pure chemistry
Jael stares at the chemistry worksheet in front of her. Symbols and initials that somehow relate to the periodic table squat on the page, silent and unhelpful. All around her, she hears the scratch of pens on paper. Her own pen is poised in the air, ready to begin a flurry of scrawling at any moment. It's been that way for half the class period.
All night she kept having this strange… well, "dream" isn't exactly the right word for it. It was more like a memory. But not hers. Her father's? She barely recognized him. And was that her mother that she saw? It seems too much to hope for. One thing she's sure of, the dream has something to do with the necklace. She woke up with the jewel clenched so tight in her fist that her knuckles were white.
"Okay, class," says Ms. Randolph, the chemistry teacher. Ms. Randolph should be in some research lab exploring cuttingedge discoveries instead of teaching basic concepts to unwilling teenage captives. She even looks a little like a mad scientist, with dark, pouchy eyes and wild orange corkscrew hair. "You may use the second half of the class period to finish up the worksheet with a partner."
"Need help, Betty?" asks Rob, sliding into the chair across from her at the black wooden lab table.
"In so many ways," says Jael.
"How was your b-day?"
"It was pretty crappy. But I did get a cool birthday present."
"Yeah? What?"
"Oh…," says Jael. "It's… a necklace."
"Awesome," says Rob. His eyes search her neckline. "So… where is it?"
"Um." Jael's hand goes unconsciously to her throat. "I'm not really wearing it. Yet. At least… uh…"
"Sorry," says Rob. "I don't mean to be all up in your business or anything. If you don't want to tell me…"
"No, no, it's not a huge deal," says Jael. "I mean, it is, but… well, my dad gave me this necklace that belonged to my mom. And, uh, I've never had anything of hers before. So it's… I don't know. Pretty intense for me. And I guess… it reminds him a lot of her. So he doesn't want me to wear it."
"Wow," says Rob. "So he must be still totally in love with her after all these years, huh?"
"Huh," says Jael. "Maybe you're right." The idea takes her by surprise. What if the reason he never talks about her mother isn't because he's ashamed of her or what she was. Maybe he's just brokenhearted. Maybe he loved her mother so much that he'll never get over it. And while it sucks that Jael gets the short end of that stick, it also strikes her as kind of romantic, in that sad, emo sort of way.
"Hello?" says Rob. "Bets?"
"Sorry," says Jael. "Just spaced out for a second."
"Did you eat breakfast today? Because, you know, I used to skip breakfast all the time, but then I started getting these dizzy spells and…"
His expression is so sincere that she laughs.
"What?" he asks.
"How about you help me with this chem stuff," she says.
"Right, right, right. Lock and load." He leans over and scans her worksheet.
"Why do you always say that?" Jael asks. "'Lock and load.'"
"Huh?" He looks up at her, his blond bangs flopping into his eyes. He brushes them aside. "Oh, just my little thing that helps me get my game face on."
"Your game face? For chem?"
"When I'm in the zone, it all makes sense. But the problem is, I get easily distracted."
"ADD or something?"
He shrugs. "Whatever you want to call it. I don't do diagnosis and meds. It's my thing to deal with and I'll deal with it."
"That makes sense."
Rob gives her a grin. Then he nods to her worksheet. "So, like, Bets. It looks like you don't have any answers written down."
"That's why you're here." She smiles and pats the worksheet.
"Come on. You gotta try, at least."
"Rob, seriously. I just don't get it."
"You have to get excited about it, that's all."
"Excited? About chemistry? I mean, I appreciate it in theory; it makes medicine and things like that. But calculations with the periodic table, not so much."
"That's not really what I mean," says Rob. "That stuff is cool and all, but what I'm talking about is… well, it's kinda like magic."
"Magic?" Her heart skips a beat. "Uh, what do you mean?"
"Okay"-Rob holds up his hand-" I can see you're totally sketched out. I know it sounds hokey or whatever…"
"No, I'm interested," says Jael. "Trust me."
