Chapter 34
“Okay, boys, we’re done. Have a good day.” Virgil closes the door on the two brothers, almost catching Everett’s foot. His tone leaves no room for argument, but it’s not an obviously commanding “priest’s voice” as is sometimes used in rituals and reverberates with power.
I collapse in the nearest chair and lean hard against his desk of weird journals. “How do you do that? They are always so hateful-sounding to me, but you say, ‘have a nice day,’ and they say, ‘yes, sir!’”
Gently laughing, Virgil props up his cane beside the door before making his way over to his desk chair. He leans back, locking his fingers together behind his head. “Laurie. It’s not what you think. Really. The twins know how much time I spent with their mother when she was dying of pancreatic cancer earlier this year. They may never like you for a lot of reasons, but none more blatant than you answered their aggression with a snarky comment about not giving their mother a holiday recipe for cranberry sauce.”
I barely even remember it now. They’d said something uncomfortable, and I’d let my sarcasm act as my weapon of choice. In the process, I’d insulted their recently deceased mother.
“Oh, shit,” I mumble. “I had no idea. I didn’t even know she was sick.”
“Yeah, you kinda brought that one on yourself. I get it. It’s how you protect yourself from being hurt again, but sometimes, you are locked and loaded.”
I bury my face in the crook of my elbow. I would never be intentionally hurtful. Even so, I’d been hurtful by making it as personal with them as I’d felt they had made it with me. I was losing my mom and wanting to hit back, not knowing they’d lost their mother only months ago.
“Those boys don’t owe me,” Virgil continues, “but they feel like they do. And as for their belligerence toward you, even before you misspoke, it’s nothing to do with your beliefs or the way you were treated growing up here. I know you see everything here through that lens, but it’s not always true.”
Crossing my arms, I straighten my spine against my chair. “Please don’t discount my feelings—”
Instantly, he leans forward, hands on the desk between us. “I’m not, Laurie. You’re right that they don’t like you and they don’t treat you or your mom well, even before you stuck your foot in your mouth, and I’ll get between them and you and them and your mom every chance I have, but there’s something you should know about why they don’t like you.”
“Yeah? Besides my stupid joke about cranberry sauce recipes? I’m sure they have a list.”
“Hmmm, they do. But it’s the source of that list that may interest you.” Virgil pauses, shifting further forward toward me, brow furrowing. “Everett is engaged to your cousin, Fallon, the one with a history of cheating old folks who need in-home care and then shutting out their relatives. Like she would’ve done with your mom if you hadn’t come back when you did. Fallon’s filled Everett’s head with lots of unflattering stories about you. Emmett’s heard them, too, of course, and their father, who got stuck enforcing the restraining order against his future daughter-in-law.”
Slowly, I nod. “Makes sense. Strangers don’t usually immediately spew hate or suspicion toward me.
“Yeah, about that—” Virgil presses his lips tightly together and considers his next words carefully. “Just because they’re predisposed to suspect you doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Oh, don’t worry! They’re basing their suspicions on petty family gossip. They can’t read your energy like I can, and Laurie, any mention of your uncle, and you are guarded in ways that are impenetrable.”
Impenetrable. Oh, if he only knew how impenetrable I’d willed myself to be at twelve.
I stiffen in my chair. Shoulders tight. Holding my breath. Jaws clenched.
Shit, he’s right!
Forcing myself to relax my shoulders and breathe, I clear my throat. “Things happened when I was a kid that I’ve not been able to put to rest.”
“Your pedophile uncle raped you.”
I stare at Virgil for a long moment. “No. He didn’t rape me. Or, well, I guess you’d have to define the word. He forced me to perform oral sex on him. He planned to force me to have intercourse. He died before he could. But an hour more, and he would have.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened? And why his car is in the swamp? And how you know he died?”
“No, I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to make you an accessory to anything.” When his brows shoot up, I lower my voice. “I don’t know why his car is there. And I don’t want to talk about how I know he’s dead except to say that when I was a kid, he was then my age now—or older—and in poor health, so it stands to reason that he died.”
“In that swamp? I’ve seen his spirit wandering there, too.” Virgil nods as he lets out a sigh. “Okay. Okay. But when you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here. You’ve involved me, and I don’t mind being involved, but I should be informed.”
