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st_aurafinaTitle: Semper Clara
Fandom: The Exorcist
Rating: General
Words: 4364
Characters/Pairings: Verity, Tomas, Marcus, Rose
Warnings/Content: Set after the series finale
Notes: Written forevewithanapple for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomgiftbox.
Summary: Verity is learning to navigate a new world.
Also at the Archive
Things are different, living with Rose. Rose likes routine, supervises more closely, and is a bit more of a helicopter parent than Andy and Nicole. Some of that might be that they're living in the suburbs now. Some of that might be trauma, on either side of the parent-child relationship. Verity can't blame any of them for that.
She's stricter too, Verity thinks, as Rose gives her a look for rocking her chair back on two legs. She rolls her eyes, lets the chair come back to level with a thud. Caleb, startled from his concentration, kicks her under the table and she scuffles with him in a sudden foot fight until Rose tells them to cut it out. They all do their homework together on Rose's big wooden dining table, because there's no space in the bedrooms for desks. For now, anyway: Rose is having the attic cleared out and carpeted, and when it's done, there'll be an extra room. Shelby, Caleb and Truck are arguing over who will claim that space, working out endless arrangements of beds. Verity doesn't weigh in because, surprisingly, she likes sharing with Harper. Harper is neurotic but funny, worries too much about diseases and germs, and once faced down a demon with her chin out. Verity never complains when Harper climbs into bed with her in the night. Well, almost never, and never when it matters, never when Harper can't catch her breath and can't lie still, wriggling with panic.
So it's good with Rose, and getting better every month. Not better than the best years with Andy and Nicole – will it always be weird to speak of that time in the past tense? – but it's level and good and solid. Consistent in a way that has Truck unfurling from those three months faster than Verity would have expected. He thunders up and down stairs now, lets his presence be big and weird and overflowing, and even though Verity rolls her eyes at him, it's still really good.
This doesn't mean things are okay. It doesn't mean she's forgotten those good years with Andy and Nicole. Verity finds it strange and sad how easily those memories seem to have aged in her mind, tinted like seventies photographs even though she has the actual pictures right there on her phone in full colour to remind her. She didn't realise how early after Nicole's death everyone started walking on eggshells around Andy. She wonders at what point it stopped being because of grief and started being… whatever had gotten inside Andy.
That's the thing that keeps snagging at Verity: the undeniable nature of the thing, the actual demon. Demons exist. Verity has been an atheist since a Sunday School teacher told her that her dead dog wasn't going to heaven. Verity may have only been a first-grader but she could see the cruelty behind that bitch's patronising smile.
(Six-year-old Verity doesn't have the words for hypocrisy and sadism but she identifies them easily. A six year old shouldn't have had to know those things, Nicole said, in the weeks after Verity arrived on the island. Verity, still looking for vulnerabilities and hypocrisies in the Kim household, had pointed out that Verity wouldn't be here without those abilities. Nicole said that she could be both sad for a tiny, cynical Verity and happy that those traits had helped Verity survive long enough to make it to their home. Feelings don't have to make sense or agree with each other.)
Feelings might not have to make sense, but the universe should. Verity likes math, but likes physics better, likes making numbers explain the world. And as Caleb likes to tell her, ye cannae break the laws of physics. This makes her think about Rose. Velocity equals mass times acceleration. Rose is what? A hundred pounds? And she hung in the air while the demon effortlessly opposed gravity, snapping planks with its mind. How does that even work? Verity's mind goes round and round the equations, and thinks there must be some constant in there that nobody knows about.
Stupid Caleb and his stupid space shows. Stupid Harper and her secret book about diseases she keeps between the mattress and the box. Stupid Truck and his way of saying something accidentally pointed. Stupid Shelby, whose faith was rewarded with proof, and who can't understand why that negates the purpose of faith in the first place.
Stupid Rose, reading over Verity's shoulder as she googles 'exorcism' and 'proof of exorcism' on her phone. Rose grimaces at Verity in apology and squeezes her shoulder.
They talk about it after dinner, while Verity stacks the dishwasher with Tetris-honed precision. Truck is tidying the dining table, sorting placemats and coasters into the correct places on the shelf with focused dedication. Caleb and Harper are on their bellies watching a last half hour of TV, and poor Shelby is back to endless study.
"I didn't mean to pry before," Rose says, passing her a ladle and the soup tureen. "I respect your privacy."
"Whatever," says Verity immediately, a habit she's trying to kick. She rolls her head from side to side, letting the tension seep away. "I mean, that's great to know. Now I can download those Jennifer Lawrence nudes without shame."
Rose hands her mugs one after the other, thoughtfully quiet. "I didn't think she was your type."
Verity snorts loudly, but it's a nice acknowledgement, and it sits comfortably with her.
"I have Father Tomas' number." Rose just says it, right into that comfortable silence.
"Yeah, I wouldn't have thought he was your type," Verity snaps back, and regrets it. She regrets it more in a moment because Rose has her head tilted to one side, obviously considering it. "Ew, no, Rose, stop."
Rose can't keep the faux-coy thing going. Every thought or conversation eventually leads to Andy or the island. Verity thinks of those last words that came via Father Tomas. Of everyone in this house, Rose probably has the most what-ifs haunting her. Verity doesn't do hugs, but she knocks shoulders companionably with Rose when she's finished loading the dishwasher.