"All right," says Rob. "Well, you know, back in the day, there were these people. Sorcerers, witches, shamans, and what-not, who thought they were making magic potions. But what they were really doing was chemistry. They just didn't fully understand it." As he continues to talk, his eyes get bright and his usual grin widens into something open and boyishly excited. "They'd mix this frog skin with that leaf, and poof, it cured some disease. They thought it was the prayers they were saying or the spirit of the lizard or whatever that did it. But it was actually the chemical reaction between the skin and the leaf."
"I can kind of see that…," says Jael. "So magic is really just science we don't understand yet?"
"Exactly!" says Rob, excited in a way that Jael's never seen before. "And, and, and-there's still so much that we don't understand. Fifty years ago, we hadn't even mapped the genome. I mean, what's it going to be like fifty years from now? Theories as big as a multiverse or as small as subatomic particles? We just have no idea! We can't even imagine!"
"So… do you think this is just about potions, or could it be other kinds of stuff? Like…" She can't bring herself to look at him as she asks the next part, so she picks at the hem of her skirt. "You know, like, uh… I don't know… magic talismans. Or, I don't know… magic people?"
"You know what I think?" asks Rob, and his voice is so quiet yet so raw that her eyes are drawn back to him. "I think that all these barriers we put up between us and what we believe is impossible. It's all bullshit. Like putting on blinders. Because we're scared."
"Of what?"
"Of what we're capable of. You know?"
"I…" She doesn't want to be scared. She wants to feel the open excitement she sees in Rob's eyes instead. A slow blush creeps up onto her face, but she forces herself to keep looking at him. "I don't know if I get what you're saying. But I really want to."
His smile is like the sun after a storm.
"Cool," he says. "Now, seriously. Let's lock and load."
? ? ?
"And that was it?" demands Britt. "Then he just started doing the chem worksheet?" There's a mound of little white packets of Parmesan cheese next to her plate, and she begins slowly, methodically tearing them open and dumping them on her spaghetti noodles until the powdery white cheese sits like a tiny Mount Rainier.
"Yep," says Jael. She stirs the dry, orange spaghetti noodles on her plate without much interest. "Not another word about anything other than the periodic table."
"Boys," Britt says. She twirls a big mound of spaghetti on her fork and takes a bite. Then she says, "I never pegged Rob for one of those New Age freaks, though."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, you know. Those hippie types that believe in magic crystals and shit." She wiggles her fingers at Jael, like she's casting a spell.
"Yeah…" Jael gives a forced little laugh. "Pretty weird."
"And totally a sin."
"Right," Jael says.
Religion is the one topic that Jael and Britt don't really talk about. Despite the fact that Britt hooks up with boys on a regular basis, she is hard-core Catholic. Obviously, that would kind of conflict with Jael's parentage.
"But he's totally cute. And super sweet," Britt adds quickly. She stirs the mound of Parmesan into her noodles for a moment and a frown starts to wrinkle her pale forehead.
"How's, uh… what's his name? Varsity noseguard guy," Jael asks.
"James Gregory?"
"Yeah, him."
"Douche."
"Whoa, what? I thought you liked him."
"I did until yesterday after school when he told me he couldn't take me out anymore because he was getting too much shit from the rest of his team. But get this: He said we could still fool around if I want."
"He actually said that?"
"Yeah."
"Britt… I'm sorry. That's really shitty. He sounds like an idiot. You deserve way better."
"Yeah," says Britt without much enthusiasm. But then she takes a deep breath and works her face back into something that looks kind of like a smile. "So what about you? How was your night? My mom was hogging the phone, talking to some guy from Chicago. So what was that 'We Have to Talk' note all about?"
Jael gives a bitter little laugh. "That's funny. I kind of forgot about the note. But what's even funnier is that we hardly talked at all."
"Well what did happen?! You're killing me here!"
"Um… he just gave me this necklace from my mom."
"Oh my God, that's amazing!" Britt says. "I bet it's gorgeous! So where is it? Why aren't you wearing it?"
