Free If I Told You Once: A Novel by Judy Budnitz Page A

The walls drew in closer, and closer, and closer, the spirit nibbled greedily at his fingers, and she covered her eyes and screamed and screamed, and the spirit leaped up and dove into her body.
    If he could not have her himself, he would prevent anyone else from having her.
    Now the girl wandered through the village day and night, her eyes glazed, her face strangely slack. She did not float, she staggered and crashed into fences, she clawed at windows, plucked at her own hair. She spun like a top, her skirts rising to her waist, her hair hanging loose, streaming behind her, a dark streak. She sank her teeth into her own arm, and drank.
    The voice that came from her was not her own. It was deep, hoarse, a man’s voice, it came from deep within her and flowed out her mouth, spilled out over her unmoving lips.
    She wallowed in mud. She rent her clothes.
    Wherever she went, dogs, cats, children fled. But she was followed by chickens, a flock of them, all watching her with their pink eyes and dodging her drunken feet. Wherever she stepped, worms rose from the ground and the chickens pecked at them greedily.
    The villagers recognized the signs. They barred their doors. The girl beat at their walls, calling and cursing in her harsh voice.
    Her betrothed tried to restrain her and she turned on him savagely, clawing his face to the bone with her fingernails. He stumbled away, blinded by blood. Forever afterward he wore a beard, to hide the scars.
    When it began to rain, the girl looked up, slaver coating her chin. She limped to the village meetinghouse to take shelter. The villagers watched from their windows; her father crept out and barred the door behind her.
    The villagers met in the street, rain soaking their clothes, to decide what to do. Many had seen girls possessed by dybbuks before, but they were divided as to the identity of this invader. The future husband was quick to suggest forest spirits; he feared they were revenging themselves on him for killing so many trees.
    Other villagers thought the dybbuk was the spirit of a girl who had died ten years earlier, three days before her own wedding day. Such spirits were jealous of living girls who would soon know the pleasures of marriage. These spirits were childish and petty, more lonely than malicious. They could be coaxed out of their victim’s bodies with gifts, white dresses, music, cake.
    Some said the girl had been strange from the start, there was no helping her.
    The villagers listened as the hoarse, choking voice rose up inside the meetinghouse. They heard pounding, crashes; they saw a tortured silhouette flashing past the windows.
    They knew they would have to act quickly, or the girl would be lost to the human world forever. But they could not agree on the method: some said fire, some said prayer, some suggested a drink of lye, others wanted to sweep out her insides as one might a clogged chimney. As the rain poured down the villagers armed themselves with hoes and paring knives and prayer books. They straightened their shoulders, prepared for battle.
    As they approached the door, they heard again the hoarse guttural voice, raised in anger. It bawled and faded, gibbering, arguing with itself; it rose into hysteria, and exploded. The windows glowed orange, the rain falling on the roof hissed and boiled. A section of the roof blew apart, showering shingles and sparks. A dark and howling shadow swirled up into the sky and disappeared.
    Inside, the room was filled with smoke and the smell of goat. The villagers found the girl crouched on the floor, her clothes charred and her face sooty. But she stretched her arms out to them, gave them a familiar smile.
    She had forced the dybbuk out of her body herself.
    She had drawn in her sides and forced him out with one violent breath, as she had seen the blacksmith force air from his bellows. She had rolled and kneaded him out, as she had seen the baker knead the air bubbles out of his dough. She had plucked him from her body,