Truck thunders into the kitchen when he hears the dishwasher click closed; he has this thing with Rose's whitegoods. He pours powder into the tray, checks the rinse-aid is topped up, and pressed buttons in the prescribed manner to make it go. He grins at it when it starts filling with water, and puts both his hands up.
"Dishwasher high five!" he says, and Rose and Verity both slap his palms with theirs.
"Okay, dishwasher hero," says Rose. "You and Caleb off to bed. And Harper – don't think you snuck that extra time past me. I knew exactly what was going on."
Harper rolls her eyes but slouches off amiably enough with Truck and Caleb. Shelby doesn't even look up from his books. He's sitting SATs later this year despite all the disruption. For herself, Verity is happy for the excuse to take things slowly at school.
Later, she's reading, tucked onto the window seat at the top of the stairs. Rose props herself on the edge of the cushion and passes her a mug of tea. "Got a minute to talk?"
Verity gives her a narrow-eyed gaze, suspicious, but she takes the mug. "Okay, but I reserve the right to mock your awkward opening."
"I knew it would be hard for you all to talk about what happened. It's not like you can unload the details of… of possession to a counsellor." Rose trips over the word, just once, and Verity can feel the place in her mind that tells her to take advantage of this crack, to push hard where she knows it will hurt Rose. It's weird to have that urge, and be able to let it slide away, but Verity doesn't want to hurt Rose.
"Okay, send me the number," she says, instead, and proffers her phone. (Turns out you get reception in the suburbs, so they all have phones now, albeit with limited budgets. Caleb and Harper are delighted, bargaining with each other on what aps to buy, sharing music, catching Pokémon. Truck views his with suspicion and fascination, and spends a lot of time looking at Google Earth. Shelby gets himself a daily bible verse app first thing.)
Rose hits send, and Verity's phone beeps with a text. Verity looks at the number just sitting there. "I don't want to talk about some great trauma with him," she says, into the quiet. "I just want to understand what happened to Andy."
"I know," says Rose. "But remember, answers might not be there. And if they are, they might not be what you want to hear."
Verity shrugs. "Even crappy answers are better than questions," she says.
---
Father Tomas' phone goes to message the first time, and on the second, when the line connects, there's just muttered swearing in another language – Spanish? Italian? – and the angry sound of city traffic. Verity leaves a message. She doesn't hear anything until her phone chimes in the middle of the night, waking her from a weird and sweaty dream where Nicole hovers above her bed with her hair spread out and floating in the water. The number isn't the one she recognises. On the other side of the small room, Harper stirs with an unhappy noise. She's probably deep in her own nightmare. Verity mutes the phone and perches on the end of Harper's bed to tuck the blanket around her shoulders again. "Shhh," she says. "It's just a dream." Then she takes the call.
"Who is this?" a woman's voice says, low and angry, as soon as Verity picks up. "How did you get that number?"
Verity vaguely remembers there had been a woman with Tomas and Marcus, near the end.
"This is Verity Kim. Rose gave me the number."
There's a long pause, while the two of them wait each other out. Verity can feel her hackles rising, which is frustrating. She is trying to be less defensive, always, but it's hard not to feel like the universe is fucking her over again.
The woman's voice doesn't soften, but she speaks first. "Well? What do you want?"
"I want to talk to Tomas," Verity says. She doesn't offer anything more. It's an early lesson learned, that you don't put anything out there that can be used as a weapon.
There's another pause, then a door opening and the muffled sound of an argument. The phone is handed over without another word.
"Verity?" It's Tomas' voice now, husky with sleep. "Is something wrong? The kids…"
Verity is shallowly glad not to be included with "the kids." "They're all fine," she says. "I just wanted to talk. Some time, you know. Not necessarily in the middle of the night."
Tomas clears his throat and Verity hears bedsprings screech. "No, it's okay. Let's talk now. I need to get some fresh air." The door slams shut as he talks, but he carries on as if he didn't hear it. "What did you want to discuss?"
Now Verity is at a loss: she should have made a list.
She starts with the physics. "So, there's this thing called the mass energy equivalence," she says.
There's a pause on the line, and she wonders if Tomas has just hung up on her. Then he says vaguely, "This is Einstein? The… speed of light squared?"
"Right!" says Verity. "So, where's the energy coming from?"
Tomas listens to her questions and is polite and considerate, but his answers all come down to the same thing: God did it. God is an endless energy well. God can change the laws of physics because he made the laws.
"But why make them if you're only going to break them?" Verity says, frustrated and perplexed. "Seems to me God is pretty into obeying laws."
"God is ineffable," Tomas says. "That's the miracle of God. He cannot be defined or contained by mortal comprehension."
Well, fuck, she tells herself, after she's thanked Tomas and hung up. God is a fucking wizard and there are no rules. For a moment, she feels as if she's going to float away herself, no longer tethered by gravity to the planet. Queasy, she stands up and puts a hand on the door, to go to the bathroom, or maybe to Rose's room. Before she has a chance to examine that disturbing thought, the phone vibrates in her hand with a text message.
> I'm sorry, Verity! I did not explain well to you. I forget that for me faith is perhaps too simple, and I am glad that you are asking questions that force me from that comfort zone. For better answers though, Marcus may be more helpful.
