Dastardly Bastard(60)

“Your grandpapa was a bad man, Just. He liked to have his own way about things. That’s over now. And yes, I watched him die.”

“Was it gross?”

“No.” Nana Penance started to laugh, but caught herself before it was fully birthed. “I wanted to watch. The man threw shadows. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Justine thought she knew all too well. Mom had always thought she was crazy or making it up, so Justine had stopped telling her. That seemed to fix things.

“You got the sight, Just. I knows you do, ‘cause I got it, too.” Nana Penance reached out and took Justine’s knee in her large, flat palm, squeezing. “Your grandpapa didn’t always throw shadows. Remember that much about him. Remember the good things. Sometime evil just need a body to latch onto. You know what a parasite is?”

“They eat things.” Justine grimaced.

“They feed on people, baby girl. You gotta burn them off, mostly. You gotta get them to unlatch themselves. Parasites can be dastardly bastards. You just gotta know how to deal with them.”

“Papa had parasites?”

“Yes, Just. In a way, he did. But that’s over now. I took care of the bad things. He won’t hurt anyone else.”

Justine could feel the weight of those words, knew they were sound, right, bigger and stronger than she could ever hope to be.

Sunlight died as it came through the tinted windows of the limo. Dust motes danced in their rays, swirling around like waltzing folk.

“You ever see me throwing shadows, Just…” Nana Penance gripped Justine’s kneecap, digging fingers into her skin. “You make them go away. You understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Justine winced at the pain in her leg.

“Do you see them on me now?”

Justine didn’t want to look up from her leg. She knew she would see something. If it wasn’t shadows, then it would be anger. Justine didn’t want to see either one. She continued to stare at Nana Penance’s knuckles, straining pink where brown flesh creased over them. She focused on that hand. Willed herself not to look up. Couldn’t let herself see anything but love in her grandmother’s eyes.

Finally, Nana Penance released her death grip. Her hand patted Justine on the thigh, moving away after two taps.

“Best you don’t look. Best you don’t never see that on me. Them shadows, they’re contagious, Just. They infect you if’n you ain’t careful. Yep. Best not to look. Best.” Nana Penance didn’t say another word until they were graveside.



~ * ~



Justine fought to stay upright. The Bastard pulled her along, her puppeteer not used to her body. She stumbled several times, skinning her knees on the cobblestone steps. Justine had let him invade her. She was at his behest, completely.

The trek through Rifle Park was a test of every part of her. When she thought she could go on no further, the Bastard would yank her on, throwing her forward.

Once she was back on the main street, Justine tried to focus on the ground beneath her, but it kept falling away. With every step she took, the world came apart. She was certain the Bastard was destroying everything he touched, ripping apart the place Scott had created.

A thick black poured from her. She could see it dripping, possibly from her face, but most likely from her very eyes. It occurred to her that she was Throwing Shadows. No. Not Throwing. She was past that. Justine was making them.

“Nana,” she tried, but the word came out sounding far away, more like a thought than an audible call.

“Focus, child.” The Bastard threw her forward, and she collapsed. “Get up. We’ve not far to go. Just there.”

Her head was wrenched upward. They had made it. Waverly Fairchild’s mansion was on the left, almost complete. Soon it would revert back to a crumbling fa?ade, and the process would start all over again.

Scott stood in the entryway, not waving, not calling them in, but looking terrified as he watched them approach.

Tread, if you dare, through his one-eyed stare. This Dastardly Bastard is neither here, nor there.



~ * ~



“What happened to Papa? Why’d the shadows get him?” Justine looked up at her grandmother’s crying form, taking the woman’s hand in her own.

“Something bad happened to a friend of his. He ran away from it. Papa chose his path and let them snatch him up.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes, Just, it is.”

“Did he die in pain?”

“Yes, baby girl. He did.”

They were whispering, not a single person paying them any mind. Justine’s mother was too busy with her own tears to even realize what was being said to her daughter right next to her.

“How’d you make the shadows go away?”

“By force. It’s always by force. They don’t want to leave. They need us, Just. They need to be sustained.”

“What are they?”

“They are us. The bad, nasty parts, anyway. Mostly, they’re the mem’ries we’ve chosen to let fester. The secrets we hide from the world, all rotten and decayed.”

“Our memories can hurt us?”

“More than you know, baby girl. More than you will ever know.”