Sorrow's Point (16 page)

###

We exited the pantry and I closed the door. I stopped the recording on Tabby’s phone and handed it to her. Then, I walked over to Tor and Will and set my ruined phone in front of them on the table.

“Lucy broke my phone,” I said.

Will paused. He seemed puzzled. “Wait what?” Will asked.

I nodded. “Somehow, she did it. One of the things I need to prove for someone being possessed is that they know the location of lost objects, so I had Tabby hide my phone from me. How, I don’t know, but Lucy knew Tabby hid it, and somehow she caused my phone to be broken.”

Tor swallowed hard. “Well, Jimmy, we’ll just get you another phone.”

I shook my head. “It’s insured. It’s just strange. This thing really doesn’t like me.”

Tabby laughed. “Of course not, Jimmy. You were a priest. Your reason for not being a priest anymore is a noble one. So you are a defrocked priest who is pure of heart. There isn’t anything in that book of yours that says you have to be an active priest to perform an exorcism, is there?”

“No, but the exorcist is supposed to be approved by the bishop, so I hardly think a bishop would grant permission for a defrocked priest to perform an exorcism.”

“Well then,” Tabby said, waving her arms with a flourish. “No matter what, you are a threat, Jimmy Holiday. You could possibly cast it out. Of course it hates you.”

Both Will and Tor became excited then. They sat higher in their seats, their legs were shaking and their eyes sparkled with energy.

“Then there is no reason to wait for the church,” Tor said, smiling.

I shook my head. “Oh, Hell no. We are not doing that. You forget, I know about as much about this as you do. We are getting the church involved.”

Will collapsed back in his chair. “And if the church ignores her?”

I slammed my fist down on the counter. “Ugh! We’ve been over this. If I can help her, I will, but I’m the last resort. Don’t you see, an inexperienced exorcist isn’t anything to be proud of.”

Will shrugged. “Don’t exorcists have to begin somewhere?”

I sighed. “Yes, but they have mentors to teach them the ropes. I’ve got a witch and a copy of the Roman Ritual. Not exactly prime stuff here.”

“What?” Tabby looked at me, eyes flashing.

I held up my hand. “No, Tabby. Don’t get riled. I mean, what do you know about exorcism?”

“Not much.”

“That means you know as much as I do, or almost. You’ve seen the movies. All I have on you is this one little book.”

She laughed. “Well, if the word of God is only a book, the Salem witches should never have had a thing to worry about then.”

“Let’s just not talk about it anymore. I’m hungry. I’m tired, and I want to go get a new phone.”

Tor jumped up from her chair and pulled a package of Danish out of the pantry.

“Did you get what you needed from Lucy this morning?” Will asked.

I nodded. “One part of it. There are still three more things on the list, but it’s a step forward.”

Will nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

###

After we finished eating, Will followed me into the library to get rid of the broken chair.

The pieces were near the fireplace. The legs were snapped from the base in pointed, splintered ends. I rubbed my ribs.

“So what other things do you need to prove again?” he asked.

I took a deep breath. They had been asking this a lot, and it was time for it to stop. “I’d rather not say,” I said. “Honestly, that way if I’m asked if Lucy could have been influenced, then I can say without a doubt that there is no way she could have been coached.”

“But, don’t you trust me?” His eyes looked wounded
—
round and a little too wide.

I ran my hands through my hair. “Will, it’s not about trust. It really isn’t. Everything with the church is about perception. What they will look at is not only if Lucy possessed, but if it gets out, how it will look in terms of the perception of the church.”

“I thought the church was about helping people,” Will said.

I chuckled. “Oh they are, but they are about politics too. I should know.”

Will said nothing more. He and I took the broken pieces of the chair down into the basement and stacked them next to that week’s garbage.

I stood up straight and stretched my back. Then, I noticed something unusual. For the most part, “haunted houses” are creepiest in the basement. Here, the basement was quiet and warm. It didn’t feel threatening at all. The one weird thing was on the far wall. There were a couple of metal rings attached to the concrete with brackets. In the back of my mind, I remembered the crack of a whip. Black and his wife. It happened here. But still, the basement felt safe somehow. That I couldn’t explain.

I kept my thoughts to myself. I already had Will jumping from one conclusion to the next. It was hard to tell how he would feel if he knew what I was thinking.

We left the basement and went back into the kitchen.

“Jimmy,” Tor said. “I
am
going to get you a new phone. My daughter broke it, it’s only right.”

I looked at her, she seemed firm. “Tor, honestly, it’s okay. I already told you, I have insurance.”

Will came up from behind me and patted Tor on the shoulder. He turned towards me. “You might as well give it up, Jimmy. When Tor sets her mind to something, that’s it.”

Tor smiled. She walked over to the sink, put her hands in the soapy water and began to wash dishes. “Will is going to take you wherever you need to go to get a new phone.”

“Are the two of you going to be okay while we’re gone?” I asked.

Tabby laughed. “We’ll be fine. Tor and I already decided that we won’t leave each other alone the rest of the day. There’s just too much that’s strange here. Plus, this is bath day for Lucy, and I’m sure Tor could use some help.”

I nodded. “Just be careful.”

###

Will ushered me into the 4Runner soon after. There were things that just didn’t make sense about Will and Tor. One, why did they have a mansion, but an old car? It made no sense at all.

We got into the car. Will started the engine to let it warm up.

“What company do you use?” he asked.

“Sprint.”

Will nodded. “We got about an hour drive.”

“Is everything an hour from here?” I asked.