Verity snickers, brought down to earth by the precise language and the punctuation. Tomas texts like a grandpa. Then she considers the number that follows, and adds it to her contacts.
The next morning, she texts the number: Hey this is Verity. Nothing comes from it, so after a few days she forgets. The weekly routine is hectic at Rose's, getting everyone to the right school at the right time, and besides, Rose hooked her up with a part-time job. It's not much – a couple of shifts a few times a week at a friend's second-hand book store but in the few months Verity has left before her foster placement is over, she's glad of a chance to stash away some money. Rose will let her say – she's said so, whenever this topic comes up – but Rose can't pretend it won't be harder, down one payment. At the moment, every little bit counts, and at least she gets to read all she wants while she's working.
The store is quiet. Honestly, Verity can't see how it's making a profit, but it seems to serve as a gathering place for burned-out social workers. Verity tops up the coffee machine, clears away cups and on occasion, rings up a sale or two
It's quiet, the day Father Marcus shows up, and Verity hasn't had a customer for hours. Not even the free coffee can tempt the regulars in, not when the sky sits heavy with mist that drifts down in deceptively light sheets. The locals know that it might look like drizzle, you might think you don't need an umbrella, but that mist will drench you to the skin in minutes. Verity sits at the meeting table with her own cup of coffee, reading Heinlein with mixed feelings of horror and fascination, and when the bell clatters, she jumps.
Father Marcus isn't wearing the black uniform or whatever – do priests call it a habit, like nuns? Another thing Verity should ask him – but instead has a fisherman's sweater hanging from his shoulders, stretched heavy with moisture from the rain. He's dripping wet, undignified and outraged as a cat.
"What is this weather?" he says. "It's not like I don't know rain. This isn't rain. This is evil falling from the sky."
"Welcome to Seattle," Verity says. She points to the coat rack on the wall. "You probably want to hang that up."
She makes him tea in one of the hand-thrown mugs, and leaves the tea-bag in it according to his instructions. They sit at the round wooden table that serves as a community gathering point, and Marcus cups the thick ceramic cup with his hands.
"You frightened Tomas, you know. Mouse says he's nose-deep in a physics textbook." He laughs to himself. "It's an overachiever thing. He hates not understanding."
Verity watches him through the steam rising off her mug. "So, you understand it, then?"
"Physics? I haven't a clue," says Marcus. "But I can accept that God is a puzzle and it's okay to want to solve that somehow, even if it seems impossible."
Verity has a bunch of questions, wants to ask him if seeing all that stuff on the island means she's a believer now, but she sees Harper thundering down the street with Caleb walking behind her more decorously. Rose is driving Truck to an OT appointment this afternoon so Verity is combining the last hour of her shift with babysitting.
Harper's expression is amazed and ecstatic when she pushes through the glass door. "Father Marcus!" He and Tomas brought Harper to Andy's house, Verity remembers, and it sounded like they'd been through some stuff together.
"Bloody hell, you've grown," says Marcus, then takes a step backwards when Harper drops her umbrella and leaps on Marcus like a monkey. He laughs in delight and spins her around while she shrieks. Harper is much more vocal these days, which is kind of great and kind of annoying at the same time.
"Hey," Caleb says, barely moving his lips. In contrast, he's quieter these days, as puberty crowds in on him. Verity gives him a punch on the arm as he passes her to find the stash of cookies near the tea caddy. Poor kid is always hungry.
"Do you like Verity's store?" asks Harper, words tumbling out on top of themselves. "It's so cool, there's like nine copies of all the Harry Potter books in hard cover, I'm saving up for them."
"It's not my store, Harper," Verity says for the millionth time.
"Harry who?" says Marcus, and that's a big mistake. Harper takes him by the hand and drags him to the kid's fiction section, talking fast about the benefits of watching the movies first versus reading the books.
At closing time, Marcus leaves with the first two Harry Potter books which he insists on paying for, and a promise to talk more with Verity tomorrow.
"Technically I'm in town to pick up some parts," he says. "I've got a restoration project I'm working on, if you want to give me a hand."
Verity shrugs. "Sure," she says. She'll check with Rose, mostly because they've all been through too much for her to indulge in rebelliously running off to do her own thing, but she doubts it'll be a problem.
Marcus' restoration project is a vintage mobile home trailer with décor straight out of the seventies. He seems to be living in the parking lot of a scrapyard fenced in by a sagging wire fence and patrolled by a wheezing, grizzled Doberman. Rose would have a fit if she saw it, Verity thinks, picking her way over the muddy gravel.
"Wipe your feet!" Marcus yells from inside the trailer. Verity looks down at a scruffy doormat that says "Bless this Home", and scrubs her boots against it.
Marcus meets her in the doorway, wiping his hands on a grubby towel. "I just put in new carpet," he says and steps to one side to let her past.
The trailer is a weird mix of worn-out and brand new: Marcus has replaced a wall panel and window frame, and the cabinetry has been torn out. The carpet is crisply new and clean, but a terrifying shade of mustard that can't have been cool, not even in the seventies.
"You live here?" she asks. "Are you going to take the exorcist show on the road or something?" She tries to imagine what it's like to just pick up and drive from one place to another, no anchors to anything or anyone.
