Forever and Ever by David Elliott

Author:David Elliott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gemma Open Door
Published: 2014-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

seven

Was it the chill that awakened him?

Or the calling of the loons?

Once.

Twice.

Jaimie finally lost count.

Hoo-­hoo-­hoo-­ho-­hoo-­hoo.

Hoo-­hoo-­hoo-­ho-­hoo-­hoo.

Two birds, he thought. One crying out. The other answering. The silence between the calls as unnerving as the eerie sound of the birds themselves.

What had Muriel said? Like the criminally insane out there paddling around in the dark. But Muriel was wrong. The back and forth of the birds was the opposite of insanity. As natural as their flying south in the winter—if that’s what they did—or raising their young. He knew that as surely as he knew his own name. Or Jannie’s.

Why then did he want it to stop?

He lay in the darkness of the unfamiliar room trying not to listen. Hoping that each call would be the last. But the cries continued. Echoing across the lake. Bouncing off the cabin’s dark walls. Over and over.

Hoo-­hoo-­hoo-­ho-­hoo-­hoo.

Hoo-­hoo-­hoo-­ho-­hoo-­hoo.

It was as if the loons were caught in a loop, stuck in a pattern from which they could never escape. Like Kyle Jensen, the autistic boy who, for a short time, had been mainstreamed into Jaimie’s fifth-grade classroom. Jaimie had tried to befriend the boy, but no matter what he said, what he tried, Kyle’s response was always the same: three lines from an animated movie.

Jaimie shifted his right leg. The noise of his jeans sliding across the nylon lining made him stop. The loons were reminding him of something else. Something he wanted to forget. The time he had gone to Mass with Jannie.

Jaimie’s family was not religious. Except for the occasional wedding of a relative, Jaimie had never been in a church. And never at a Catholic Mass. So when Jannie had asked him to go with her, he was excited. Should be fun, he thought.

The moment he entered Our Lady of the Angels, he was creeped out. The heavy scent of incense crowded what little oxygen there was in the place. And people, people he knew, Mr. Bewley, for instance, kept staring at him. Smiling, as if they shared a secret. He didn’t like it. It reminded him of an old sci-­fi movie that had scared the pants off him.

He could still see the priest in his purple vestments, his arms raised above the faithful. And behind him, the life-­sized crucifix. The shining, pale skin of the crucified one. The half-­opened eyes. The blood. The nails. And Jannie, his Jannie, no longer really with him, but a part of the anonymous congregation. Like some kind of insect fulfilling the destiny of its colony. Kneeling. Bowing her head. Repeating the priest’s supplications for mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

It had frightened him, this calling down of the other world. Made him feel so alone that he could almost see the invisible wall separating him from the others. From Jannie. No, not one wall. But four. A closet. A casket. He hadn’t been able to sleep that night. Or the next. Or many nights that followed.

Jannie had teased him about it. Called him crazy. A sissy. Told him God would punish him.

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