The Piercing by John Coyne

Author:John Coyne [Coyne, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, occult
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2018-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Monday, February 27

“You can’t move at all?” he asked.

She shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. “I don’t mind,” she said.

Her right leg was above the quilt and she had pulled up her nightgown, baring the calf. The leg looked healthy: no swelling of the joints, no sores. Tentatively he ran his fingers along the smooth skin of her calf and tickled the sole of her foot. He glanced up at her and she shook her head. There was no feeling in the leg.

“It’s all right, Stephen,” she said with a smile. “I asked for this.” But there was pain in her eyes and the breath went out of him as he saw her eyes well up with the tears she would not shed.

“But you’re suffering,” he protested.

She shrugged. “It’s fine, Stephen. I want to suffer for him.”

“Why, Betty Sue?”

“I don’t know.” She looked lost. “That’s the really funny part, Stephen; I just don’t know why. I don’t recollect, y’know, how it all happened. Rufus, he told me afterwards.”

The priest frowned. “Do you remember what you told me that day?”

She shook her head. Her young face was innocent. “When I make those prophecies, I don’t recall them. Rufus tells me what I said.”

“Did he tell you about what you said to me?”

She looked away, as if embarrassed, and answered slowly, picking her words. “He said I told you about a girl. Some girl at the university. He said I told you not to see her. Is that right, Stephen?” She looked back at him, her brown eyes full on his.

He nodded and answered, “I was involved with a woman at the university. A student. The Bishop found out about it and transferred me last fall to Mossy Creek. Since then I’ve seen her once or twice, here in the mountains and at the university. But finally we stopped seeing each other. I was hurting her and she was hurting me and we couldn’t go on.”

“Do you love her, Stephen?” She had slid down on the pillows and moved to the edge of the bed so that their faces were inches from each other.

“Yes, I guess I did love her. Our whole friendship was so strange I didn’t realize what I felt, but love is what it was. I wanted her to just be”—he halted, searched for the right word—“I wanted her to be happy. I don’t think I gave her much happiness, but that’s what I wanted, and when we were together, she made me happy. At least, at the very beginning. Then other people found out and it got complicated and sordid.”

He fell silent and she reached out and touched him. Her fingers caressed his cheek and he forced himself to look at her.

“And now I’m causing you pain.”

“I don’t mind, Stephen; I don’t mind a’tall! If God wants me to suffer for you, then I’m happy.” Her eyes were bright.

“But I’m the one who should be punished, Betty Sue. Not you!

It’s my sin. Why have I been spared my punishment?” He had raised his voice so at first he did not hear her soft reply.

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