Radiant - By Christina Daley Page 0,26

a couple hours. I'll just wait here until she comes down." She sat in the soft chair next to Emma, who was reading her Bible quietly. Mary watched her for a moment. Then, she asked, "Hey Emma?"

"Yeah, Baby Girl?" Emma said.

Mary chose her words carefully. "Do you know the story about Jesus exorcising the demon from a boy?"

"Sure do," Emma said. "He cast out demons many times. And so did some of his followers."

"Do you know how they did it?" Mary asked. "Did they use holy water or say some kind of special phrase or something?"

"Well, with the boy you're talking about, Jesus said that kind of demon needed to be cast out by fasting and prayer," Emma said. "But casting out demons was just a small part of Jesus' ministry. He healed people, taught them, fed them, and a whole bunch of things. And it was all because He loved them."

Mary wrinkled her brow. "Loved them?"

Emma nodded. "That's why he came to save us, Baby Girl. Because he loved everyone. Even the people that killed him."

Mary didn't really understand most of what she said. Probably because she only read that one part about the demons. She'd have to read the rest to put it all in context. And that was of course going to be a challenge because she didn't read much.

Ba came downstairs with her purse on her arm. "Ready to go, Con?" she asked.

Mary thanked Emma and headed out with her grandmother. During their shopping spree, she pondered Emma's words. If she understood correctly, then the way to help Carter was to love him? How was Mary going to do that? She barely even liked him.

Reading the Bible suddenly didn't seem as much of a challenge compared to that.

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- 12 -

Without Words

When the salt and holy water didn't work, Mary decided to look into the possibility that whatever was possessing Carter was extraterrestrial. She did some web research, but she didn't find much. The "real" scientific community hadn't found any life beyond earth yet, and the speculative crowd had a bazillion and one different theories. She did find a couple places that said getting rid of an alien possessing a human host would require either drinking cyanide or getting blasted with gamma radiation. Based on Mary's lack of funds, as well as government restrictions, those didn't seem like feasible options.

But what Emma had told her stayed in the back of her mind. Mary wasn't sure about the whole loving thing like Jesus did, but she could at least start being nicer to Carter. And that meant she was going to have to get him to start talking to her again.

The next couple days, Carter was not in school. Mary started to wonder if he was all right, but he showed up again on Thursday like everything was normal.

The last bell of the day rang. As usual, Carter left Physics without glancing Mary's way. She ran to catch him in the hall.

"Carter! Wait up!"

He stopped and turned to her. "Hello, Mary."

"Hey," she said, keenly aware of people starting to stare at them. "Can we talk? Um, somewhere else? Like the Art room?"

"Sure," he said. "After you."

Mr. Edwards had already left for the day, so the room was empty.

"What would you like to talk about?" he asked.

Mary groped for words. She settled with, "Um, how are you?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. Why?"

She started picking at that stray thread on her bag. "Well, you've been avoiding me for a while. And I wanted to know if something was wrong. If I said or did something that bothered you."

He was quiet for a moment before speaking again. "Do you remember what you said to me the last time we were in this room?"

She nodded. "I had asked you why you saved me. Look, I have trouble talking. But I didn't mean to offend you or—"

"You didn't offend me," he corrected. "You surprised me."

"How so?" she asked.

He was quiet again for a moment. "I was first going to answer that it was the right thing to do. And that's true. But I realized that wasn't what I really wanted to say." He paused.

"So what did you want to say?" she asked.

"I don't know. At least, I don't know how to communicate it verbally." He paused again. "Words are effective most of the time. But sometimes, they can be very limiting."

She looked confused. "I don't get it."

"It's all right," he said.

"No, it's not," she said. "It's not all right