Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(52)

“It isn’t a regular bird. It’s a phoenix,” Jilo said. He shook his head, not understanding. “A phoenix. A mythical bird that renews itself by setting its nest on fire. Through the fire, it is reborn.” She reached out to take the book, but he pulled it back. “In this case, the fire is symbolic of passion . . .”

“I have examined this book,” the pastor said. “I am well aware of the nature of what it contains. Still, the narrative concerns me less than what I found written here.” He opened the book to its frontispiece, then pointed to a name printed on the facing title page. Lionel Ward.

Jilo bit her lip, waiting again for the pastor to take the lead. Professor Ward often shared books from his personal collection with her, books he felt would enrich and broaden her mind. Many were banned from the public library, so it would have been hard for her to obtain them on her own.

Jones closed the book and reached over the desk to hand it to her. She accepted it without daring a word.

“I am not a prude, Miss Wills. I believe that our Lord made relations between men and women pleasurable because he wants us to find pleasure in them.” He paused, as he often did when giving a sermon, to emphasize the point he was about to make. “But God intended for these relations to take place within the bounds of matrimony.”

“I understand, Pastor. It was wrong of me to bring this book into your home. I’ll return it to Professor Ward today, right after classes.”

Jones raised a single eyebrow. “I’m not sure I’m making my concerns clear. I do appreciate and accept your apology. Strangely enough, I think it may have even been somewhat sincere. But I am less concerned with the imagined sins in this book than I am with the possibility of actual sin between creatures of God.” He held his hand out to her, palm up, signaling that she should give the book back to him. “I will return this book to its owner.”

Jilo hesitated, but his tone was firm. She placed it in his hand, and he set it on his desk, covering it with a pad of paper, like Adam hiding behind the fig leaf.

“I do not believe this book is appropriate reading for a girl your age. I certainly don’t feel it is appropriate for a man to be sharing with a young lady. As your guardian, I will inform this Professor Ward of that fact myself.”

Jilo felt herself go hot then cold with embarrassment. “But Professor Ward is a married man,” she said, hoping his marital status would somehow convince the reverend of the innocence of the loan.

“That, Miss Wills, is my point exactly.”





THREE


October 1952



Jilo found her eyes resting on the red-and-white tin sitting on the desktop. A lozenge shape bordered the white silhouette of a man on horseback, a jouster by the look of his proud lance. The picture struck her as out of tune with the name inscribed below it—a word that conjured up images of hot sands and cool oases, not Camelot.

A burning log in the fireplace popped, prompting her to crane her neck in an attempt to glance in the sound’s direction. A chill had settled on Atlanta in October’s final days, and Lionel had started a small fire in his office’s hearth to beat it back.

Once, she’d enjoyed sitting by the fireside in one of the two commodious leather chairs positioned on either side of the hearth, talking to Lionel about art, books, and the future—the world’s in general and hers in particular. Now, her back was resting against a blotter, and something sharp and hard—a letter opener, she reckoned—poked her side. An unpleasant but bearable sensation.

Her attention wandered back to Professor Ward, who stood holding her legs up around his hips. She gasped in a breath of air and quivered. There was a feeling like a sharp pinch as he entered her. An unpleasant but bearable sensation. His eyes, framed by the gold round rims of his glasses, were filled with a faraway and glassy look as he moved inside her.

He loves me, she thought. He loves me. He loves me. She repeated the words to herself as he jostled her into a better position, reaching back to wrap her legs around him. She understood that he wanted her to hold them there, so she did.

“I love you,” he whispered, his spoken words sounding in chorus with her own internal chant. His tie—the blue one, her favorite—brushed across her stomach as he leaned over her; his hands, a teacher’s hands, soft with buffed nails, found her breasts. “I love you.” His weight pressed into her, and the metal and wood behind her back conspired together to make her spine and hips ache. His lips only met hers for a moment before he drew back, his fingers pinching into her legs, separating them wider as the pace of his thrusting accelerated, his straining body pressed fully into hers. He moaned once, then again, and let his weight settle onto her as he dropped her legs and left them to dangle over the side of the desk. His chest heaved, causing a button of his shirt to dig into her skin, and then he pulled out of her without another moment’s hesitation.

He stooped to rummage through his pants, puddled on the floor around his ankles, and produced a kerchief from the pocket. “Hold this. Down there,” he said, forcing it into her hand and positioning it between her legs, without really looking at her. “There’s some blood. Don’t want it on the rug.” As soon as she did as he asked, he shifted his focus to removing the latex sheath that he had pulled from the red-and-white tin.

She pushed herself up on one elbow, watching as he tied a knot into the end of the thing. He tugged up his pants and buttoned them, and without looking at her, strode to the hearth and tossed the condom into the flames. He grasped the poker, using its hooked end to pull a glowing log on top of the latex. Then he returned the poker to its holder, and without speaking, knelt to retrieve her dress from the floor. He laid it next to her on the desk, turning his attention to the rest of her wardrobe. Odd, but he now seemed embarrassed to touch the bra he’d nearly torn off her only minutes before. He picked it up and dropped it on the dress. A few steps away lay her panties. He picked them up using his thumb and index finger. She took them from him, hoping that their hands might meet, but he dropped them into her grasp and returned to the fire, keeping his back toward her as she dressed.