. He held a Bible in his hands, raised up at eye level, and I could see a pale blue orb inside his wrist. A javelin injury? Maybe an old sprain. I stared at it as long as I could until he disappeared down the aisle.

  Father Nickolas was next, with his odd cluster of yellow egg-shaped orbs inside his neck, followed by Father William, the parish priest at Sacred Heart, where Nan went to Mass every morning. He walked slowly, leaning on a cane, mouthing, “Hi, Marin,” as he passed. I nodded back, giving him a small smile.

  Since we’d moved, Nan had invited Father William over to the house for dinner a few times. He liked to stay afterward, sitting with her in the living room while they sipped glasses of warm whiskey and talked into the late hours. He was a nice man. Quiet. Easygoing. Quick to laugh, too, although I sensed a sadness about him, a heaviness that clouded his eyes and stooped his shoulders when he walked. Now, as he passed, I could make out the series of large, ruby-hued shapes beneath his heavy robes. They settled along the bottom half of his spine, glimmering like a string of fading Christmas lights as he made his way up the steps and shuffled in behind the altar.

  “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Father William made the sign of the cross over the student body.

  I closed my eyes as the priest began the opening prayers. It was Holy Week, which meant that the service would be a long one, maybe even twice the length of a usual Mass. Around me, the sounds of familiar prayers filled the room, the lull of them creating a warm, drowsy effect. Even closed, my eyelids felt heavy. The steady cacophony of voices began to drift into the background.

  Grnnnt! Sssst!

  I opened my eyes with a start and tried to focus. Father William was behind the makeshift altar onstage, praying over the bread and wine. On the right, Dominic sat in a chair next to two other boys, who were acting as altar servers. His interlocked fingers hung down between his knees and he stared at the floor as if studying something between his shoes. Had they gotten this far into the Mass already? I must have fallen asleep, dreamed those weird noises. Maybe they’d even come from me. I snuck a glance at Lucy, but she was staring straight ahead, absorbed in the Mass. I exhaled and felt my muscles start to relax.

  Until I heard it again, something that sounded like a low growl this time. It seemed to be coming from farther down, toward the front.

  “What is that?” Lucy whispered, elbowing me. “Did you hear that noise?”

  I raised myself up against the arms of my seat, ignoring the blur of colors and shapes that assaulted me, and looked in the direction the noise seemed to be coming from. For a split second, I wondered if I was imagining the sight before me. Cassie Jackson’s head was thrown back against her seat. Her eyes were so wide open that they were bulging from inside her face, and her mouth was parted, as if she was struggling for air. Another hissing sound came out between her lips, and as it did, the students around her reared back and gasped.

  “What is it?” Lucy whispered, tugging on my sleeve. “What’s happening? I can’t see anything.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It looks like Cassie. Is she sick, maybe?”

  “Cassie Jackson?” Lucy hopped up on her seat now, folding both legs beneath her, and tried to see over my shoulder. “Why do you think she’s sick? Is she throwing up?”

  Up on the stage, Father William hesitated as he glanced in Cassie’s direction. His voice began to intone a prayer: “Then Jesus, taking the bread, broke it and said: ‘This is my body, shed for you and all of your sins. Take and eat of it, in memory of me.’ ”

  At the sound of the words, Cassie began to pant. Her head lolled back and forth along the seat, and a vein in her neck bulged like rope. Father William raised the host up in the air with both hands and held it there. Suddenly, Cassie stood up. It was an abrupt, violent movement, as if someone had yanked her to her feet by an invisible string. Father William’s arms dropped for an instant, and then he raised the host higher.

  As he did, Cassie threw her head back. “Nooooo!” she screamed.

  It was a horrific sound, murderous and high-pitched, and the stillness of the surroundings magnified it even more, as if a gun had just gone off in a graveyard. The auditorium seemed to gasp with one breath. Up on the altar, Dominic stared at his younger sister, his body leaning forward, both hands gripping the sides of his chair. Even Father William took a step back, the host still in his hands. The look of alarm and fear on his face was unmistakable. Two silent seconds passed as Cassie stood there, panting.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  “Take it away!” If Cassie’s voice had been shrill before, now it was demanding and insistent. She pointed at the host on the altar and screamed a final time. “Take it away! Take it away!”

