Saving Elijah

She just loves to pose.'"
    My whole body blistered with shame. Sam glanced at me.
    "Your husband collected pornography?" Sam asked.
    "Of course not. Drew just did it for effect."
    "So then he left?" Sam asked. Virginia Cantrell stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. "But not before he took his father's Rolex, his dead mother's diamond pin, and almost four thousand dollars from the safe. And that was the only time I ever met the adorable Andrew Cantrell."
    "Thank you, Virginia," I said, standing up. "Before we go, I'd like to ask one more question. I was wondering if you know if Drew Cantrell is alive or dead."
    She looked puzzled. "I thought you said he was stalking you."
    "He may be." Sam stood. "We're not sure."
    "And you can eliminate him as a suspect if he's dead. That's why you're here. Right?"
    The woman had watched one too many cop shows. "Something like that," I said.
    "Wouldn't they have notified my late husband if his son had died?"
    Maybe not, if he wasn't using his real name. The police said they found no identification, none at all. Maybe he was buried somewhere in an unmarked grave. Or a grave marked with the name he'd made up instead of his father's name. Seth Lucien. Because he thought it sounded demonic.
    After she closed the door behind us, Sam and I stood together on the portico. "I didn't pose willingly for that photograph, Sam."
    He held me; I was feeling weak in the knees. "I know."
    "Oh, Sam."
    "I know."
    "And we're no better off than when we started."
    "It's all right, Di. We'll figure out what to do." He held me tighter.
    "Well now, isn't this cozy?"
    The demon materialized on the portico, dazzling in the noonday sun. I could no longer see the demon as Seth—that was a selling disguise, the best it could do, the best, the top, the max. Neither could I see it as inert light, another maneuver. Now it was what it was.
    "If you hated your father, haunt him, haunt him!" I said.
    "Dinah?" Sam said.
    "He's dead," the demon screamed.
    Of course. "Then if your father was cruel to you," I said, "he's suffering his reward. Just as you are suffering yours."
    I took a step backward, suddenly remembering the sculpture of death. "Why did you show me that airplane crash?" I asked. "You wanted my pity with that, didn't you?" God. Even that had been just another tactic.
    It said nothing.
    "I can't help that child," I said. "He's been dead for years. Please. None of it has anything to do with my son. It isn't fair."
    "Isn't fair?" the buzzing demon whistled, smacking itself, slapping at the tiny buzzing insects darting and zooming inside it, and out. "There's only One who isn't fair."
    "You made your choice," I said. "You had a choice, everybody does."
    The wasps buzzed and dived, and it slapped at itself with claws made of the same shifting torment.
    A question formed in my mind. "Who saved Seth's life in that crash?" I asked.
    The demon fixed me with cold, cold eyes.
    "Satan," it whispered. I could see blackness in its mouth, wasps emerge from that blackness, swift as photons, and just as invisible.
    "No," I said. "That was where Seth went wrong. Right there. Only God has the power of life and death. And he lived his life without God."
    "Ungrateful woman," it screeched, rising.
    I fell backward into my husband's arms. I knew now that whatever guise it fabricated to scare me, whatever accusations it hurled, whatever its threats and lies, this demon was constituted of its own torment, and not of mine. What a clever demon it was, too, exploiting my doubts, my regrets, and my guilt for its own ends. Yet I had swallowed it all. Seth had kept saying, "I'm only for you, I'm only for you," but this demon wasn't for me. It was for itself. And that was its biggest lie.

thirty
    Dr. Selson had spread the pages of printout across his desk. It was shortly after Labor Day and Elijah was going to begin in a regular kindergarten class the next day. Now he was playing out by Dr. Selson's receptionist's desk.
    "See?" The doctor pointed to the tiny blips in the long, continuous line. "Here. And here. And here. I'm very sorry. This is the seizure activity. Do you see?"
    Sam nodded. There were tears in his eyes. "But we don't see anything in Elijah," he said.
    "You wouldn't," Dr. Selson said. "These seizures are very slight."
    After a few moments, I found my voice. "What does it mean?"
    Dr. Selson clasped his hands together. "It could mean nothing. He'll stay on his medication. I'm going to increase his dosage. The medication