The Beginning (Jessica Christ Book 1) Read online

  “She got a hundred and five,” Miranda finished, smirking and still unaware of the damage she’d done.

  A momentary look of panic surfaced in Trent’s eyes before he tamped it down. “That’s only because she cheats.”

  “I do not!”

  “Of course you do,” Courtney said, picking up where her brother left off. “Why wouldn’t you? The Reverend Dean said you’re the Antichrist. And the Antichrist would definitely cheat.”

  “Jimmy never called me that!” Jess protested. At least she didn’t remember him saying it, but it could have happened once she and her mom had fled the service. She also wasn’t sure what exactly “Antichrist” meant, but judging by the fact that it was coming from Courtney’s forked tongue, it couldn’t be good.

  “Yes, he did. He said it to my mom after church yesterday and she told us. He said you’re the Antichrist and as punishment for mimicking the Holy Son, you won’t live a day longer than he did!”

  “Yeah!” Trent chimed in. “Jesus will kill you dead!”

  Mrs. Thomas, who was returning to her desk after handing out the last of the graded papers, prickled up at the word Jesus and turned quickly on her heels, swooping down on Trent, despite it being Courtney who was the pack leader of the hunt. Jess could almost feel the waves of anger coming from her teacher as the woman breezed past Jess’s desk to stand less than a foot away from Trent. “Excuse me, Mr. Wurst? I could swear I just heard you trying to shame another person in my classroom for their beliefs. Did I hear that correctly?” The thin thread of sweetness she’d woven into her words only served to halt all activity in the classroom in an instant. When Mrs. Thomas was upset with a student, she laid it out plain, no sugar-coating at all. But when Mrs. Thomas was furious with a student, well, it sounded exactly like this.

  Trent’s eyes were giant saucers, the blue of them overrun by the expanding black holes of his pupils. “No, ma’am,” he said innocently, his voice wavering.

  Wracking her brain for a time when Mrs. Thomas had ever looked this angry, Jess came up empty-handed. The teacher stood, one hand on her hip, one on her forehead, staring daggers at Trent without speaking, and Jess wondered if anyone else in the room was able to breathe during it, because she certainly wasn’t.

  “Need I remind you of our previous conversations, Mr. Wurst?”

  Trent squinted, appearing lost for only a moment before a memory seemed to surface, and his eyes shot open, his pupils dilated slightly, and he shook his head adamantly.

  “You know what?” Mrs. Thomas said. “Go see Principal Finnegan. I’ve just about had it with your attitude today. You, too, Courtney. I’ll be calling your mother after class. And plan on lunch detention for the rest of the week.”

  They started to protest loudly, but Mrs. Thomas smacked Trent’s desk with a flat palm. “No!” That put a stop to it and caused everyone in the classroom to jump. “Go. Now. I’m calling Principal Finnegan to let him know to expect you.”

  Mrs. Thomas waited protectively between Miranda’s and Jess’s desks as Trent and Courtney gathered up their things and sulked out of the classroom. Watching them slink in shame only brought Jess mild satisfaction. This could have been a highlight of her year if it’d happened any week prior to this one, but now nothing short of watching them flee the classroom with jeers and judgment hot on their heels would have felt like a victory to Jess.

  Besides, the damage had already been done by their words, and Jess knew the queasy feeling wouldn’t go away until she could at least figure out what an Antichrist was. And that would have to wait till later, because she was not about to ask Mrs. Thomas anything related to religion when the woman was still so red-faced and flustered.

  IF IT’S ANY CONSOLATION, MRS. WURST AND JIMMY HAVE BEEN KNOCKING BOOTS FOR ABOUT THREE YEARS NOW.

  I don’t know what that means. Shut up. Leave me alone.

  The last person she wanted to hear from was God, who was solely responsible for every individual misery, both large and small, that she could count in her short life.

  * * *

  Even with the Wurst twins in the principal’s office for the rest of the afternoon, the end of the school day couldn’t come fast enough for Jess. As she walked down the crowded hallway, a step behind Miranda, she wondered vaguely what her bed was up to just then. Particularly, what the small, dark, cozy space between her soft cotton sheets and her heavy comforter were up to. She decided she would find out in person as soon as she arrived home, and that plan felt like salve over her singed nerves.

