The Book Of Jude

Chapter Eighteen: Deaf Ears

'How she wishes it was different

She prays to God most every night

And though she swears he doesn't listen

There's still a hope in her he might.

She says, "I pray, oh but they fall on deaf ears.

Am I supposed to take it on myself to get out of this place?"

Oh, there's a loneliness inside her

And she'd do anything to fill it in

And though it's red blood bleeding from her now

It feels like cold blue ice in her heart

When all the colors mix together--to grey.'

Dave Matthews Band, Grey Street

"I don't understand," the Minister said, frowning at the pair of dark-suited men standing in front of his desk. "You say you saw her kill a man, but yet, you believe she had nothing to do with the Chamber fiasco at Hogwarts?"

One of the men shifted his weight from foot to foot as he chose the words to say. "We didn't say she actually killed a man, sir. Responsible in some way, yes, but we didn't exactly see her physically harm him." Both men stood with their hands clasped in front of them with their feet spread evenly apart as if awaiting further instruction from a superior officer.

"Tell me again what you saw, Kelley." The Minister's eyes flicked agitatedly from the man who'd just spoken, to the man standing at his side.

"Well, as I said, this was the first real incident since we've been assigned this detail and..."

"I don't care about that! Just tell me what happened tonight!" The Minister was seething with anger.

"Well, there was an argument it looked like. The man was upset by something she said and turned to cross the street when he was run down by a passing car." The man named Kelley returned to the same position as his partner. "An Auto-mobile."

"You see, Minister. She probably didn't intend to kill this guy, but she was involved some how. I don't think she wanted any of this to happen. I mean, she looked pretty upset..."

The Minister looked up from his desk. The man was silent in an instant. "And you two didn't bring her in for questioning?"

"Well, the Muggles were on the scene before we could act and..."

"I've sent others to find her. Hopefully, they won't fail." The Minister passed a hand wearily over his eyes. He began muttering as if he were the only person in the room. "I know she was involved in what happened there with the Chamber. But how?"

The second man stepped forward again, offering his opinion without the Minister's address. "Sir, I don't think she was involved." He fished a worn notebook from his pocket and flipped through a few sheets of parchment. "She was attending school at Cambridge and has now finished that. She wasn't really involved in anything else there but..."

"Quiet, you fool. I didn't think one with your qualifications could be duped so easily. She's cunning and tricky. This isn't the first time she's pulled the wool over our eyes." The Minister was now on his feet and pacing the wide floor of his spacious office.

The sound of the door being flung violently open was the only thing that stilled his steps and caused his gaze to jerk upward from the carpet. The two darkly clothed men started slightly at the interruption and turned to face the door.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but...she's gone." The man twisted his hands together in agitation, obviously not thrilled to give the Minister such news.

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?"

"Well, sir, Jacobs and Hawthorne said they saw her go into a cathedral located in the town late at night, and when she finally came out in the morning, she'd disappeared." The messenger continued to wring his hands nervously.

"You mean, she Apparated?" the Minister clarified. His face turned from angry agitation to a satisfied grin. "This may be what I have been waiting for." One of the cardinal rules the Ministry set forth governing Jude was the ban on certain usages of magic, such as Apparating--it gave far too much freedom of movement to someone the Ministry was trying to keep a close eye on. The consequences she faced for such a breech could be serious. This was the opportunity that he'd been waiting for and if it was impossible to trace the latest shenanigans at Hogwarts back to her, then this was just as good.

***

The warm glow of a dozen or so blazing candles beckoned her in from the rain-soaked streets, but everything within her told her to stay away--she did not belong here. Her clothes hung heavy on her, dripping, and left a huge puddle where she was standing, transfixed by the enormity of the lofty ceiling rising above her head. Normally, she would have been ashamed to leave such a mess in any place, let alone on the perfectly polished marble floor of a great cathedral, but for the life of her she just could not muster that proper feeling of remorse right now.

She stood with one hand wrapped around her waist with her other elbow resting on the hand at her hip, her fingers carelessly guiding the last cigarette to her lips, staring shrewdly around at the place where she now found herself. Dripping and sending ashes to the pristine tiles only aided in marking her more alien to the magnificence that surrounded her.

