Jenny Pox (The Paranormals, Book 1) (29 page)

“
Oh, sick,” one of the paramedics said. “What is wrong with you?”

“
I have the plague,” Jenny said. “It’ll kill you.  Stay there.”

Seth lay his hands on her father’s crushed body.  He pressed down and closed his eyes, and he concentrated.  In front of everyone, Darrell Morton’s crushed chest inflated as if filling with air.  Then his abdomen, with clicking and clacking sounds as his shattered ribs fit themselves back together.  Seth shuddered in the cold rain while his skin turned gray.  So did many strands of his hair.  His teeth gritted together in pain.  He pressed down harder.

The onlookers had stopped yelling at Jenny and begun staring at Seth.  The deputy, the paramedics, the farmers, the McNare family, Ashleigh and her parents, and Cassie and Neesha all stared as Darrell Morton’s ruined legs straightened, puffed up, and regained their natural shape inside his muddy jeans.  His left foot rotated and locked into place.

Jenny’s dad gave a long, loud groan, and Seth fell over and splashed into the mud.  Jenny hurried to Seth and pulled his torso into her lap and supported his head with her hand, since she couldn’t touch her dad at all.

Her dad coughed several times, then he sat up, blinking.  Gradually he stood, then stretched, as if his spine had been compacted a little.  Then he noticed that everyone was staring at him.

“
What happened?” he asked the crowd. 

“
That was a miracle,” Shannon McNare breathed. “Wasn’t it, Momma?  A real miracle from Jesus.” 

Most people looked to Dr. Goodling, but the preacher just stared at Jenny’s dad.  Slowly, he turned to look at Jenny, who sat in the red mud with Seth’s sickly, unconscious form laid out across her. 

“Witchcraft,” Ashleigh hissed, and that drew people’s attention.

“
What do you mean, Ashleigh?” Shannon asked.

“
Jenny Mittens used witchcraft to save her father.  Look, she sucked all the life out of Seth.”

The farmers looked to Dr. Goodling on this, but the preacher hadn’t gathered enough wits to talk.  He was just staring at Jenny and Seth, his expression unreadable.

“Would somebody just tell me what’s going on here?” Jenny’s dad asked.

“
Seth saved you,” Jenny said. “Now help me pick him up, Daddy.  We got to take care of him.”

Nobody moved while Jenny and her dad lifted Seth to his feet.  Seth roused a little.

“Sleep,” Seth moaned. “Food.”

“
Where’s your truck?” Jenny asked her dad.

“
This way,” he said. They carried Seth away across the field, supporting him on both sides.  Nobody else moved to help.  Nobody offered to give them a ride in one of the trucks.  They trudged across the field, through hail and rain and sucking mud, toward the McNare driveway where he’d parked the rusty old Ram that morning.  Her fingers and arms itched as the open sores closed themselves and were absorbed back into her skin.

***

At home, Jenny and her dad eased Seth out of the truck.  He was barely conscious and couldn’t walk without their help.  They trudged through the hail and mud, one step at a time.  Rocky yowled at them from the shed doorway.  His tail was wagging, but he was not coming outside in this weather.

“
Careful!” Jenny’s dad said as they reached the porch steps. “You’re touching him all over!”

“
I can touch him, Daddy.”  Jenny helped Seth raise a foot onto the first step. “He’s the only person.”

Her dad just looked exhausted.  They got Seth up the steps and into the house.  They brought him to Jenny’s room and laid him across her bed.  He was drenched and still gray, his eyes closed.

Her dad went to his room and brought a thermal undershirt, flannel pajama pants, a pair of wool socks.

“
I can take care of him,” Jenny said. “I left some chili on the stove.  Maybe you can save it.”

Her dad’s face looked drawn and tired as he stared at Seth.  Finally, he walked towards the kitchen, and Jenny closed the door behind him.

She pulled off Seth’s wet socks and touched his cold, damp feet.  She thought of what she was about to do, taking off everything, and she felt a little excited.  Then she felt guilty for feeling excited.

