Saving Elijah

"That's it. You can't stand it. Can you?"
    "We shall try again," it said, not answering the question.
    "I'm right, aren't I? You want me all for yourself."
    "Did we or did we not make a deal?"
    "Under duress. This isn't fair."
    "Who said anything about fair? A deal is a deal. Let me be with you."
    I felt something encircle my neck.
    "And if I don't?" Somehow I managed to escape around it.
    It made a shruglike motion, a shifting of whites, plane against plane, a shoulder, an arm.
    "Not an option," the demon whispered. "You'll see." And then it faded away.

    *    *    *

    The next day I went to my office, but I was nervous and jumpy and full of dread. Still, I sat through my sessions, conducting the work competently if not well. The last patient of the day was Zandra Leeward. She had seemed to be making some progress, connecting her rejection of men to the abandonment she'd felt as a young child, related to her mother's rejection of her. The session began well, but about halfway into it I began to feel chilled. I buttoned my jacket, I was looking for a draft. Zandra was talking about her mother.
    "She said she didn't ever want to look at me again. She locked me in my room and refused to let me come out for dinner."
    It reminded me of scenes between another daughter, another mother. "That must have been very painful for you," I said in my best mode-neutral psychologist tone, but I was beginning to shiver. The window wasn't open but it needed caulking. It was still winter.
    "My mother never liked any of my friends," she said.
    I realized I was feeling more than cold, way more. There was that change in the atmosphere, emanations of heat and cold, and the pervasive odor of metal corroded with rust, corrupt in my nostrils. I sat up straight in my chair.
    "I don't know," Zandra was saying. "It's not like Ray's ever done anything mean or bad ... What do you think I should do now?"
    "What do you want to do, Zandra?" Automatic pilot.
    She frowned. "I hate it when you say that."
    "What feelings does it—"
    I froze. The demon had materialized, standing between Zandra and me. Right there. But it wasn't a monster, or a formless mass, or a skeleton or a pink hippie, or something gooey from the grave, or even something white and luminous. Oh, no. It had emerged as a tall, elegant woman with long, lovely legs, deep red lips, painted fingernails, and a mass of auburn hair.
    "Charlotte!" I jumped to my feet.
    "Dr. Galligan?" Zandra said.
    The demon began to laugh in my mother's voice, and I sat down.
    "Is something wrong, Dr. Galligan? Who's Charlotte?"
    Never mind, dear. Countertransference to the max.
    I closed my eyes, I'd pull it together, I'd go on with the session, I'd—
    "Spread those legs, honey, because you're never going to get another chance, a dog like you." Bark, bark.
    "Damn you!" I screamed. "We're talking about her mother, not mine."
    The she-demon mother with the red lips and the red hair stood over me and laughed.
    Zandra stood up. "I think I'd better leave."
    In a moment, my patient was gone.
    " Why?" I asked.
    The demon just hooted. "Because I saved him, and you are mine." The demon moved very close, so close, I could feel the touch of its cold and slick membrane on my skin again. "It can still happen, you know."
    I was paralyzed.
    "Oh yes. The brain is quite a little mystery. Even Moore told you it was possible he could have another seizure."
    That was true, even though I gave him his anticonvulsant every day.
    "You humans are so fragile. One little blood vessel, boom! Do you think because the lullaby blinded the Angel's eyes for a moment, it can't return? I can make sure it does."
    "Leave Elijah alone." I was quaking and rolling. Could it really do that?
    "Leave Elijah alone, leave Elijah alone ..." it echoed. The words got softer and softer, and the demon faded and shut into itself, leaving just the faintest whiff of metal in the room after it completely disappeared.

twenty-one
    For the next few weeks, I tried to go on as usual, teaching my class, writing my column, seeing patients, cooking dinner, attending to my mothering tasks. Over-attending, I suppose you could say. I had an idea that if I maintained a constant vigilance over Elijah, I could protect him, and spent most nights sleeping fitfully on the floor by his bed, until one morning Sam found me there, curled up next to Elijah's Creatures of the Deep book. Elijah wanted me to look at the book with him constantly, and it was starting to get a little