Smirking sardonically as she sent up a small cloud of blue smoke, she wondered if all this grandeur actually convinced people that there really was a God who cared about the struggles and strife of every individual. Did it make people feel better to invent a pleasant fiction where there is actually a merciful and caring spirit looking out for them instead of just cruel twists of fate guided by absolutely nothing at all? The truth of the matter, Jude mused, was that people fear being alone, not understanding that things just happen...for no reason. It's not some part of a great plan. There is no plan.

Jude liked this line of reasoning, the blame for everything that went wrong in her life wasn't part of some master plan, some sick, twisted, "it's all for the best" bullshit people felt inclined to believe. It was just chance. If there was a God behind all of it, as people said, why didn't he ever show his face? If there was a God, why did he stay silent all those years she continued to pray? Reflexes, habit--she had many names to call it. Still, she continued to pray, even when everything inside her told her no one was listening. Every night, before she could drift into uneasy rest, she repeated the words she'd been taught as a little girl: "Our Father, who art in Heaven..." And she would add her own, hoping that there really was someone there to hear.

But did anyone ever answer her? Did anyone intercede on her behalf when her life was consumed with darkness? She clenched her teeth as the anger seethed beneath her skin. People weren't stupid--they knew there was someone there, why would they pray otherwise? No, she liked the idea that this was all a grand illusion because it hid the fact that she was the only one that was duped. God was there and he did answer people, just not her. He ignored her. And the truth was that she would rather believe that people were deluding themselves, and not that she was being forsaken.

She wandered through the aisles, up to the altar, where penitents daily came to ask forgiveness. She let her hand glide over the soft velvet covering the railings, her eyes glued to the marble Madonna, holding her holy child and looking on with measured indifference. A furniture tack bit deeply into the palm of her hand, pulling her attention momentarily from the icon, as a trickle of crimson blood flowed freely. She watched as a red drop fell from her skin to the creamy white stone of the floor. Is that what He wanted from her? Her blood? Well, there were a thousand opportunities to take it, but still He saw fit to drag out her miserable existence.

With a sardonic, cold laugh, she flung her arms wide and raised her face to the ceiling. Her bloodied palm turned up to Heaven and her cigarette perched between the fingers of her other hand, she continued to laugh, hollow and mirthless.

"You can't ignore me now, can You?" She spun wildly in a circle as she shouted at the rafters, hands still stretched out at her sides. "You can't turn away from me when I'm right in Your face."

Letting her hands fall at her sides, she continued loudly. "Now that I have Your attention, I have a few questions to ask that You never answered." Another long drag on her cigarette and she began, "So, why do You create a person for a life of misery? I know this girl, You see, a friend. She was orphaned by a woman who simply didn't want her, because she was different, ugly, stupid, useless--who knows why." She paced in front of the altar like a wild animal in a cage as she continued her tale. "Well, she was left with a woman who told her she was evil and didn't belong, so the little girl ran away to find where she did belong. She prayed that God would help her find that place. Instead," Jude stopped and glared up into the face of the statue in front of her and raised a finger at the image, "You let her become a thief and a murderer."

The hand holding the cigarette flew to her mouth only briefly before she continued on. "However, the girl didn't blame You for that. She figured she'd made the wrong choices. So, she tried to fix things. But that's not easily said nor done. People hated her everywhere she went for the next ten years, and when she finally finds someone to love and to love her in return, You take him away." She spat the last words angrily at the serene statue, her voice echoing off of every polished surface of the enormous church. "She'd prayed for happiness, just a little, and when it finally seemed as if You'd given a damn, You ripped the rug right out from under her. So," she continued to rail against the statue loudly, "my question is: Why? Is this person some experiment in how much misery a human can take? Is it entertainment? Or is it just plain, fucking bad luck for her? Because the way I used to see it, it was just chance--a really shitty draw of the cards. But now, I think You like to watch me suffer."

"You mean your friend."

Jude jumped at the sound of another voice in the room. The statue, cold, inanimate, stone, could not have possibly...

