11. Faith
Iusually helped Mirlande on Saturday mornings, taking inventory of the store for her. There was just something relaxing about facts and figures to me. If the list said there should be a dozen Tiger’s Eyes on the shelf and I saw a dozen Tiger’s Eyes, then bam, check mark that son of a bitch and move on.
There was no misreading of the situation when it came to numbers. The calculations were either correct or they weren’t. You didn’t have to try to read the room, gauge a person’s mood, or be polite and cheerful to earn bigger tips. Numbers didn’t care about feelings or any of that bullshit. They were pure and simple, straightforward and beautiful. I’d take them any day of the week over…peopling.
Except today.
Today, I had questions that needed answers.
Grabbing one of Mirlande’s Bonbon Amidons for the road, I stuffed it in my mouth as I started out the door, leaving a Post-it note by the light switch to remind myself to get more toilet paper. Then, I locked up behind me and left through the store exit since they should be open by now, and I jogged down the stairs in a hurry.
At the foot of the steps, the rocking chair had been turned to face the wall. I didn’t bother trying to turn it back so it could face the rest of the room how it usually sat; I just dodged around it and hefted my backpack onto my shoulders as I glanced around for the owner.
When I spotted her in the back part, standing by herself and sniff-testing some of the candles, humming pleasantly as she opened a lid and plunged her nose inside, I called, “Hey, Mirlande. Do you mind if I skip inventory this week? With finals coming up, I wanted to head over to the campus library and hit the books for a few hours.”
“Ah, chéri,” she called back in a part-scolding, part-adoring voice as she recapped the candle and set it back on the shelf. When she turned to me, she rolled her eyes but smiled. “I never need you to run inventory. I only allow it because I know how it soothes your soul.”
I grimaced over the way she’d figured that out so easily. But then I argued, “It’s just plain good business sense to keep track of your stock, Mirlande. How do you know what needs to be reordered if you don’t?”
Mirlande inclined her head in a smooth, gracious kind of way and simply said, “I just know.”
I sighed. “Of course, you do. Well…” I waved farewell and started away. “I’ll see you later. Take care.”
“You too, child. Be your true self.”
Be your true self. That’s what she said to me nearly every time we spoke. I wasn’t sure if it was just her version of saying farewell, or what, but it always felt as if she meant something totally different when she said it. I had no idea what she was telling me if she did mean something different, though. I certainly wasn’t trying to be anyone else.
Once outside, I bundled my jacket tighter around me. The weather in Westport didn’t typically drop below fifty on the coldest day, but I think it had to be pretty close to that today. And the wind whipping around like it was didn’t help matters.
The worst thing about living above a shop on the Adobe Strip was that the closest parking spot was a good three blocks down, so I felt like an icicle by the time I reached my faithful old beater and climbed behind the wheel.
It roared to life, the mufflerless exhaust loud enough to cause morning shoppers to glance over and gawk. Waving at one lady who couldn’t seem to stop staring at my mechanical beast in action, I pulled from the parking lot and headed toward campus.
The library was my absolute favorite place to hang out. After Genesis had nearly ruined me, it’d been my safe haven where I’d licked my wounds and rebuilt myself into the stronger, sturdier version of me that I was today.
“Hey, Waverly,” I called to the girl behind the front counter as I entered.
Jerking her attention up from the hardback she was reading, Waverly pushed a face full of long, brown hair from her eyes before brightening. “Oh! Hey, Faith.”
And that was the extent of our relationship. First-name basis greetings while I passed by her desk. I didn’t dare try to get to know anyone closer than that anymore, except a couple of girls at work, and that was only during a shift. I didn’t speak to any of them outside of Calamity’s.
At the start of the reference section, I turned a corner and started down a row of shelves until I came to a door at the end. From there, I entered a stairwell that went both up and down.
I took the steps down.
At the bottom, I re-entered another room full of more rows of books. The ceiling was lower here, the lights sparser, and the air cooler. Glad I still had my jacket on, I took the second row down all the way to the end until the floorplan opened to a small study nook, consisting of two tables that had been pushed together for group study sessions. Except there were much nicer study areas up on the upper floors, so people rarely made their way down here.
Which thankfully left it all to me.
Sighing in relief when I found my table empty, I plopped my book bag down and glanced around just to make sure I was truly alone.
Then I cleared my throat and took a seat as I quietly called, “Robin?”
The librarian was one of the most dependable people I’d ever met, and no one knew how to research the way she did. I swear, I wouldn’t have aced as many classes as I had if it wasn’t for her.
When she didn’t immediately answer, I slumped into a chair, figuring she wasn’t around today, and I reached for my book bag to open the top and extract my laptop.
I’d research online first.
But I’d no sooner set up my computer and lifted the lid before a monotone voice from behind me asked, “Can I help you?”
Jumping nearly out of my skin, I gasped and pressed my hand to my chest before glancing up to find a tall slim woman who appeared to be in her early thirties. She cocked her head patiently, waiting for my answer as I took her in from head to toe. She always wore black slacks and a plain top under a dark cardigan. Her hair was long and brown but never done up. She just let it hang down, almost into her eyes.
