Chapter XVII.
“I suppose it all starts with my mother, Celia Carsen,” Jonah began. He continued to stare across the room, his eyes unfocused and distant. “She was very beautiful and from what Jet tells me, their parents obsessively sheltered her growing up. She had few friends and, when she was older, she was rarely allowed to go out with them. She’d never been out on a date. Despite these restrictions, she was happy, even a little spoiled. Jet says their father, an upper-middle class banker, was indulgent with his children.”
“The summer before Celia was to start college she attended a church revival with a girlfriend. There she met a charismatic preacher and guest speaker, Jerald Forrester. Celia was eighteen; Jerald was 37.”
“Jerald Forrester was good looking, but more than his that, he had a way about him. He…drew people in. He was charismatic…not just his preaching style, but his personality. He was the best con man I’ve ever seen. People ran to the alter to be ‘healed’ by him, they emptied their wallets of their week’s grocery money when he passed the offering plate, and they left feeling like they’d been touched by the very spirit of God.” Jonah’s tone turned sour. “The night of the revival, my mother ‘got saved’ from her sinful, selfish life course and became one of Jerald Forrester’s newest devotees.”
Jonah’s breath came more rapidly. His eyes took on a hard look. Lyra could feel the anger rising in him.
“Over the next couple of weeks Celia was at church every time the doors opened and socializing with the Reverend Forrester whenever they were not. Celia’s father didn’t like it, but her mother calmed his worries. After all, Celia wasn’t out at the country club dances, she was with Christians. What harm could come of that? Brother Forrester extended his visit in our town. The church was considering adding him as an associate pastor.”
“It wasn’t until Celia began losing weight and then suffering with morning sickness that her mother too began to worry. A doctor’s visit confirmed the worst and Celia reluctantly admitted she was carrying Jerald Forrester’s child. Furious that his innocent, naïve daughter had been violated and knocked up by a two-bit preacher, Celia’s father went out, found Jerald, and probably would have beat him to death had he not been stopped.”
“Celia Carsen and Jerald Forrester were married within a week. Her father bought them a house and Jerald became grounds-keeper and general maintenance man for the church where he’d hoped to pastor.”
“Jet had been working as an apprentice for a newspaper that summer, and only came home for a short visit before he was to return to college in the fall. Though Jet thought what had been done to Celia was despicable, he had liked Jerald nonetheless. The man was adept at deceiving people. He cloaked himself in humility and seemed to worship the ground Celia walked on. Jethro returned to school confident that everything would work out for the best.”
Jonah shifted to a sitting position. He glanced down at Lyra. She tried not to appear as rabidly enthralled as she was. She remained lying down, but reached over to squeeze his hand and smile encouragingly.
“By the time Jet went home over his Christmas break, the situation had deteriorated beyond anyone’s imagining. Jerald had quit his job at the church claiming his God-given talent and calling to preach was being wasted by the narrow-minded, self-righteous hypocrits of the town. Celia, now heavy with child, had stopped leaving the house and refused visitors, not being able to explain away her black eye and cut lip as easily as she’d done the bumps and bruises which had first appeared on her arms and legs.”
“When two other girls—one only sixteen—turned up pregnant, both adamantly refusing to name the father, Jerald Forrester took his wife and quietly left town in the middle of the night.”
“Jethro didn’t see his sister again for six years. It took him that long to track her down. He found her living in a run-down duplex in rural Arkansas where Jerald was preaching. Their parents had died and Jet had come to deliver her half of their inheritance. Under those circumstances, Jerald welcomed Jet with open arms. Jet said he stayed over a week and tried his best to convince Celia to leave with him, but she refused.”
“At some point in those six years Jerald had apparently realized that having a pretty, devoted wife on his arm opened more doors for him than a scared, bruised one. He stopped hitting her…mostly…and, when it served his purposes, was still able to charm her. His charade worked well enough to keep her hopes up and with him.” Jonah’s voice turned even more acrid. “Because his penchant for new and younger women inevitably landed him in trouble with his parishioners or the law, they moved often and lived on the brink of poverty.”
“By the time of Jet’s first visit, my father had already grown to detest the very sight of me. My mother had learned how to keep me out of his way and he had learned how to ignore me when others were around.”
Lyra rolled over on her side to face him and propped her head on her elbow. Jonah glanced down at her. He brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, barely grazing her forehead. It was enough to send goose bumps down Lyra’s arms. It was insane what his casual touch did to her.