She pulled off his sweater and t-shirt, throwing everything onto her closet door to hang dry.  She unbuckled his belt, then hesitated a little, feeling her face turn warm, before she unzipped him and pulled off his mud-soaked jeans.  His shorts were plastered to his skin.  Those had to go, too.  She gently took them down, and she couldn’t help but look. 

That’s it, she thought.  That’s his dick.  She smiled.

Jenny found it easy to pull the wool socks down over his feet.  It was more of struggle to get the pajama pants on, but she eventually managed that.  His skin felt terribly icy to the touch, and his pulse was faint.

Jenny looked at him, then came up with another way to warm him up, the way you actually were supposed to do it when someone was freezing.  She made sure the door was closed and turned the lock as quietly as she could.  Then she stripped out of her own cold, sopping clothes, until she wasn’t wearing a stitch.  Jenny straddled Seth, as she had before giving him the pox-infested kiss.  Then she lay down on top of him, her bare chest on his, her face against his neck.  She pulled the blanket over her and wrapped it completely around them like a cocoon.

She laid her face against his and started kissing his cheek, then worked her way over to his lips.  She didn’t have any thought that the kissing would help him. It was completely selfish.  She wanted to touch him, she could touch him, and she had a lifetime of loneliness to make up for.

He awoke a little, and his hands found their way to her.

“
Jenny?” he whispered.

“
It’s me,” she whispered back. “Are you feeling better?”

“
Starting to,”  he said.  Then he slipped a hand into her wet hair and pulled her face down to him, so he could kiss her again.  She felt his skin grow warmer against hers.  His hands slid up to her breasts, and she shivered, and not just because his hands were cold.  His fingertips brushed her nipples, and she thought she would die of pleasure.

He grew hotter, recovering from the icy rain.  It was the second time her touch had ever helped anyone.

After a minute, one of his hands caressed its way down her back.  His eyes widened when he realized she was completely naked.  Jenny felt something stir and push against her thigh.

“
My dad’s in the next room,” she whispered. “And you need food.  You’ve had enough strain today.”

Jenny slid out from the covers and got to her feet.  Seth gazed at her.  His eyes seemed to tickle her, making her skin tingle wherever he looked. She wanted to giggle and cover herself, but she didn’t.  She kept her hands at her hips and let him see her.

“You know,” Seth said, “I could handle a little more strain…”

“
Ha.” Jenny slung the thermal shirt to him.  She dressed herself in dry jeans, sweatshirt, and gloves.  She scrubbed her hair with a towel, and watched herself in a mirror as she tied it back.  Seth came up behind her, dressed now, and wrapped his arms around her.  One hand just happened to land on her left breast, near her heart.  He kissed the side of her neck.  He was hard against the back of her jeans.

“
You better put that away,” Jenny said. “We’re fixing to have chili with my dad.”

“
Then give me one more.”  He turned her head and kissed her until Jenny’s dad knocked and announced they should come eat.

Some of the chili had scalded against the bottom of the pot, since Jenny hadn’t moved it from the hot burner in her panic to leave.  Her dad had salvaged most of it.  All three of them sat at the kitchen table with steaming bowls of venison chili in front of them.  Jenny was too nervous to eat with Seth so close to her.  Her dad stirred his chili again and again, looking somber.

Seth, on the other hand, tore through three full bowls of it, spooning it fast, not talking until he was full.

“
That was really good.” Seth sighed and leaned back. “Best chili I’ve ever had.  Thank you, Mr. Morton.”

“
Huh?” Jenny’s dad looked up.  His eyes were a thousand miles away. “Oh. Jenny made it.”  He went back to his slow stirring.

“
Really?” Seth looked at Jenny and raised his eyebrows a couple of time, which made her laugh. 

“
Jenny,” her dad said without looking up. “I think I died.”

“
Almost, Daddy,” Jenny said. “Seth brought you back and healed you up.  So, can I date him now?”

He raised his eyes to look at Seth, who was scraping his spoon around the bowl for stray sauce.

“How’d you do that?” he asked Seth.

“
I always could,” Seth said. “Whenever I touch people.  They just heal.” He dropped the spoon in the bowl. “I’ve never done it like that, where everyone could see it.  It’s always been secret.”