Her inability to read social cues made it obvious she lived somewhere on the spectrum—high-functioning autism probably. She was more about getting the facts right than telling a person what they wanted to hear. And I loved that.
Blowing out a breath, I slid my hand from my chest and said, “Oh, good. You are here.”
“Can I help you?” Robin repeated, still just standing there, waiting for me to tell her what I wanted.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, knowing I didn’t have to be polite. Politeness went right over her head. But it made me feel like a better person to be nice to Robin. I had a feeling not a lot of people in her life had ever been nice to her.
“I want to know what can cause pressure in your head that’s not a headache,” I said as if I was addressing Siri or Alexa.
“Head pressure and brain fog would be medicine and health in the six-tens,” Robin answered immediately. “Either personal health and safety or disease.”
She was still mumbling Dewey classifications to herself as she turned away and disappeared down an aisle of books.
When she returned seconds later, she had a thick tome in her hands, already open to a specific page. “Pressure, tightness, or weightiness in the head can be the result of numerous sources, such as carbon monoxide poisoning, too many painkillers, dental or jaw problems, sinus or ear infection, concussion, tumor, or fluid on the brain.”
She sat the book on the table and backed away as if she didn’t want to get too close.
I reached across the surface and clutched the edge of the volume before pulling it over to squint at the diagram she’d found for me.
“But why would any of those go away for a few years and then come back again?” I asked, squinting up at her.
Robin tipped her face, as if confused. “They wouldn’t.”
I shook my head. “So what does that mean?”
“It isn’t a symptom of a physical health problem, then.”
“Huh?”
“Psychology, subconscious, meditation, one fifty-eight.” Turning away, she started off again, down a different row this time.
It took her a little longer to return, but when she did, she was toting three different books.
She plopped them all down onto the table with a thump. “Energy head pressure,” she told me, opening the top book. “Energy flows in a circular pattern through the body and should flow unimpeded, but sometimes it is blocked.”
Squinting, I lifted one half of the book to read the titles on the spines.
Meditation, The Occult, and Body and Soul Energy.
Damn. This was hedging into Mirlande’s territory.
“And what…?” I paused to lick my lips uneasily. “What can block the flow of energy in a person?”
“The wrong diet,” Robin started immediately. “A nagging fear or worry.” She shifted the top book off the pile and opened the second. “A negative emotion about something. Limited belief in yourself. Possession?—”
“Possession?” I cut in, gaping up at her in surprise. “Like…demon possession?”
Was she serious right now?
“Demons. Religion. Doctrines and theology. Two hundreds.”
As she started off down another row, I groaned and rubbed my face. I trusted Robin’s sources more, but Siri definitely got it done faster. Turning my attention to my laptop, I woke up the screen, logged into a search engine, and typed in demon possession.
But the results I brought up turned real dark, real quick, and I didn’t want that search history on my laptop to make weird, freaky things pop up in all the ads on my social media.
I was wincing at a picture of a yellow-faced creature with red, bloodshot rings around glowing eyes when Robin returned, which made me jump again in surprise.
“Demon possession would most likely involve unrest, hallucination, strange behavior, changed voice, changed languages, increased strength?—”
“I don’t think it’s demon possession,” I said, shaking my head as I interrupted her again because who knew how long she could go on, and none of these symptoms seemed to fit Hudson’s head pressure at all.
But Robin threw me for a loop when she pressed, “Then the possession could be from a spirit of one who was once alive.”
“You mean…” My stomach dropped as I stared at her. “A ghost. He could be possessed by a ghost?”
Robin squinted, not understanding. “He?” she asked simply.
I waved my hands to move past that. “Never mind. Just… How do we relieve the pressure in the head caused by a blocked energy flow?”
“Taoist medicine is a popular reliever,” Robin answered, reaching for the pile of books again so she could tug the bottom one free of the stack. “It’s a plant-based potion taken on a schedule to unblock your chakras.”
When she turned to the page describing that, I read a little bit before frowning. All of this was so far over my head.
“My sunshine was here yesterday,” Robin spoke up, startling me. The only time she wasn’t answering a direct question was when she wanted to tell me about her sunshine. Whoever the hell that was.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, trying to act interested when, really, I just wanted to finish skimming through the books she’d brought me.
“He was in the one thirty-three point ones,” she added before tilting her head. “Do you think he was trying to find me?”
“I don’t—” I started to answer because how in the world would I know? But this was obviously the only thing that interested her. I mean, she cared about this person enough to call him her freaking sunshine.
Having pity, I sent her a soft smile and nodded. “I bet he was.”
A brief smile flitted across her face, the most emotion I’d ever seen her reveal. Then she turned away without another word and just walked off.
My eyebrows arched. “Okay then…uh…bye. And thank you.”
But she was already gone.
Blowing out a breath, I returned my attention to the material she’d left behind, and I started to read. By the time I had to leave and head home so I could get ready for work, I’d half-convinced myself that Hudson had a freaking ghost stuck inside him.