  After she waved goodbye to Miranda and just as she hit the pavement on her walk home, she spotted her mother’s Nissan pulling into the parent pick-up line a little ways down the block. Even better. She’d be curled up in bed, bathing in the glow of her TV before she knew it.

  She climbed into the front passenger’s seat, chucked her backpack into the seats behind her, and buckled herself in.

  Destinee watched her and waited until she was settled in to pull out of line and onto the road. “Thought I’d pick you up in case your day wasn’t fantastic.”

  “Thanks,” Jess mumbled.

  “So how was it?”

  “It wasn’t fantastic.” She sighed and stared out the window at the redbrick building that had functioned as her prison for the day.

  “Mrs. Thomas sent me a text saying you and the Wurst twins had it out. What’d those twerps say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Destinee might be acting sweet, soft, and concerned now, but Jess hadn’t forgotten the mashed carrots from the night before. There was no reason why her mother wouldn’t still be spring loaded for rage.

  “Did you at least stand up for yourself?”

  “When I could.”

  Destinee nodded approvingly. “Good.”

  They’d made it to the end of the block and were waiting for the next car to go at a stop sign when Jess asked, “How old did Jesus live to be?” as casually as she could manage. People asked those sorts of things all the time, right?

  There was a low rumbling sound from deep within Destinee’s throat before she inhaled deeply, turned to get a good look at her daughter, and responded, “I think it was thirty-three.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  That seemed old enough, but then she realized it was only a handful of years older than her mom currently was, and it didn’t seem nearly old enough to have to worry about dying. “Just curious.” She’d only heard of a few people dying that young, and it was always from car accidents, murder, or cancer. Car accidents weren’t a thing back then, and she was pretty sure God wouldn’t let His son die of cancer …

  She decided to press her luck. “How’d he die?” Though considering the torture he’d endured—or at least she’d gleaned as much about his story from the images of it that were plastered on church signs and stained glass windows around Mooretown—murder seemed likely. People sure didn’t like him in his time. She could relate.

  “He was killed. Jess, why are you asking?”

  “No reason. Just wondering.” Killed at thirty-three. That seemed like a raw deal, but who was she to say? He could have been a bully and maybe people got tired of it and decided to take him out. She’d never met the guy, even if he was family.

  But regardless, if he had been murdered at thirty-three, then maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to outlive him. All she had to do was make more friends and be sure none of them wanted to kill her. That was simple enough. She had to become less killable.

  So, as the Nissan pulled onto the farm-to-market road leading home, Jess brainstormed ways to make herself less killable.

  But something else was still nagging at her mind. “What’s the Antichrist?”

  “What the fuck.” Destinee swerved onto the shoulder and threw the car into park. “Why are you asking me this, Jess? The truth, please.” Destinee tilted her head forward toward Jess, waiting impatiently. There was no way to lie when Destinee became this serious. “I’m not mad at you, baby. I just want to know where you heard that word.
”

  “Trent. He said his mother told him that I’m the Antichrist.”

  For half a second, Jess worried her mother might be about to pass out as her eyes glazed over slowly, becoming unfocused as her gaze floated upward to the unoccupied space above Jess’s head. Still staring into nothing, she nodded. “Okay.”

  Nope. Jess knew not to trust that. Maybe some other lucky kid’s mother would say, “Okay” in response to that, but there was no universe in which Jess could imagine her mother letting this be. And yet, Destinee remained calm.

  Jess had never been more terrified of what her mother might do.

  Destinee glanced over her shoulder at the road, threw the car into drive, checked her mirrors and then pulled a U-turn and headed back in the other direction.

  “Where are we going?” Ooo, this wasn’t going to end well. Destinee was a new kind of angry, a calm and silent kind, which was uncharted territory.

  “You’re not the Antichrist, Jess. If anyone’s the Antichrist, it’s Jimmy.”