“All right.”
I don’t offer anything else. I don’t even want to talk about not wanting to talk about it. Bobby’s been buried in that swamp for four decades, and that fucker can stay buried another four.
“You know they’re going to do more excavating of that swamp, don’t you? As soon as the land dries out enough that they can get in there. I can tell that you’re not lying—it’s in your energy—but you’re armored to the gills. Everett and Emmett may not be able to tell that, but I sure can, and I know something else happened there that you’re not saying, besides the fact that your uncle assaulted you. Some might call that lying by omission, but in your case, I call it survival.”
I shift in my chair. I’m usually able to hide behind my armor. Not that I always could, but I’m damned good at it now, on the few occasions I feel the need for armor. But to meet a witch who can see behind my veils in the same way I see through most other people’s shields is downright unnerving. I feel… exposed. Is that how I make others feel when I read their energy?
“What are these?” I make a wild gesture toward the open journal between us as well as a stack of similar notebooks in the cabinet behind him.
Virgil flinches but allows me to change the subject. “I shouldn’t have left these out, but I was called away abruptly to tend to a resident here. I, um, collect certain kinds of journals. In my priesthood, we’re big fans of libraries and esoteric book collections. It’s how we pass knowledge from one incarnation to the next, from long-passed generations to the next, so we will be prepared when Earth one day shifts to the next age. Most of those books written by priests and priestesses over the centuries are now in special libraries around the world, but as individual book lovers, we sometimes have our own collections that have nothing to do with the priesthood. And I collect last words.”
“Last words? Like… last words?”
He nods, his cheeks reddening above his silver beard. “I collect journals of last words, but I also make journals of them. I suppose that makes sense since I’m a deathwalker. Here, in my current job, I’m able to hear a lot of last words. It’s never like you see in the movies. A lot of times, the person has lost their ability to speak by that point, anyway. I never see anyone have the strength for long speeches or lengthy professions of love. If you want to profess your love or make things right with someone, don’t think you can wait until your deathbed because you may not have that opportunity. You see TV shows and movies where the dying hero gives some long-winded speech, but in reality, it’s way more basic with the senses leaving the body as they disconnect from the physical world. They stop eating, stop drinking. Hearing is often near the end—which is why you should never talk about their prognosis or air dirty laundry when they’re non-responsive and you think they can’t hear you. Grand speeches are just too much effort, and not every death is a gentle slipping away. Some die cursing their loved ones.”
Virgil pauses as if remembering something sad, probably looking ahead to the passing of Andy Ray’s father. That trait lives on in the man’s grandson who keeps giving Virgil grief for not forcing the family to grant the old man control one last time.
Then Virgil continues. “Most don’t give last speeches but only one to two words. A lot of times, they call out for their mothers or Jesus or a loved one. In the last weeks as the body prepares for death, a lot of people start visualizing, as in seeing deceased loved ones or pets while they’re wide awake. It comforts them. Sometimes I see them, too, because I’m trained as a deathwalker to be aware, but other times, I know they’re visualizing when they look up and say, ‘Oh, hi, mom,’ or ‘Oh, Fluffy’s back.’ Sometimes, their last words are about something their senses show them, like seeing a bright light or fields of grain or hearing church bells and expressing enjoyment or surprise.”
Like “Behind you!”
I can’t shake the vision of my mom in this nursing home with the godawful orange and lavender carpet, me holding her hand, her eyes growing large as she tries to murmur a last warning. What if it’s not a warning but instead a vision of someone she wants me to know she sees. All the other visions relate to being stalked or attacked, but could this one be a simple case of visualizing? I push the memory of the repeating vision away.
“But why start such a morbid collection, Virgil?”
He laughs. “Morbid, maybe, but not so much for a deathwalker. If anything, it was a life-affirming moment for me and how I would live my life. See, I was a cadet at the Air Force Academy, and my buddy took me rock climbing not far from Colorado Springs. I was pretty good at it, but still young and stupid, and in my arrogance, I made a mistake. I remember the rock slipped from under my grip, and I remember yelling as I went down. Fortunately for me, my buddy had a line on me. I dropped only about twenty feet. Seemed like miles and hours at the time. After my buddy got me to safety, he doubled over laughing. Asked me if I realized that if I’d fallen to my death, my last words would’ve been, ‘Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!’” He trails off in a long squeal.