“Jet finally left, but he and my mother wrote occasionally. She let him know when we moved and sometimes he would visit. Jerald wasn’t nearly as accommodating to Celia’s brother on those occasions. Jethro had no more inheritance to hand out and he seemed to want to interfere in Jerald’s private family life. Jet was outspoken about the way Jerald disciplined his son, disapproving of the way he handled money, and suspicious of the bruises he still sometimes saw that Celia couldn’t explain to his satisfaction. Jet was too smart to ever completely alienate Jerald. He knew, as long as Celia remained faithful to Jerald, he had no hope of coaxing her away and would not risk total estrangement. Though Jet held my father in contempt, he kept his opinions as much to himself as he could. As the years went by, Jerald’s resentment and jealousy of Jet grew. In the last couple of years Jerald refused to allow Celia to write to her brother and kept our whereabouts a secret so he couldn’t come around.”
“Jethro invited me to spend summers and Christmas vacations with him, but my father always refused. Even when my uncle came to visit, we were never allowed to be alone together. That wasn’t anything unusual to me—I wasn’t permitted any friends or recreational activities. When I wasn’t at school—and I wasn’t there regularly—or at church, I was at home, alone in my bedroom.”
“My father resented any attention my mother gave to me which he thought was due him. He couldn’t stand it when the women at church oohed and aahed over me—even as a baby. From the time I was born he ignored me completely. And that was good. It kept me safe the first couple of years of my life.”
“But soon enough my…differences…from other children became obvious. I did everything much earlier than most babies—spoke, walked, potty-trained. I was reading and writing by the age of three.”
Jonah began to fidget and, though it was dark in the room, Lyra thought his face seemed flushed. He took no pleasure in these admissions.
Jonah’s hands, which had been worrying a button on his shirt, clenched into fists. “My first beating came when I was around two or three. I was lying on the sofa—sick with some little virus or fever. My mother had let me lie there to keep an eye on me. My father came in and, if he wasn’t already angry, seeing me still up certainly would have done it.”
“Something about his dinner didn’t please him and when he grabbed my mother by her arm and flung her onto the floor, I screamed in my head for him to stop. He heard me—just as my mother had been hearing me for months.”
“After than night my father never ignored me again. He scrutinized everything I did and everything I said. It didn’t take him long to see my abnormalities. He tested my abilities, mentally cataloging them, I guess. Once he knew the full extent of my capabilities, he punished me any time he saw or even thought I was using them. Sometimes he would whip me with a long stick he kept, sometimes
I was forced to stand out in the cold, go without eating, or memorize chapters of scripture. He prayed over me for hours, trying to exorcise the demon he was convinced possessed me. When that didn’t work, he came to believe that I was a demon…or part demon anyway.”
Jonah paused as he glanced down and saw Lyra’s look of horror.
“Actually, his reasoning is not as far fetched as it sounds. If you buy into the whole God thing, angels and demons, then you know that Satan and his demon followers rebelled. For a time, they took human bodies and mated with women here on earth. Their children were called Nephilim or the mighty ones of old. Down through history, there are a lot of legitimate accounts that a superhuman race existed. David slew a Philistine giant named Goliath. When the twelve Israelite spies entered the promise land, they reported back to Moses that the land was filled with giants. The Israelite spies said they appeared as grasshoppers compared to the inhabitants of the land.
“And it wasn’t just the Nephilim’s size. We still wonder and marvel at the abilities and intelligence of certain ancient cultures. The Egyptians built pyramids that required inhuman strength and knowledge of mathematics, physics, and architecture that far surpassed the nations around them. Then there are the Mayans who had a fully developed written language and an advanced understanding of astronomy, thousands of years ahead of their contemporaries. The Aztecs are famous for their artistic and architectural accomplishments. Where did they get the knowledge to do these things?
“The existence of Nephilim, is one way to explain it all. It’s the explanation my father came to believe and it fed his growing religious fanaticism. In his eyes, I was evil, spawn of the devil. The evil in me had to be overcome. He would rant and rave until my own mother became afraid of me. Or maybe she feared my father’s anger should she show any kindness to me, one of the damned.
“She did her best to keep me safe, though. She sent me out the back door every time she heard his car in the driveway. She tried to keep him occupied, to divert his attention from me. Sometimes it worked. But most often, he would call me in and the tirade would begin. It infuriated him that I was strong enough to endure the beatings and smart enough to memorize the impossibly long scriptures he assigned me. Those things just fed his convictions.”
He sighed and lowered his head to his chest. Lyra reached out her hand to stroke his knee as he sat cross-legged beside her. Lyra could hear the despair in his voice as he continued.
“I used to fight it, denying that I was wicked. I wanted to be good. I tried to be good. I told myself that my father was wrong, that I wasn’t bad.”
His voice dropped to a whisper and Lyra strained to hear. “But the day I killed my parents I realized that I was.”
Lyra jerked upwards to a kneeling position before him and grabbed his arms. Her voice thick with unshed tears, she gasped, “What?” She searched his face for the truth.
“It’s true,” he looked at her, hopelessness written in every line of his face. His eyes were bleak.
“I don’t believe you,” Lyra declared.
