Chapter 6

Jean’s impulse was to stand but she couldn’t. Her foot was no longer cushioned and lay exposed, the ugly cut covered in dried blood.

“She’s my friend.” Daniel entered the room with a cardboard box of band-aids and a bowl of grapes. “I found her in the woods.”

“She’s not a stray cat,” the man snapped. “She isn’t something we can just give back.”

“I don’t want to give her back. I want to keep her.”

The man examined Jean closely, as though she were mute. But Jean wasn’t having any of it. She spoke right up. “Please, sir, I just need a clean bandage for my foot. I got hurt and—”

“You’re running away.”

“No,” Jean shook her head. “I am going to Stonage to find my uncle.”

“And what, pray tell, is your uncle’s name?”

“Adam, sir.”

“What’s his last name?”

“Soki.”

“And who are you?”

“Her name is Jean.” Daniel handed Jean the box of band-aids and then the bowl of grapes. Jean wanted to dive into the sweet fruit but she didn’t feel comfortable eating in front of the hostile man.

“Stonage is a good twenty five kilometers from here. How do you intend to get there?”

“I’m a good walker.”

“Not with that foot.”

Jean had no answer as she stared at her foot which had started to bleed again, the wound now gaping. Quickly, she lifted her foot up, afraid to stain the gleaming wooden floor.

“Okay,” the man softened slightly. “I’ll bandage your foot for you. You can stay for supper. I’ll see if anyone can give you a ride into Stonage. I am a pastor, a holy man, after all. I have an obligation to help people in trouble. Wait here.”

Jean could not believe her good fortune. But then again, there was no doubt in her mind that she was due for some good luck. She could only pray it would last.

Pastor Francis, as he asked to be called, bandaged Jean’s foot after dousing it with alcohol. She let out a horrific scream as the liquid burnt through her open wound. Her cry startled Daniel and angered the Pastor.

“You would think that I was driving demons from you,” Pastor Francis said, “instead of trying to save your life. I’m not a doctor but I suspect that foot is infected. Look, it’s full of pus.”

Jean looked down at her cut, which, since it had been washed, was fully visible. The sole of her foot was swollen and full of a yellow liquid. When Pastor Francis touched the wound, even slightly, the pain was unbearable.

“I just hope that you don’t lose your foot,” he said in a rather nonchalant voice.

Lose her foot? Never run again? The thought brought terror to Jean’s heart, although that wasn’t the only thing that made her break out in a cold sweat. “You would think that I was driving demons from you,” Pastor Francis had said. That statement opened up a vision of frightening possibilities.

Was he a witch hunter also? How long would it be before he came to the conclusion that her infected foot was not merely bad luck, but punishment from the devil?

As it turned out, it didn’t take long at all. Although it didn’t happen quite the way that Jean might have suspected.

Pastor Francis was good enough to feed her. “I don’t expect you to provide your own food,” he said. “Although some might.” So after a very delicious supper of rice and beans, baguettes and chucks of watermelon and coconut for dessert, Jean felt so much better. She didn’t argue when Pastor Francis suggested that she spend the night and then he promised that he’d try and find her a ride to Stonage in the morning.

“You really need to have a doctor look at that foot,” he suggested.

Again Jean didn’t argue. In spite of the fact that her foot had been cleaned and bandaged, it still throbbed.

“I’m very grateful to you, sir,” she said as he showed her the room where she would sleep.

“You can call me Father.”

“Father,” Jean repeated. She wished that Pastor Francis was her father especially as she sank down on the soft mattress and felt the fan purring softly on her face. She wished that she could stay here forever, that somehow the three of them could be a family. Jean was very good with younger children. She could be a surrogate mother to Daniel, she could keep the house sparkling and she’d cook and do the laundry.

She held her thermos in her hand and bent down to place it in the floor. Something rattled inside of it. She wanted to throw the contents away but she didn’t think that this was the time and place.

Jean caught her reflection in the mirror. She looked like a wild animal, her hair sticking straight up like a crooked halo. Her face was smeared and dirty. There were streaks of mud on her arms and legs. Her shorts and t-shirt were so stained, it was hard to tell that they had once been white.

Daniel had showed her the bathroom and Jean stared at the indoor plumbing. These people were so lucky. Did they know how fortunate they were? She rubbed the tan tiles in the shower stall, noticing how smooth and cold they were to the touch. She thought about how wonderful it would be if she could wash, if she could see all the soil and the debris disappear down the drain, along with the nightmare of the last few days.

But what good would it do if, after she finished cleaning herself, she’d just have to put on the same filthy clothes? Instead she washed her hands and her face, not bothering to dry them on the pretty beige towels. They would leave a mark.

She didn’t want to anger Pastor Francis, when she felt nothing but gratitude towards him.

And then she heard him talking on his mobile phone.

“I thought there was something funny about her,” Pastor Francis spoke. “She said that she was on her way to the next village to visit her uncle, but when I asked her uncle’s last name, she hesitated. Seems to me, she’d know a thing like that right off the bat. Like I don’t know there’s a refuge for witches in Stonage. Like I couldn’t tell from the cut on her foot that she was in cahoots with the demons.”

