Soul

Author's note: This chapter is NOT a stand-alone...The story starts here.

Francine

There is no end to the cleaning three females can conjure up to do, when they feel their entire self-worth is about to be evaluated in terms of it. I am not exaggerating. The fact that Francine will appear tonight and they are responsible for my wellbeing is enough to create the madness that has taken hold. I have decided that the only safe place to be, is in Aina’s room. The other three were told by Aina to stay out of it.

I can’t even venture into my work area, except to grab a device or two. The three have deemed that a major disaster zone. The fact that I have lived in this house for almost two decades, without them, makes no difference. They are the current responsible parties.

And so here I sit, on Aina’s bed. Aina is here and not here at the same time. The task she gave herself, and which I enlarged upon, is both complex and vast. By adding the schools, the numbers exploded.

She has been using a fairly simplistic method of searching out the establishments. It has been both time consuming and tedious. The problem arises is that in many locales, almost all schools are church schools. It has meant turning entire national younger female populations into horny nymphs.

That was not my original intention. Luckily Aina is not at the implementation phase yet and so a retooling is called for and timely.

I suggest we limit the schools to ones connected to convents, whereby we might well see the postulants and novices being groomed. Simple Catholic schools in communities that more rightly are replacements for public education we will leave alone.

That puts Aina back on the track of finding convents. I can help with that, and gathering a notebook from my work area, I have assembled lists of various orders with address locations for each, merged them into one database and run a sort to extract the latitude and longitude for each. By using the coordinates for the Vatican as “home”, I produce a table for convents in terms of proximity to Rome.

Aina has that list now, but before she acts on it, I suggest she use a method whereby she only needs to ‘contact’ one or two individuals at each location. By having the ‘condition’ spread a little like a virulent common cold, or precisely like a computer virus that calls back to a server for instructions, she should get good coverage with far less effort on our end.

But that causes a problem with unwanted contagion outside the walls of those places. I suggest that her virus ‘test’ for fervency of belief. We will still see contagion, but only of the true believers. I can’t think of a more wicked and better measure.

The result is a winnowing down of the list of all contacts from tens of thousands to fewer than two thousand.

We decide to limit the first day to those within 500km radius of the Vatican, but that list is also pretty large, so we narrow it down further to 250km today and 250km tomorrow.

It will give the sense of growth over time, or a natural spread.

Hun, what is the effective life of the ‘infection’?

Make the infection end when the female hits menopause.

Really?

Aina? Is there a problem?

Do you have any idea what you will be doing to those women?

Yes, I think I do. You think they will be wandering the streets looking for cock.

Yes!

I think they will cloister themselves and do each other repeatedly and with abandon. There will be nothing else for them to do. Shakespeare’s saying, ‘get thee to a nunnery’ will be forever the true meaning henceforth. The church will not have a clue how to deal with it. Parents will do all they can to keep their daughters from falling into the religious doctrine.

But the older ones will age out or never become infected. And what of those who at some point lose their fervent belief?

Yes, some will lose it, but that’s just how it must be. The older ones will be ministering, so to speak, to the ones infected.

This is going to be an international crisis. How long before we see it on the news?

I don’t know if we will ever see it. The church will do everything it can to keep this under wraps.

Can they do that?

For those inside the Church, yes, they can. I don’t think you understand how powerful they are. I am not sure about those outside, but I suspect the church will quickly develop an active outreach service and bring those infected inside their walls. If they don’t, I suspect there will be a shit storm of anger against them in the greater public sphere.

But your son, he will know something is happening?

Yes, he will know.

Good, I thought so.

You are angry with him.

He killed me.

Yes, I see. You mean he killed Joana.

Yes! I will make him eternally sorry he did that.

But he must not know it was you!

You will tell him after Aina dies. Then he will know. And there will be nothing he can do to me.

And so, like I said above, I am sitting on the bed with Aina, but Aina is elsewhere. I am surfing my logs as best I can from a laptop. I see that there is a problem that has cropped up. There are, of course, a number of bishoprics that have fallen vacant, but no one wants to fill those seats. Two men have resigned the clergy rather than be forced to take those chairs.

No one knows what has happened to the bishops who all appear to be catatonic. For that very reason, no one wants to be the next. I suspect that talk of a ‘Master’ is circulating, making matters worse.

While I was grabbing the laptop. I also grabbed a tablet and have configured it for Amelae’s mom. I venture out to speak with Edgar, who is on duty as a guard to the property, and ask him to arrange for the delivery of the unit.

