“…I can’t believe it. When something so terrifying happened, when Everly had a high fever and needed you the most, you were damn well holding Rachel’s insurance money and drinking that damn alcohol of yours!”
“What else could I do! It’s all because of that kid—Rachel left me! Every time I see her, I think of my beloved Rachel. If it weren’t for the kid, she wouldn’t have gone out alone by car!”
“Shut up!”
Everly was awakened by the sound of a fierce argument.
Her body ached, her head was dizzy, and her throat felt dry, as if it were being roasted over a charcoal fire. Every breath brought a searing, burning pain.
Everly knew she had a fever. Terrified, weak from being a premature infant, and after that nightmarish evening, she had been trapped in a continuous high fever, at its worst even ending up in the ICU.
During that time, she had woken up a few times, but due to the high fever, her consciousness was never fully clear. She only vaguely remembered that stormy, rainy night, trembling in fear in the darkness for what felt like forever. It wasn’t until dawn began to break that the piercing sound of police sirens finally tore through the endless night, the incompetent police arriving far too late.
The scene was cordoned off, bodies were cleared from the hospital, and only a dozen or so survivors, including Everly, were taken by police to another hospital in a neighboring town for temporary care.
The chaos lasted for a long time. When Everly opened her eyes again, she was lying in an unfamiliar hospital room, her small hand hooked to an IV drip, and electrodes attached to her belly to monitor her vital signs.
Under the meticulous care of the medical staff, Everly was out of life-threatening danger and slowly began to recover. Yet the image of Nancy, her eyes wide open in death, full of resentment and unwillingness, haunted Everly like an unshakable nightmare. In the half-dream, half-awake haze, that figure repeatedly appeared in her mind—standing in the shadows, silently staring at her, as if reproaching, questioning, or offering a wordless invitation from hell. It made the infant’s high fever come and go, never fully subsiding.
Everly breathed painfully, her eyes rolling in their dry sockets, and looked toward the side of the bed. Standing there, arguing, were two men. One was not yet thirty, tall and thin, with mid-length golden—or perhaps white, Everly could not yet distinguish the two—curly hair tied in a braid at the back of his head. Dark, tired circles marked his eyes, giving him a disheveled, artistic air. This was the father of the body she now inhabited, named Shelly.
The other man arguing with him was an elderly figure, his hair completely white, around fifty or sixty years old, tall and broad, with a robust build. When he spoke, his voice was booming and full of presence. Everly had never seen him before, but somehow, seeing his furrowed brow and tightly drawn mouth, she felt an inexplicable sense of closeness deep in her heart.
Perhaps he was a relative of this body…
She let out a small hum and weakly stretched her arm. The sound was barely noticeable, yet it immediately caught the attention of the enraged elder. Seeing that Everly had awakened, he swallowed the curse he had been about to utter, left Shelly behind, and took a few steps toward the bed. He crouched beside her, carefully inspecting her face.
“Poor Everly, it must hurt so much… I’ve already made the call. Once [someone] comes to [help] you, you’ll definitely be fine.” His face remained stiff the whole time, as if he didn’t know how to smile, yet his words came out gentle and tender.
Shelly immediately objected: “I don’t agree! All this [ritual stuff] is nonsense! Put away your old-fashioned ways. In this day and age, people only believe in science. Everly is just too weak—after some more treatment, she’ll recover on her own. There’s absolutely no need to bring in any [rituals]!”
There were too many obscure terms for Everly to understand what they were arguing about. Her physical discomfort also left her with no energy to probe further. However, by nighttime, she came to understand exactly what the old man had meant by “[rituals].”
“Uwaa…” She lay in her hospital bed, blinking curiously at the small old man dressed entirely in black before her. It was the kind of priest robe she had often seen in movies and TV shows, completely different from the black cloak worn by the figure at the hospital that night. The robe’s clean-cut lines and solemn, dignified style exuded gravity and steadiness.
So the old man thought she was possessed and wanted to bring in a priest—or maybe a minister, Everly couldn’t tell the difference—to perform a ritual?
Everly found it rather fascinating.
She carefully studied the little old man in the priest’s robe. He was not tall, barely over 1.7 meters, with sparse, unruly hair that looked almost comical at first glance. Yet when he performed the ritual, his expression was serious.
The little old man held a Bible in one hand, while raising a small bottle of water in the other. Half-closing his eyes, he murmured quietly, reciting words as he moved the bottle in the air above Everly, drawing crosses in a regular pattern. Each time, a few drops of crystalline water fell downward.
Trapped in her nightmare, Everly was awakened by the droplets landing on her forehead.
Cold, but not unpleasant.
“…In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…”
Everly lay in her hospital bed, listening to the old man recite scripture. At first, her attention drifted for various reasons, but gradually, the baby’s eyes seemed drawn by some mysterious force. They began to follow the priest’s hand, tracing crosses in the air alongside him.
