Serialization Sunday: Hoodoo – Chapter 26

Every Sunday, Fiction365 presents a new chapter in a previously unpublished novel.  Our first serialized novel, the taut thriller City of Human Remains, can be found in full here. 

Our current novel, Hoodoo, tells a story of visionaries, heretics and lunatics in Utah, centered on the life of Alice Lott, a twelve-year-old girl  who believes that God wants her to have an affair with her junior high school counselor. 

Find earlier chapters in Hoodoo here.

Chapter 26

I crawled into the sheets in the dark, not caring about the mud, my jeans in a pile on the floor, I slipped into bed in my panties, Raylene asleep already, snoring in the bed across the room. I moved under the sheet, turning to face the wall. I started to pray.

“Heavenly Father,

“Heavenly Father,

“Father, are you there?

“Was this You?

“Heavenly Father, I don’t know if this was You, but if it was,

“Father?

“Thank you. Was this You?

“Did You do this?

“Is this forgiveness?

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know anything anymore,

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“Can I want this now?

“Thank you, Amen.”

I pedaled my legs under the sheets, wrapped my arms around my naked waist, scrunched my eyes shut. He was so beautiful. I’d never seen anyone look so beautiful, when he looked at me with the tears running down his face, when he finally stopped crying and we leaned back against the brick wall of an old apartment building, holding hands and looking up at the moon, his arm stretched out to trace the crescent in the air. “Beautiful” was the word in my head, repeating and repeating until I had to open my mouth and shape the word to the dark room.

“Beautiful.”

I flopped over on my belly and held the pillow in my arms, like it was my Bobby. I kissed my pillow, wanting Bobby’s kiss. I kicked the sheets to the foot of the bed and held the pillow over my face, screaming quietly into the pillow. I sat up, and heard Raylene turn over in her bed. I flopped back and scrambled to pull the sheets back up, holding my breath, frozen, waiting for her snore.

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Founder of the Portuguese Artists Colony in San Francisco, Caitlin Myer regularly reads her work at Why There Are Words, Quiet Lightning, and other established reading salons in California.  Her one woman show on Simone de Beauvoir was produced in Seattle. 

Read more stories by Caitlin Myer

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