Here I am taking care of one woman, while Aina is dealing with thousands. It is an odd turn of events. It occurs to me that I have some errands I can run while the hubbub in the house continues. I will return for supper.

It has been days since I ventured out of the house. Granted there have been many times prior to these girls living with me when I was at home for a week or two at end without venturing forth. This doesn’t feel like a jail break for that reason. However, now that they are here, I sense that they see it as their jobs to fetch what is needed. Will they panic if they realize I am not at home?

It takes a few hours for the first text to display on my phone. It is from Erlyn, and it simply says,

where r u?

I answer,

shopping.

I get nothing back. Erlyn is hardly a girl who will give me any grief.

Two hours later, Mirafe texts,

when u back?

I answer with the non-answer,

when I am done.

But Mirafe isn’t having any of that.

When that?

Mirafe, I will be home for supper, OK?

Sige, sige. No more girls, OK?

Now that makes me laugh.

Mirafe, I am not looking for any more girls. Relax.

Sige na. OK.

I hear laughing in my head. Aina seems to be getting a kick out of this. Hun, I am done for today. It will take a while for the symptoms to manifest broadly inside each community.

Aina, I was thinking. Please find the maker of electric massagers that function as dildos.

Why?

I want you to put a concept in their heads to make a dildo in the basic shape of a cross. The long end having the rounded tip and the dial in the middle of the cross.

That’s evil! That will just make them hornier! So…Hun, can I play with this and add some features?

Sure, what do you have in mind?

A cross that plays a Gregorian chant as you pump it. Three sizes of Dildos, Postulant, Novice and Nun. Speeds from “Seeking Solace,” midway at “Seeing Angels,” all the way to “Holy Rapture.” A package containing the cross and Rosary ben-wa balls!

Works for me. Sure.

So are you really going to stress these girls out more and not return until supper?

Oh, they will live through this. All I did was leave the house.

Yes, and without them.

They leave the house without me. What’s the difference?

To me, nothing. But they are coming apart with unreasonable worry.

They need to get over it. I am not going to be a hostage in my own home because the girls need me there.

OK, I will explain that to them. Maybe it will help. So see you by six?

Yes.

At six, I walk into the dining room and no one even notices me. They are all there, but their attention is affixed to Francine. And so I stand back, in the shadows, watch, listen, and learn.

All are of course, without clothing, and that goes for Francine too. Mirafe wants to know if I really have never had sex with my daughter. Clearly there is nothing wrong with the girl, and I required her to be naked.

Francine answers her and I think ends the matter effectively. I have always been this way in our home. There never was a time when I wore clothing. Dad raised me this way from the very beginning. Being without clothing has nothing to do with sex. If you ask me, women look better, sexier, with clothing. When you are without clothing, you are just you. There is no hiding.

But your dad wears clothing.

Yes and when I was growing up that didn’t really click for me. But you know, he is Master and he does hide things. He hides things from all of us. So I guess it is as it should be. Sometimes I wondered if he hid things from my mother. Since she died when I was born, there was no way for me to know. … Aina, how can you say you knew my mother? You told that to me over Skype, but I thought then, OK maybe she just looks young. We are the same age. She died before you were born.

May I tell her, Hun?

You know I am here?

Yes of course. May I tell her?

Yes, go ahead. She needs to know.

Francine, your mother was supposed to die when you were born, but Master got very angry with the doctors and took your mother to a place where she was neither dead, nor alive. That is why you never went to her grave. There is none.

So Mom is not dead?

She died last week.

What!?... Wait! Is that why he refused to be with any other woman for all these years?

Yes. I think so. In his heart he was still married to your mother. You look just like her. You know that, right?

No, she was beautiful. I am not.

There are a few differences, but you look like her. Every moment your father sees you, he is also seeing her. He couldn’t, wouldn’t walk away from you or her. His love is too strong.

He never tells me he loves me! He refuses.

He was trying to protect his heart. He failed at that. Maybe when you see him again, you will get a different answer. I don’t know. I do know he loves you.

What happened last week?

I died.

What?

Aina demanded Master take her soul.

And he obviously did! You are here and quite alive.

No, Francine, that Aina really and truly believed in Jesus. Your father told her to leave. She refused. She demanded he take her. He told her she would not survive the attempt, but she demanded it anyway.

Oh no! Did you understand that Master must take the soul of someone who demands it?

