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A/N: The story Pierre Lacroix tells is not my own, it’s from his own words.
Chapter 80: Cecile VIII
"...not overreacting, Father! Look at me. Am I yelling or gesturing wildly or crying or trembling?" Cecile said. She remained quiet for a moment and looked straight into Father Mallory’s dark eyes. He sat, as he was, passive, pensive, with that stature of a man who is old and wise. But he wasn’t old, at twenty-five he was the youngest Father in the church. He was young enough to know how to talk to the young, and that was why Cecile liked to talk to him the best.
"No," Father Mallory said. "I don’t think you’re overreacting, I spoke too hastily there, I’m sorry. You seem calm as ever."
Cecile leaned forward, clasping her hands in her lap. "And when have I ever brought up a problem that was even close to facetious? I mean... I dream a lot Father, and have I ever brought up something like this to you?"
Mallory frowned and looked away from her.
"What’s wrong?" Cecile asked.
"Those emerald eyes of yours girl," he said and then he laughed quietly. "I can’t take a gaze like that from you, it’s very distracting."
Cecile felt her cheeks go warm and she looked at her hands. "Oh," she said.
"I didn’t mean it that way," he said quickly. "It’s just such a rare thing, eyes like that and when you see someone with a distinctive beauty like that, sometimes you find yourself...well distracted by it."
Cecile nodded, still looking down.
"In centuries past, eyes like that would have you in the worst trouble," Mallory said. "No one would appreciate them like today."
Cecile smiled tightly and looked straight at him, his gaze was stoic and cool again. Such a displaced gaze in a face as pretty as he had. "You’re changing the subject," she said. "I know, my mom does it to me all the time."
Mallory sighed and leaned onto his desk, resting his chin into his hand. "I know," he said and then with his other hand he ran his fingers through his dark hair, ruffling it some. "I know you’ve had an intense scare, and I’ve been waiting here actually. I’ve been waiting for you because I knew you would need to talk about it sooner or later, you never came, and now here you are... albeit a severe nightmare later."
Cecile exhaled slowly and looked at the porcelain collection of Siamese cats on the desk. The ticking of the clock seemed to have grown suddenly louder.
"I was downstairs, in the basement and... and I found this box with... I know I shouldn’t have been looking at it and Danny had just called and..." she began.
"Danny?" Mallory said. "Have you reconciled your mother to him?"
Cecile shook her head, "No, not yet... I will! I know I will. Anyway, there was this old, bloody jersey in the box and it was cold and Danny was coming over so I put it back and I heard him upstairs and when I went upstairs it wasn’t him it was... that man."
Cecile then held her hands out and ran her tongue over her lips. "And that was it."
Mallory blinked slowly. "And did he hurt you?"
"Nope," Cecile said. "He threatened me, he said he would ‘smash my pretty eyes’ or something like that. And I was real scared but somehow I think that he wouldn’t have hurt me. I mean, he could have really slapped me or hit me but he just threatened to, he just told me he would. I mean he hit Michele, you know? She was bruised up for a long time, and so he doesn’t fool around, I mean there was no reason why he wouldn’t have hit me right off the bat. You know?"
Mallory nodded.
"And Michele came in and blinded him, took the sweater off her back and blinded him and she kept kicking him and kicking him and he ran away and she still tried to hold onto him. She saved my life." Cecile concluded.
"But in your dream you hit her and threw her into the water." Mallory said. "Is there something of hers that you covet? Is there some position you want to usurp from her?"
"No!" Cecile said quickly, feeling her cheeks flush. "There isn’t anything at all that she has that I would ever want. I don’t think so, that couldn’t be it..."
"Ah," Mallory said. "But your reaction just now, that was something."
"I have a feeling sometimes," Cecile said, not making eye contact. "I don’t really trust her... there’s something about her that’s... dirty. It seems like she’s always flirting with Danny and all Danny talks about nowadays is her! Sometimes I feel like his little sister and he’s just gawking at her..."
"A lot of animosity then," Mallory said. "Well that’s something. But still, you were dethroning her in your dream. Trying to take her place."
"Dethroning?" Cecile asked trying to keep her voice calm. "How? She was laughing at me and she had my cross in her hand and.."
"You struck her down and threw her into the place you had been standing, into the water," Mallory said. "In essence you were not defending yourself, there was a great deal of room for you to pull yourself out of the water but you took refuge by striking her out of her place. You were making sure she was gone before you went up."
"I don’t know," Cecile finally said. "I guess it was just a dream."
Mallory closed his eyes, his lids wrinkling a bit as he was in thought. He held his finger up. "Not for you," he said. "In the time we’ve known each other, I like to think I know you well. You’re a smart girl, and you’ve great intuition and instincts and a moral fiber that amazes even me."
Compliments like that bothered her. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling knowing that those principles she stood for were so strange nowadays that they elicited awed compliments, even from a Reverend.
