Page 34 of The Sinner and the Scholar
The urge to fight builds like a volcano about to erupt.
Shame, shame, little Sinner. We all know what’s troubling you.
Fuck off.
You’re afraid you have nothing to offer. I’ll tell you a secret. It’s because you don’t. Wesley knows you’re a whore. It’s why he walked away from you in the library. That gift is a ploy. You’re nothing but dirt beneath his boots.
My prayers falter.
Shame, shame, little Sinner. Why would a good man want to make a home with a whore?
That’s where the evil presence lost me. Calling me a whore won’t hurt my feelings. That’s not the darkness I run from.
“Fucking amateur,” I mock, and realize my mouth is moving. I’m breaking free.
There’s not much point, little Sinner. You’re already spreading your rot. I can smell the pestilence on you. The sickness inside. Just let me in, and we can help each other. I can ease your suffering.
Lies. I double down on the prayers despite feeling underwater. Just when I think I’m about to suffocate in evil, its hold on me breaks. I wrench myself free from the malevolent force and topple from the cot—oof—and land hard on the floor. The gospel hits me on the head.
Groggy and grasping my forehead, I check the window. I can’t see properly, so I fumble for my spectacles on the nightstand and put them on. The curtain’s not blowing. The window isn’t even open. The shadows are just shadows.
Just a dream.A night terror. My mind has been filled with prophecy and hormones and gifts. As the dream evil spirit alluded, a tiny kernel of longing had bloomed in my chest. I see that now. I used to dream of an all-consuming love like in my old novels. Of making a home with someone who cared for me and wanted me. Dreams that sharp and deep never leave—they just get covered by the weight of judgment.
You’re safe.
Prue’s voice whispers from the recess of my memory. The ghost of her hand smooths my head, just like it did when I puked in that alley, and I smile. She was right. I might never have that home with a picket fence—the one with a banquet table where children play beneath—but I have my Sinner sisters.
You’re safe.
Yeah, I fucking am. And I owe it to these women to make them feel the same. I rip the charm from my neck and check the manuscript for damage. The book is open to a page I haven’t read yet. Sometimes I feel like the blank pages are changing. I swear I would have noticed this one. The style of illustration is remarkably feminine and grotesque all at once. I run my finger over the picture of an upside-down crucifix and tilt my head. It’s not Christ on the cross, but a figure shrouded in veils and rags, their identity hidden. Next to the cross are five demons whispering in the figure’s ears. Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death… the final demon is Lilith.
Whimpering behind me.
I slam the book shut and hide it under the cot.
“Prue.” I get to my knees and lean over her bed. She’s facing away from me, hunched. I shake her shoulder. Hot. Sweaty. Is she sick?
“Prue, wake up.”
The whimpering stops. Time dies. No babies are born. No breaths are taken. No world spins. And in that tiny moment, a switch flips on my instincts.Danger. I jolt back and narrowly avoid clawed fingers reaching for me. She snarls and gnashes yellow diseased teeth. Black holes for eyes. Rotting skin with oozing pustules.
Not Prue.
Definitely not Prue.
A sick, foul stench follows her as she lurches from the cot and moves toward me on disjointed hands and knees. Her voice is not of this earth, and vitriol spews forth in another language. The logical part of my mind tries to shout that it recognizes words from my studies, but the irrational part I work so hard at smothering takes over.
Fear grips me.
This was sleeping next to me for half the night.
I scramble to my feet and into the hallway, shutting the door behind me. Prue hits the other side with a loud, thundering bang.Silence. Swallowing hard, I grip the doorknob, ready for the fight of my life, but Prue doesn’t turn it. Maybe she can’t. Maybe because a demon has control of her body. I try to pull that logical part back to the forefront.
Possession.
Find something holy. Something blessed.
I scan the closed doors in the long, silent hallway. An old wooden chair sits at the end against the wall beneath a portrait of the Madonna and the baby Jesus. I race to collect the chair, then wedge it under the doorknob, unsure whether it will hold. At the very least, it will slow Prue down if she trips over it.