  So the Antichrist was something bad. Was the Antichrist like the Devil? Yet again, she wondered if Jimmy could be the Devil, and while there was a slim chance, for the most part it didn’t feel right. If God had come straight out and said that Jimmy was a demon, she could probably get on board with that, but there was something about him that didn’t quite fit with being the embodiment of ultimate evil, an ineptitude that lurked in the shadows of his larger-than-life persona.

  Sure, he couldn’t be crossed off her old Devil List, but neither could a lot of people, leaving her with only one tool to work with: gut instinct.

  So the Devil List had become The Unofficial Devil Test, which consisted of asking herself, “Is he/she the Devil?” and waiting to see if a clear “Yes” followed in God-only-knew (literally) what form.

  But so far, the results of The Unofficial Devil Test for each non-native Mooretowner she’d tried it on had come back inconclusive. Well, no, that wasn’t quite right. There were three exceptions, three non-natives who Jessica was sure were not the Devil. Firstly, there was Miranda, who was born and spent the first few weeks of her life in Austin until her mother moved back to Mooretown. Then, of course, there was Mrs. Thomas, who frequently mentioned how she was from Louisiana but left as soon as she could and ended up in town after she married Congressman Thomas. And lastly there was her neighbor Todd, who always stopped to let her pet his bloodhound Sampson when they passed the McCloud home on walks and seemed all too insignificant in her life to be the Devil. And the idea of the Devil owning a slobbery hound like Sampson seemed too silly to be possible.

  She decided to run Jimmy Dean through the test again.

  Is Jimmy Dean the Devil?

  God didn’t respond, which was to be expected. He never responded when she ran the test on someone. It was the one surefire way she’d found to make sure God stayed silent, actually.

  She let the notion of Jimmy being the Devil bounce around in her mind, and as usual, the results came back inconclusive.

  Part of that might have been because Jess’s mind was preoccupied with solving the riddle of where Destinee could be driving them. Jess was coming up short on guesses. She’d been on this stretch of road before, but she didn’t know of anyone who lived out here.

  “Where are we going?” she asked again, but Destinee remained silent. They exited the road into a small neighborhood with houses easily four times the size of the McCloud doublewide. Every house looked basically the same, like big imposing tanks lined up, ready to march on all the smaller homes of Mooretown.

  Even when Destinee pulled up to the curb and parked, Jess couldn’t figure out what they were doing. She knew she wasn’t in trouble with her mother—why would she be?—but she kind of felt like she was in trouble.

  Then she saw the Wursts’ car pull into the driveway a house down.

  Oh no.

  Destinee rolled her neck in small circles and then cracked her knuckles.

  “Mom, no.”

  But her mother had already homed in on the Wurst car. “I’m just gonna talk to her, baby. Don’t worry.”

  She left the car and strode determinedly toward the Wurst family. Jess unbuckled so that she could slide down in her seat to be as inconspicuous as possible, providing a counterweight to Destinee’s behavior.

  As she peeked out from above the dashboard, she couldn’t hear what her mother was saying, but she could see the expression of confusion then disgust on Mrs. Wurst’s face after the woman opened her car door, spotted, and then registered who it was marching toward her where she sat in the driver’s seat of the minivan.

  Destinee didn’t waste a moment with conversation before she grabbed Mrs. Wurst by her perfectly styled and hairsprayed bun and dragged her onto the lawn. Both women began hollering, but Jess couldn’t make out any distinct words.

  Jess had never actually witnessed Destinee physically assault another human being, but seeing it unfold didn’t come as any surprise. In fact, Jess was surprised she’d made it to eleven before seeing a display like this from her mom.

  Out on the manicured lawn, Destinee waited until Mrs. Wurst took a swing at her before tearing into the woman. That seemed like a smart tactic to Jess. She made a note of it, just in case she ever had to beat up a Wurst herself.

  Destinee’s first punch made contact with Mrs. Wurst’s stomach. She let go of her hair and the woman fell to the ground in a heap. Destinee stood over the woman, but she didn’t have to wait long before Mrs. Wurst tried to scramble back onto her feet to retaliate. She was hardly onto her knees before Destinee jumped on top of her, flattening her out, and began to deal more blows with less precision than her initial gut punch.

  CAT FIGHT!

  God! Stop her!

