Taji's Syndrome Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Patience, Sister, pray for patience and God will see you through.”
    “It’s puberty,” Adam said with more force. “It happens to everyone when they get to be our age.” His knees were beginning to hurt and he shifted his place on the floor, watching his brother do the same.
    “God sends His trials to all of us,” intoned Preacher Colney. “And you are not the ones to judge what has been manifested through you. You are too young and if you are being used by Satan, you might not know it. Most of those who succumb to his wiles do not know they have fallen.” He raised his well-worn Bible above the two boys and began to pray; his voice was harsh, more demanding than imploring, and he shuddered as if fighting against an invisible wind. “Hear us, your children, O God Who has made all things, and come to our aid in our time of tribulation and suffering. We call on You in our need and our weakness, for You will not give us more than we can carry, and we bow our heads to this.”
    “He’s getting worked up again,” Axel whispered to Adam. They were so alike that even those who knew them well often confused them. There was one marked difference between them, and that was the shade of their eyes:
    Adam’s were dark blue, a smoldering shade between cobalt and prussian; Axel’s were a soft, light green. Right now their dissimilar eyes were locked as if that contact alone would block out all unpleasantness, uniting them against the world.
    “Lord, hear us and grant us Your mighty arm as our protection against the work of the Devil, who ravens like a lion among Your flock. Cast out the evil that has entered the bodies of Adam and Axel Barenssen. Save them from the fires of Hell and restore to them the cloak of perfect innocence and purity which is the greatest gift of Heaven.” He directed his remarks to the old-fashioned light fixture on the ceiling, as if suggesting that God might find His work easier through electrical circuits.
    “They’re not right anymore,” sighed Kirsten. “Things happen when they’re around. I have seen it.” She reached out and grudgingly supported herself on the back of an ugly, overstuffed chair.
    Preacher Colney interrupted his harangue and stared at her, a new recognition corning to him. “Are you still ailing, Sister Barenssen?”
    “It’s them. It’s their work,” she told the pudgy minister. “They’ve brought this affliction on me as surely as they are the tools of Hell.”
    “You have been to the doctor since we talked? You told me two weeks ago that you wanted to break your appointment. You kept it, didn’t you?” He could sense her stern resistance to his questions.
    “I went, though it was a waste of time. They’re worse than pagan witch doctors, those men, with their machines and tests, as if that had anything to do with healing.” She raised her voice. “Where is the machine that can cast out the Devil?”
    “What does your doctor say?” asked the Preacher, becoming concerned and wanting to keep the two of them on the matter of her health.
    “He can say nothing. He does tests and he learns nothing. That’s because it isn’t a doctorable thing that’s wrong with me, it’s them.” She pointed at her nephews kneeling on the worn carpet. “They’re the cause. It’s their doing.”
    Now Preacher Colney was distinctly uneasy. It was one thing to assume that the Devil might be getting into the bodies of teenaged boys—he had seen that often enough—but it was another to accuse them of causing illness. Little as he wanted to admit it, he knew that spinsters of Kirsten Barenssen’s disposition and age often endured mysterious and unfathomable maladies that neither medicine nor faith could treat. He looked down at the twin boys, white-blond and fresh-faced; he came to a decision. “Adam, Axel, leave me alone with your aunt for a little while. I’ll call you for informal prayers in a bit.”
    The boys got to their feet at once. “Thanks, Preacher,”