The Unseen (28 page)

“
I have to let you go,” he said.

“
No!”

“
I’m going to do it slowly this time.  Get yourself balanced.  One, two, three...”

His hand moved away from her, but she could still feel its warmth, as though it remained close, almost touching her.

She let her right leg take the weight, as she grunted in pain.

“
Goddammit,” she snarled, but she didn’t fall.

“
See?  I knew you could stand.  You’re a strong woman.”

“
I don’t feel strong.”

“
You will when you start walking.” Ibis clapped his hands. “All right, now you know you can stand.  Let’s get started.”

“
We haven’t started yet?”

“
We start with some light stretching.  Let’s get down in the grass.” He held out an arm to help her.

“
Let’s do that,” she said.

The stretching didn’t seem particularly light to Cassidy, unless he’d meant red-hot pain as opposed to white-hot pain.  She lay on her stomach while he bent her right foot toward her as far as it would go, and then a little farther.  Cassidy screeched and pounded her fist into the dirt.

“There you go,” he said, as if approving of her scream.

The quadricep stretches went on for a thousand years of interminable suffering, and then he helped her turn over onto her back.  Ibis stretched her hamstrings, bending her knee toward her chin.  For a moment, she wished she’d worn longer shorts, and then fiery pain wiped the thoughts from her mind.

“Admit it,” she breathed when he was done.  She lay uselessly in the grass. “You’re just doing that to torture me.”

“
You did all this to yourself,” Ibis said. “You didn’t do the stretching I told you about.  You just lay back and let it get stiff.”

“
It doesn’t feel stiff now,” she said. “It feels like a noodle.  One that fell out of the boiling water and landed on the eye of the stove and burned up.”

“
So you’re ready to walk on it?” he asked, reaching out a hand.

“
I can’t.”

“
Don’t be a wimp.”

“
When I’m jabbing needles into your back, I’ll remember you said that.” Cassidy let him help her up, and she leaned on him, holding his arm against her. “Whatever you do to me, I’ll do twice as hard to The Count.”

“
The Count can take it.  Let’s walk.  You can lean on me.”

“
Okay.” She didn’t mind leaning on him at all.  Her leg throbbed as she took slow, hesitant steps, but she kept moving.

“
Have you noticed anything unusual since the accident?” Ibis asked.

Cassidy thought of everything that had happened—the vastly increased and diversified population of transparent beasts and parasites, the out-of-body travel, her brother’s interest in the weird cult, Peyton cheating on her with Reese from high school—and she burst out laughing.

“What?”

“
Where do I start, Ibis?  Are we just talking about my leg?”

“
Any symptoms, any strange experiences?” he asked.

“
Not anything you would believe.”

“
I’ve seen a few strange things,” Ibis said. “Try me.”

“
It’s just weird dreams.”  Cassidy stopped to watch a couple of kids flying kites—one shaped like a ladybug, the other a clown with a long, flapping ribbon of a striped necktie. “I’ve always had nightmares.  Since the crash, I dream I’m flying around outside my body.  Just
out there
somehow.  And I’ll look down and see my body and feel glad to be free of it.  I hope that’s not a sign of being suicidal or something.”

“
See, I’ve heard of that before,” Ibis said.

“
Yeah.”

“
Everybody’s heard of that.  Astral projection.”

“
Oh, come on.  Don’t tell me you’re all New Agey like that.”

“
Me?  I just said I’ve heard of it.  You’re saying you’re doing it.  If one of us is being New Agey, it ain’t me.”

“
Anyway, so I thought they were just dreams.  Then I tested it out with my friend Barb, and I could see what she was doing in the next room.  And then...” Cassidy hesitated, then decided to tell him. “Then I caught my boyfriend cheating on me.  And it turned out that was real, too.”

“
I bet he didn’t see that coming.” Ibis shook his head. “So that must have just happened this week.”

“
Couple days ago.  So don’t ever lie to me, Ibis, or I’ll figure it out.”

“
I’ll tell you as much truth as you’re willing to accept.”

Cassidy stopped walking. “What does that mean?”

“You can take a stroll outside your body,” he said. “What else?  Anything unusual?  Before the accident or after it?”

Cassidy shrugged. “I see things.  Little monsters in the air.  Bugs, worms...”

“You see how they feed on people?” he asked.

“
Yeah.  What?  You see them, too?” Cassidy stopped walking and gaped at him, suddenly more interested in him than ever.

“
I’ve come across them before,” Ibis said.

“
What are they?”

“
Just what they look like.  Little parasitic uglies that feed on us.”

“
What exactly are they feeding on?”

“
Leakage from our souls.  A little bit at a time.”

“
That sounds serious,” Cassidy said.  They reached the chain-link fence around the park pool.  Inside, kids were splashing and adults lounged on the chairs.  Cassidy could see a number of the transparent vermin in the air, large ones feeding on the adults, small ones circling the kids as though looking for a chance to bite.

“
Imagine each soul is a well of energy,” Ibis told her. “When we subordinate the soul to our lower urges and desires, we’re giving up power.  Energy leaks and they feed on it.  They prey on us.  Once you’ve got one feeding on you, it will invisibly push you to leak more energy.”

“
Not sure I’m following this, thanks.” Cassidy leaned her shoulder on the fence, happy for a short break.