The old man’s movements were slow; each gesture harmonized with the rhythm of the verses, radiating an indescribable sense of holiness and sacredness. His drooping eyes and furrowed brows carried both a mother’s tenderness and a father’s strictness, as if the light around him imbued him with some divine aura. The droplets of holy water falling from his fingertips felt like gentle breezes, dispersing the fog that clouded her consciousness, and at the same time like a heavy rain, extinguishing the endless blaze burning within her body.
She lost track of time. Eventually, the old man closed his book, producing a soft “snap.”
The sound acted like a signal, pulling Everly back from that deeply mystical state. She took a deep breath and realized the weight that had lingered in her chest for so long had somehow disappeared. Her body, once so heavy, now felt light as air.
It was as if… some burden that had clung to her had been removed.
“All done, child. The one following you has now departed. Sleep…” The old man reached out, covering Everly’s eyes with his hand. His palm was warm, carrying a hint of sunlight, and it made Everly feel deeply safe.
Though she had only just woken, Everly felt unusually exhausted. A wave of drowsiness swept over her, and she surrendered to it, closing her eyes. Before long, she drifted into a calm, sweet slumber.
The high fever that had plagued her for more than ten days was dispelled in a way that was… not entirely scientific.
…
The next day, when Everly woke, she felt refreshed and, for the first time in a long while, genuinely hungry.
Her father, Shelly, was absent—probably out drinking again. By the wall, dozing at her bedside, was the burly old man she had met the day before.
The old man didn’t sleep very soundly. The moment Everly let out even a small hum, he would jolt awake from his nap, lean over to check her forehead, then fetch a cup and some formula to prepare her milk.
Perhaps because he frowned often, a deep crease ran between his brows, and even while feeding her, his tightly pressed mouth never curved into a smile, giving him a stern appearance. Yet Everly had a good impression of him—he used warm water, never cold, to make her milk, and after feeding, he would skillfully lift her, pat her to burp, completely unlike her absentee father, who she rarely saw.
John took care of Everly diligently. After the previous night’s “exorcism,” Everly’s body had improved significantly, and she was awake for longer periods. With time on her hands, she would play with her hands while listening closely to John and the people around him.
Although her English was still limited, by listening more, Everly gradually learned that this man named John was actually her maternal grandfather. Over ten years ago, her mother, Rachel, had a falling out with her father for some reason and left home alone to “pursue her dreams.” Since then, she had completely severed contact, not even informing him of her marriage. By the time John heard any news of his daughter again, more than a decade later, it was already too late—the two had long been separated by death.
It was a truly sad story.
Apparently having heard some complaints from Rachel, Shelly was extremely hostile toward John. Whenever they encountered each other at Everly’s bedside, a few words were usually enough to ignite an argument. When John suggested taking Everly to raise her himself, Shelly flatly refused. To dissuade his father-in-law from such a notion, Shelly even went so far as to stay at the hospital for several days, pretending to be a “reformed and devoted father.”
Later, probably realizing that Shelly would never willingly let him take Everly, John left behind a sum of money and carefully hung a simple, old-fashioned cross necklace around Everly’s neck. One early morning, he quietly departed on his own.
Once John was gone, Shelly immediately dropped the act.
By this time, Everly had passed the most fragile stage of her premature infancy, and her illnesses had healed. After consulting the doctors, Shelly gleefully took Everly out of the hospital that very afternoon and brought her to his home in the old district of a neighboring city.
Of course, his joy wasn’t born of genuine paternal affection—it was simply that the hospital bills had been too expensive, and he didn’t want to spend any more money. Once he brought Everly home, he naturally treated her like a hot potato to be pushed aside.
He didn’t have much money, which was evident from the cheap furniture scattered around the house. Although some compensation came from the driver and the insurance company after Everly’s mother, Rachel, died in a car accident, the premature infant had been an expensive patient—most of the insurance money had already been spent in the hospital. To save costs, Shelly didn’t hire a nanny, and all matters relating to Everly—feeding, changing diapers, and so on—were entirely his responsibility.
But that was all he was willing to do. Everything else—turning her over, putting her to sleep, teaching her to speak—Shelly refused to touch. Even bathing her had to wait until her body smelled unbearably; only then would he drag her to the shower with a look of disgust, hoisting her up like a cat and randomly rinsing her under the water.
Apart from these few minimal acts of care, the rest of the time Shelly either sat staring at a photo of his deceased wife, Rachel, drowning his sorrows in alcohol, or holed up in his studio, wildly smearing paint across canvases in the name of “art” that made no sense. As for his own daughter, Everly, he basically followed the “out of sight, out of mind” principle.
Fortunately, Everly had an adult mind inside her tiny body. She had some ability to manage herself—crying when hungry, signaling when she needed a diaper change, and being extra careful not to get too close to the edge of the bed or do anything risky near it. Otherwise, judging from Shelly’s negligence, it was easy to imagine that one day the baby could crawl off the bed and meet a fatal accident.
In short, under her “attentive” father’s care, baby Everly’s life after leaving the hospital was nothing short of a struggle through fire and water.