No, Jude dismissed that idea with a shake of her head. It couldn't have been the statue of Mary--it was after all, only a statue. And, besides, the voice she'd heard was male.

She spun on her heals to see an old man sitting two rows behind her. From the white collar around his neck, she realized he was a priest. Great.

"Huh?" she questioned inarticulately. He'd said something, but it had given her quite a start that all remembrances of what was said had been put out of her head.

"You said 'God liked to watch you suffer,' but what you meant to say was 'your friend,' not 'you.'" The old man rose from his seat and ambled over, a bit laboriously, to stand in front of Jude.

"Well, who cares what I said, old man. I wasn't talking to you anyway," she muttered through another puff on her cigarette as she brushed past him, heading for the door. He was going to kick her out anyway, so best to beat him to the punch.

"He doesn't like to see anyone suffer," he called to her retreating figure.

She didn't turn, but stopped to call over her shoulder, "Sure as hell could have fooled me." She continued to move to the great doors where she could still hear the rain pounding down outside.

"You suffer because you choose to suffer. We all make choices, but only the cowards blame the consequences of that choice on God."

She spun quickly around, fighting the vertigo in her head. This was the last straw. "I'm a coward? You're the one who lives locked away in an enormous stone sarcophagus, praying to a God who doesn't listen, hoping that it will give your life some meaning. You don't know what I've been through--everything, every fucking horrible thing in my life--and I can assure you there have been plenty--I have faced them alone. And you think I enjoy suffering? That I choose this? No, but I had to get used to it." She turned again toward the door, angry clouds of smoke rising from the cigarette clenched between her lips.

"I can guess what you've been through, child," the feeble old voice pursued her. Despite her inclinations and her better judgment, she stopped but kept her back to the priest. "Your mother left you at an orphanage. You had no family and when you ran away, you were taken in by someone who said they could give you a family, but they only used you. They taught you to do terrible things to others, but somewhere down the line, you decided that you couldn't handle it. You left, and after a while you find yourself angry, alone and shouting at God for ignoring you." The priest saw her shake her head incredulously.

He'd merely repeated the story she'd told the statue, but he thought he had her pegged. And he wanted her to believe he had some pearls of wisdom to impart to her. It wasn't even a good bluff--hell it wasn't even a poor bluff, but absolute rubbish. Nothing was going to stop her from walking through those doors and away from this hack that was wasting her time.

"But let me ask some questions now, child," he called to her as she continued to retreat, not looking back. "Why do you think you felt so bad when you did those horrible things, theft and murder?"

She stopped cold. He had heard that? Jude willed her nerves to calm down. She slowly turned to give the priest the audience he desired. She guessed after her railings, she could at least listen to his parley. She owed him that, and he had enough on her to have her arrested. So she listened.

Her silence was taken as permission to proceed. "God was there, with you all the time, telling you it was wrong." He laced his fingers superiorly in front of him as he made his point clear.

Her sardonic smile returned. "Call it what you like, Father. But almost every child has a sense of right and wrong, even poor little urchins. It may be a little skewed, but it's still there. It's a little strong, though, to call that God."

He nodded a defeat to her on that point and tried a new course. "When you finally gave up your life of murder, you found friends, shelter, support you'd never had before that?"

Her gaze remained steadily fixed on the old man's twinkling eyes, but her ironic smile faltered. He was right. She had been able to leave that life behind only because of the few people she'd found to care for her. "I had a few friends," she finally admitted after a long pause and another slow drag at the cigarette. "But," she added, noting the look of triumph on the priest's face, "my enemies far outweigh allies. My life was still as difficult as it was before that." She would not concede this point, either. The priest would have to explore another circuit.

"You have spoken of many trials in your life that you have faced on your own, alone as you said." The priest paused to put his thoughts into order. "Were any of these tribulations deadly?"

She nodded. "Several."

"Well, in any of those times did you feel you shouldn't have made it out of some of those scrapes alive?" The old man looked up at her with a smile, eyes twinkling. It was, Jude thought, the exact look Dumbledore had when he announced 'checkmate.' But she wasn't about to give in this easily.