"That show's always on the road," Marcus says. "Right now it's on the road with Tomas while I do a bit of thinking. And nah, I'm living in the truck. You spend enough time sleeping on the back seat, you get used to it. Plus I only put the bed in yesterday." He gestures at the olive green sofa which presumably folds out.
They work together on installing new cupboards above the kitchenette, authentic faux-woodgrain laminate. Marcus props the shelf unit in place with one shoulder while Verity fixes it in place. She leans her weight against the drill to hold it steady in her hands, and they work in silence for a while.
Finally, when all four sides are secure, she lets the drill go quiet. "The thing is, faith and proof are different things. Shelby can't understand why I don't believe when I've seen actual evidence of God and whatever. Supernatural stuff."
"All the proof and none of the faith?" Marcus says. "Must feel like having an armful of stuff and nowhere to put it."
That's exactly how it feel to Verity. "What am I supposed to do with all of that? Knowing that there are demons and probably some force that opposes demons – that doesn't make me a Christian. Does it?" She doesn't realise until the words are coming out of her mouth just how much this horrifies her. It's a visceral fear, something she can taste in the back of her mouth like rusty nails, something that sounds like squeaking bedsprings. Her chest is suddenly tight and aching and she misses Nicole like the loss is something new.
"Hey." Marcus leans into her field of vision. "You okay?"
Verity can't speak, because if she opens her mouth, he's going to hear how frightened she is. She nods, but even that gesture is small and afraid. Marcus is going to say something sympathetic, and she's either going to throw the drill at his head or barf on the new carpet.
He doesn't say anything, though. He pulls that grubby towel from off his shoulder, then spends a long time wiping his hands, running the towel along the gleaming steel of the new sink, catching every scrap of sawdust. When Verity has control of herself again, he says "What do you reckon we get some lunch? There's a place round the corner that does good chips. Horrible tea, but good chips."
Verity nods again, more confident in herself now. When they go, he locks the door to the trailer carefully, then gives a piercing whistle, forefinger and thumb against his lip. The old Doberman comes trotting over in response, and belly flops down on the mat with a creaky sigh.
The chip place is a fried chicken joint run by a skinny, sullen man with a greasy ponytail. Marcus holds up two fingers to order. Scowling, the man slings fries and chicken into two red plastic baskets. Marcus pays and they sit outside on wooden benches watching trucks rumble back and forth into the industrial park.
"You doing okay?" Marcus asks eventually.
Verity folds an extra long fry into her mouth and nods. "I don't want to be a Christian, you know? It's been pretty easy to hold to, but when there's stuff like that out there, something that can do all that." She shakes her head. "I don't want to believe in it, but I don't want to hide my head in the sand, either."
Marcus picks meat off a drumstick and eats it with his fingers. "Seems pretty sensible to me."
"It's real, isn't it?" Verity says. The sunlight is watery but bright, and she squints at Marcus on the seat opposite her.
"Yeah," he says. "It's real."
"What happens in other countries?" Verity asks. "Are there Islamic exorcisms? Hindu?"
"Don't know very much about either. I just use the tools I've got," Marcus says. "If you find out, you can fill me in."
"If I find out?" Verity says, confused.
Marcus wipes his fingers on a napkin and screws it up, stacks their baskets. "Yeah," he says. "You're on a quest for knowledge, Verity. We need sceptics as much as we need believers in this war. It's bigger than just us."
Verity is dubious. She's read history books. "Oh, that's why you treated Galileo so well?" she says. "You needed sceptics?"
Marcus stands up, brushes his hands down his legs. "See, that is exactly why we need you, Verity Kim. Your refreshingly honest opinions."
They spend the rest of the daylight changing the brake pads on Marcus' truck. Marcus tells her what he knows about exorcisms in other Christian sects, and the little he's heard about Muslim possession. When they've got the brake assembly back in place, he drops her off home.
"Okay," she says, sitting in the cab with him. The engine of the truck is so loud it's rattling her teeth. "So, to recap, I'm on a quest."
Marcus looks at his hands resting on the wheel. "To recap, you're looking for answers, and nobody can find them for you. You have to walk that path yourself. But you're as brave as a lion, Verity Kim, and you will find your way to the answers you're looking for." He turns the truck off, then takes her hand and turns it palm up so he can deposit the keys in it.
She looks at them in her hand, and back at him. "What?"
"I'm headed back to the island," he says. "I've got my own answers to find, and I think I've realised they're not hiding under the hood of this pile of junk." He gives the dashboard a companionable slap. "You can pick the trailer up whenever you want. Dog'll keep it safe till you're ready."
He pops the door then hesitates, then leans across her to the glove box. "Here," he says, after rummaging in it. He hands her a crumpled envelope. It's empty, but it's covered in Christmas stickers. The return address has no name, but it's from Guelph, Canada.
"Her name's Kat. Her family went through something similar," Marcus says.
"I'm not starting a support group," Verity snaps automatically, then regrets it. Marcus did just give her a truck, after all. "Sorry."
Marcus is unoffended. He pushes the door open all the way. "Might make a good first stop, is all I'm saying." With that, he's out and walking down the street, bag slung over his shoulder.
Verity looks down at the keys, then slides over to the driver's seat and starts the engine, puts the truck in gear. She tucks the envelope into a pocket. It can't hurt to start making connections in this weird world she's starting to explore.
As she rolls carefully in next to Rose's sedan, she realises she can tell Truck they have a truck, and she grins in anticipation.
