Authors: Thomas Cater
Chapter Eleven
I spent Sunday morning recuperating. By noon, my wounds
were negligible. I could not find a single relevant scratch or bruise. In fact,
I’d escaped in good shape. Not only was my body feeling better, but my mind was
clearer. I wanted to believe the Internal damage was limited to ego;
psychosomatic, defensive, created by fear of what I thought might have
happened. My head however still throbbed from what I wanted to believe were mostly
psychosomatic pains.
. I could still not resaolve, however why a feral spirit
was wandering around the grounds of an estate when it should be resting
peacefully in its grave? I couldn’t get a grip on the problem because I could
not bring myself to believe it, despite the night before..
Someone rapped on the van door. I shouted for whoever it
was to come in. Virgil stepped in and introduced his companion as Father
Michael Rooney, the overweight pastor of the local Catholic Church. He was a
pleasant looking Irishman with a red ragged face and hair the color of old
pewter. All priests exude the fragrance of sanctimony, which is erroneously
mistaken as pleasing to the senses. Why was I so suddenly susceptible to
scents? We shook hands. I sensed something of the inquisitor in his smile. He
crammed himself into the narrow space behind the breakfast table and launched
into a friendly inquiry.
“Virgil tells me you’re involved in some strange
proceedings at the Ryder house.”
I nodded submissively, embarrassed that I’d been
thrust into his arena without the proper credentials.
“I’ve never been one to point a finger or to say
something is not right, but that house is … dangerous,” I said, avoiding the
word evil less it conjure up undue speculation on my own presence.
He nodded his head as if he knew exactly what I meant,
but chose not to believe it, unless of course, I produced the proper Vatican license.
“Do you know anything about the house?” I asked, a
little too imploringly.
He proceeded to waggle his head like a Hindu and compress
his colorless lips. “No, I don’t know a thing about it, but I’ve heard stories.
Tell me something,” He said in a thick Irish brogue, “
A
re you a practicing
Catholic?”
I did not wish to offend my guest, but I could not
see what difference that would make.
“Not that it matters,” he said, reading my mind, “but
I would like to know for my own satisfaction.”
I said I was ‘still practicing’ but looked forward to
the day I ‘turned pro.’ “Now I spend my time giving the Church hell for the
way she neglected my spiritual development.”
It gave him pleasure to know that I was Catholic,
alienated perhaps, but not beyond redemption. I read in his smile that this was
only one of many aberrations I would experience before I found my way back to
the truth.
He grinned and rubbed his hands together. I could feel
the heat those sanctified digits were generating.
“Let’s get back to the problem. What did you see or
feel at the house that led you to believe it’s haunted?” he asked.
My lifetime loathing for sacerdotal functionaries was
beginning to rise up in me again. This inquiry smacked too much of confession
or inquisition. I told him what had occurred. Despite the imaginative quality
of it all, pleasure leaped from his eyes.
“You look remarkably fit for one who went through such
an ordeal.”
I was glad I hadn’t told him that I also saw creatures
taking shape within the wallpaper.
“Did you struggle?”
“You’re damned right,” I said. “Do you think I should
have allowed that thing to kill me?”
He wanted to know what sort of ‘thing’ it was. I
couldn’t tell him, but I had a good look at it while it was hiding in the
stains on the wall. He also wanted to know if I read horror stories, books on
fantasy or sword and sorcery, if I dabbled in the occult, practiced white or
black magic, or ever attended seminars on Edgar Cayce or Carl Jung.
“What are you talking about?” I shouted defensively.
“It wasn’t my imagination. Look at this bruise,” I said, rolling up a sleeve,
but there were no bruises. “Look at this cut,” I said, tracking down a
minuscule scratch on my wrist, which only made me feel more ridiculous.
He glanced quickly, dismissing them before I could
feel too much embarrassment.
“Virgil said you were in the house for several hours.”
“Several, yes, three to be exact, I think three, yes,
three,” I babbled.
“Were you conscious all the time?”
I was not sure. I would have liked to think I was conscious,
while everything was going on, but I couldn’t be certain.
“Maybe only for about an hour, or maybe forty-five
minutes, I’m not sure.”
“Would it be inappropriate to suggest that you may
very well have encountered an object, perhaps a rafter in the roof bumped your
head and dreamed this rather peculiar fantasy?”
I was sad and silent. He was thinking for me, calling
my experience an obsession, as if I had willed it, made it happen. Even if I
had, why would I do it? I’d forgotten how easily priests could move back and
forth across that threshold of the sacred and profane, as if there were no
spectacular leaps of reason to be made, only accidental slips.
“Anything is possible,” I conceded, “but I was in
pain, Father. I felt the damned thing, and whatever it was, it wanted me dead. Look
at these marks on my neck.” I pushed the collar back, but aside from a little chafing,
there were no marks.
I felt like a goose sticking its neck out for the
butcher’s ax. I could see him sizing it up, looking for the weakest point to
lop it off. My experiences in the house were possibly only premonitions of
things to come.
“People have been known to injure themselves
accidentally on purpose,” he said, “unaware of the fact that they are following
the dictates of their unconscious. I’ve seen it happen in my own parish.”
I tried to assure him that until two days ago, I was
the most intractable atheist he could have ever had the misfortune to
encounter, which only seemed to substantiate his argument.