Virgil coaxes a smile from me. “And that made you decide to become a deathwalker?”
“No, that was already decided. But it made me realize that I don’t want my last words to be ‘Oh, shit,’ and I want to leave this incarnation having said everything I want to say. It changed how I lived my life after that, and I’ve been a better man for it. Helping others with what’s known as sacred deathcare is something I’m both honored and humbled to be a part of.”
“Virgil?” I hesitate. “The visions are really strong now. Worse than even a few days ago. I thought maybe it was stress over my mom making it worse. I don’t know. But my visions are usually right, and I keep seeing myself holding my mom’s hand as she’s uttering her last words.”
Instantly, Virgil is out of his seat and scooping me into a hug. “We’ll figure it out together, okay? I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Dix and me, Dottie and Niecy, Pamela, half the people in town. We’re all rooting for you.”
I want to cry but stop myself. My emotions are so on edge, given my mom’s condition. If I allow a single tear, I won’t stop.
When we were kids, I was always the one who wiped Virgil’s little boy tears. Now he wipes mine. Sniffling, I pull away from him, both to keep my tears at bay and because I’ve not showered in the last two days of haunting the ICU waiting room.
“Laurie, I’m sorry the twins are dredging up past pain for you. You have enough to deal with already. But I have to ask: was that true about your last husband? I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I walked in on the boys saying some pretty ugly stuff. Do you think your ex might be the one stalking your dreams? Or maybe anxiety over him is showing up that way?”
“No. No, Virgil. Just no. I would recognize his energy.”
Wouldn’t I? It’s been three years, and his energy changed so much in those last few months that he was still present in my life but too messed up to know who I was.
“You’re sure? Drugs have a way of changing a person into something you could never imagine.”
I grunt and look away, purposefully fixing my gaze on an old photograph of the Caine brothers and their sweet mom, all looking about thirty years younger on photographic paper that has aged to a pink hue.
“I know how drugs can change a person. I know that better than anyone. Jesse wasn’t always like that, though. He was sweet and funny and amazing, but he suffered from depression and I couldn’t love him enough to fix it. Really, though, I didn’t even know how bad it was. His meds worked when we were first together, and he was happy and I was happy. We lost a pregnancy, but we got through it. We knew our marriage would have ups and downs. We were realistic about that, but we were still a team. Except he kept secrets. His meds stopped working, and his doctor switched him to ones that did work. Then he stopped taking his new meds because he was afraid the side effects would damage our intimate life and that I’d leave him. I never knew what he was going through. He was very careful to hide everything from me.”
Virgil doesn’t hug me but gathers my hands in his and squeezes. “And you blame yourself for not seeing through his secrets. I know how you feel. I do. My wife died while I was deployed. I could’ve been by her side, but she knew something was wrong and she didn’t want me to see the ravages of her illness or remember her that way so she hid it from me. I’ve found that some people are really good at shielding when they don’t want you to know what’s going on with them.”
“Jesse wasn’t a witch.”
“Neither was Kimber. Doesn’t matter. Non-witches can be damned good at hiding stuff. Sometimes, they don’t even realize they’re erecting force fields to keep you out.” He places my hands in my lap and pats my arm. “We’ll figure out these visions together, okay? I’ll show you a meditation that may help you figure out who’s following you or who’ll be a danger to you in the future. You need to go home and get a shower and a nap. I’ll take care of things here.”
“But they’re talking about moving my mom. I want to see her if she’s awake. I’ve not been allowed to see her in… I don’t know… I’ve lost track of time. Three days? I don’t want to go home and miss her.”
“You won’t. They have to get things ready to move her. You won’t be able to see her today. I promise you’ll feel less on-edge after a long, hot shower and a few hours of sleep in your own bed at your mom’s.”
“But tomorrow, she’ll be out of ICU and in a regular room where Everett and Emmett can get to her!”
“Do you trust me, Laurie? Because I’m going to prove tonight that you can.”
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