Fandom: The Exorcist
Rating: General
Words: 4364
Characters/Pairings: Verity, Tomas, Marcus, Rose
Warnings/Content: Set after the series finale
Notes: Written for
evewithanapple for fandomgiftbox. Summary: Verity is learning to navigate a new world.
Also at the Archive
Things are different, living with Rose. Rose likes routine, supervises more closely, and is a bit more of a helicopter parent than Andy and Nicole. Some of that might be that they're living in the suburbs now. Some of that might be trauma, on either side of the parent-child relationship. Verity can't blame any of them for that.
She's stricter too, Verity thinks, as Rose gives her a look for rocking her chair back on two legs. She rolls her eyes, lets the chair come back to level with a thud. Caleb, startled from his concentration, kicks her under the table and she scuffles with him in a sudden foot fight until Rose tells them to cut it out. They all do their homework together on Rose's big wooden dining table, because there's no space in the bedrooms for desks. For now, anyway: Rose is having the attic cleared out and carpeted, and when it's done, there'll be an extra room. Shelby, Caleb and Truck are arguing over who will claim that space, working out endless arrangements of beds. Verity doesn't weigh in because, surprisingly, she likes sharing with Harper. Harper is neurotic but funny, worries too much about diseases and germs, and once faced down a demon with her chin out. Verity never complains when Harper climbs into bed with her in the night. Well, almost never, and never when it matters, never when Harper can't catch her breath and can't lie still, wriggling with panic.
So it's good with Rose, and getting better every month. Not better than the best years with Andy and Nicole – will it always be weird to speak of that time in the past tense? – but it's level and good and solid. Consistent in a way that has Truck unfurling from those three months faster than Verity would have expected. He thunders up and down stairs now, lets his presence be big and weird and overflowing, and even though Verity rolls her eyes at him, it's still really good.
This doesn't mean things are okay. It doesn't mean she's forgotten those good years with Andy and Nicole. Verity finds it strange and sad how easily those memories seem to have aged in her mind, tinted like seventies photographs even though she has the actual pictures right there on her phone in full colour to remind her. She didn't realise how early after Nicole's death everyone started walking on eggshells around Andy. She wonders at what point it stopped being because of grief and started being… whatever had gotten inside Andy.
That's the thing that keeps snagging at Verity: the undeniable nature of the thing, the actual demon. Demons exist. Verity has been an atheist since a Sunday School teacher told her that her dead dog wasn't going to heaven. Verity may have only been a first-grader but she could see the cruelty behind that bitch's patronising smile.
(Six-year-old Verity doesn't have the words for hypocrisy and sadism but she identifies them easily. A six year old shouldn't have had to know those things, Nicole said, in the weeks after Verity arrived on the island. Verity, still looking for vulnerabilities and hypocrisies in the Kim household, had pointed out that Verity wouldn't be here without those abilities. Nicole said that she could be both sad for a tiny, cynical Verity and happy that those traits had helped Verity survive long enough to make it to their home. Feelings don't have to make sense or agree with each other.)
Feelings might not have to make sense, but the universe should. Verity likes math, but likes physics better, likes making numbers explain the world. And as Caleb likes to tell her, ye cannae break the laws of physics. This makes her think about Rose. Velocity equals mass times acceleration. Rose is what? A hundred pounds? And she hung in the air while the demon effortlessly opposed gravity, snapping planks with its mind. How does that even work? Verity's mind goes round and round the equations, and thinks there must be some constant in there that nobody knows about.
Stupid Caleb and his stupid space shows. Stupid Harper and her secret book about diseases she keeps between the mattress and the box. Stupid Truck and his way of saying something accidentally pointed. Stupid Shelby, whose faith was rewarded with proof, and who can't understand why that negates the purpose of faith in the first place.
Stupid Rose, reading over Verity's shoulder as she googles 'exorcism' and 'proof of exorcism' on her phone. Rose grimaces at Verity in apology and squeezes her shoulder.
They talk about it after dinner, while Verity stacks the dishwasher with Tetris-honed precision. Truck is tidying the dining table, sorting placemats and coasters into the correct places on the shelf with focused dedication. Caleb and Harper are on their bellies watching a last half hour of TV, and poor Shelby is back to endless study.
"I didn't mean to pry before," Rose says, passing her a ladle and the soup tureen. "I respect your privacy."
"Whatever," says Verity immediately, a habit she's trying to kick. She rolls her head from side to side, letting the tension seep away. "I mean, that's great to know. Now I can download those Jennifer Lawrence nudes without shame."
Rose hands her mugs one after the other, thoughtfully quiet. "I didn't think she was your type."
Verity snorts loudly, but it's a nice acknowledgement, and it sits comfortably with her.
"I have Father Tomas' number." Rose just says it, right into that comfortable silence.
"Yeah, I wouldn't have thought he was your type," Verity snaps back, and regrets it. She regrets it more in a moment because Rose has her head tilted to one side, obviously considering it. "Ew, no, Rose, stop."
Rose can't keep the faux-coy thing going. Every thought or conversation eventually leads to Andy or the island. Verity thinks of those last words that came via Father Tomas. Of everyone in this house, Rose probably has the most what-ifs haunting her. Verity doesn't do hugs, but she knocks shoulders companionably with Rose when she's finished loading the dishwasher.