  Mrs. Loftus, the freshman science teacher who weighed no more than a third grader and was sitting at the end of Cassie’s row, had already leapt to her feet. She lunged for the girl, but Cassie swung her arms and gnashed her teeth, growling and spitting at the woman’s outstretched hands. For a split second, I remembered a caged tiger I’d seen on a TV show, being trained to perform for a circus. Part of the training involved torturing the animal with electrical wires. Every time the electricity shot through it, the animal reacted like this: roaring, furious with its torturers, hell-bent on escaping. Students screamed as Cassie slapped and clawed at them, frantic to get out of the row she was in. Grim-faced teachers rushed in from all sides, trying to pick up where Mrs. Loftus, who was now standing with both hands pressed over her mouth, had left off.

  “Cassandra Jackson!” Sister Paulina’s voice soared above the melee with the preciseness of a bullet. She appeared from nowhere, pushing past the other teachers to get to Cassie. Her robes flapped around her like an enormous brown bird as she gestured in the girl’s direction, both arms raised high over her head. “Cassandra! Cassie, look at me! Come here!”

  If Cassie heard Sister Paulina, she gave no indication of it. She seemed intent instead on plowing down everyone who obstructed her path, pushing kids out of the way, even taking a flattened palm and shoving it against one boy’s face so that she could get past. Dumbstruck, I watched as the nun nodded curtly at Mr. Bobeck, the gym teacher, who had sidled into the row behind Cassie. “Grab one of her arms, if you can!” she shouted. “I’ll come around to the other side!”

  Did they know what was wrong with her? Had something like this happened before? Did anyone know what to do?

  Cassie gave an unnatural howl as Mr. Bobeck managed to grab one of her flailing arms and tried to drag her from the aisle. His bald head glimmered under the bright lights, and his jaw was set like a piece of flint. Just behind his rib cage, I could make out an oval-shaped yellow ball, pulsing like a miniature sun.

  “Get off me!” Cassie screamed. She pulled backward, trying to twist her arm out of Mr. Bobeck’s grasp, but he held on tight. Drawing her free arm back, she decked him hard under the chin. I flinched at the dull crack of bone meeting bone, a horrifying noise that seemed to reverberate long after it was gone. Mr. Bobeck let go of her arm and staggered backward, falling into the row of students behind him. Fresh screams rose up as he brought a hand to his face and struggled to right himself. Directly across the aisle from me, a chubby boy with red hair held up his phone and began to record the action.

  “Let me out!” Cassie shrieked. She smacked at people, moving in the opposite direction of Sister Paulina, who was still edging in from the other end of the row. “Let me out! Let me out before it kills me!” She raked her nails down the sides of her cheeks as she screamed and twisted forward. “Get me out of here! Move! Move! Let me out!”

  My fingers clutched the edge of my seat as Cassie stumbled up the aisle. This time, instead of reaching for her, students leaned back as she passed, not wanting to touch her, not wanting her to touch them.

  Cassie was not one of the most beautiful
girls in school. With her crooked teeth and slightly too-long nose, she had missed the Perfect Boat by an inch or two. Still, no one could say she was unattractive. Pretty even, in a hard sort of way. Now, though, she looked like an insane person, panting with effort, odd, guttural sounds coming out of her mouth like some kind of crazed animal. She clutched at the front of her St. Anselm’s dress shirt, pulling it away from her skin as if it were hot, and bent over in half as she tried to make her way toward the door. Foot by foot, she staggered up the aisle.

  And then two seats away from me, she stopped.

  I drew back and held my breath. A bright purple orb glowed in the middle of her tongue, where a piercing was infected, and I could see red slash marks under her sleeves, where she had just scratched at the skin. For a few seconds, she swayed in front of me, as if trying to get her bearings. She looked disoriented, her long blond hair sticking out where she had been pulling it, the pupils in her brown eyes as large as nickels. Without warning, her whole face began to pulse and twitch, as if something behind the skin were pulling on tiny strings.

