(Ed Roland--[Collective Soul]--She Gathers Rain)
The town cemetery was a weird mixture of old and new. Originally started over two hundred years ago, by the original settlers to bury their dead as they tried to make it in a rough new world. The land they chose was unfit for growing much more than grass and withered weeds, but perfect for putting the dead away to their final rest.
Almost four acres had been set aside for the purpose. Apparently in the early days of the town, people had disagreements that carried well into death. Family A did not want to be buried anywhere near family B and family C didn't want to be near anyone but their own. Families picked their areas and tended them, putting their dead close together as if to keep each other company in the long after life. As generations were born, lived and eventually died, the family plots grew and other families started their own areas.
The final results was a disconcerting combination of old and new. Thin headstones of slate grey, bearing little more than the name and life span of the individual would be huddled together while nearby would be huge marble slabs with long epithets proclaiming who had passed on, who loved them, who they married and sired, and perhaps even other accomplishments to mark them, perhaps even to intimidate the living who stood above them to read the words.
Although the land had originally been unfit, modern methods and the creation of leisure time had sparked the citizens to eventually put some effort into "beautifying" the place. Fertilizer and top soil was added, along with trees and flowers. This effort in "improvement" did not accomplish what was intended, instead it only added to the weirdness of the place. Old and new, beauty and ugliness. The cemetery was a terrible reminder that death is a curse and a blessing. It remained remarkable free of vandalism, even the local youths, who might have been happy to knock over a few headstones on a crisp autumn night didn't want to go too near the place. It was too much of a reminder that no matter how special you thought you were, eventually everyone ended up equal in death.
The land surrounding the graveyard was nice in a wild sort of way but as the town grew, no one wanted to live too close. It remained wild and abandoned. Eventually, realizing that no one was going to want to build apartments or condos in the area, the state declared it a natural reserve for wild life. It turned out to be a good arrangement for all. The wildlife didn't seem to mind their dead neighbors and the dearly departed slept forever, undisturbed by progress and bulldozers. The days saw occasional visitors or additions to their community of deceased and their nights saw nothing but animals and birds.
Until tonight.
Magnus and Logan approached the stone wall. It was build of rocks taken from the land as new graves were made and at its highest point, only came up to Logan's waist. It was not designed to deter people from going inside, vision did a good enough job of that especially at night. It was put there merely for decoration and possibly to make people feel better. It seemed to be there to hold the dead in rather than the living out.
"Where in the hell could she be!" Logan shouted to Magnus, still needing to scream to be heard above the rain. Despite his hat and jacket, he was just as soaked as if he'd been standing under a waterfall.
Magnus looked around. The lack of stars made the whole place pitch black. If Logan, with his keen vision couldn't see her, he wasn't expecting to get lucky himself.
A burst of lightning cracked across the sky, for a moment lighting up the area as if it were daytime. "She's over there!" Logan shouted, pointing to a maple tree. The tree was close to the entry road and almost in the center of the graveyard. There was about a ten yard radius around it with no graves. A neutral zone in the midst of the death. "C'mon, she must be freezin'!" He started to leap over the wall, but Magnus put his arm on his shoulder holding him back.
"No. Let me go."
Logan stopped and turned back to him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Magnus shook his head, effectively cutting him off. "She's my problem Logan. Go home if you want, I'll handle this."
Logan shrugged. "Yer the boss. But damn it, don't get to philosophical with her here okay? Tryin' t'get her t'come home should be your first objective.
"Getting her home is exactly what I intend to do," Magnus answered as he climbed over the wall.
Logan watched him picking his way through the dark, a faint sheen surrounding him. Show off, he thought. Doin' somethin' with his ability t'keep the rain off him. He noted with some interest that Magnus hadn't been using this unsual form of protection when they first started looking for Justine. He was soaking wet. Also, whatever it was he was doing wasn't working too well. Enough rain and wind seemed to be affecting him. Logan debated if he should go home, but decided to stay, at least for awhile. He moved over to one of the taller stone pillars at the edge of the driveway into the cemetery, using it to sort-of shield him from the relentless rains. Squinting into the darkness, he waited and tried his best to watch.
Magnus made his way around the gravestones, moving towards the maple tree. The sound of the rain and the wind was almost deafening, the ground underneath him almost seemed to be moving as if the thunder and lightning crashing around them was vibrating the earth and the earth was having trouble shaking off the effects. As he got closer, he could barely make out the dripping form of Justine. She stood beneath the tree, her arms around the trunk as if hugging it, trying to brace herself against the wind and rain. "Justine!"
She looked towards him. At the same moment, another bolt of lightning streaked the sky and lit up the graveyard. He saw her face clearly for a split second and her eyes were still those bright burning coals he'd seen in the kitchen early. "She's not here!" she cried, her voice carrying to him over the wind. "I thought she'd be here, but she's not!"
"Who?" Magnus asked, moving beside her. The tremors in the earth seemed to calm a bit as he found shelter under the tree. There was a small bench beside the tree for visiting mourners to sit and rest, but tonight it was being ignored.
