The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister - Landon Wark (bill gates best books TXT) 📗

"Hmm?" she hummed. "Okay I guess. I'm ready to get started with... whatever is going on around here."

Paul closed the freezer with a bang and returned for the milk.

"Can I ask you a question?" He heard Jenny ask timidly.

"Yup," he groaned, lifting the plastic crate containing the jugs.

Glad for the opportunity, Paul mentally shelved his plan to bring up the conversation he had with Bill, which seemed problematic at best.

"Everything that's going on here, does..." Paul could practically hear Jenny biting her lip from the next room. "Do you believe in heaven more now that... Now that all this is happening."

Paul paused. It wasn't an unexpected question, but one that took him a moment to compose an answer to. He again drifted back to Jenny's frazzled husband sitting on the pew next to him begging for some kind of absolution for having witnessed (what he considered) witchcraft and not having baptized his son. Paul had told him that witchcraft had a certain feeling to it and that he would know it. He had felt no such thing himself upon being invited into the house and at first he had thought that he was witnessing miracles of a purely divine nature. But, the miracles he had seen had a lot of rules and, over time had taken on a distinctly mechanical, almost secular air. Was there rhyme and reason to miracles?

God gives us the tools we need.

"I don't believe in it any less," he hedged. "Do you?"

"I'm not sure." She pulled a jug out of the crate he had placed on the table, her thin bicep bulging. "I did the first time I saw... the magic, but now... I can't really say for sure."

The corners of his mouth turning down Paul opened the fridge, put his own two jugs inside and held it open for Jenny to wedge hers in behind.

"I can see where you're coming from," he told her. "I never thought that a miracle would come when beckoned and then disappear."

"Yeah. The will of God shouldn't need so much human intervention," Jenny said. "I just... I need heaven right now."

Paul was about to reply when a series of quick thuds from out in the hallway accompanied by a loud bang distracted him.

"The hell is all this?" The voice of Clay came through a wince and a sharp inhale that usually accompanied banging a shin or elbow. His head leaned into the kitchen. "Did the fridge break?"

Not bothering to look, Paul finished tossing frozen vegetables into the freezer. Clay was not the kind of person he would have chosen to cohabitate with if all things were equal, and he was fairly certain the feeling was mutual. Apparently a graduate student when his studies had been interrupted by a lack of funding Clay seemed to Paul to be full of the kind of entitlement of someone born middle class and trying to work his way up. A superiority complex, maybe? He had hit a few hiccups in life and surrendered to the idea that everyone was out to get him. While undeniably intelligent, the larger man had an overbearing manner that Paul found difficult to be around. Maybe it was his know-it-all attitude, or maybe Paul's own insecurities that caused the standoffish air between them. It was difficult to say which was more true.

"It's groceries," Jenny explained simply. "Can you give us a hand?"

Carrying one of the non-soggy delivery boxes Clay began placing its contents willy nilly into the cupboards in silence. After a few pensive minutes he spoke up.

"Did any eggs show up?"

"Yeah." Paul motioned towards the fridge.

Clay began shuffling through the eggs and Paul was about to ask what he was doing when a groan, like the opening of a creaky coffin lid hit the kitchen. The three of them swiveled toward the open door frame.

"Oh my—" Jenny's voice seemed to cut out.

Standing in the doorway, using a sallow, almost waxy skinned hand to hold herself upright was Carmen Carruthers. The blanket that had been on her bed was wrapped around her shoulders, a makeshift hood ensconcing her yellowish eyes around which droplets of sweat traced long lines. Shaking legs hobbled half a step into the kitchen before realizing that they would not be able to make it any farther and settling for holding her against the door jamb.

"Jenny," she whispered hoarsely before vainly licking her dry bluish lips. "If you can spare a moment, can you come hold my hair while I puke?"

Jenny went to her almost instantly, holding back from actually touching any part of the Madonna-esque wrappings of the bedspread lest she start without her hair being held back. She was rushed off to the bathroom down the hall without a word. Before he fell into line behind them Paul took a look back to where Clayton was busy shuffling through the egg cartons on the counter, a grim countenance cast over his face with the morning sun blazing through the curtains.

Paul did a double take and scoffed mentally before exiting after the huddled pair of women.

Despite the mandate of the church (and Jesus, of course), Paul had limited experience with addicts. When he had first arrived from seminary, Reverend Newman had told him that they had counselled a few at one point, but all that had ended when a few silver crucifixes had gone missing over the course of a weekend. From then one they had focussed almost entirely on retirees whose wealth was completely secure. In the back of his mind Paul had thought that instant was likely the start of the parish's short, harsh slide into garishness.

From what he had heard outside of the bathroom, Paul considered himself lucky, because as he shuffled, nauseated himself, back to the kitchen, he wondered if that poor woman even had a stomach