The Clairvoyant

Chapter Eleven: Motels are For Sin? Well Mary Needs to Sleep

  "There's a motel. It's 1 am. I'm tired. Let me pay." When Mary was tired, her sentences grew short and not sweet. Thomas did not know this, nor did he particularly trust the dingy little motel they just pulled up in front of. It was dark and dirty and there was a shirtless dude outside chatting with a woman in extremely high, shiny heels. Thomas looked at Mary, unable to find the words to say that would not make this situation insulting or uncomfortable.

   Mary usually would have laughed at the expression on his face. But again, she was tired. Her light eyebrows rose. "Do not give me the 'motels are places of sin dirt.' I will not stand for it."

   Thomas remained silent. He couldn't find anything to say for once.

    The inside of the motel was not much better than the outside. It was somehow dirtier. The front desk was a cracked wooden table, and it was the only piece of furniture in the room. The floor seriously needed to be swept and mopped. Three of the five lights in the celing were out. Mary loved it because it was not haunted and Thomas hoped he didn't contract diseases or bed bug bites.

    If the original plan had contained stoping somewhere for the night, he would have come prepared with cleaning supplies. Thomas had one fault if no other, and that was being an obsessive clean-freak.

   "What can I do for you two lovebirds?"

   "Two rooms please, Dina, thank you."

   Dina, the young lady coming down the stairs looked curiously at Mary. She had on no name tag, nor was her name anywhere in te building. "Certainly. Why two though?"

    Thomas adjusted his coat to showcase his collar.

   Dina snorted. "So? We've only got one open, but it has two beds."

   "I'm not picky, I'm tired," Mary said.

    "How much?" Asked Thomas.

   "Well... because you and Tired here are funny... thirty a night because we're full and I like you guys. I can make up the money elsewhere. Are you a palm reader or something, Tired? I do tarrots."

   Mary smiled. "I can read your palm but it won't be accurate. I can tell you though this place is not haunted and no one is going to die in it for at least... oh, forty more years."

   Dina grinned, adjusting the shawl in her shoulders. "Wicked. I can't wait to tell my boyfriend about you."

   She proceeded to to retrieve the key from behind the desk. Dina handed it to Mary, smiling happily at her. "Enjoy your stay and please let me practice my tarrots on you before you go."

    Mary nodded, remembering how she had once been eager to toy with her own gifts.

   She and Thomas began their ascent on the rickety stairs. Mary was somber but amused, and Thomas was still trying to process what was going on.

   Their room was scanty and bare. The only pieces if furniture were the two beds and a nightstand. The window was shut and the curtains pulled closed. Everything was more than a little dusty. It didn't seem like the motel had a maid service. Mary flopped down on the first bed and shut her eyes; she was fine with sleeping around Thomas: he wasn't a killer and never would be since he'd never have the guts. Thomas had no idea what to do. Copy Mary and sleep in his clothes? Go get pajamas from the car? Run? He was out of his element.

   But suddenly, as he looked at Mary's sleeping form - he enviously realized she waa the kind of person who could sleep anywhere - he felt a wave of calm descend upon him. He really was fond of her.

   Her face was smooth and worry free, as every person's was when they were asleep, but there was something extra... an innocence and gentleness she didn't have during the day. A kind vulnerability. He watched her for a moment, unaware that it waa creepy. How this brave woman could be that little girl from all those years ago, he didn't know. Well, apart from the obvious. But this was Mary now. Proud, caring, cautious yet impulsive, sarcastic, and teasing. That little girl had been willing to call herself a liar, to beg and plead with her mother. She had been frightened. Mary, even in that house had not been as frightened as when she was taken away. Her little eyea wide... small hands grasping for anything. Pinned in the arms of that big man dressed in white. The smug smile decorating her insane mother's face haunted him. How were the two even related to each other?

   He wondered what Mary's father had been like to her. They seemed happy, from what he knew. The three of them.

   Thomas shook his head and turned his gaze away from Mary. He was kind of tired. Mostly it was mental exhaustion, but exhaustion was exhaustion.

   Thomas took his time with his prayers, as he always did, uttering a silent, additional blessing for Mary's healing. Then he slippes into the empty second bed, moving to face the wall. This was highly irregular for a priest. Sharing a room with a woman. But that was not on Thomas's mind. Many things he should have been thinking about, he had not in several days. Mary and the Greenville house took up his thoughts. Poor Sheriff Taylor.

    Thomas sighed. His mouth turned downwards, in a curious frown. He wondered what ever happened to Mrs. Ripley. He had not seen her again since the day she kicked him off of her 'newly cleansed' property. Maybe she moved. The neighborhood might be a better place without her. Either way, it was God's will.