The Rising: Antichrist Is Born (20 page)

“It wasn’t my idea,” Viv said.

“You should have told her you would be more comfortable with her talking to me.”

“But that wouldn’t be true, Marilena.”

“What does that mean?”

“I am not more comfortable with that. I don’t trust your judgment related to Nicky.”

“How can you say that?”

“The irony is that while you are his mother, you are not close to him.”

“That’s not true! I—”

“Not as close as you think you are or would like to be. Admit it, Marilena. You’re a satura.”

“Cloying? He’s my son! I won’t lose him to you or to the association or even to Luciferianism.”

“What are you saying? You’re reneging on—”

“Hardly, Viv, and you know it. I’m raising him in the tradition I promised. And I’ve become more devout myself. But I don’t know how many times I have to say this: I will not have outsiders interfering with a blood relationship.”

“Interfering? Outsiders? That’s what you think of me? I have given the last ten years of my life to you and this boy, and I’ve been glad to do it. I thought we had become family. I am not his aunt in name only. I consider you a sister.”

Viv looked truly hurt, and that had not been Mari-lena’s intention. “Well, but, but—how would you feel if you were me? Say you bore a child and…”

“And pledged to cooperate because he was the fulfillment of a promise from the spirits?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“You see, Marilena,” Viv said, tearing up, “I can’t have a child. You once asked why not me? I said I was too old and couldn’t imagine giving birth. The truth is, I have another assignment. I have been bestowed gifts of clairvoyance that the spirits believe are crucial to the association. I feel honored and blessed and useful, but—” she began to sob---“I would have given anything to be in your shoes, to trade roles with you. Please don’t shut me out.”

But now this. It was as if Viv were pleading to have a place at the table. In spite of herself, Marilena felt empowered and emboldened by Viv’s apparent neediness and weakness. She embraced the older woman, realizing that they had seldom touched in all these years and hardly ever embraced.

Viv seemed to lose control, weeping loudly as she buried her face in Marilena’s shoulder.

“Can we not come to some sort of an agreement?” Marilena said.

“I’d like that.”

“I don’t want to leave you out. I know your influence on Nicky has been positive, and he loves you. How he loves you. I guess that’s what’s bothering me. He loves you more than he loves me.”

“That’s not true!”

“Of course it is. I’m trying to change that, because it’s not right and proper, but I need you to agree and help me.”

“Help you turn his affection away from me?” Viv said.

“No! I don’t want him to quit loving you. But I want him to treat you like an aunt, not like a mother, I mean, let’s face it;

you’re not really his aunt either.”

“I’m closer than an aunt!”

“That may be, but yours is a place of assumed privilege, not earned by blood.”

“Earned by more than blood,” Viv said. “I’ve invested in you both, sacrificed.”

“Come, come. There’s nothing you’d rather have done.”

Viv chuckled, seemingly in spite of herself. “Well, that’s certainly true.”

“Now sit down,” Marilena said. “Tell me what Mrs. Szabo is going to talk to me about.”

“I’m not at liberty—”

“Need I remind you that we are talking about my son? How many times do we have to go over the same ground?”

Viv wiped her face and appeared to regain control. “Listen, you’ve made your point, and I will work hard on helping maintain your appropriate place in Nicky’s life. And I will urge Mrs. Szabo to consult you first on all matters relating to him. But in this case I do not want to make the mistake of trying to speak for his teacher. She deserves the right to be heard without any shading from my viewpoint.”

“My goodness, Viv. How bad is this?”

“It’s not horrible. It’s just a concern.”

“We’re clear then that I will pick him up this afternoon so I can talk with her?”

Viv nodded. “1 could ride along. Keep him occupied while you’re meeting.”

That made sense. It wouldn’t do to have another teacher watch him, and the other students weren’t likely to stay long after school. She agreed.

And as Marilena feared, she was unable to concentrate on anything else for the rest of the day.

In basketball as a senior Ray Steele had redeemed himself by winning the starting position as weakside forward and wound up leading the team in scoring. Belvidere finished third in their conference, however, and again Ray was overlooked by college recruiters.