“
He’s just like me, Daddy,” Jenny said. “He’s my opposite.”

“
Healing.” Her dad shook his head. He lifted out a spoonful of chili and tilted it, letting it drizzle back into the bowl. “That sounds a lot more useful than what you got.”

“
I don’t know,” Seth said. “You should have seen Jenny today.  She was ferocious.”

Jenny rolled that word in her mind a little.  Ferocious.  She liked it.

“I do thank you, Seth,” he said. “I guess there’s no way I can ever repay you.” His eyes shifted to Jenny. “And I guess I know what you want for it.”

“
Daddy, don’t say it like that!” Jenny said.

Her dad looked at Seth a long time.  Seth straightened up in his chair, aware he was being inspected.

“You just be good to her,” Jenny’s dad told Seth. “You treat her like she ought to be treated.”

“
I will, sir,” Seth said.

Jenny’s dad set his spoon down in his chili.  He looked very tired.

“Jenny, can you clean up?” he asked. “I think I need to go to the bed for a while.”

“
Sure, Daddy!  I’ll take care of everything.”

“
I guess you already did.” He stood and walked back to his room, shaking his head.  He closed the door behind him.

“
Good-night, Daddy!  I love you,” Jenny said.  She took Seth’s hand.  Their fingers curled together.  She looked at him, and she couldn’t stop smiling.

Seth’s parents returned to Florida the day after New Year’s.  Until then, he could only sneak out to see Jenny for a couple hours at a time.  When they talked on the phone, Seth sometimes had to pretend he was talking to Ashleigh instead of Jenny, if his parents were around.  He had told Jenny about his father’s decree.  He’d also called the phone company and blocked Ashleigh’s cell and home numbers from his home phone, as well as Cassie and Neesha’s numbers, to reduce any chance Ashleigh would talk to his parents and give the game away.  Jenny couldn’t wait for the Barretts to go back to Florida.  Jenny had thought Seth’s dad was nice, since he’d covered for Jenny at the party, but apparently he was a real tyrant in his own way.

Jenny drove the Lincoln, which she hadn’t yet returned to Merle, up the wide brick driveway, past the old dogwoods.  Last time, she’d been scared to make this drive up to the house.  Today, she was giddy.

There was no valet service this afternoon, but Seth directed her down a side spur of the driveway so she could park in front of the four-car garage, which was as wide as her entire house.  He opened her car door for her and held out his arm, which she accepted.

The door in the garage led to something Seth called “the mud room,” where apparently you took off your dirty shoes and raincoats to hang them up.  There was a big laundry room here, too, and a narrow staircase to the upper floors.

 
Another door took them through a pantry, where there was a deep freezer as tall as Jenny’s waist, and into the kitchen.  Jenny stared at the vast sub-zero refrigerator, the vistas of tiled countertop.  All the cabinets looked antique, with elaborately molded door pulls, but the appliances were sleek and black, with digital touch screens.

“
Is this where you’ll be cooking for me?” Jenny asked.

“
No, I promised you a
nice
dinner,” Seth told her. “I’m having something delivered later.”

“
Oh, just having something delivered, huh?” It sounded like an insane luxury to Jenny, though they had ordered pizza a few times, on special occasions like her birthday.

“
Until then,” he said. “What do you want to do?  The place is ours.”

Jenny liked the sound of that.

“Just show me around,” she said. “So I don’t get lost in here.”

Seth took her to the dining room, where the table seated twenty-four, and big portraits of Colonel Ezra Barrett and Jon Seth Barrett I glared down from either side of the massive brick fireplace.  They crossed the receiving hall, the scene of Jenny’s latest humiliation by Ashleigh.  There was also a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and its own fireplace, and probably the only antique chairs in the house that actually looked comfortable.  There was a billiards room.  There was the office, which was frightening and sad at the same time, with all the dead animals.  The whole house was dark, not only because of all the black and brown wood, and the dour paintings and photographs, but also because the windows were narrow and stingy. If they had intended to create an oppressive, melancholy home, the designers had succeeded.