Misfit Read Free Page A

possessed by demons?”
    “Very astute, Miss Thompson,” says the Mons with a gentle smile. But then his face grows serious again.
    “Yes, I’m afraid it was nothing less than corruption from those most base and vile creatures.” He scans the room gravely for a moment, then his smile breaks through again. “But take heart. The miracle of this passage in the Bible, and what I want to impress most upon you, is that with God’s wil , we can exorcise those horrible demons and send them back to the darkness from which they came.”
    It’s hard to hear the sweet old Mons go on about this kind of stuff. But of course, like most people, he doesn’t know the truth.
    Jael’s mother was a demon.
    The Mons turns his kind old eyes back to Jael. “Does that make sense, Miss Thompson? Do you understand?”
    “Yes, Monsignor,” says Jael, putting on the poker face she’s had eight years to perfect. “Demons are bad.
    Everybody knows that.”

HALF TRUTHS 2
    On her eighth birthday, Jael thompson found out she wasn’t like other girls.
    “I have the name of an angel!” she boasted to her father after school at dinner.
    “What?” said Paul Thompson. His hard, square-jawed face usual y didn’t show much emotion. But at the word
    “angel,” his eyes went wide and he froze, his fork and knife in mid cut through his tamale.
    “Mrs. Perez says so,” said Jael. She bit down on a green bean and chewed as she said, “You know the Ark of the Covenant?”
    “I am . . . familiar,” he said. He went back to eating his tamale, but his eyes had a strangely intense look. Jael decided it meant he was fascinated by what she had to say.
    “It’s a big box that has the broken Ten Commandments of Moses in it,” she said.
    “Yes . . .”
    “Wel , Daddy,” she said, trying her best to return the intense gaze he was giving her, “the lid of the box has two angels on it. Do you know what their names are?”
    He blinked, then stared at her for a moment. “I don’t, actual y.”

    She smiled triumphantly. “Their names are Zaral and Jael.
    Can you believe that, Daddy? Can you?”
    “Amazing,” he said. His voice sounded mild, but a muscle in his jaw twitched.
    “I think angels are the coolest, Daddy. Especial y Michael and Gabriel.” She frowned as she ate another green been. “But Uriel is pretty cool too. He guards the Garden of Eden with his flaming sword. I think I’d like to have a flaming sword, Daddy.
    Don’t you think that would be cool, Daddy? To have a flaming sword? Daddy?”
    “Um.” Her father’s expression was locked in a grimace, but Jael barely noticed. She was too busy showing off everything she’d learned about angels. It wasn’t every day that her father paid this much attention to what she said.
    “And there’s Azrael, of course,” she continued. “But he seems a little scary to me. And what about al those other angels? The ones that stay in Heaven al the time and never leave but just sing and sing and sing?”
    “Jael”
    “You know, Daddy, there’s seven levels of angels that don’t do anything but sing al the time, like infinity and forever. Why is that, Daddy? Why do the angels have to sing al the time?
    Don’t they ever get tired?”

    “Jael, please stop talking about angels.”
    “But they’re just so cool! And there’s al different kinds.
    Archangels, of course, Daddy. But also? There’s cherubim, and seraphim, and ophanim, and you know you can pray to them?
    Pray to angels, just like God and—”
    “Enough!” Her father was on his feet, glaring down at her, angrier than she’d ever seen him. His wide shoulders went up and down with each breath. “Never speak of angels in this house again! Never! Is that understood?!”
    She stared up at him for a moment. Then her eyes wel ed up with tears.
    “Jael,” he said. “Don’t cry. Don’t . . .”
    She ran out of the apartment.
    Everything in Tucson was beige. The sidewalks, the streets, the houses—everything except the vast