Truck thunders into the kitchen when he hears the dishwasher click closed; he has this thing with Rose's whitegoods. He pours powder into the tray, checks the rinse-aid is topped up, and pressed buttons in the prescribed manner to make it go. He grins at it when it starts filling with water, and puts both his hands up.
"Dishwasher high five!" he says, and Rose and Verity both slap his palms with theirs.
"Okay, dishwasher hero," says Rose. "You and Caleb off to bed. And Harper – don't think you snuck that extra time past me. I knew exactly what was going on."
Harper rolls her eyes but slouches off amiably enough with Truck and Caleb. Shelby doesn't even look up from his books. He's sitting SATs later this year despite all the disruption. For herself, Verity is happy for the excuse to take things slowly at school.
Later, she's reading, tucked onto the window seat at the top of the stairs. Rose props herself on the edge of the cushion and passes her a mug of tea. "Got a minute to talk?"
Verity gives her a narrow-eyed gaze, suspicious, but she takes the mug. "Okay, but I reserve the right to mock your awkward opening."
"I knew it would be hard for you all to talk about what happened. It's not like you can unload the details of… of possession to a counsellor." Rose trips over the word, just once, and Verity can feel the place in her mind that tells her to take advantage of this crack, to push hard where she knows it will hurt Rose. It's weird to have that urge, and be able to let it slide away, but Verity doesn't want to hurt Rose.
"Okay, send me the number," she says, instead, and proffers her phone. (Turns out you get reception in the suburbs, so they all have phones now, albeit with limited budgets. Caleb and Harper are delighted, bargaining with each other on what aps to buy, sharing music, catching Pokémon. Truck views his with suspicion and fascination, and spends a lot of time looking at Google Earth. Shelby gets himself a daily bible verse app first thing.)
Rose hits send, and Verity's phone beeps with a text. Verity looks at the number just sitting there. "I don't want to talk about some great trauma with him," she says, into the quiet. "I just want to understand what happened to Andy."
"I know," says Rose. "But remember, answers might not be there. And if they are, they might not be what you want to hear."
Verity shrugs. "Even crappy answers are better than questions," she says.
---
Father Tomas' phone goes to message the first time, and on the second, when the line connects, there's just muttered swearing in another language – Spanish? Italian? – and the angry sound of city traffic. Verity leaves a message. She doesn't hear anything until her phone chimes in the middle of the night, waking her from a weird and sweaty dream where Nicole hovers above her bed with her hair spread out and floating in the water. The number isn't the one she recognises. On the other side of the small room, Harper stirs with an unhappy noise. She's probably deep in her own nightmare. Verity mutes the phone and perches on the end of Harper's bed to tuck the blanket around her shoulders again. "Shhh," she says. "It's just a dream." Then she takes the call.
"Who is this?" a woman's voice says, low and angry, as soon as Verity picks up. "How did you get that number?"
Verity vaguely remembers there had been a woman with Tomas and Marcus, near the end.
"This is Verity Kim. Rose gave me the number."
There's a long pause, while the two of them wait each other out. Verity can feel her hackles rising, which is frustrating. She is trying to be less defensive, always, but it's hard not to feel like the universe is fucking her over again.
The woman's voice doesn't soften, but she speaks first. "Well? What do you want?"
"I want to talk to Tomas," Verity says. She doesn't offer anything more. It's an early lesson learned, that you don't put anything out there that can be used as a weapon.
There's another pause, then a door opening and the muffled sound of an argument. The phone is handed over without another word.
"Verity?" It's Tomas' voice now, husky with sleep. "Is something wrong? The kids…"
Verity is shallowly glad not to be included with "the kids." "They're all fine," she says. "I just wanted to talk. Some time, you know. Not necessarily in the middle of the night."
Tomas clears his throat and Verity hears bedsprings screech. "No, it's okay. Let's talk now. I need to get some fresh air." The door slams shut as he talks, but he carries on as if he didn't hear it. "What did you want to discuss?"
Now Verity is at a loss: she should have made a list.
She starts with the physics. "So, there's this thing called the mass energy equivalence," she says.
There's a pause on the line, and she wonders if Tomas has just hung up on her. Then he says vaguely, "This is Einstein? The… speed of light squared?"
"Right!" says Verity. "So, where's the energy coming from?"
Tomas listens to her questions and is polite and considerate, but his answers all come down to the same thing: God did it. God is an endless energy well. God can change the laws of physics because he made the laws.
"But why make them if you're only going to break them?" Verity says, frustrated and perplexed. "Seems to me God is pretty into obeying laws."
"God is ineffable," Tomas says. "That's the miracle of God. He cannot be defined or contained by mortal comprehension."
Well, fuck, she tells herself, after she's thanked Tomas and hung up. God is a fucking wizard and there are no rules. For a moment, she feels as if she's going to float away herself, no longer tethered by gravity to the planet. Queasy, she stands up and puts a hand on the door, to go to the bathroom, or maybe to Rose's room. Before she has a chance to examine that disturbing thought, the phone vibrates in her hand with a text message.
> I'm sorry, Verity! I did not explain well to you. I forget that for me faith is perhaps too simple, and I am glad that you are asking questions that force me from that comfort zone. For better answers though, Marcus may be more helpful.