  YOU KIDDING ME? THIS IS HOT AS HELL. TRUST ME ON THAT. I KNOW.

  What?

  DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MANY TIMES I WISH I COULD SMITE PEOPLE WITHOUT IT BEING ALL OVER THE NEWS? EVERY ME-DAMN DAY. I LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE TAKE JUSTICE INTO THEIR OWN HANDS.

  Mrs. Wurst somehow rallied and a firm closed-fist slap to the side of Destinee’s head freed her up so she could struggle to her knees before Destinee launched another attack.

  YOU KNOW, THIS IS WHAT MADE ME FALL FOR YOUR MOTHER.

  Her beating someone up?

  YEP.

  Who?

  SAME PERSON.

  Wait, my mom has beat up Mrs. Wurst before?!

  YEP.

  Should I try to break them up?

  NAH. JUST ENJOY IT.

  I think I should break it up.

  THOU SHALT NOT BREAK UP THIS MEGA HOT CAT FIGHT!

  Jess sighed. If God was into this, then maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe she should just enjoy the show. God probably wouldn’t let anything horrible happen to the mother of His child anyway. Plus, Destinee did have a pretty good uppercut.

  Pausing from her studious observations, Jessica glanced over at Trent and Courtney, who had gotten out of the minivan and were standing against the car, watching and crying. What worthless babies. Jess sat up straight in her seat and waited until the twins looked at her. Then she smiled and waved.

  OH YEAH!

  Destinee was standing over Mrs. Wurst and delivered a final kick into the woman’s butt before wiping her sweaty hair from her face and darting back to the car.

  She jumped in and quickly started the engine. “Woo! Hell yeah!” She was bleeding from the nose and a cut below one of her eyes. The crimson flow dripped down onto her cobalt-blue pharmacy polo, wicking into expanding mahogany stains. “God damn, baby! That felt so good.” She pulled away from the curb and sped down the street, past the rows of tank houses.

  “Are you okay?” Jess asked hesitantly, wondering if her mother had officially lost her mind.

  “Better than okay. I feel amazing! That bitch had it coming. Should’ve known better than to go for round two with Destinee McCloud! Woo!” Destinee took a hand off the steering wheel and held up her palm.

  Without meaning to or e
xpecting to, Jess started to laugh. She high-fived her mother.

  TELL HER HOW SEXY I THINK SHE IS.

  “No! Gross!”

  “Huh?” Destinee asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Is God talking to you?”

  “Yes. He’s being gross.”

  Destinee addressed the roof of the car. “I knew you’d like that, you dirty bastard! Ha!” She turned up the radio and played the top of the steering wheel like a bongo while dancing in her seat.

  But by the time they’d pulled into their driveway, it seemed that her rush had worn off. She sighed, turned off the car and sat there, looking drained. Her face had swollen up nicely, and Jess wondered what Mrs. Wurst’s face looked like right about now. Not that she really cared.

  “Cops are probably gonna come looking for me in the next few hours or so,” Destinee said. “Shit.” She sighed. “I’ll call your grandma to come stay, in case I got go down to the station to clear some things up.”

  “Is Mrs. Wurst going to call the cops on you?”

  Destinee shrugged a single shoulder. “She doesn’t really have to. Her husband’s the chief of police, so she just has to tell him, and he’ll lay down the hammer. God dammit. Last time she was just banging some roughneck who was only in town two weeks out of every month. Bitch sure did marry up …”

  No, this couldn’t be how the world worked. It wasn’t fair or just. Beating up Mrs. Wurst was supposed to make things even, not land Destinee in jail. There had to be a way around it.

  Then something prickled in her mind, like a polite tap on the shoulder. She almost didn’t tune into it, didn’t notice that something might be there. A tiny bit of information that Jess didn’t quite understand, but kept nagging at her like it could make itself useful.

  It could be nothing, but then again, God had said it, so maybe it was important.

  “What does ‘knocking boots’ mean?” she asked.

  Destinee was dabbing at her nose in the mirror with a tissue from her purse, but paused from her clean up and turned her head slowly to face her daughter. “Why you asking?”

  Jess could tell from her mother’s cautious tone that her suspicions might be correct. “What does it mean?”