"This dream was special, Cecile," Mallory said. "You were touched on a powerful level. Dreams shouldn’t always be ignored. They’re highlighted on more than a few occasions in the bible, Joseph and Daniel affected the course of history with their interpretations of dreams and the entire book of Revelation is all a dream. Why would God have inspired the retelling of these dreams?"
Cecile laughed dryly and scratched her head. "So God had the bible written so that you can tell me that my dream was important?"
Mallory smiled. "Don’t be sarcastic. What I mean to say is that if a dream bothers you so much that you feel the need to talk to your Spiritual Guide, than it has been documented, it may be something important."
Cecile coughed,
"Think on it Cecile," Mallory said. "Write the points of the dream down and see if you can match your day to day problems with it now or in the future."
"Future?" Cecile exclaimed. "Are you saying that it’s prophetic?"
Mallory shrugged. "Let’s not use prophetic, how about your intuitive nature has shown in your subconscious dreams. Perhaps it’s not prophetic but a warning, a way you can avoid something that could happen."
Cecile closed her eyes and sighed.
It was after three o’clock when Cecile came back to the Roy house and when she opened the door the barking howling puppy greeted her. "Hello, Gigi," Cecile said, squatting down and holding her hand out to the fuzzball. Gigi showed her tiny teeth, taking a couple steps backwards, but her curly tail was wagging against her back. Gigi lowered her chin onto her front paws and with a snort she turned around and pranced away, satisfied that she’d identified the intruder.
"Who is it Gigi!" Freddy cried as he ran into the hallway. He smiled and blushed when he looked at Cecile. "Hi!"
Cecile smiled and waved her hand weakly. "Hi Frederick." Out of the three kids, Cecile liked Freddy the best. When the other two weren’t goading him on, he was actually a quiet, sweet tempered little boy.
Freddy beamed. "Hey come on!" he said. "You gotta see Jana’s trick or treat costume, it’s really cool! Momma and Coco made it for her! Pleeeease!"
The boy clenched his fists together to his chest and smiled. How could anyone refuse a face like that? "Sure, where is it?"
"Tell me again!" Cecile heard Jana exclaim before she and Freddy entered the parlor. "I want to hear it again!"
Cecile took a quick glance around the room to see the parlor littered in tissue paper, and snacks and empty glasses of various liquids. There was a face painting kit strewn all over the lush carpet and Pierre and Coco Lacroix were sitting on two heavy, antique French chairs. Pierre had come home with Joe Sakic when they had received news of Mitchell’s illness. Both of them had huge smiles on their faces and Cecile noticed The Sakic’s kneeling on the carpet, Mitchell was sitting next to Debbie and the twins were asleep on the soft recliner.
"Hi Cecile!" Mitchell squealed, waving his hand.
Cecile’s heart melted when she saw the boy and she smiled at him.
In the middle of the carpet Michele was also on her knees brushing her hands across the little shoulders of who Cecile was shocked to see was Jana. The tiny girl was lost in her costume, she was dressed like a goalie, complete with pads. Cecile raised her eyebrows.
There was a round of hello’s from the parlor and Cecile waved at everyone, not able to take her eyes of Jana. "Tell it again!" Jana snapped, her blue eyes flashing angrily.
Pierre Lacroix laughed. "Non, my petite," he said. "I told it once and everyone is tired of it."
"But.." Jana sputtered. "You’ll break my heart!"
"Seeee!" Freddy said shaking Cecile’s hand. "Isn’t it great!"
"Yeah," Cecile said. "It’s real great."
Jana looked at Cecile and grinned. "Merci!" she said. "I am Drake the Snake!"
All of the adults in the room laughed and Cecile smiled politely. It was a joke she supposed she wasn’t in on.
"Awwwwww Jeez!" Cecile heard Jonathen exclaim. Cecile hadn’t noticed him standing in front of the parlor window. "Mom she’s doing it again! It’s Jake! Jake the Snake! You’re Jacques Plante!"
"It’s Drake!" Jana said and she stuck her tongue out. "And it’s my idea and I get to be whoever I want!"
"Sit still my devil," Michele said while she smoothed on some darker paint around her eye. "I’m almost done."
"She’s got to have a black eye!" Freddy said to Cecile looking at her with such intensity that it was adorable. "Cause that’s why Jacques Plante wore the mask for the first time cause he always got black eyes from pucks!"
"Ooooh," Cecile said.
Why didn’t he just wear mask to begin with? She thought. She decided not to ask though, because lately it seemed as if every time she asked a hockey question, she got an incredulous reaction from people.
Michele sighed and looked at Cecile with a tired face. "I was hoping, in a morbid way that her black eye would have stayed with her but is already healed so now here I am painting her."
Once Michele was done, Jana giggled and pushed away from her and she hobbled around the parlor in the goalie pads, walking like a baby elephant. Everyone laughed again and Michele clapped her hands. It was a cute sight, and Cecile laughed as well.
"Please!" Jana exclaimed as she hobbled to Pierre and slapped at his knee. "Tell it again! Cecile hasn’t heard it! Pleeeease!"