Aina was told that. Yes and she demanded it yet again. And so in the attempt, Aina, the person, died. Her mind shattered. Her memories remained. Master kept her heart pumping and her lungs taking air. Without that, she would have perished completely. He reached out to Joana, and tried to bring her back in Aina’s body. He was able to bring enough to keep heart, and lungs working. Her memories were, for the most part saved. But there was much that could not be saved, and the woman who was Joana died. I, Aina, have the old Aina’s memories, some of Joana’s memories and there is part of me from the world that your father comes from. So when I told you I know your mother, I am telling you the truth. But I am not your mother. We will bury her this week. You will help.

Part of my mother is inside you?

Yes. But I am not her. I do not think like her. I do not talk like her. But I can remember things from her, when I go looking.

Francine looks at the females assembled in front of her. You all know this?

She gets three quiet ‘yes’s’. But Erlyn has something more to say. Yes, we know this, but Aina not tell all.

How? What did she not tell me?

She has great power. She get it from your Father, I think. I not really know. But she can go into minds. She can kill. She is dangerous to those who would hurt your father or any of us.

Francine, looks back at Aina. It is a look of confusion. Dad cannot look into minds. He cannot kill. How could you get such powers from him? I do not understand.

You are correct about your father. I do not know the answer. But what Erlyn says about me is true. It is also true that I know your brother.

I… don’t… have… a… brother.

Not in this world. But you do in another realm. He is a bad man. I am sorry that I tell you what your father did not.

I think it is OK. I do not think he will be angry. He will probably just tell me it was something I didn’t need to know. He has done that many times. I don’t like it, but it is just who he is. What is my brother’s name?

I am not sure he has a name. I never heard it.

My head hurts. I am going to lie down.

Wait! This is Amelae. I will get you a Biogesic!¹ It will solve that. You need to eat.

Aina, if Dad loved my Mom, does he love you?

That Francine is private between your father and me.

Ha! Good answer. Did he tell my Mother that he loved her?

Yes. She is the very last person he audibly said, ‘I love you’ to.

That jibes with what he told me. He said if he didn’t love my mother so much, she would still be alive.

Yes, he believes that.

But you don’t?

It is more complicated than that. Your father knows why I do not think that, but it is not something that you need to be concerned with.

You know something he didn’t know?

Yes.

Shit, where is that Biogesic? My head feels like it is exploding.

Amelae is running back in and hands Francine a pill which is downed with a glass of water already on the table. Francine closes her eyes, takes a few deep breaths, and shakes her head before she opens her eyes and asks, If Dad just learned this, it means he probably got very angry. What has he done? Who has he sought revenge from?

Erlyn looks at Francine and asks, Why do you think he did something?

Dad has always hid his hurt and his anger. But I always think, someday it will come out and if it does, the world will shake.

Amelae standing by Francine decides to handle this one. It sort of happened before he learn about your nanay. Aina, this Aina, not here yet. He see doctors doing same to my mother. He get very angry. He not kill, but he do things and others kill. Many die. Doctors, priests, police, they die. Then more, more police. Then he make living statues out of archbishops and many bishops. I not know what he do when he learn about your mother. Aina, you know?

Aina gives a silent yes.

Amelae asks, What he do? But Aina refuses to say. Of that I am glad.

Francine is not done. Where is my mother’s body?

Erlyn fields that one. At the mortuary. Aina and I there yesterday. We pick out the coffin.

I want to see her.

We take you tomorrow. But Friend, it be a shock to you. She close to your age and she look like you.

You mean similar to me?

No I mean the same. She part her hair different. Wala na.

Dad always said I looked like her, but that she was a real beauty. While I was pretty, Mom was very special.

Erlyn smiles. Your father not know Joana when she was a baby or a young girl. How he know? He see you as a daughter, not a lover. It changes the eyes of a father I think. You just now the age she, when he meet her first time, I think. You the same.

Erlyn, show me how she had her hair.

You not know?

I have never seen a photo of her. No, I do not know.

Come na! Come. There is a photo. We will show you. There is a mirror in your father’s bedroom. We will fix your hair like your mother’s and put you and the photo in front of the mirror!

All but Aina leave. Aina walks to me, as I am still in the shadows. You were smart to not interfere with the discussion.

I am not so sure. That last bit is a little disturbing.

You really didn’t see it?

No.

Then you are in for a real shock. She is, physically, Joana all over again.

Shit.

1 - Brand name for Paracetamol.

Chapter 23