The Good Demon Read online

  Some days I brought Roy with me, too.

  The first time, we were driving around in my mom’s car, just killing the daylight. Roy’s dad had been busy lately, he said, spending long hours in his study at the church. Roy said he’d never seen his dad so preoccupied before.

  “It’s weird,” he said. “It’s not like he’s usually some kind of workaholic or anything.”

  “Well, at least it gives us more time to be together,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess there’s an upside to being neglected.”

  Roy meant it as a joke, but I saw a twinge of hurt there, too. That’s okay. I knew exactly how that felt. I squeezed his hand and he smiled at me.

  I asked Roy for the hundredth time what he wanted from the One Wish Man.

  “I’d ask for ten million dollars,” he said, “in small, unmarked bills to be delivered under my bed in a black suitcase, like in the movies.”

  “Boring,” I said.

  “Okay. I’d like to have yesterday back. All I did was sit on my front porch and eat pork rinds. I’d like to do that and never get fat. Maybe have some Peach Nehi, too.”

  “You’re terrible at this.”

  “I’d love to be good at an instrument. The guitar, maybe?”

  “Come on, Roy. Isn’t there something else you want? I mean, something you really, really want?”

  “Why?” said Roy. “It’s just a game, right?”

  “I got a surprise for you,” I said, and whipped the car around.

  We drove glad and laughing past Little John’s, down the country roads. I was so happy I even let Roy pick the music. He put on the Replacements.

  “I like when he sings, ‘Jesus rides beside me. He never buys any smokes.’”

  “Why’s that?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It makes all this okay. Like Jesus really is here, beside me, bumming a cigarette.”

  “Speaking of which, you want one?”

  “Are you kidding?” he said. “My dad would kill me.”

  We parked and sat in the car, windows down, the light making crazy shadow patterns from the leaves. I was happy there, the two of us alone.

  “What’s so special about here?” said Roy.

  I pointed at the Bird Tree.

  “Wow,” he said. “Did you do that?”

  “No way. I think lightning did it. I think it was burned there by magic.”

  Roy laughed a little.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “This is a magic tree.”

  “Sure it is,” he said. “It’s a regular burning bush.”

  “Laugh all you want,” I said. “But this is it, Roy. This is the gateway to the Wish House.”

  “You got to be kidding me, Clarabella,” he said. “You mean, if you just head off in that direction, you’ll bump into the giant mansion of wishes granted, all kinds of folks in suits partying it up, getting their hearts’ desires?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Only, the Bird Tree has to wake up first. The bird has to become real. That’s how you know the gates are open. Then you got to picture in your mind just exactly what it is you’re wishing for and want it with all your heart. That’s the only way you can get to the Wish House.”

  Roy looked at me, his eyebrows squinched up a little.

  “You really believe this stuff, don’t you?” he said.

  “I do. Very much.”

  It was an important moment. If Roy laughed it off, if he thought all this was ridiculous, I didn’t know if I could still be around him anymore. Besides, it didn’t seem too out of the realm of his church world stuffed full of miracles, of old ladies speaking in tongues and demons flung out of people with the right words spoken. And I think Roy realized that. I think he knew just how much I was counting on it all being true.

  “Fine,” he said. “I believe it, too.”

  “Get over here,” I said, and crawled myself into the back seat. Roy followed me, bumping his head on the ceiling. When he sat down next to me he hunched his shoulders, like he was embarrassed.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

  “Shh,” I said, and kissed him. It was our second kiss.

  Roy was tense at first, but soon he relaxed, soon he was holding me and kissing me back. I felt him grow braver. His hands moved over me and I let them, I didn’t stop where he wanted to touch.

  It was the electricity of the place, a hope of magic and possibility, maybe the end of loneliness forever.

  After a minute Roy laid his head on my shoulder, buried his face deep in my neck and kissed me there. I could feel it coming, feel the want rise up in me, the good warmth filling up all the cold and dark inside me. So maybe I did something I shouldn’t have.

  I reached down and touched him.

  Roy jerked back from me like I had poked a dagger at him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I just don’t know if it’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m supposed to become a reverend, you know? Like my dad. So I have to be righteous. I have to do things the right way.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like not do that stuff until I’m married.”

  “You really believe all that?”

  “I mean, yeah. Dad made me sign a contract at youth group about it. A purity contract, where I swore before God and everybody else I’d keep it in my pants until marriage.”

  This was too much.

  “Are you fucking serious, Roy?”

  “I know that seems crazy,” he said. “But it’s a big deal to my dad, to my church and all that.” Roy ran his hand through his hair in the same gesture I’d seen his dad do on the day they stole Her from me. I’d never seen that resemblance in them before, and it made me want to puke a little. “Look, please don’t be mad at me. I want to do more with you, I’m just scared.”

  “Why? Is it because of me?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “I think you’re amazing. I’ve never met anyone like you in my whole life. I’m just scared. I’m scared of how mad my dad would get if he ever found out. I’m scared that God would be mad too, and maybe He’d stop blessing me or something. I’m scared of all the bad stuff that could happen.”