"So you expect me to believe that just because I should have died five times by now, I should believe that someone is watching out for me?" She waved her hands, gesturing at the immense building around her. "Well, if I concede that to you, Father, that someone is watching, how can I assume that He is looking out for me and not just laughing at me as I jump through some miserable hoops for His entertainment?"

The priest smiled kindly and walked to where she was standing. Fighting the urge to retreat, she let the old man take her bleeding hand in his. "Because, He doesn't want any of His children to suffer, child. We have to believe that He wants more for us all. That's faith."

"Well, if that's true, why did He let Rhys die instead of me? He doesn't want anyone to suffer? Why? Why do we have to assume anything? If He doesn't want me to suffer, then why didn't He just let me die? He had plenty of opportunities." She snatched her hand from the priest's grasp and narrowed her eyes accusingly at him.

"Because, I believe He still has plans for you. All of this is but preparation for something. You have a big task ahead of you, I can tell."

She laughed mirthlessly. "Do they teach you exactly what to say for every situation?A girl walks in who thinks she has no purpose but to be some living joke, a big fucking gag, and you tell her she has a purpose?" She took another long puff from the dwindling cigarette. "Well, I'm sure you have better things to do, Father. I'll stop wasting your time." She turned to leave.

"I'll pray for you child." The priest clasped his hands in front of him and watched her leave.

"Don't bother," she muttered, tossing the spent cigarette on the floor of the austere building and crunched it under her foot. "He doesn't hear anyway." She passed under the huge arch of the doors and out into the relentless rain.

***

Through the sheets of heavy rain, she saw them, not even twenty feet from where she stood. They'd probably been watching her since she'd left Hogwarts. How could she have forgotten them--she was still public enemy number two. These two, however, were not trying to hide their presence, blatantly dressed in the signature dark suits of the Department of the Mysteries and brazenly standing under a street lamp. They wanted to make their presence known.

Well, if they wanted to take her in for questioning, as she suspected, they'd have to jump through some hoops first. She wasn't going to give in so easily. Standing on one of the top steps of the church, facing the two men, she smiled wryly before disappearing.

The two men started then swore before Apparating back to the Ministry to report the flight of their prey.

***

Thankfully, it was very late at night. The streets were empty and so was the little bakery in which she materialized with a pop. Well, almost empty.

A black and tan hound wagged her tail fiercely at the intruder. "'Lo, Darcy." She stroked the dog's ears. It was strange, unnatural and painful to see this dog without Rhys somewhere nearby. "I can't stay, girl. I just came to grab some things." The dog whined her disapproval as Jude headed for the door to her room. She came back with a suitcase in hand to see the dog, leash in her mouth, wagging her tail and blocking the door. Jude shook her head, grabbing a piece of paper and a pencil from the counter. She wasn't really aware of what she was writing, not even a fitting goodbye for someone who'd been as kind to her as Adda had been. She left the note on the counter with some cash to cover the rest of her rent. There was no way she could stay here, not after what had happened. Dead memories--ghosts of what could have been, lay thicker than flour over every surface of the quaint bakery she'd called her home.

Turning to the door, she placated the whining Darcy. "I can't take you with me, girl. I don't even know where I'm going yet." But the dog would not budge. Finally, Jude relented and hooked her lead to her collar. It was true that Jude had always been fonder of the dog than Adda and the old woman didn't really need the hassle right now. But it was also a desire of Jude's to keep something that was close to Rhys as close to her as she could. She opened the door and let the dog through before following her out. Silently shutting the door behind her, she used magic to lock it.

When she turned back to the street, she realized she was not alone.

"That was quick. You boys have done your homework." Jude cast a cold stare on the same two black clad figures.

"You're going to have to come with us, Miss. We have a few questions for you. Just keep your hands where we can see them."

Jude rolled her eyes and stepped away from the door. "Look, I'm not going to try anything. I'll come, you can ask your stupid questions, but the dog comes too."

"Fair enough."The man who'd spoken pulled what looked like a jewelry box from his coat. His partner motioned for her to join them. "Catch." The man tossed the contents of the box at her and she caught the small silver sphere deftly with her spare hand. A Portkey.