"He said I can't wear it."
"What? He is such an asshole!" She looks pissed, like she's the one being banned from wearing it. "Did he say why?"
"Not really," says Jael. "I guess I didn't really give him the chance."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, when he said that, I kind of flipped out and told him to go to hell."
"Damn right!" Britt says. "You go."
"Yeah," Jael says. "I went."
"J, I am so proud of you for sticking up for yourself, finally. How does it feel? I bet it feels amazing."
"I definitely feel… I don't know… different," says Jael.
"Talking to boys, standing up to your dad." Britt reaches across the table and squeezes her arm. "You keep up this momentum. I can just feel it, J. This is going to be your year."
? ? ?
The next class period is canceled for the All-School Mass in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Jael isn't an expert on saints, but this particular one was permanently burned into her brain when she was little. Her father bought her a picture book called The Life of Saint Francis. Saint Francis was this rich guy who gave up everything, including his clothes, then ran around naked in the forest with the animals. She still remembers page seventeen, which showed Saint Francis's naked ass as he preached in front of a small cluster of animals. The picture embarrassed her so much that she shoved the book up on the highest level of her bookshelf. But that night, she couldn't stop thinking about it. She wanted to make sure that she really did see it. So once her father was asleep, she took it to bed with her, pulled the covers over her head, turned on her flashlight, and stared at the drawing of a naked saint in the woods exposing himself to a bunch of animals in a book that her father had bought in a religious bookstore. To this day, whenever anyone mentions Saint Francis, she thinks of that picture.
The chapel takes up an entire wing of the school and looks even more gloomy and gothic than the rest of the building. The tall stained-glass windows don't let in much light and the slick slate floor seems to hold a lingering chill. At the far end is a massive crucifix with a statue of a bleeding, nearly naked Jesus, suspended by thick chains over a simple stone altar.
Despite being half demon, Jael doesn't mind Mass. For one thing, she hopes that it chills out any weird demon stuff that might creep up in her. But probably even more important, it's just always been one of the few constants in her life. For about an hour, she knows exactly what's going to happen and how she's supposed to respond. When the priest gets to the middle of Mass, she's down on the hard kneelers, staring at nothing, muttering the Nicene Creed along with every other student in the school. She's reached that mental place of absolute zone-out, totally on autopilot as she mutters, "We believe in one God, the Almighty Father, maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen…."
Then she smells something burning.
She looks around, but none of the altar servers are burning incense. And anyway, it's not that spicy sweet smell. This is more like a fireplace mixed with melting plastic. Other people start shifting around in their seats, and someone behind her coughs.
"Your bag," hisses Britt next to her. "It's something in your bag."
Jael looks down and sees a tendril of smoke curling out from under the flap of her messenger bag. She doesn't know what's going on in there, but she's sure that she doesn't want to deal with it in the middle of All-School Mass. She grabs her bag, climbs over Britt and out into the aisle, then heads toward the exit at the back of the chapel.
"Miss Thompson," says Father Aaron as he holds up a hand to stop her, a frown beneath his walrus mustache.
"Sorry, Father," she mutters. "Female trouble."
He flinches and immediately steps aside. It's a cheap shot, but as long as she uses it sparingly, it's always effective.
Once she's out of the chapel, she sprints down the main hallway of the school and into the bathroom. She checks the stalls to make sure no one is hiding out, then she dumps everything from her bag onto the floor. She swats away a puff of smoke and scans the contents.
She sees her necklace first and grabs it. She should have left it at home. What was the point of carrying it around with her if she couldn't wear it? But moments before she left that morning, she changed her mind and shoved it in her bag anyway.
She examines it carefully now, but it seems fine. Then she looks down at the rest of the stuff and sees a roughly circular shape burned into her history textbook. It's still smoking a little, and the edges of the hole glow orange. She kneels down and flips through the book. It's one of those thick, five-hundred-page monsters, and the hole goes down to about page three hundred, with brown scorch marks another twenty pages deep.