"The girl.. the one found in Victor's trunk. I thought she'd be here, where else would they take her, but she's not." Her voice sounded strangely disconnected, sad and almost childlike. "But there's no one here who hasn't been here for at least a month, so none of them can be here."
"Of course not Justine," Magnus said. He was close enough to her that he didn't have to shout. He could still almost... hear the faint trembling of the ground around him, but he didn't care. I'll figure out what that's all about later, he thought. "They have to do an autopsy on her, notify her family and have a funeral for her." He was trying to keep the rain off him by ionizing the rain as it came down and then giving himself the same charge. An ineffective method at best, but when outside in the rain without a decent coat or hat, what else could he do? He tried to spread out the same protection to encompass Justine, a method that failed even worse with her. "What would you have done if she had been here?"
She turned her head in his direction. "Brought her back of course," she said. "Corrected a mistake."
"I thought we agreed you wouldn't use your ability," he reminded her.
"Well, yes, we did agree on that," she admitted, her voice still dreamy and young sounding, but tinged with sadness. "But this is different. She died because of me. Besides Magnus, bringing people back is what I do. It's what I was born to do. That's why my parents locked me up, because they thought it was wrong for me to do what I was born to do. Maybe they were right. Maybe not." She drew in a deep breath, exhaling it in a long, sad sigh. "What do you think would happen if the world found out about me? If everyone knew who I was and what I could do?"
"Your life would never be the same," Magnus answered. "People would hunt you and hound you. Some would want to see you destroyed, others would want you to bring back their loved ones. Some would think you were evil and others would think you were the Messiah. No matter what though, your life would never be your own."
"It's not mine now," she pointed out. "It's yours. It was my parents but now it's yours."
"No, I didn't rescue you to 'own' you Justine, I rescued you to give you back your life."
"I can't be trusted with my life, I'm dangerous." The shielding surround them made it slightly easier for them to talk without having to resort to screaming at each other.
"If you really feel I own your life, then perhaps I should take control of it now and get you home," Magnus suggested.
Lightning lit up the skies again and she looked at him, he could see the anger flashing in her eyes. "I don't want to go home!" she screeched, letting go of the tree and running off. "Don't you dare patronize me Magnus!" The dreamy, childish voice was gone, her tone now was angry, angrier than he'd ever heard her before. "I'm not stupid and I'm not some harmless child! You and everyone at the mansion forgets what you're dealing with sometimes. Well I'll show you what you're dealing with and I'll show you good!"
If she hasn't lost her mind already, it's slipping away fast, he thought. "Justine, please listen; this isn't the way-"
"Shut up!" she roared, her voice carrying clearly above the rain she was now standing in. "Shut up, Shut up, SHUT UP!" She put her hands over her ears as if to block out his voice, although he wasn't speaking now. "All of you seem to talk and talk and talk and nobody has any answers! Why don't you listen for once! Just shut your damned mouths and listen!"
"I'm listening Justine," he called to her. Fortunately, the wind was blowing in the right direction to carry his voice to her. "Talk to me!" He started walking towards her, leaving the shelter of the tree, walking out of the neutral zone and back onto the territory of the dead. As he did, he could again feel the faint traces of the ground trembling and for a moment, he thought he could hear something, but he dismissed it. There were bigger troubles than a few quivers and strange noises.
"No!" She shook her head and ran backwards a few yards, nimbly avoiding all headstones and graves as if she had eyes in the back of her head. "Talking is over. I'm done talking. I said I would show you damn it, and I will! Now stop right where you are and listen!"
He did as she requested. He stayed frozen to the spot and listened, trying to hear above the rain, above the scratching noises...
Scratching noises.. ever so faint... like the people once resting below, supposedly asleep forever were now waking up.
His eyes widened in horror. "Oh no. Dear sweet Lord, no," he whispered, feeling all the color draining from his face.
Lightning cracked, illuminating Justine's face. She was grinning madly now, her arms raised high above her head as if to reach for the skies. "How many people here do you think died by accident?" she taunted. "How many died because of sickness? In other words Magnus ... how many people still have time on the clock?"
"Justine, stop this now!" He shouted. "Whatever is troubling you, this is not the way. I want to help you!"
"You really want to help?" she screeched. "Then get a damned shovel! I'll bet these people wanna get out!"
The noises beneath his feet were getting louder now. Thumping, scratching. He didn't know if it was imagination or not, but he heard moaning noises as the dead were awakened; screams of pain as bodies long dead were being forced to regenerate and come back to life. She must have started doing this the moment she got here!
He couldn't let this go on. It wasn't fair to the dead or the living. Closing his eyes for a moment, he concentrated. He couldn't kill with a thought, but being able to send a strong electromagnetic pulse through the entire area would be close enough. These people weren't strong, most of them were barely alive, still in the process of regenerating. It took less power than he thought it will. Go back to your deaths. Go back and forgive her for disturbing your rest.
Justine scowled. "No fair!" she shouted. "You just killed them again! Now who's evil Magnus? You just murdered hundreds of innocent lives!"
"I'm not going to argue that point with you Justine." He walked over closer to her, trying to forget that under his feet were the bodies of people who had a rare chance to die twice. "Justine, why won't you let me help you through this?"