“
People have weaknesses,” Ibis said. “Drug addiction, sex addiction...some people are addicted to greed or power.  Some are addicted to anger—they relish the false feelings of clarity and certainty that come with it.  Whatever it is, when you lower yourself to be guided by these things instead of by the light of your soul, power leaks out.  They gobble it up.”

“
Where do they come from?”

“
I’ve seen them described as ‘vermin that breed in the dark crevices of Hell, that claw up through the cracks in the world to feast upon live souls,’” Ibis told her. “The source was an excommunicated priest who died in a lunatic asylum in 1738, though, so I’m not sure how scientifically sound his information might have been.”

“
Hellbugs, then.”

Ibis laughed a little. “Hellbugs.”

“Where did you learn all this?” Cassidy looked up at him, which still felt odd.  With her height, she rarely looked up to anyone.

“
Just from reading books.”

“
That’s an odd way to learn things.”

“
I’m old-fashioned in some ways, and
very
old-fashioned in others,” Ibis said.

“
Does that mean you’re offended by the sight of a woman’s bare ankle?”

“
It depends on the ankle.  Who said we were stopping?  Let’s keep that leg moving.” Ibis let her hold onto his arm as he began walking.

“
We’d better turn back here, or we could get hit by golf balls,” she said. “Are all physical therapists also students of the occult?”

Ibis laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m lucky I got you, then.”

“
Not everything in the universe is luck,” Ibis said. “But most things are.”

“
I don’t like thinking all of this is real,” Cassidy said. “I liked the old way, when they were just dreams and hallucinations, and I could blot them out.”

“
Do you really know nothing about any of this?” He’d stopped walking under a large old magnolia and turned her to look at him.

“
What?  Why should I?” Cassidy asked.

“
You’ve never encountered anything unusual like this in your life?  Not until this month?”

“
No...well, not since I was sixteen.  And I don’t want to talk about that.  Now can we have a conversation that doesn’t involve Hell or demons or invisible bugs?”

“
Of course.  This is just one subject I’ve studied.”

“
What are some others?”

“
It’s a long list.  Cooking, for example.  There’s a skill that can never be perfected, only improved.  Like any art form.”

“
What do you cook?”

“
I dabble everywhere, I remix food,” he said. “But my own personal prejudice is that Moroccan cuisine is the best in the world.”

“
Why’s that?”

“
Moroccans know how to blend sweet and spicy and take it out to the very edge of the palate,” Ibis said. “We’re talking about saffron, cinnamon, garlic, orange-flower water—”

“
No, I meant why is that personal prejudice?  Are you from Morocco?”

“
I lived there for a while,” Ibis said. “The cities were beautiful, right on the ocean.”

“
Where are you from originally, then?”

“
A small place in Mali.”

“
Oh, Mali?  That’s in...” Cassidy struggled to remember.

“
West Africa, on the southern edge of the Sahara.”

“
Wow.” Cassidy was surprised to hear all of this. “You don’t really have an accent, though.  You sound like you’re from Iowa.”

“
Wherever I go, I mimic the language just as I hear it,” Ibis said. “So I absorb accents and inflections along with the words.”

“
You must be really good at that.”

“
I must be.” They reached the edge of the park where they’d started.

“
We’re done.” Cassidy sighed in relief, ready to plop into a chair and stay there for about ten hours.

“
Another lap around the park?” Ibis asked.

“
You’re kidding.  How about lunch?” Cassidy had some fresh cash from the previous night.  She’d had a couple of customers, including the fitness-center girl, who still wanted the hummingbird, but wanted to move it far inward from her hip, close to her pubic area, as “a surprise when I take my panties off.” Cassidy had tried to keep herself between the girl and curious male customers who just happened to drift by for a closer look.

“
Good food is an important part of healing, too,” Ibis said.

“
Let me shower and we’ll go to Ali Baba’s.  It’s right around the corner.  It’s not Moroccan, but it’s Middle Eastern.  They have amazing black bean hummus...everything’s good there.”

“
I’m sold.”

They crossed the street to her house.  Inside, Allie was awake in the living room working on a sculpture for her Art Institute class, dressed in a baggy t-shirt and boxer shorts swiped from one of her boyfriends, neither of whom were around at the moment.

Cassie introduced them to each other.

“
What are you making?” Ibis asked Allie.

“
It’s a holiday tree.  It’s not done, but...” Allie gestured at it and shrugged.

It was a plastic Christmas tree, about three feet high, hung with handmade decorations.  Four strands of lights blinked on and off in sequence—a red and green strand for Christmas, then a row of glowing Easter bunnies, a row of glowing American flags, a row of bright little jack-o’-lanterns.

The ornaments were spheres that were disproportionately large on the small tree, with windows cut out to reveal small dioramas inside.  In one sphere painted like an Easter egg, the window was shaped like a large crack.  Inside, a fuzzy Easter Bunny with wild eyes packed razor blades and dynamite into pastel eggs.  The next ornament held a plastic Santa and eight tiny reindeer flying against a starry backdrop.  On closer inspection, Santa aimed a shotgun over the bow of his sleigh, and the head of one reindeer head was exploding in a glob of blood-red clay.  Another showed a blood-spattered zombie Uncle Sam at a flag-draped podium, with the words
WE WANT YOU...TO DIE
painted in blood on the wall behind him.