She hurriedly spreads out the rest of the things in her bag. A few of the pens are halfway melted, a notebook is a little crispy at one edge, and her lip gloss is destroyed, but the history book seems to have absorbed most of the damage.
But damage from what?
She stands up and nervously rubs her thumb across her necklace. She notices tiny black bits stuck to some of the chain links and she absently begins to pick them off. Then she realizes that they look like burned paper. She looks back at the history book. She kneels down again and holds the gem over the hole. It fits perfectly.
She slowly stands up and stares at the gem. Deep in the center, she can just make out an angry red pulse.
"What are you?" she says. "Where did you come from?"
The pulse grows larger until the entire gem flashes red in slow, regular beats. She sees a slight movement in the center, and a sickening fear shoots up through her stomach. Not now. Not here in the school restroom, in the middle of the day….
That weightless vertigo feeling hits again and she finds herself somewhere else. But it's not like anyplace she's ever seen. It appears to be a cavern about the size of a football field. The ceiling is ridged with off-white, curved beams-like being inside a giant rib cage. Six-foot-high gray stalagmites protrude from the ground in regular intervals. She can't tell if they're made of stone, wood, or bone. Balanced on top of each one is a crab shell the size of a car. Some of the shells are mottled with red and orange, others with green and blue. All of them leak thick black smoke and sprout tongues of flame. Something like grease drips from them and runs down the sides of the pillars.
Then she hears heavy footsteps accompanied by a dry, scraping sound. A figure roughly the shape of a person, but more than eight feet tall and massively built, walks down the line of shells, its face hidden in shadow. For a moment Jael panics, thinking it will see her. But then she remembers that it's just like last night. Even though it all seems so real, she's not really there.
The creature shuffles down the line of columns, stopping at each one to examine the giant crab shell on top. It pokes a stick of some kind into one of the shells, and she hears screams and whimpers in response. As the creature gets closer, she sees that what she thought was clothing or armor is actually fish scales covering its entire body. The scales are yellow and have a sickly, dried-out look. The creature's thick arms stretch out to either side, ending in thin, curved claws.
The fish creature uses the stick to lift up the top half of one of the shells. A puff of black smoke escapes, followed by something fast and wriggling. The creature slams the shell back down, trapping whatever it is back inside. Then it stands there for a moment, staring at the closed, smoking shell. It scratches its hairless, earless head with one claw.
Then it turns suddenly and looks directly at Jael with black, impenetrable sharklike eyes.
A pathetic little squeak of fright escapes from Jael's throat.
"Well, well, well," the creature growls in a voice like sandpaper. "It looks like you're more clever than your father thinks."
It smiles. Cracked fish lips stretch wide, showing rows of needle teeth as long as her fingers.
"He won't give you the answers you need. When you're ready for the truth, use the necklace to call me. Just call for Dagon…."
The hard heat of the cavern drops away and she is left huddled on the bathroom floor, shaky and cold. But the visions of that place and that creature still fill her mind. It's all she can do to keep from hyperventilating.
The door opens.
"Jael?"
Ms. Spielman. Jael hears the soft clack of her sandals coming closer. Ms. Spielman kneels down next to her.
"Jael, what's wrong?"
Jael looks back at her with wild, frightened eyes. "I don't know," she manages to say in a halting whisper. Then a strange laugh bubbles out for a moment before she's able to stop it. "I don't know."
"Okay, Jael, you're okay," says Ms. Spielman in a voice as soft and soothing as honey. It helps a little. "I'm here. What can I do to help?"
"Don't… t-t-tell my dad about this," Jael says.
"About?…" says Ms. Spielman. Then she notices the burned history book. "What happened?" she asks, unable to keep the shock out of her voice.
Jael says nothing.
"Okay, well, forget it for now," says Ms. Spielman, her voice back to soothing sweetness. Almost singsong. She places her cool, soft hand on Jael's cheek and smiles at her. "Why don't we get ourselves together a little, huh? Put your necklace back on and we'll clean up the rest of your stuff."