  I should have known it would be like that with Roy. Who knew what kind of baggage his dad had filled his head with, all the guilt he felt? But there were worse things than guys who wanted to wait for true love. I knew that fact firsthand.

  “Okay then,” I said. “We don’t have to do anything else.”

  “Really?”

  He seemed relieved.

  “I’m trying to be good,” he said. “To do things right. I’ve never done anything like this before. You know, kissing and all that.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t exactly either.”

  “For real?” he said, with enough surprise in his voice that it hurt my feelings. I crawled off him and back to the driver’s seat and fired up the car.

  I drove way too fast out of the woods. We were both mad, and uncomfortable. About halfway through the ride he reached out and took my hand. That was good. I needed that.

  I reminded myself that I only started being nice to him because She asked me to, that all of this was just part of Her plan that I didn’t quite understand yet. Sure, I liked him a lot, and he was without a doubt the best human friend I’d ever had in my life. But maybe he was starting to mean too much to me. It probably wasn’t a good idea for me to get involved with Roy, not in that kind of romantic way. I didn’t quite think that was what She had in mind. So yes, we could stop with the touching and the kissing and all that. Roy was right, it wasn’t a good idea.

  •

  But me and Roy didn’t stop. Not even close.

  The more chances we had to be alone together, the more time we spent touching and kissing and doing other stuff. Even when we didn’t intend to let anything happen, it always did. It was like our bodies were drawn to each
other in a way that our brains weren’t quite conscious of. I marveled how quickly a laugh could turn into a kiss, how I would press my face into his neck without even thinking about it, how I didn’t stop him whenever he put his arm around me and pulled me toward him. Every time it felt inevitable—fated even—that our bodies would touch.

  The Bird Tree became our spot. A place we could go to be alone and figure each other out. It was a freedom space. I could smoke all the cigarettes and listen to all the music I wanted. I had plenty of money for gas because of Miss Mathis’s thousand. Even if we only had an hour or two free, if Roy could manage an afternoon out of visiting the sick with his dad, we took the chance.

  I think in those ten days Roy and I made maybe six trips to the Bird Tree. They were some of my favorite times I’d ever had. Each afternoon we’d make out for a while, push it a little bit further every time. Twice I wound up with my shirt off, my bra unclasped. We were moving toward something, and I think we both knew it.

  But Roy would always stop at the last possible moment. Part of me was frustrated. The hungry part, the empty part that my hours with Roy seemed to fill up. But I was also glad too, when I let myself admit it. In the moments before it got dark and we had to drive back, when the light was at its most golden, I would shut my eyes and see the carved bird spring to life, spread its wings full-feathered and rise. I longed for it to lead me down the path into a new world, a new dream, a house of wishes with Her at the end of it, waiting for me. Then I wouldn’t need Roy anymore. Then I would never need anyone else again.

  On the night before the summer solstice, I was on the phone talking with Roy, same as always. His dad was preaching at some kind of retreat coming up, and Roy was supposed to preach, too. They’d be gone almost a week. There would be healing services and speaking in tongues and all kinds of things, probably even casting out demons. I kept my peace about that part of it, even though it was hard. I asked Roy if he was nervous about preaching.

  “It’s almost like an act,” he said. “You stand up there and talk yourself up same as you talk up the crowd. We rehearse everything beforehand, me and Dad. I have so much scripture in my head it’s easy, you know? Like I have my lines memorized and I’m just performing in a play.”

  “Do you like doing it?” I said.

  “I think so. I mean, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do, be a reverend like my dad. It’s what he’s raised me for. And I’m pretty good at it. That’s what the old ladies at church tell me. They say I have an ‘anointing,’ that God has picked me out to be something special.”

  “But?”

  “Well, it’s just that lately I’m not sure. About being a reverend, I mean. Like maybe I could do some other stuff with my life. Maybe I could be good at other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Lots of stuff,” he said. “I could join a band and travel the world.”

  “I didn’t know you played anything.”

  “I don’t. But I could, you know? I could buy a guitar and learn how to play it and maybe even get good. Music runs in my family. I can already sing okay. I guess I just never realized it was possible for me. I never realized I could be anything else but a minister. I didn’t realize I could be much of anything until I met you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Roy had always been so serious, so sure of his place at his dad’s side. I still despised Roy’s dad for what he had done to me, and part of me loved the idea of Roy turning away from him someday. But I also didn’t want to see Roy get hurt. I mean, I liked Roy. A lot. I wasn’t just following Her orders anymore, I was doing what I wanted. No way I was faking that.

  “Jesus, Roy,” I said, “that means the world to me. But it shouldn’t take me to teach you something like that. You should know on your own how great you are.”

  “I’m going to miss you,” he said.

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  It was true. I really would miss Roy. But I was also excited. Tomorrow was the summer solstice, and if I was right, that would be the day I saw the One Wish Man. He had power, he could fix things, I just knew it. Tomorrow would be the day I got Her back.

  And I’d never be lonely again.