I still had no clue how to get it out, though.
Not that I should be worried about any of this in the first place since he wasn’t my problem and belonged to someone I couldn’t even stand.
Except I did worry. He’d tried to hurt himself once, and I couldn’t let that happen again.
So… While I should’ve been cramming for my finals that were set to begin in two freaking days, I contemplated the situation all the way home, trying to think up a way I could approach him on campus and discover if he might possibly have any ghosts lingering in his closet.
Or in his body.
Yeesh. This was never going to work.
When I returned to Jezebel’s Nest, I bypassed the front store entrance because I had this irrational fear that Mirlande would know I’d been diving into the occult without her, and she’d hound me for details.
So I went around to the back and started up the darkened stairwell, only to yelp out a curse when I stepped on something soft and squishy and alive. It let out a yowl and took off racing down the stairs.
“Dammit!” I called after the pesky alley cat, turning to scowl as it streaked away in a blur of all black. “Don’t sit on my stairs if you don’t want to get stepped on!”
This was really just my luck—a black cat crossing my path.
As soon as I let myself into the apartment, I jumped up to touch the horseshoe above my doorway to counteract the jinx.
Then I got ready for work.
As I showered and dressed, I told myself I really should leave Hudson alone. I mean, I was blessed enough; I’d gotten to meet him once in person and decide I adored his happy-go-lucky charm. He seemed worthy of my crush, at least. That should be that. I should just let it go.
But if he was suffering…
If he had fallen to the point of self-harm once before and seemed to be tumbling in that direction again…
Yeah, I couldn’t let that go.
The only place I knew I was going to see him again was on that bench in front of Statistics class. I’d have to wait until after he sucked off Genesis’s face and she went into the room before I approached him, which would make me late for my final. That was going to sting—being late was one of my biggest OCD no-no’s—but some things were just more important than timeliness.
Now… I’d have to figure out what to say to him that didn’t make him look at me as if I’d lost my ever-loving mind.
By the time I clocked into work, I was still debating with myself whether to be direct and honest or to completely elude everything by asking enough strange, random questions to get what I wanted to know so I could help him without him ever being the wiser.
I was probably going to go with option two. I didn’t want him to think of me as a freak because—Whoa.
As I stepped through the back door of Calamity’s, I found the kitchen in a state of total chaos.
The new fry cook whose name I hadn’t even learned yet hadn’t shown up for work, which already put enough things off kilter. And apparently one of the refrigerators had stopped working too. Rodrigo and Cadence were busy tossing heads of lettuce and other vegetables onto a cart so they could transfer everything to another fridge while Ravi was yelling into the phone and pacing not too far away, trying to get someone down here to repair it, stat.
“Oh, Faith,” Hannah called to me as she hurried by, her arms loaded with plates. “Could you cover Cadence’s section for a few minutes? She’s got tables four through eight tonight. And salads are delayed for a while.”
“Got it,” I said, checking my pockets for my pens and order pads before diving into the job.
Handling double my usual number of tables kept me on my toes, but I thought I was keeping up fairly well for the first fifteen minutes until I got a thirty-second break when I had to stop by the bar and put in an order.
“Hey, Iesha,” I panted, unable to keep the exhaustion from my voice. I slumped onto a bar stool and exhaled heavily. “Can I get a Long Island iced tea, a bottle of Heineken, and Busch Light on tap, please?”
“Sure thing, baby doll,” she told me before sending me a sympathetic pout. “So what’s up? It’s way too early in the evening for you to be this dragged down already.”
“You’re telling me,” I said, trying to boost my energy enough to pull myself back up off the stool. “But Cadence is helping with the veggie crisis so… Guess who’s covering her tables for her?”
“Oh hell.” Iesha rolled her eyes as she popped the tab on the Heineken and set it on the tray for me. “That damn girl. Does she ever do her own job?”
I groaned wearily. “I’m beginning to wonder.”
“You should tell Ravi.”
With a dry frown, I answered, “Ravi’s the one who told her to help Rodrigo save the lettuce.”
Iesha scoffed and muttered, “Of course.” As she set a glass cup under the tap, she sent me a telling look. “You know she’s going to be next after he tires of Bianca, don’t you?”
“Eww.” I grimaced, only to shrug and admit, “But I wouldn’t doubt it.”
“Well, if you were just the tiniest bit nicer to him,” she told me with a knowing nod. “I bet he’d throw her over for you in a heartbeat. Because I’ve seen him looking.”
I made a face as Iesha set the beer on my tray. “Excuse me, what?”
She only shrugged. “Hey, it’d get you off all the shitty shifts and onto some of the more desirable jobs around here. Jobs you actually deserve.”
“I think I’ll just take the shitty jobs, thank you very much.”
“Yeah,” a voice spoke from beside me. “Faith’s way too awesome to sleep her way to success.”
“Wha…?” I whirled around in surprise, not expecting anyone to be right there or creeping in on my conversation, only to jolt again, falling off my stool in the process.
“Holy God!” I yelped as Hudson reached to catch me and keep me from face-planting to the floor.