"It wasn't…," Jael begins. But if she puts the necklace back in her bag, it could start burning things again. She's already come this far; she might as well go all the way. So she holds the chain up in both hands and slowly puts it over her head. The gem rests against her chest and feels so nice on her skin that she lets out a quiet sigh.
"Feel better?" asks Ms. Spielman.
Jael nods.
Then the two of them gather up Jael's stuff in silence and put it back into her bag.
"Jael, I have to get to my next class," says Ms. Spielman. "But I think Father Ralph has this period free. Would you like to talk to him for a bit?"
"Okay," she says. She feels like she has to talk to somebody. And Father Ralph might actually be the perfect person.
? ? ?
Jael slouches in a neon-green IKEA chair in Father Ralph Frizetti's office. Father Ralph is the youngest of the three priests and he does his best to make both education and Catholicism as accessible and hip as possible. But he tries a little too hard to "keep it real," as he says. He always wears the regular priestly black with the white collar, but he also wears a funky cartoon character belt buckle, as if to let students know that he can be fun, too. And the single hoop earring and scruffy hipster beard just don't look right on him. But at least Jael can relate to him. Unlike the drill sergeant Father Aaron or the saintly Mons, Father Ralph just seems like a regular person who happens to be a priest.
Father Ralph leans back on the edge of his desk, scratching his beard thoughtfully. They've been sitting like this for more than five minutes in complete silence. But if Father Ralph is getting impatient, he doesn't show it.
At last, feeling like an idiot but not knowing any other way to start, Jael says, "Father, do you believe in… uh, supernatural stuff?"
He looks surprised by the question. "Well, Jael, yes, as a matter of fact, I do."
"Really?"
"I believe that God counts as supernatural."
"Oh," says Jael. "What about… magic?"
"I prefer the word 'miracle.'"
"Right," says Jael, her faint hope of real communication with Father Ralph already starting to fade. She gives it one last try. "What about stuff like evil spirits and, uh… demons?"
He looks at her for a long time, like he's trying to figure out if she's messing with him. Eventually he says, "Well, in a way, I do."
"In a way?"
"Hell isn't a place, you know."
"It isn't?"
"No, it's a state of mind. A state of being. Hell is the absence of God."
"Okay…"
"So, technically, you don't even have to be dead to be in Hell."
"You don't?"
"Nope. You just have to have alienated yourself from God to the point where you no longer see Him or feel Him in your heart."
"Uh-huh," says Jael. She doesn't like how he's trying to maneuver the conversation. "And do you feel Him in your heart, Father?" she asks with maybe a little snottiness.
He pauses for a second, adjusting his SpongeBob Square-Pants belt buckle, then smiles and says, "Of course. Now, the question is, Jael, do you?"
"Look, Father. It's all kind of complicated for me. You know, there's a lot of… family history."
"Your father has made his doubts about the Church known to the rest of the faculty. Doubt is healthy, and it's only natural for you to begin to explore similar questions."
"Okay, but what if some things in the Bible were… wrong. You know? Like what if demons weren't really… evil? At least, not all of them."
"Well, Jael, I don't really believe in demons."
"Okay, so you think they're just a state of mind, too?"
"Well," says Father Ralph, rolling his eyes. "Some of the older members of our faculty would disagree with me, but the way that I interpret scripture is that Satan is not an actual person who walks and talks and creeps into your room at night to tempt you into doing evil things. Satan, demons, and all of those scary things are merely symbols of the weakness within us. Our human weakness that comes from Original Sin. We separate it from ourselves and give it the label of Satan, or monster, or any number of things. But Satan is no more real than, say, Superman. They're both icons that we, as members of this society, all identify with because they reflect something about ourselves. We are all a little bit like Superman. And we are all a little bit like Satan, too." He smiles a little smugly, probably thinking he's picked a good comparison. Then he glances at the burgundy gem around Jael's neck.
"Wow," he says. "That's a very pretty necklace."
"Thanks," says Jael. "I think it might be from Hell."