Demoni

6

I ran downstairs that morning all dressed and showered. "Aleece?" Mama said. She walked quickly towards me. I was putting on my sneakers. "Aleece, why don't you have breakfast first?" I shook my head. "Mama I'm fine, I'm going to go and eat out." I said. Mama looked at me with one eye brow raised. "With what money? Not mine, we need it to pay the house." "Mama, I got a job in the town, I'm a waitress. I can handle myself." I tied the laces on my sneakers into a bow. "But Aleece," mama said. "The restaurants are filthy,and the food is-" I cut her off. "Mama, I'm a big girl." I said sarcastically. The best part about having an immigrant family is that they don't get sarcasm, so you can use it as much as you want. We paused and stared at each other. A tiny smile spread across her face. "Fine." That was the first time in a long time I had seen mama smile. Papa was still holding a grudge. I ran out the door, grabbed my bike and drove to the address Mr. Forester had told me to. The address led to the Sacred heart Catholic Church.

I latched my bike to the bike rack and then walked up the steps. It was actually frightening. I only knew a little of my old religion. Even before we gave it up, we never really went to church. Stained glass windows held pictures of of a series of awful events. The birth of a child, then people eating at a table, then a man hung by his hands on a cross. I took a breath and opened the double doors of the church. I let my breath go. There was a large altar, and these glossy wooden benches. In the middle of the benches there was a path way. A huge statue of the crucified man on the cross hung above the whole church. The benches were empty, except for one, that contained a man who was sitting alone. He had his cupped hands in his face. It took me a while to recognize that the man was Mr. Forester without the cop uniform.

I walked down the isle, and stood at the side of the long bench, and waited for him to notice me. Mr. Forrester looked up. "Aleece!" He said making a motion for me to come and sit next to me. "Join me." I walked and sat next to him. "What are we doing here?" I whispered. "What are we doing here?! We are praying to god. " He said eagerly. I'd never seen him happy, he always seemed so serious. I was feeling ashamed of what I had to ask. "H-How do I pray?" I was nervous asking that, what kind of kid doesn't know how to pray? Most adults would've answered with "curse your parents." That was probably just my little paranoid mind, but still. "Easy, just tell god that you're thankful for the little gifts he gives you. You can learn the general prayers, but it's not mandatory." "What does god give me?" I was paranoid asking that too. He looked at me sternly. "Who do you think created the earth?" I shrugged, but I knew who he thought created earth. "You don't believe in a Stephen hawking theory, do you? The earth was created by something stronger than us, braver than us, bigger than us. Not a black hole." He said. "That wasn't Stephen Hawking's entire theory, but I know what you mean." "You see Aleece, there has to be a god." I nodded. "Evil spirits they can follow you. And why would there ever be such thing as evil with nothing good to cover it up?" I thought about his words. I started to think more about the logic. It had to be true. If it was, it'd be the best news that if heard since I moved into this dumb town. Maybe my family and I could get out of here, together.

Me and Mr. Forester walked out of the church. "Well I'm going to meet my grandson at the diner, would you like to come?" He asked? I was dazed, staring at the ground. I was lost in my thoughts of religion. "Aleece?" I looked up. "Oh, yeah. Sure." I replied. We got in the car. He put the keys in the ignition and drove to the diner.

"This is Aleece, Tom." Tommy was Mr. Foresters grand son. He had big blue eyes and dark hair, like me. He stuck out his hand for me to shake. I shook his hand and smiled at him. He smiled back. We sat in a booth, and ordered our food. "Tommy, Aleece and her family are experiencing predicaments with demons." Mr. Forester blurted out. I just stared at him. "Well tommy is going to go to college to study demonology." Tommy looked shocked too, but he nodded yes. "Yes... I'm going to be a demonologist." I smiled. "You have a beautiful smile." Tommy remarked, smiling back. "Where are you and your pretty smile going for college? What do you want to do?" "I want to go to Quinnipiac, I want to be a teacher." We smiled and stared at each other for what felt like a whole 2 minutes. "Check please!" Mr.Forester yelled, avoiding me and Tommy's conversation.

Mr. Forester pulled into my driveway and lit a cigarette. Thomas got out of the car to walk me to the door, but paused to chat with me before hand. He sat on the hood of the car. "Where'd you come from?" He asked me. "I moved here from Rome, two weeks ago." We smiled at each other. There was silence, but it wasn't awkward silence. Then we just burst out laughing. That kind of perfect silence. I heard a scream, it was Amelia. Tommy heard it too. "Oh no, Mel!" I ran to the front door and tommy followed me. "Mel?!" I opened the door and ran inside. Amelia was screaming and crying. "Amelia?!" We ran up the stairs into her room. Amelia was on the floor. The lamp was broken, and the picture Frame on the wall was shattered and turned sideways. I rushed by her side on the floor. "Amelia? What happened?" She stopped screaming, got up, and ran into the bathroom. "Amelia!" I tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. Tommy tried throwing himself against the door, and finally it opened. I was crying at this point too. "Amelia, what is wrong with you?!" I asked through my quivering voice. "Oh, nothing, I just woke up from a night mare." I glanced at her face. It was all tired, and had a look of fear melted into her eyes. "Where's mama and papa?" She avoided me and walked out. "Aleece," Tommy said. "There's something very wrong with that. Just walk out after this?" I looked at the shattered glass covering the floor.

"I know." I said.