  One afternoon she and I were at the Hidden Place, just talking, when a brace of rabbits burst through the heather. They were quick and brown and gone suddenly, dashed away into the swirling whirls of grass. For the millionth time I wondered what lay quiet in the Hidden Place, how much secret life was there in the flowers and weeds, biding its time.

  “Sometimes I just want to run through all this grass with a stick,” I said, “banging on everything, just to see what comes out. I mean, there are all kinds of caves and tunnels in the cliffs, right? I bet there’s things here a thousand years old.”

  So? She said.

  “So? I want to see what’s down there. I want to see what’s hidden all around me.”

  Do you, Clare? Are you really so sure about that?

  “Of course I’m sure. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Because there are worlds here, silly, She said. Places beyond places. You go tramping around, well . . .

  “Well what?”

  This is not a regular place. It lies on the edge of things. Worlds beyond worlds, Clare. A convergence. She smiled at me, Her eyes mysterious as stars. If you want to go barging into the grasslands, into the darkness of the caves, disturbing everything, be my guest. But there’s no telling what you might wake up.

  It was the night of June 20, the summer solstice. Once Mom and Larry fell asleep, I slipped out of the house and coasted the car into a clear and wide-open night. I made it to the Bird Tree just before midnight. The moon was bright, and the tree branches dangled long above the road. I pulled over as near to the treeline as possible in case somebody else passed by. I was so excited I was shaking. I couldn’t wait. This was finally it.

  I shone my flashlight at the Bird Tree, my heart a moon full of hope.

  The bird was there alright, a real bird, just like She said it would be. Except it wasn’t the explosion of color I dreamed of, no wild-eyed toucan of jungle blues and greens, no darting hummingbird floating red and still, no wise unflappable owl gazing silent as a sentinel.

  It was nothing like that at all.

  A cardinal hung on the tree, wings spread wide, its head and feet dangling down, a nail through each wing. Crucified. Its blood ran down the bark in dark rivulets.

  I stepped out of the car and peered closer at it. The cardinal was newly dead, not even yet begun to rot. Its head hung sorrowful, like a museum painting of a martyr.

  I felt a darkness creep over me then, the eyes I felt always on my back now up close, a figure in the darkness, a creature whose breath was hot on my neck. I told myself that this was okay, and that things weren’t always how they seemed. Besides, who said magic wasn’t supposed to be a little bit scary?

  I had to keep going. She was waiting for me.

  I fixed Her firmly in my mind, my deepest heart’s desire, my Only. I took one last glimpse at the soft burning moon and walked out of the road, the civilized world, and into the woods.

  The trail was dark and long grown over. I got the feeling that it had once been regularly used, that people had stolen down this way many a dark night. Every thirty feet or so there were stones marking the way, strange figures scratched on them: an eye, a triangle, a spiral, an arrow. Tree branches crossed the pathway in long tangles, and moss hung down like veils. Creatures scurried all around me: the armies of grasshoppers and tree frogs singing off to something, the yellow flashes of animal eyes that flared up and were gone. Above me watched the angel-eyed stars.

  My flashlight was borderline useless, the forest was so dense. Sometimes a tangle of moonlight would spill through the trees, but mostly I was in darkness. Even though I followed a path, rocks marking the way regular as headstones, I felt myself getting more and more lost.

  I passed a big tree with three thick branches, white wounds on the bark of each, as if they had been burned by lightnin
g. It was a cursed tree, I could feel it all over, they might as well have crucified Christ on that exact tree. One of the branches looped around on itself, hanging there like a noose, beckoning to me. I kept moving, surrounded by the lights of insect eyes, the buzz of secret wings, the windblown leaves and the night creatures scuttling across the forest floor.

  I came to a long stretch where the path narrowed and the trees formed a dense wall on either side, so close it was tough to squeeze through. It felt like I was on a rickety old bridge, one that might slip or crack or sway and cast me off into oblivion forever. I knew that was ridiculous, that you couldn’t fall through a patch of trees same as you would empty space. But it still felt that way, that the trees could swallow me whole, that beyond the leaves lay some horrible nowhere. This part of the path scared me more than anything that had come so far.

  I took a deep breath and stepped forward. A breeze swirled around me, though I knew there wasn’t any wind. I heard whispers in the air, Clare, Clare, Clarabella, like the voices knew me, like they had been waiting on me to come. Tree limbs clawed at my face like witch fingers. I snagged my shirt and for a second I couldn’t move. I heard a slithering behind me, felt a chill on my neck, and breath, as someone whispered into my ear, Have you come for me, my love?

  I ripped my shirt free and ran.

  The voices louder now.

  Calling for me.

  Lights flickering off in the woods on either side of me.

  Faces in the gloam.

  Little boys and girls with weeping yellow eyes.

  The trees crowded close to me and I couldn’t find any way out.

  I began to panic.

  This smothering darkness all around me.

  Clawing to keep me near.

  I was stuck here, I knew it.

  I was trapped with these grasping spirits forever.

  A haze of a girl with long black hair appeared in front of me. She was ghostly, beautiful and somehow familiar. The girl smiled at me. I realized she didn’t have any eyes, the sockets an empty black, and smoke poured out of them.