Lacroix sniffed and took a sip from the Brandy in his hand. He fixated his dark eyes on Cecile in a way that made her stand straighter. "You want to hear it?" he asked in a serious voice.
"Yes, sir," Cecile said.
"Alright," he said.
"It’s about Daddy and his appendix," Jana said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"It was in Montreal," Pierre said, "And it was first round of playoffs against Boston, and after game one of the series, Patrick was admitted to hospital with severe appendicitis."
Cecile grimaced and put her hand over her side where her own appendix scar was.
"I go to the hospital to visit him and he was laying there, all hooked up to tubes and wires, tears in his eyes, telling me how much he wants to play. So he’s snarling at the doctors not allowing them to take his appendix so I leave and bought him a computer golf game. We started playing, and the doctors were so relieved to be left alone that they leave us playing this game.
"We get to the seventeenth hole. I’m up by two strokes. It’s a par-3 220-yard hole. Patrick selects his three wood and makes a hole in one.
"Well he lets out this scream like you can’t believe and he just keeps screaming. The guard outside the room comes running in and so did all the doctors, they thought I was killing him or that he was dying. But non, we just kept laughing until all the tears were running down our faces. It was a special moment." Pierre said and then he took another sip from his drink.
"Merci!" Jana peeped and she flopped on the carpet at his feet.
Cecile smiled; she liked the thought of that scene. "Wow," she said. "That’s neat. It must have been great for him then? Getting a break from the playoffs?"
Pierre laughed and shook his head.
"Non, my love," Michele said and Cecile looked at her. "Patrick could never take a break. He missed one game and played the next five himself, with that dead appendix."
Cecile’s smile disappeared. "Honestly!" she exclaimed. "The pain must have been too much!"
"Not for daddy!" Jana cried and Freddy nodded his head at her side. Cecile noticed a slightly contemptuous look on Jonathen’s face.
Michele shook her head. "The pain is nothing to him, not when it comes to his games," she said. "He’ll play through anything."
Cecile’s mouth dropped open a bit and she knew her disbelieving expression was obvious for all of them to see. "But...appendicitis!" Cecile exclaimed remembering the excruciating pain she had gone through. How could he have gone through multiple games like that?
"Is nothing!" Michele said again. "Is Patrick. He may be the only man who could have done that; he will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and he always get what he wants. Always."
The sudden intensity of Michele’s blue gaze froze Cecile where she was, and she could feel red blossoming on her face.
"Jana, stay close to me honey, I don’t want to lose ya," Cecile said as she and the children stepped out of the house that early evening. After seeing how tired Debbie was, and how busy Michele and Coco were with food preparation, Cecile offered to help Joe take the children trick-or-treating.
"Eh," Jonathen said. "Look at her! She can’t run away in those pads."
"Feel the wrath of Drake!" Jana snapped and she swatted at Jonathen with her big, wooden goalie stick. Jonathen dodged and laughed.
"Jana," Joe snapped and even Cecile wanted to hop out of his way. "That’s a real stick, don’t use it like a weapon."
"Sorry," Jana said.
The street was crawling with little children in a huge array of costumes, hopping with their candy bags and with parents stalking them from behind. Cecile actually was having fun with the kids, standing back with quiet old Mr. Sakic and letting them run up walkways and collect candy, beaming with pleasure when their costumes were complimented. Jana’s trick-or-treat bag was a round container with red yarn strung all around it to make it look like a ball of yarn and there were knitting needles glued to the side. Cecile really couldn’t figure out the reason for that seeing as she was dressed like a goalie.
Freddy was dressed as a Musketeer and Mitchell was dressed as a bear. The twins were absolutely adorable dressed as a sun and moon. It was a cool, crisp evening. Perfect for this activity.
As the children drained the neighborhood dry and they began heading home, Gigi the puppy pulled her leash out of Jonathen’s hand and darted at a tall Oak tree snarling and bristling.
"Gigi!" Jana exclaimed and she hobbled at the puppy.
"What a cute dog," a man said as he stepped out from behind the tree. Gigi immediately sunk her teeth into his shoe. Jana reached for the puppy and in an instant Joe was right behind her, nudging her back and pulling the puppy off his shoe.
"Sorry," Joe said. "Puppies."
"No problem," the man said. "What a gorgeous little daughter you have, a little goalie?"
Cecile squinted, the man looked familiar to her.
"Oh, yeah," Joe said with a smile but his eyes were serious and he stepped in front of Jana. "She’s not mine but I’ll deliver your compliment to her parents."
"Oh," the man said. "Sure."
"Are your children out?" Joe asked.
"Oh I don’t have any kids," the man said.
"Really," Joe said slowly. "Interesting. Come on kids."
The group walked solemnly away clinging close around Joe, sensing his suddenly serious mood. Cecile took one last glance at the man as he watched them leave. He had a sad expression on his face and with a jolt in her gut she realized where she had seen him before. Somehow, she knew that that was the man she had seen in her dream, drowned in the bathtub.
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