“What you doing?”

Jean let out a small gasp of surprise when she whipped around and saw Daniel standing there. “I’m…I’m,” she stuttered, “I was just going back to the bathroom.”

“You spending the night?”

Jean nodded.

“You going to live here?”

“I don’t think your father is going to let me do that.” She could hear Pastor Francis hanging up the phone. “I have to go now,” she said quickly. “I don’t feel so well.”

Jean limped to the bathroom and then quickly shut the door. The room which had seemed so luxurious to her just minutes ago, now seemed like a prison cell. She needed to escape, but the only window was tiny and situated way too high. Even if she could manage to reach it by standing on the toilet, she would have a hard time crawling through. Especially with a sore foot.

I’ve got to get out of here, she thought because there was no doubt in her mind that Pastor Francis would be taking her back to Asmodeus. The question was how soon. Could she go return to the bedroom and escape that way? Maybe Pastor Francis would give her the luxury of spending the night and wouldn’t come looking for her until morning. That would give her plenty of time.

The loud knock on the door dashed her hopes. “Jean, are you in there?”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Jean said, in what she hoped was a meek voice. “I’ll be right out, sir.”

There was no reply. Jean was trying frantically to think of a way to escape. But there was no exit. She had done something stupid. She had told Daniel her name. Would she have to pay for that mistake with her life?

“What is taking you so long?” Pastor Francis demanded from the other side of the door.

“I’m having some stomach problems, sir.” The truth was that Jean was having some stomach problems. Her stomach was all knotted up, clenching painfully. But she doubted very much if she could go to the bathroom even if she tried.

Open the door, she told herself, and act perfectly normal. Like you don’t know what’s going on.

Like you’re not the Jean they’re looking for.

She drew a deep breath and opened the door a crack. A furious Pastor Francis stood outside with a confused Daniel beside him.

“I know exactly who you are, Miss Marcato,” Pastor Francis hissed.

“I’m sorry?” she tried to act bewildered but she was afraid that her face betrayed her. Suddenly she felt weak, as though she might fall face forward on that sky blue runner. She limped by them as though there was nothing wrong. As though she were not fighting for her life.

“You’re a witch,” Pastor Francis followed her to the bedroom and watched as she picked up her thermos. If she didn’t have something to drink, she was going to faint “You’re a disciple of Lucifer.”

“Lucifer?” Jean repeated blankly. The water was nothing but mud now, although that was the least of her problems.

“A witch child!” Daniel took several steps back.

“She killed the woman she worked for in Asmodeus, son. She cast a spell on her.”

“That’s not true,” Jean protested, forgetting that she was going to deny that she was even from Asmodeus. “She died because she was sick—”

“And she ate her mother,” Pastor Francis continued in a feverish pitch.

Daniel shrieked and ran away.

“I never ate my mother!” Jean bellowed. “I wouldn’t eat a human being. It would taste—”

“You ate her soul. You might not remember because the demons made you do it!”

Suddenly Jean thought of an argument which could not be disputed. “If the demons made me do it, then it’s not my fault,” she said slowly.

Pastor Francis had no answer for her. At least not right away. Jean clung to her thermos bottle, as though in some slight way it had the power to protect her.

“You’re right,” Pastor Francis said. “It isn’t your fault and no one is blaming you.”

Jean breathed a very small sigh of relief.

“But that doesn’t mean that we should let the devils take possession of you. We have to drive them out.”

“How do you do that?” Jean quivered nervously.

“We have several methods. But one thing is for certain. You cannot remain in my house when you’ve been accused of sorcery. You have to go to the church.”

Jean could see no way out. She was trapped again.

“Let’s go,” he ordered in a brusque, unkind way.

Jean’s stomach started to cramp again. “Please,” she said, “can I go to the bathroom first? I really need to use it.”

Pastor Francis stood there, hesitant.

“Please.”

“Let her go,” Daniel called from somewhere Jean could not see.

“Shut up!” his father thundered.

“You’re a man of God,” Jean said. “You can do the kind thing.”

“I don’t need a devil to tell me what the kind thing is,” Pastor Francis said. He was quiet for a moment. “Make it quick. I’ll be right outside the door.”

Jean hobbled to the bathroom and shut the door. She looked up at the window. If only there was a way –

There was no way.

She sank down on the toilet and started to cry. It seemed so ridiculous to her that she had come this far, had endured such pain and danger, had injured and infected her foot, to end up just where she had started.

Or maybe worse.

“What are you doing in there?” Pastor Francis pounded on the door.

Jean looked at the thermos. They would probably take it from her. They would think that it had some sort of spell on it. The water was brown and tasteless.

And something rattled.

She poured the dirt into the sink, not unaware of the mess she was making. Now she didn’t care. The thermos was full of mud. But on the bottom slabs of the most unusual rocks winked up at her.