Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(55)

Jilo blinked with surprise, but bit her tongue.

“See, you do think I’m crazy.”

She weighed her words before speaking. “No, I don’t think that. I do think that when we’re children, we can have dreams that seem very real to us.” She laughed. “I once dreamed that my big sister Poppy tried to eat my baby sister. Took days for my nana to convince me it’d only been a dream.”

He nodded, a sad expression washing over his face. “Yes, I understand what you say is true, but these visitations, they happened more than once.” He lowered his gaze, as if he didn’t want to see her response. “Still do from time to time. I see their holy light, and I am taken up”—he raised his hands and waved them in praise—“ ‘whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;’ Second Corinthians, chapter twelve, verse three,” he quoted, his reference to the good book causing his voice to lift and take on the animated quality it had when he was preaching. But then his voice fell flat and came out in a whisper. “They’ve shown me things, things to come on this earth. Clouds of fire rising up from the earth to the sky. Death and destruction like this world has never known, with only a remnant to survive.”

He leaned forward, clenching the back of her pew, and she felt herself leaning away from him. “ ‘And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.’ And I did, for they gave me no choice. I turned my head. I sought to avert my gaze. But no matter where I looked, it was the same. Stretched out before me was a desolate wasteland. Everywhere, fire and wind, and the seas burned clean away.” His voice trailed off, and his face turned ashen as his eyes looked out into nothingness. “Not even Mrs. Jones knows any of this.” His eyes turned toward her, a flicker of some dawning awareness in them.

He shook his head. Pushing against the pew, he rose to his feet. “Please forget I’ve said any of this.” He towered over her, slowly regaining control of himself, and raised his hand to his temple. “I spend too much time contemplating things that are not of this world. Perhaps you’re correct. Perhaps I let my imagination carry me away. Just forget my nonsense.”

But then his expression changed again, and the wide-eyed fright melted away into a mask of nearly paternal disappointment. His chest rose and fell, and he reached out and placed his hand along her jaw. She felt the urge to look away, but he turned her face up so that her eyes met his. “But another seal has been broken.”





FIVE


May 1953



“I’d like to thank you for joining us today, Miss Wills,” said the dean of students, Lewis Washington, looking over his spectacles at her like he was considering a slug he’d just uncovered in a prize flowerbed. The wooden smile he forced to his lips came too late to sweeten the tone that underlay his words. He sat facing her, his substantial desk forming an effective barrier between them. The office’s other chairs had been pulled into a straight line, stretching out from her left side to the ominously closed door.

These other seats had been filled by Jane Temple, the school registrar, Professor Charles, head professor of chemistry, and Lionel. She forced herself to think of him as Professor Ward lest she make a slip and an untoward familiarity show through. Graduation was less than six weeks away, and she was counting on recommendations from him and the others with him. “It’s an honor, sir,” she said.

Dean Washington smiled again, though this time the expression struck her as sincere. He looked from side to side, giving both professors and Miss Temple a look that seemed to tell them that they could relax, that there would be no trouble here. He leaned back in his large leather wingback chair, turning a bit to the side, and folded his hands on his round stomach. “I have been looking over your records, Miss Wills, and I have to tell you that I am impressed.” He spun the chair back to the center, not taking his eyes from her or his hands off his gut. “Your achievements here have indeed been outstanding.”

He stared at her, his face beaming with benevolence, and rocked in his chair, seeming to await a response. “Thank you, sir,” she said a moment after the silence began to feel heavy.

No longer rocking, he leaned forward and planted his hand on his desk, his stomach reaching out to touch its drawer. “Such a fine young lady,” he said, looking first at Charles and then at Ward.

Professor Charles must have read the comment as an invitation to speak. “One of the finest students I have ever had the pleasure to teach.”

Somehow his words affected her more than the dean’s compliment. Winning this man’s approval meant a lot to her. Jilo blushed and lowered her head.

“Don’t you agree, Lionel?” Dean Washington asked.

Lionel—Professor Ward’s lips curled into a smooth smile. “Unequaled.” Jilo glanced over at him, wishing that he still looked at her in private the way he regarded her now. Although their affair had continued, he no longer volunteered the words, “I love you.” When pressed, he would offer her, “You should know that I do,” but he grew cooler with each passing day. He cited pressures from work—although Jilo had begun to write and grade the exams for his courses over a year and a half ago, long before the physical aspect of their love had begun to be expressed. He blamed his wife’s continued declining health, although Mrs. Ward had begun to spend more time at her sister’s home than her own. He spoke with resentment of Jilo’s “clinginess”—explaining her own insecurities as the reason he had begun to pull away.