Verity snickers, brought down to earth by the precise language and the punctuation. Tomas texts like a grandpa. Then she considers the number that follows, and adds it to her contacts.
The next morning, she texts the number: Hey this is Verity. Nothing comes from it, so after a few days she forgets. The weekly routine is hectic at Rose's, getting everyone to the right school at the right time, and besides, Rose hooked her up with a part-time job. It's not much – a couple of shifts a few times a week at a friend's second-hand book store but in the few months Verity has left before her foster placement is over, she's glad of a chance to stash away some money. Rose will let her say – she's said so, whenever this topic comes up – but Rose can't pretend it won't be harder, down one payment. At the moment, every little bit counts, and at least she gets to read all she wants while she's working.
The store is quiet. Honestly, Verity can't see how it's making a profit, but it seems to serve as a gathering place for burned-out social workers. Verity tops up the coffee machine, clears away cups and on occasion, rings up a sale or two
It's quiet, the day Father Marcus shows up, and Verity hasn't had a customer for hours. Not even the free coffee can tempt the regulars in, not when the sky sits heavy with mist that drifts down in deceptively light sheets. The locals know that it might look like drizzle, you might think you don't need an umbrella, but that mist will drench you to the skin in minutes. Verity sits at the meeting table with her own cup of coffee, reading Heinlein with mixed feelings of horror and fascination, and when the bell clatters, she jumps.
Father Marcus isn't wearing the black uniform or whatever – do priests call it a habit, like nuns? Another thing Verity should ask him – but instead has a fisherman's sweater hanging from his shoulders, stretched heavy with moisture from the rain. He's dripping wet, undignified and outraged as a cat.
"What is this weather?" he says. "It's not like I don't know rain. This isn't rain. This is evil falling from the sky."
"Welcome to Seattle," Verity says. She points to the coat rack on the wall. "You probably want to hang that up."
She makes him tea in one of the hand-thrown mugs, and leaves the tea-bag in it according to his instructions. They sit at the round wooden table that serves as a community gathering point, and Marcus cups the thick ceramic cup with his hands.
"You frightened Tomas, you know. Mouse says he's nose-deep in a physics textbook." He laughs to himself. "It's an overachiever thing. He hates not understanding."
Verity watches him through the steam rising off her mug. "So, you understand it, then?"
"Physics? I haven't a clue," says Marcus. "But I can accept that God is a puzzle and it's okay to want to solve that somehow, even if it seems impossible."
Verity has a bunch of questions, wants to ask him if seeing all that stuff on the island means she's a believer now, but she sees Harper thundering down the street with Caleb walking behind her more decorously. Rose is driving Truck to an OT appointment this afternoon so Verity is combining the last hour of her shift with babysitting.
Harper's expression is amazed and ecstatic when she pushes through the glass door. "Father Marcus!" He and Tomas brought Harper to Andy's house, Verity remembers, and it sounded like they'd been through some stuff together.
"Bloody hell, you've grown," says Marcus, then takes a step backwards when Harper drops her umbrella and leaps on Marcus like a monkey. He laughs in delight and spins her around while she shrieks. Harper is much more vocal these days, which is kind of great and kind of annoying at the same time.
"Hey," Caleb says, barely moving his lips. In contrast, he's quieter these days, as puberty crowds in on him. Verity gives him a punch on the arm as he passes her to find the stash of cookies near the tea caddy. Poor kid is always hungry.
"Do you like Verity's store?" asks Harper, words tumbling out on top of themselves. "It's so cool, there's like nine copies of all the Harry Potter books in hard cover, I'm saving up for them."
"It's not my store, Harper," Verity says for the millionth time.
"Harry who?" says Marcus, and that's a big mistake. Harper takes him by the hand and drags him to the kid's fiction section, talking fast about the benefits of watching the movies first versus reading the books.
At closing time, Marcus leaves with the first two Harry Potter books which he insists on paying for, and a promise to talk more with Verity tomorrow.
"Technically I'm in town to pick up some parts," he says. "I've got a restoration project I'm working on, if you want to give me a hand."
Verity shrugs. "Sure," she says. She'll check with Rose, mostly because they've all been through too much for her to indulge in rebelliously running off to do her own thing, but she doubts it'll be a problem.
Marcus' restoration project is a vintage mobile home trailer with décor straight out of the seventies. He seems to be living in the parking lot of a scrapyard fenced in by a sagging wire fence and patrolled by a wheezing, grizzled Doberman. Rose would have a fit if she saw it, Verity thinks, picking her way over the muddy gravel.
"Wipe your feet!" Marcus yells from inside the trailer. Verity looks down at a scruffy doormat that says "Bless this Home", and scrubs her boots against it.
Marcus meets her in the doorway, wiping his hands on a grubby towel. "I just put in new carpet," he says and steps to one side to let her past.
The trailer is a weird mix of worn-out and brand new: Marcus has replaced a wall panel and window frame, and the cabinetry has been torn out. The carpet is crisply new and clean, but a terrifying shade of mustard that can't have been cool, not even in the seventies.
"You live here?" she asks. "Are you going to take the exorcist show on the road or something?" She tries to imagine what it's like to just pick up and drive from one place to another, no anchors to anything or anyone.
"That show's always on the road," Marcus says. "Right now it's on the road with Tomas while I do a bit of thinking. And nah, I'm living in the truck. You spend enough time sleeping on the back seat, you get used to it. Plus I only put the bed in yesterday." He gestures at the olive green sofa which presumably folds out.