“I wouldn’t have given you two cents for all the
saints and holy ghosts in the entire spiritual world,” I said, “but now, I
don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“There are occasions when proud men, too proud to
undertake the humbling steps necessary to regain their faith, will subject
themselves to forms of mental anguish in order to be excused, to be pardoned
and taken back into the arms of the redeemer and the holy mother Church,” he
said. “These brave men make up ridiculous stories about spiritual encounters,
other worldly visitors, aliens, most of which, I can assure you, are totally
imaginary.”
Thoughts of returning to the Church were far from my
mind. I was trying to fathom the meaning of a paranormal event and he was
assuring me that my soul was not in danger of anything but missing salvation. I
tried to convince him that I was not experiencing a mental dipsas; I knew there
was something out there
and whatever it was, it was committing a more heinous
sin against God and nature than any I could ever imagine.
For a moment, I thought he was praying.
“In forty years with the Church I have heard hundreds
of stories about spirits inhabiting houses and people. It is on occasion, known
as possession
. But
in my entire life I have never observed one genuine
case.”
I asked how long he had been living in this county. He
said he lived in the neighboring county and only came over once a week to say
Mass. I looked to Virgil for some support, but I could see that he did not wish
to put his credibility on the line. I asked the priest if he knew anything
about the Ryders.
“I’ve heard stories,” he said, “but you can rest
assured that is all they are, filthy little stories; and you certainly can’t
expect me to believe them. I’m a priest!”
There was much in the way of irony in that remote
possibility. Why should a man, who believed that the dead would might someday
rise up and walk around, believe that it might occur in his lifetime? Why
should someone who believed in holy spirits not believe in unholy spirits?
“Father, I don’t want to sound like a fool, but
doesn’t it stand to reason that if evidence from the other side is good, it can
only strengthen the Church’s position on an afterlife, instead of endangering
it?”
He shook his head. “We have things firmly in hand,” he
said, “and we don’t want to lose control. It would not be to our advantage to
have every story of aberrations and visitations from the other side widely
accepted. You see, we are in charge. We are supposed to supervise what happens
in the afterlife. The one thing we can be sure of -- when we bury someone -- is
that we will not be hearing from him or her again, at least in the immediate
future.
“Now you are trying to tell me that some ‘thing’ has
taken it upon itself to re-enter -- without Vatican approval or permission --
the sovereign territory of the living. I can assure you, Mr. Case, this is not how
disciplined spirits behave, at least not Catholic spirits. If someone other
than ‘He’ has found a way to bring them back, then we are all in trouble, big
trouble. So you see, no matter how tenaciously you may wish to cling to this
concept or belief, every fiber of my being rises up to denounce as false
everything you claim to be true.”
I asked if he would like to go back into the house
with me. I could use the company of such a pragmatist. He shook his head.
“Absolutely not:
I couldn’t possibly lend that much
credence to your story.”
I was miffed. I was hoping to encounter a little
compassion along the way, someone with some knowledge or experience of what was
happening, who might be able to advise, or at least make a recommendation. An
idea suddenly occurred.
“Father, you say you’ve heard stories about spirits
and ghosts. Have you ever heard of a way to confront them? I don’t mean fight
or oppose, but neutralize them. There must be some means of defending one’s
self against dangerous spirits.”
He continued to stare at me as if I were brain damaged
and then an equally amusing thought occurred to him.
“A suit of clothes worn by a murdered man…”
“What?” I replied.
“A suit of clothes worn by a murdered man, and
something else,” he said.
“What are you saying?”
“You asked if there was some way to protect one’s self
from a dangerous spirit and I’m telling you. I don’t know where I heard it, but
my advice says to ‘wear a suit of clothes worn by a murdered man.’ There is
something else, too, but I can’t remember.”
He thought about it, mumbled something about common prayer
being easier, and then his eyes brightened: “an old slouch hat!”
I was confused and I think it showed. A suit of
clothes and an old slouch hat worn by a murdered man? I raised an eyebrow, but Virgil
seemed to think there was something to it. I was looking for something a little
more tangibl
e
, such as a magic sword or amulet. An old hat didn’t
sound too effective.
The priest was frowning and tapping his teeth with a
thumbnail.
“There’s more,” he said. “That isn’t all. You’ve got
to do more, but I’m not sure…” His eyes brightened again. “A fistful of fresh
dug grave dirt; a sprig of thorn apple and a pinch of nightshade. I can’t
remember the rest, something about a ghost of a chance.”
It sounded more like a recipe for a mud pie.
“Why would that work?” I asked.
The priest shrugged. “Who knows? Why does anything
work? Why do people say or believe the things they do
?
It is
b
ecause
somewhere in our past there is a precedent. There is no logical explanation
that’s just the way things are.”
“That’s absurd,” I said.
“So is your story about a ghost in the Ryder house,”
he said, and then added, “there’s always one last resort; you could try dousing
the ghosts with holy water.”
I wanted to assert my claims again but remained
silent. He may have made a point. Several seconds passed before the priest
clapped his hands to his knees and stood.
“Well, gentlemen, it has been a short but interesting
conversation. I do hope we will meet again.”
He offered his beefy hand. I took it feeling some
reluctance, but glad to have had my fears and suspicions sanitized by a man
reputedly alienated to secularism.
I thanked him for his advice. He smiled, trapped Virgil’s
hand in his and held it firmly.
“I’ll see you next week,” he said.
Virgil nodded, liberated his fingers, and we both
watched the priest bundle his way out the narrow van door. I returned to the
table and pillaged the cupboard for a snack-pack of Oreo cookies.
“A suit of clothes worn by a murdered man; have you
ever heard of such nonsense? I’ll bet he just made that up,” I said.