His play did make him the most popular guy at the school. Suddenly Ray was anything but short of dates. And despite the fun, that left him frustrated. The girls who showed the most interest were the ones he had pined after for years, but he had been invisible when he was suffering from acne. He now enjoyed the attention, sure, but it all seemed so shallow. He was the same person he had always been; he merely looked different. Maybe he exuded more confidence and his athletic prowess had matured, but if that and his looks were all the girls were interested in, what did that say about them?

Ray found himself more friendly and cordial, but inside he had learned not to trust people. Everyone was so surfacy. Was he too? He hoped not. He obsessed about the phoniness of his new relationships to the point that he couldn’t maintain a relationship—let alone develop a long-term girlfriend—for more than a few weeks.

His dad wasn’t going to want to hear it, but flying was going to be Ray’s life.

Marilena and Viv conversed as they had in years past on the way to Nicky’s school that afternoon. It was actually pleasant, Marilena thought, and she chastised herself for becoming possessive and defensive and jealous. She had been drawn to Viv from the beginning because the woman seemed to care so much for others. That hadn’t changed.

Viv wasn’t perfect, but who was? Marilena should have expected some disappointments, living in the same house with someone all this time. She herself had been no prize; why should she expect otherwise from Viv? Well, because Viv was basically a better person, Marilena decided. More social, more people-oriented. Nicer, that was all.

Despite the sisterly fun and laughter they enjoyed on the way, it was not lost on Marilena that neither even mentioned Nicky. She knew Viv didn’t want her to push, to pry, to try to get out of her what Mrs. Szabo’s problem was. And when they arrived it quickly became obvious that the teacher had told Nicky she would be talking with his mother while his aunt watched htm, for he came racing out of the school ready to play. As Viv opened the door, he leaped into her arms. In spite of herself, Marilena felt a fresh, sharp pang of jealousy. The boy did not even acknowledge his mother’s presence.

  It didn’t help that Mrs. Szabo arranged their meeting so that Marilena sat facing the windows in full view of Viv’s cavorting with Nicky. They played catch, played tag, pushed each other in the swings, climbed after each other on the monkey bars. Marilena could have done that—would do it—if just given the chance.

That was clearly intended as an icebreaker, but Marilena couldn’t even force a smile. She had not been invited here to be complimented. “Um-hm.”

“Surely you must have heard that before.”

  “From every teacher. Yes, I’m very proud of him.”

“Even though this is a school for advanced children, he is unique. There are days when I wonder where I will find more to challenge him, days when I feel like his student rather than his teacher.”

“I am concerned about his behavior, however.”

“He doesn’t obey you?”

“Generally he does. But I am in a unique position to observe how he interacts with the other children. Let me not beat around the bush. He is what I would call pathologically manipulative.”

This was not news to Marilena, of course. She had seen it at home. But part of her had hoped it wasn’t obvious at school. “How does it manifest itself?” she said.

“He’s everyone’s friend,” Mrs. Szabo said. “And yet it’s clear he plays the children off each other. They all seem to like him and appear oblivious to what he’s up to, but everybody always does what he wants. He wins all the games, his team always wins, everything revolves around him.”

“He’s selfish then?”

“That would be understating it. The world belongs to him. He gets himself elected team leader for every project. When we had a mock election for president of the class, I felt it was someone else’s turn to enjoy the spotlight, so I arbitrarily nominated another boy and a girl to run against each other. They were to campaign, give speeches, choose teams to help them win, display posters, everything. Nicolae volunteered to be Victoria’s campaign manager, and she quickly became the favorite. Now get this. Not only did she win, but she won unanimously. Even her opponent voted for her.”

“Nicky threatened him?”

“No! I believe Nicky promised him something.”

“What?”

“The vice presidency.”

“But, how—?”

“When Victoria won, she announced that as president, she could choose the vice president.”

“And she chose the loser?”

“No, she chose Nicolae. Then she resigned as president, saying she realized she would be better as a helper than a leader. Nicolae became president, and he chose the loser as his VP. All this at nine years old.”