  Next to me, Lucy whimpered and clutched my sleeve.

  Despite my horror, I could not take my eyes off her. For a split second, everything around us fell away as we held each other’s gaze. I braced myself for whatever might come next. For whatever would come next.

  Cassie blinked rapidly, as if trying to bring my face into focus, and she fell to her knees. Raising her right arm, she pointed a finger in my direction. Her mouth contorted for a moment, like her lips were not quite sure how to work themselves, and her eyes widened. “You,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse, ragged around the edges. “It’s YOU.”

  It was then that I thought I glimpsed something. Inside her head, deep behind her eyes. It was a pain shape I had never seen before, a nonshape really, an inky liquid seeping in and around the spaces of her skull. Just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished again, as if it had slipped around a corner. At the opposite end of the aisle, Mr. Bobeck held Dominic by both arms; he was straining, twisting, pleading to get to his sister, his face stricken.

  Without warning, Cassie collapsed, falling back so hard that I heard her head crack against the floor. She lay limp for several seconds, and then her body began to shake. Students screamed as her arms and legs thrashed from side to side. Her back arched and her fingers clenched into fists. A thin trickle of foam leaked out of the corner of her mouth, and her eyes, still wide open, protruded from her skull.

  A horde of teachers descended around her, blocking my view, but I could hear their shouts—“She’s having a seizure! Someone call nine-one-one! Where the hell is the nurse?”—until a single shriek sounded, rising above the rest of the din like a thread of smoke and winding its way up to the ceiling.

  It was mine.

  Two

  Someone brought me to a back room inside the main office, while Sister Paulina called Nan. Cassie had already been taken to the hospital, and I had been looked over by the school nurse, who, after determining that I was in a mild state of shock, advised that I be sent home for the rest of the day. It was cooler in the small room than it had been in the auditorium. An air conditioner hummed in one corner, and heavy red drapes covered the single window. The same portrait that hung in every classroom had been positioned on the far wall: a picture of a very good-looking Jesus, his narrow face and beautiful brown eyes framed by a cascade of thick, shoulder-length hair. Hunky Jesus, Lucy called him. St. Anselm’s way of making Our Lord more approachable.

  I felt a twinge, thinking of Lucy. She had insisted on following me to the nurse’s office and then remained there, hovering, refusing to leave.

  “Luce, I’m okay,” I said for what must have been the hundredth time. “Seriously. You can go.”

  “You’re not okay,” she kept insisting. “I’m not okay, and Cassie didn’t even look at me.” She pushed past the nurse, a short, fat woman named Mrs. Marcel who had a cluster of pink grapelike orbs inside her neck, and grabbed my hand. “What did that even mean, her saying ‘It’s you’ like that? What was she talking about?”

  “I don’t know.” Again. For the hundredth time.

  “Do you think she was delirious or something?” Lucy kept talking as Mrs. Marcel put both hands on her shoulders and moved her out of the way. “I mean, it’s possible that she was, right? Who knows what was going on in her brain? You know, I heard this rumor once about her grandmother. Cassie’s grandmother. She was crazy or something. Like for real. So maybe Cassie is too. I mean, Marin, she stopped right in front of you. Like she knew something. The way she looked at you, and then the way she pointed … I’m telling you, she was—”

  “Oh my God, please just stop it, okay?” I jumped off the small cot before I realized my legs had moved. My voice was close to a shout, and I was inches away from Lucy’s face. “I told you a hundred times I have no idea what happened. Now just go away and leave me alone!”

  Lucy’s face seemed to crumple in on itself at my words, as if she might cry. For a moment, I thought I might too. I didn’t shout at people. Ever. And I never got in their face the way I just had with her. What was wrong with me? Mrs. Marcel, who was still standing there, watching me with wary eyes, clapped her hands. “All right now, come on, Lucy. Marin needs to rest. Come on. Let’s go.”

