Radiant (11 page)

The priest chuckled
again. "Well, if you do start talking to him again, you might consider inviting him to one of our Sunday services. Or even a choir concert. Many people from the community come for those, even if they don't attend regularly."

"I'll try," she said. "Thank you
, sir. Father, I mean."

They shook hands, and she
went back to the gift shop with the nun.

"
I hope that was helpful," Sister Emily said.

"
It was a little," Mary said as she put the holy water on the counter again. "I'd still like to buy this."

The
following day, Mary poured the holy water into a regular drinking bottle and marked it "HW." At lunchtime, she ventured into the cafeteria for the first time in a while. It was packed and no one paid attention to her as she scanned the room. She saw a freshman sitting by herself at a table along the side. Mary went and sat down across from her. "Hey, wanna make a couple bucks?" she asked.

The freshman looked at her. "Doing what?"

Mary took the bottle of holy water from her bag. "You know who Carter Maxwell is?"

She nodded.

"After the last bell, follow him outside and throw this on him."

The freshman
looked at the bottle suspiciously. "What is it? Acid?"

"
Just water," Mary said. "It won't hurt you if you get some on you. But most of it has to be on him."

The girl narrowed
her eyes. "Why?"

"Do you want the money or not?"

She didn't say anything for a moment. "What if I pretended to bump into him and it spilled on him instead? Would that work?"

That was actually a better idea. Mary wished she had thought of it. "Yeah, that works. So you'll do it?"

"Yeah," the girl said. "For twenty bucks."

Twenty bucks?
What did Mary look like? A bank?

"I'll give you five."

"Fifteen."

"Ten."

"Do it yourself then," the girl said.

Mary frowned. "Thirteen."

The girl thought for a moment. "Fine."

Mary gave her the
water.

"What about the thirteen dollars?"

"I'll give it to you when you've done what you're supposed to do."

"
I wanna see that you have the money."

Mary
frowned. She took out her wallet and showed her the cash.

"Okay," the girl said.

"I'll be by the bike racks," Mary said.

At the end of the day, Mary didn't bother stopping by her locker to get her stuff. She followed Carter at a distance, watching him visit his own locker before leaving
through the front door. Outside, Mary lingered near the bike racks as Carter walked across the schoolyard. The freshman was near the gate. She had an armful of books and the water bottle perched on top of them with the cap missing.

As Carter began to
pass her, the freshman pretended to see someone she knew and darted into his path. She collided with Carter, spilling books and water all over him.

"Watch it!" she snapped.

"I am sorry," Carter said sincerely. His black sweater and the front of his pants were soaked, but he ignored them as he helped her pick up the books. "I was not paying attention and did not—"

"The hell you weren't!
What'd you think? Lil' frosh's easy to push around? Boy, I will
cut you
!" she cried.

Mary watched slack-jawed
as the girl continued to berate him. Suddenly, she was furious. The freshman was scolding Carter when she was just supposed to spill some holy water on him.

Carter apologized again
. When he finally walked off the campus, the freshman came to meet Mary.

"What the
heck was that?" Mary asked. "Why'd you yell at him?"

"You didn't say I had to wipe his
ass and give him a bag of gummy bears," the girl said. "Where's my money?"

Frowning, Mary
shoved the cash into her hands. The freshman left without another word.

Mary sighed. Trying to get rid of whatever
was possessing Carter was getting expensive. That thirteen dollars was the last of her allowance until next week. She was going to have to figure something else out.

Or maybe, as Father Cohen had said, Carter really wasn't possessed. And all this effort was for nothing.

Mary continued pondering as she headed to Agape. After she said hi to Ms. Nancy and signed in, she looked around for Ba. She wondered into the game room and found some of the residents relaxing, including the Pennys and Emma.

"Hi there, Mary," Mr. Penny greeted her. He and Mrs. Penny sat at a table playing checkers.

"Hello sir," Mary said. "Have you seen my grandmother?"

"Oh, we saw her on our way down
to the elevator," Mrs. Penny said. "She's still in her room getting ready. She said you were both going shopping."

Actually, Ba was going to buy things that she thought Mary should wear. And as usual,
Mary would have to return everything later so that Mom wouldn't completely freak out when she saw the bank statements. Still, shopping was something that Ba liked to do. And Mary liked getting her out and about a couple times a week so that just the two of them could hang out.

Mary nodded. "W
e'll be gone for a couple hours. I'll just wait here until she comes down." She sat in the soft chair next to Emma, who was reading her Bible quietly. Mary watched her for a moment. Then, she asked, "Hey Emma?"

"
Yeah, Baby Girl?" Emma said.

Mary chose her words carefully. "Do you know the story about Jesus
exorcising the demon from a boy?"

"Sure do," Emma said. "He cast out demons
many times. And so did some of his followers."

"Do you know how they did it?" Mary asked. "Did they use holy water or say some kind of special
phrase or something?"