“I don’t know what to say. What did Victoria get out of it?”

“She gets to be his girlfriend. They hang around together.”

“Girlfriend!”

The teacher nodded. “You know, he tries the same techniques with me. He tells me everything that goes on, anything bad he can think of about the other children. And when he senses I have heard enough, he assures me he can handle it and not to worry about it. A couple of days later he’ll tell me he has fixed whatever was wrong. I have actually been tempted to enlist him to help me control the class. But I have resisted, because I think he controls the others enough.”

“What can I do about this?”

“Teach him, Mrs. Carpathia. He has astounding gifts, but they must be channeled. He’s a diplomat, a politician, a genius, a social gadfly, a divider, a uniter. He must learn humility. He must learn the consequences of power. He could sell a legless man a pair of shoes.”

If that was intended to be funny, it didn’t hit Marilena that way. This was worse than she feared. “I’ll try,” she said. “Thank you for letting me know.”

“There’s more. We had a competition between the boys and the girls for a homework project. The respective sides were to assign different students to memorize the functions and positions in the national government, who held each one, that sort of thing. As you know, Romania has a complicated form of rule, two houses of parliament, all that. Nicolae memorized everything, his assignment and everyone else’s, but I didn’t want his team to win only because of that. I insisted that each team member recite a different set of facts. The boys won hands down, . and I found out that Nicolae had taught them how to remember their individual parts through pneumonics. He used acrostics and acronyms so that if they learned a simple word, the letters represented the first letter of what they had to remember.”

  “Ingenious. Surely you couldn’t have had a problem with that.”

  “Except that it was almost maniacal. Nicolae was so obsessed with winning that it became no fun for his team. He encouraged and cajoled, but he also badgered and belittled. These boys had no choice but to learn this stuff and win, because of the sheer force of his personality.”

“A gift that could be good or bad,” Marilena said.

“Certainly. His strengths are his weaknesses, as is true with so many of us. Help me teach him team play, to value others and their feelings. It’s as if there’s a disconnect in his mind, as if he really believes that this world and everyone in it are here for his benefit.”

“I’ll try,” Marilena managed.

“I will keep you informed,” Mrs. Szabo said.

I’m sure you will.

Ray Steele lay in his bedroom, unable to concentrate on his homework. Nothing held his interest—not TV or music or magazines or the Internet—after the way the conversation had gone at dinner.

Ray had no idea how strongly his father felt about his future. He should have known, of course. His dad had never made a secret of it. Ray just thought the old man would have to be impressed that he had gotten his private license at eighteen and the fact that he had a concrete plan. Ray knew what he was doing, what he wanted, and how to achieve it.

“I’ve been signed up for Reserve Officer Training Corps since late last year, and Coach Bellman says getting my license before I’m even out of high school assures me of enough other scholarships to pay my way through college.”

“Well, that’s fine,” his father said, “but what does Fuzzy know about it?”

“He knows I’m not going to get any help going to school as an athlete. Unless I want some small college.”

“But why? You were the best—”

“Dad, come on. Times have changed. Even ten years ago I might have gotten a deal somewhere, but no more. You have to be the best in your sport in the whole conference now to get any kind of ride.”

“Baseball’s still your best chance.”

“And it’s my favorite, Dad, but it’s not going to happen.”

“How can you say that?”

“I can’t throw ninety anymore, and I’ll be surprised if I hit over .400. The last guy from our conference who got a full ride to a D-l school hit nearly .600 with lots of bombs.”

“That’s not out of the realm of possibility for you.”

“You’re a little biased, Dad, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what I’m talking about? You don’t think I know the game?”

“‘Course you do, and you taught me everything I know. But you also taught me to be realistic about my ability. I’d have given anything to stay healthy and be able to throw hard enough to attract the scouts. But that’s over, Dad. I’m going to have to pitch anyway, because too many other guys aren’t playing this year. There’s something about cars and girlfriends and how few people come to baseball games that makes guys want to quit unless they’re superstars. If I didn’t love it so much, I’d think about that too.”