  I could feel Lucy looking at me over the nurse’s big arm, her eyes already starting to rim with tears, but I stared at my shoes and bit the inside of my lip until the door closed. I winced now, still looking at the picture of Hunky Jesus, and then pulled out my phone. I’m sorry I spazzed out on u, I texted. She would reply in less than ten seconds, but that was okay. The apology had been made. I closed my eyes, my mind drifting, and tried not to think.

  I’m fine. It was nothing, what I saw inside Cassie’s head. Nothing at all. I’m fine. I’m totally fine.

  “… to go home and rest.” Sister Paulina opened the door, still talking to Nan. “It was a very upsetting incident. For everyone.” I stood up, steadying myself against the edge of the table. My fingers were trembling.

  “Hello, my angel,” Nan said, reaching for me with both arms. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” I hugged my grandmother quickly, casually, not wanting her to worry any more than I knew she would. “I’m all right.”

  Nan was dressed in her usual uniform of baggy pants and a man’s collared shirt with a red bandanna around her throat. Her white hair clouded the top of her head, and her eyes, blue as cornflowers, shone out from her wide face. The blue beads inside her fingers chugged along, just like they always did, a small train moving beneath her knuckles. But I could also make out a new, very small shape just below her left shoulder. It was pink, and no larger than a pea. I reached out and slid one of my hands into hers.

  “You’re sure you’re feeling all right?” Sister Paulina peered at me with her dark eyes.

  I struggled not to roll mine. The only thing worse than a fake was a fake in a habit. Someone whose whole life was supposed to be about not being fake. “Positive,” I said.

  “I’m so glad to hear you say that.” The nun’s eyes roved over me, as if looking for scars. “But I do want you to take it easy when you get home. Promise me.” The wide orange band beneath her wimple was a deep tangerine color now, and it had begun to shimmer around the edges. She’d probably have to take something pretty soon, before it got too painful.

  I stretched out my other arm, ignoring the command. “You said I could have my book back. After Mass.”

  Sister Paulina regarded my hand for a moment. It was still trembling.

  “My book,” I said. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?”

  She nodded and reached into the side of her robes, withdrawing the small paperback from a cavernous pocket. “It’s wonderful that she reads so much on her own,” she said, addressing Nan. “We can’t pay kids these days to spend their free time without some kind of electronic device glued to their hands.”

  “Oh, Marin reads all the time,” Nan s
aid to the nun. “But why do you have her book?”

  Sister Paulina glanced in my direction and raised an eyebrow.

  “I was reading it on the way into services,” I mumbled.

  “Ah.” Nan put a hand on my back as Sister Paulina nodded. She knew. I didn’t have to go into any more detail. “Well, all right, then, Sister, if that’s everything?”

  A look of confusion flickered over the nun’s face. Maybe she was hoping Nan would clap me on the back of the head or start yelling about how many times she had told me not to read during Mass. But then she caught herself. “Yes, yes, that’s everything. You go home and rest now, Marin. And come back to us only when you’re ready, you hear?” Her voice had adopted a clucking, falsetto quality, speaking to me now as if I were a second grader. “I mean it. You have my permission to take a full day or two. More, if you need it.”

  Nan nudged me when I did not answer. “Okay,” I mumbled. “Thanks.”

  “You’re very pale.” Nan looked worried as we pushed through the front doors. “Do you want to go to the doctor?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Absolutely not.” I was through with doctors. For good. For an entire month after I’d told Dad and Nan about the things I was seeing, I’d been poked and prodded, examined up close like some sort of specimen on a microscopic slide. None of the doctors had been able to come up with any answers for my condition, and the series of tests they’d put me through—EKGs, CAT scans, MRIs—were returned with just as many blanks.

  “Sister Paulina said that a girl had an epileptic seizure during Mass,” Nan said, getting in the car. “Right in front of you?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It must have been very frightening.” She started the engine and turned the steering wheel, the blue beads pulsing a little under her movements. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone have a seizure, not even in a movie. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to see in person.”