"I think you've helped quite enough, thank you!" she roared. Her body tensed as if ready to spring off again, but she stayed in one spot. "You should have left me in the basement!" Her voice changed to a high-pitched wail. "I was miserable, but I didn't really know I was miserable! You took me out of there, you told me there was a place in this world for me, but there is none!"
"There might not be a place for what you can do, but that doesn't mean there is no place for you," he pointed out.
She shook her head, splattering water around her like shaking dog. "No. No. No." She spat out each word like a bullet. "You're saying who I am has nothing to do with what I am. That's not true. Who I am is mixed up with what I am."
"Can we discuss this someplace dry?" he asked hopefully. "I don't think it's good for you to be out here like this. Let's return to the mansion. We'll talk then Justine, I promise. We'll talk all night and all day if you wish. And we will decide what to do next. We'll make definite plans." He had a vague idea what these definite plans might be. It was something he'd kept in the back of his mind for awhile, since the night Scott tried to convince her to bring Jean back. That was the night he realized, at least subconsciously that there just might not be a place in this world for Justine Miller and her ability.
"Yeah?" She eyed him shrewdly, trying her best to study him in the absence of light. "Methinks this is just some ploy to get me out of the rain cause you don't like getting wet." She giggled suddenly as if in the midst of a private joke. "I come across as a wimp, don't I? Cheese Wizz, Justine Miller, nice kid, woman, whatever. Wouldn't hurt a fly on purpose. Boy is that a myth." She reached out suddenly and grabbed his arm, pulling him closer. "Hey, I've got an idea, a great idea!"
"What's that?" he asked cautiously. He knew he wasn't dealing with the Justine he knew. Somehow, that girl had slipped away. What stood in her place was a reasonable facsimile, at least for appearances sake, but this stranger wasn't going to be as easy to reason with. This stranger was all of Justine's pain and anger, all her frustrations, rolled into one person.
"Lets see how much fun my ability can be!" Her fingers gripped tighter into his arm. "Let's figure out someone you absolutely hate that died. We can find out where he is, and bring him back!" She sounded like a mischievous child letting a best friend in on a marvelous practical joke. "How about ...." The pause was deliberate, trying to make the moment more dramatic. "Hitler!"
If the hairs on the back of his neck weren't already soaked and sticking to his skin, they would have stood straight on end. The name itself was enough to bring back a million stinging memories, but even worse was that Justine knew it did and she brought it up deliberately to inspire those flashbacks of pain.
"We'll bring him back," she continued, her voice still sounding like she was on the verge of giggling. "And you can ask him for yourself why he did what he did. Why he cause an entire nation of people to turn against everyone. And, if you don't like his answers, you can kill him. Then, I'll just bring him back, and you can kill him, again and again and again and again and again..."
Over and over she repeated those same two words. For a split second, Magnus could almost picture it, his hands around that madman's throat demanding to know why he did what he did, demanding he pay for all the lives ...
He stopped those thoughts abruptly and grabbed Justine. "No!" he roared, shaking her roughly. "You will not try to pull me into this, it's sick!"
For a moment she resisted, then her body relaxed and she let him shake her. "Of course," she informed him, her voice shaking. "I am sick. I'm very sick. I'm worse than Victor ever was. At least Victor thought he had a place in this world. I don't even have the comfort of thinking that. I belonged in the basement Magnus. That's the only place safe for me."
Magnus drew in a deep breath, still holding onto her arms, but more gently now. "What if I was able to offer you another alternative?" he asked.
"Another basement?" she asked bitterly.
"No, not a basement," he said. "Some place else. Some place where you can be safe. Where you can walk around freely, but without worrying about people finding out who you are and what you can do. A place where you'll feel safe and you'll be far away enough that you won't be tempted to bring anyone back."
"There is no such place."
"Yes there is," he disagreed. "And I know where it is. I can take you there Justine, all you have to do is trust me, one more time."
She pulled away from him, stepping back, but not to run, just to look at him in a different perspective. "Why?" she asked. "Why should I trust you again?"
He paused to think before answering. "Because weather or not I made the right decisions about you, every thing I did do for you I thought was right. In other words, I never had anything but your best interests at heart."
Her head tipped to one side. "Did you ever care about me?" she asked softly. "I always cared about you. From the moment you took me from that basement, I cared about you. Even when you made it clear that my caring made you uncomfortable, I continued. I couldn't help it. Caring isn't something you can turn on and off like a faucet. I know you're kinda the boss back at the mansion but right here, right now, with no one else around, will you let me know the truth?"
"I always cared about you Justine," he confessed. "I know I did my best to maintain a professional distance from you, but I failed. Perhaps I should have realized from the start I would fail and never tried. I had two daughters Justine. One I lost to death, the other ... the other I lost all my chances with. I never realized what a hole that could make in my life until you came along. Until you started to fill that gap. Yes Justine, I care for you very deeply and I always will."
She knew the difference between the rain and her tears. The rain was cold and her tears were hot. She held out one hand to him, trembling. "Then, I do trust you Magnus," she whispered.
He took her hand and held it tightly. "Then let me take you home."