"Well, with the boy you'
re talking about, Jesus said that kind of demon needed to be cast out by fasting and prayer," Emma said. "But casting out demons was just a small part of Jesus' ministry. He healed people, taught them, fed them, and a whole bunch of things. And it was all because He loved them."

Mary wrinkled her brow. "Loved them?"

Emma nodded. "That's why he came to save us, Baby Girl. Because he loved everyone. Even the people that killed him."

Mary didn't really understand most of what she
said. Probably because she only read that one part about the demons. She'd have to read the rest to put it all in context. And that was of course going to be a challenge because she didn't read much.

Ba came downstairs with her purse on her arm. "Ready to go, Con?" she asked.

Mary thanked Emma and headed out with her grandmother. During their shopping spree, she pondered Emma's words. If she understood correctly, then the way to help Carter was to
love
him? How was Mary going to do that? She barely even
liked
him.

Reading the
Bible suddenly didn't seem as much of a challenge compared to that.

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W
ithout Words

When the salt and holy water didn't work,
Mary decided to look into the possibility that whatever was possessing Carter was extraterrestrial. She did some web research, but she didn't find much. The "real" scientific community hadn't found any life beyond earth yet, and the speculative crowd had a bazillion and one different theories. She did find a couple places that said getting rid of an alien possessing a human host would require either drinking cyanide or getting blasted with gamma radiation. Based on Mary's lack of funds, as well as government restrictions, those didn't seem like feasible options.

But
what Emma had told her stayed in the back of her mind. Mary wasn't sure about the whole loving thing like Jesus did, but she could at least start being nicer to Carter. And that meant she was going to have to get him to start talking to her again.

The next couple days, Carter was not in school. Mary started to wonder if he was all right, but he showed up again on
Thursday like everything was normal.

The last bell of the day rang. As usual,
Carter left Physics without glancing Mary's way. She ran to catch him in the hall.

"
Carter! Wait up!"

He stopped and turned to her.
"Hello, Mary."

"
Hey," she said, keenly aware of people starting to stare at them. "Can we talk? Um, somewhere else? Like the Art room?"

"
Sure," he said. "After you."

Mr. Edwards had already left for the day, so the room was
empty.

"
What would you like to talk about?" he asked.

Mary
groped for words. She settled with, "Um, how are you?"

"
I'm fine."

"
Are you sure?"

"
Of course. Why?"

She started picking at that
stray thread on her bag. "Well, you've been avoiding me for a while. And I wanted to know if something was wrong. If I said or did something that bothered you."

He was quiet for a moment before
speaking again. "Do you remember what you said to me the last time we were in this room?"

She nodded.
"I had asked you why you saved me. Look, I have trouble talking. But I didn't mean to offend you or—"

"
You didn't offend me," he corrected. "You surprised me."

"
How so?" she asked.

He was quiet again for a moment
. "I was first going to answer that it was the right thing to do. And that's true. But I realized that wasn't what I really wanted to say." He paused.

"
So what
did
you want to say?" she asked.

"
I don't know. At least, I don't know how to communicate it verbally." He paused again. "Words are effective most of the time. But sometimes, they can be very limiting."

She
looked confused. "I don't get it."

"
It's all right," he said.

"
No, it's not," she said. "It's not all right because I
want
to get it. I want to understand. And I don't…" She trailed, again trying to find the right words.

"
You don't what?" he asked.

The thread, after all that picking, finally came off her bag
. "I don't want you to avoid me anymore. It bothers me."

"
I thought my being around you bothered you," he said.

"
It does," she said. "But not as much as you avoiding me."

He cocked his head to the side.
"You're odd."

She shrugged. "I know."

He stared at her. Then, he smiled. "All right. I won't avoid you anymore."

Oddly enough, she felt like some kind of a weight or something had come off her shoulders.
"Okay, then," she said. "Um, busy afternoon for you?"

He shook his head, which for the first time looked normal.
"You?"

"
Just going to see my grandmother. I'm taking her to an art show and then to dinner." She got an idea. "Hey, you wanna come with us?"

"Would that be all right?" h
e asked. "I wouldn't want to intrude."

"You
won't be," she said. "An artist I know is going to be there. He gave me three tickets, but my mom's working tonight. You should come. It'll be fun."

Carter smiled. "Thank you for inviting me.
I accept."

They
boarded the bus for Agape. When they arrived, Ba was waiting in the lobby with one of the nurses.

"
Hi Con. And hello, Carter," she said cheerfully.

"
Chào Bà
," he said.

"
Hi Ba." Mary kissed her on the cheek. "Is it all right if Carter goes with us?"

Her grandmother's
eyes lit up. "Oh yes. You're most welcome."

Mary took Ba's arm and said to the nurse,
"Thank you for getting her ready."

"
You're welcome, honey. And I can take your back packs to her room to keep there."

Mary removed her wallet and handed over
her bag. Carter did the same.

"
Remember, eight o'clock," the nurse said.