They work together on installing new cupboards above the kitchenette, authentic faux-woodgrain laminate. Marcus props the shelf unit in place with one shoulder while Verity fixes it in place. She leans her weight against the drill to hold it steady in her hands, and they work in silence for a while.
Finally, when all four sides are secure, she lets the drill go quiet. "The thing is, faith and proof are different things. Shelby can't understand why I don't believe when I've seen actual evidence of God and whatever. Supernatural stuff."
"All the proof and none of the faith?" Marcus says. "Must feel like having an armful of stuff and nowhere to put it."
That's exactly how it feel to Verity. "What am I supposed to do with all of that? Knowing that there are demons and probably some force that opposes demons – that doesn't make me a Christian. Does it?" She doesn't realise until the words are coming out of her mouth just how much this horrifies her. It's a visceral fear, something she can taste in the back of her mouth like rusty nails, something that sounds like squeaking bedsprings. Her chest is suddenly tight and aching and she misses Nicole like the loss is something new.
"Hey." Marcus leans into her field of vision. "You okay?"
Verity can't speak, because if she opens her mouth, he's going to hear how frightened she is. She nods, but even that gesture is small and afraid. Marcus is going to say something sympathetic, and she's either going to throw the drill at his head or barf on the new carpet.
He doesn't say anything, though. He pulls that grubby towel from off his shoulder, then spends a long time wiping his hands, running the towel along the gleaming steel of the new sink, catching every scrap of sawdust. When Verity has control of herself again, he says "What do you reckon we get some lunch? There's a place round the corner that does good chips. Horrible tea, but good chips."
Verity nods again, more confident in herself now. When they go, he locks the door to the trailer carefully, then gives a piercing whistle, forefinger and thumb against his lip. The old Doberman comes trotting over in response, and belly flops down on the mat with a creaky sigh.
The chip place is a fried chicken joint run by a skinny, sullen man with a greasy ponytail. Marcus holds up two fingers to order. Scowling, the man slings fries and chicken into two red plastic baskets. Marcus pays and they sit outside on wooden benches watching trucks rumble back and forth into the industrial park.
"You doing okay?" Marcus asks eventually.
Verity folds an extra long fry into her mouth and nods. "I don't want to be a Christian, you know? It's been pretty easy to hold to, but when there's stuff like that out there, something that can do all that." She shakes her head. "I don't want to believe in it, but I don't want to hide my head in the sand, either."
Marcus picks meat off a drumstick and eats it with his fingers. "Seems pretty sensible to me."
"It's real, isn't it?" Verity says. The sunlight is watery but bright, and she squints at Marcus on the seat opposite her.
"Yeah," he says. "It's real."
"What happens in other countries?" Verity asks. "Are there Islamic exorcisms? Hindu?"
"Don't know very much about either. I just use the tools I've got," Marcus says. "If you find out, you can fill me in."
"If I find out?" Verity says, confused.
Marcus wipes his fingers on a napkin and screws it up, stacks their baskets. "Yeah," he says. "You're on a quest for knowledge, Verity. We need sceptics as much as we need believers in this war. It's bigger than just us."
Verity is dubious. She's read history books. "Oh, that's why you treated Galileo so well?" she says. "You needed sceptics?"
Marcus stands up, brushes his hands down his legs. "See, that is exactly why we need you, Verity Kim. Your refreshingly honest opinions."
They spend the rest of the daylight changing the brake pads on Marcus' truck. Marcus tells her what he knows about exorcisms in other Christian sects, and the little he's heard about Muslim possession. When they've got the brake assembly back in place, he drops her off home.
"Okay," she says, sitting in the cab with him. The engine of the truck is so loud it's rattling her teeth. "So, to recap, I'm on a quest."
Marcus looks at his hands resting on the wheel. "To recap, you're looking for answers, and nobody can find them for you. You have to walk that path yourself. But you're as brave as a lion, Verity Kim, and you will find your way to the answers you're looking for." He turns the truck off, then takes her hand and turns it palm up so he can deposit the keys in it.
She looks at them in her hand, and back at him. "What?"
"I'm headed back to the island," he says. "I've got my own answers to find, and I think I've realised they're not hiding under the hood of this pile of junk." He gives the dashboard a companionable slap. "You can pick the trailer up whenever you want. Dog'll keep it safe till you're ready."
He pops the door then hesitates, then leans across her to the glove box. "Here," he says, after rummaging in it. He hands her a crumpled envelope. It's empty, but it's covered in Christmas stickers. The return address has no name, but it's from Guelph, Canada.
"Her name's Kat. Her family went through something similar," Marcus says.
"I'm not starting a support group," Verity snaps automatically, then regrets it. Marcus did just give her a truck, after all. "Sorry."
Marcus is unoffended. He pushes the door open all the way. "Might make a good first stop, is all I'm saying." With that, he's out and walking down the street, bag slung over his shoulder.
Verity looks down at the keys, then slides over to the driver's seat and starts the engine, puts the truck in gear. She tucks the envelope into a pocket. It can't hurt to start making connections in this weird world she's starting to explore.
As she rolls carefully in next to Rose's sedan, she realises she can tell Truck they have a truck, and she grins in anticipation.