They stared at each other for an endless moment.
“What happened exactly?”
Jonah heaved in a breath. “I was ten years old. One day, my father came home and, as usual, my mother sent me out into the backyard to play out of sight. She was cooking dinner. I remember her chopping onions to put in a roast. My father came in and started on her. I went to sit under this shrub that grew in our yard. I could crawl in from behind it and watch the house without being seen.
“That day my mother argued with him. I couldn’t hear what they said, but their voices carried through the thin walls of the house. I saw through the kitchen window my father slap my mother. She started crying and yelling at him even more. I heard things being knocked around the kitchen, him screaming at her.
“The fury just welled up inside of me. I was so sick of living in fear, of seeing my mother worn down by his incessant verbal abuse. My hatred of him completely consumed me. I didn’t mean to do it, but as the rage rolled over me and I stared at the house wishing—willing—him to just stop…” Jonah paused, tears now falling from his eyes. “The entire house exploded.”
Lyra stopped breathing. Her heart pounded in her chest as though trying to escape. Tears streamed down her face as well, and a sob escaped her lips. Jonah looked so broken, so hopeless. She couldn’t stand it. She didn’t know what to think about his story. It was too much to take in. But what she did know was that she loved him and had to comfort him.
She was still kneeling in front of him. Now she leaned in, wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest. She couldn’t help the tears that fell but she repeated over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I love you and I’m sorry.” She held him tightly and finally she felt his arms encircle her. He bent his head into her neck. His body shook with his own sobs.
“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”
Lyra’s tears dried first and she stroked his back as he cried. “Shhh. It’s okay,” she told him softly. “It will be okay.”
Finally, he calmed down. He lifted his head and she lifted hers. They were still wrapped up in each other’s arms and were so close their breath mingled. His eyes were red, his eyelashes wet and clumped from his tears. They stared into each others eyes for a long moment. Then his gaze drifted to her lips. Lyra knew what he was thinking and she desperately wanted the same thing. Her fingers dug into the shirt on his back and she pressed closer still. His eyes snapped back up to hers and an instant later his lips crushed her own. It was a kiss unlike Lyra had ever imagined—one of desperate need and longing. Jonah’s hands moved up from her back to cup her face. He tilted her head and his mouth slanted over hers. He opened his mouth and flicked his tongue across the seam of her lips.
Lyra opened them in surprise and his tongue slid inside her mouth. It was the most delicious, erotic sensation she had ever felt and her body jerked in response. He kissed her deeply and passionately. She couldn’t get close enough. She had no idea such feelings even existed. It was as though lightening flowed in her veins and her skin tingled everywhere. She wanted to touch him, more of him. She was drowning in a whirlpool of desire. She found the hem of his shirt, slipped her hands underneath, and ran them up his sides and around to his back. At her touch, it was Jonah’s turn to jerk in response.
He broke off the kiss and pressed his cheek against hers, their chests heaving while they tried to catch their breath. “My God, Lyra. I love you. I want you so much.”
Lyra’s heart thrilled. Her spirit soared and she felt a prickle behind her eyes once more. She ran her tongue over her lips and tasted him. She cleared her throat and whispered, “I love you too, Jonah. Always. Forever.”
Jonah tried to disentangle them. He gripped her upper arms and leaned back a little to put some distance between them. Lyra’s arms were still wrapped around him inside his shirt and as she pulled back, her fingers trailed along his sides and brushed his belly. She felt the muscles ripple in response. As much as she wanted to press her hands into his hot skin once more, she withdrew them.
She smiled up at him sheepishly. He looked down at her and the barest hint of a smile touched his lips.
He leaned in and dropped a kiss on her nose. “C’mon. We need to get you home.” They glanced at the digital clock in the corner by the desk and saw that it was after 4 a.m. They got to their feet and Lyra began searching in the dark for her coat.
“You aren’t going to leave after I’m gone, are you?”
Jonah sighed. “No. I need to be here to face the music if Kyle does go to the police. I can’t leave Jet holding the bag without even so much as an explanation. He and I will discuss whether I should go back to Edenvale.
“Where?”
“Edenvale. The school in Canada I told you about,” Jonah answered distractedly, his eyes on the
ground, brow furrowed.
“Jonah, please! You can’t…”
Jonah came to her and put his finger over her lips. “I won’t leave without telling you goodbye.”
“But…”
“I need to talk to Jet—tell him what happened. We’ll discuss it and make a decision. I promise it won’t be a hasty one. Together we’ll decide what’s best—for everyone.” Jonah’s eyes roved her face and he pulled her to him for a last, brief embrace.
Jonah walked her home, and watched her climb back up to her room.
Back in his own bedroom, he tossed and turned. When he saw daylight peeking in behind the curtains, he got up, showered and dressed, and went downstairs to wait for Jet.