Will laughed. “No, there’s a Wal-Mart about a half an hour away. Not much else, but at least there’s a Wal-Mart.”

“Do you think you would have liked living in Sorrow’s Point if this hadn’t happened to Lucy?”

Will maneuvered the car out onto the main road. He looked like he was thinking. “I think so. It was out of the way, away from danger, or so we thought. It looked like a decent town to raise a kid in, ya know? We haven’t been able to do most of what we planned to do.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. There it was again. The denial. He’d either forgotten or pushed out of his mind what small town living was really like.

“In D.C., we took the metro most places. We used the car rarely. Here, we need a car all the time.” He scratched his hand. “We were going to get a new car after we moved, but I just haven’t bothered. Lucy takes up so much time.”

It was kind of sad. All his hopes had dried with Lucy’s illness. He was broken
—
a shell of the man he once was.

“When Lucy gets better, are you going to sell the house?”

Will sighed. “No way we can. This house had been on the market for over ten years.”

“Isn’t there something about nondisclosure of a murder? You might be able to get out of it… probably,” I said.

“If we’d known, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Tor still would have wanted the house. Hell, the Black family paid for a caretaker to keep up the grounds and make any repairs to the house as needed. No way we could afford that. If we would sell the house, it would probably take forever. So, we’ll be staying there.”

This was not what I wanted to hear. “Will, if that thing found Lucy to let it out once, what’s to say it won’t happen again?”

Will grasped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white. “I don’t know what to do, Jimmy. If Tor and I give up the house, we’ll have to go live with Tor’s mother. Mom and dad died one right after the other not long after we moved into this house. Asking Mom about Lucy was one of the last conversations I had with her. There literally isn’t anywhere else for us to go.”

“You could stay with me,” I said. It flew out of my mouth before I could stop it. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like. A nightmare most likely.

Will shook his head. “That’s really nice, Jimmy, but I couldn’t do that to you. I just can’t see Tor surviving in that kitchen of yours.”

I laughed. “Yeah, somehow I don’t think she’d find my retro fridge groovy.”

Will shook his head, laughing. “You know something?”

“What?”

“Lucy would love it.”

Hours later, we were back in Sorrow’s Point. My phone was replaced with something fancier than I was used to. I didn’t bother trying to stop Will, he seemed to want to do something to make it all up to me. I still felt guilty though. If they were having financial problems, I didn’t want to add to it, and a fancy phone was an expenditure that just didn’t make sense.

We left the car in the front drive, walked up the huge stone steps and entered through the door. Will paused for a moment in front of me. I heard nothing. He walked forward and I followed Will as he headed toward the kitchen. It was a Hell of a sight. Bloody rags were all over the table. Tabby was holding a rag to Tor’s arm.

“What the Hell happened?” I asked.

“Tor was giving Lucy a bath in the bath tub. She seemed so complacent, Tor thought it would be okay. It was … until Lucy grabbed the razor,” Tabby said.

“Jesus Christ.” Will said. “Are you okay, Tor?”

She nodded. “I think I need stitches.”

I looked around. “And where’s Lucy?”

Tabby looked at me, her eyes wide. “She’s still in the bathtub.”

###

Will and I ran out of the kitchen towards the staircase and dashed upstairs.  Will darted into Lucy’s bedroom. I followed at his heels. We got into Lucy’s bathroom. There was blood everywhere; it was spattered across the walls, in various places on the bathtub and all over Lucy herself. Where she wasn’t spattered, the blood was smeared as if Lucy had been rubbing it on her body. She was in the tub, playing with toys as if nothing was going on.

Will snatched Lucy out of the tub and I held the door open so Will could get Lucy dressed and into her bed. After we got her strapped in, I ran back into the bathroom and rummaged through cupboards until I found a clean wash cloth. I wetted it in the sink and walked back into Lucy’s room. I handed it to Will. Will got most of the blood off Lucy.

We left her alone and went back into the bathroom and cleaned up all the blood.

“Where did Lucy get the razor?” I asked after Will had closed the door to Lucy’s room. We headed downstairs.

He stopped in the middle of the staircase. “I don’t know… there shouldn’t have been a razor in her room. Tor shaves in our bathroom.”

I wobbled a little where I was perched above Will on the stairs. My balance sucks. “Strange isn’t it?”

Will nodded. “She has to be getting out of the restraints, but how I don’t know. She never leaves her bed on the tapes.”

Will finally began descending the stairs. I sighed in relief. I didn’t need to half kill myself by falling down the stairs.

“Does Lucy know where Tor keeps her razors?” I asked.

“Probably,” Will said. “Lucy used to beg to take a bath with her mommy.”

I nodded. “She could be telekinetic.”

Will stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “What?”

“You know. Telekinesis: the ability to move objects with your mind. If she isn’t getting out of bed, she’s bringing things to herself, or using something else or someone else to get what she wants.”

“How?”

I sighed. “Tabby said your house is built near a ley line—a direct power source that magical entities can use as a doorway to other worlds. This house, especially that room upstairs, is kind of a conduit for that line. I think Lucy is using the house to bring things in to help her.”

“Could this line be where this thing came from to begin with?”

I shrugged. “It’s possible. I think old man Black messed with a lot of things he shouldn’t have messed with. I really think he got himself possessed, and ate his family. Then, I think this thing kept causing problems, so the town stepped in and brought in the experts to bind it to that mirror. Apparently, it wasn’t bound good enough because it could still speak to Lucy, and got her to let it out.”

“How do you know that?” Will asked.

“I don’t. It’s just my current hypothesis. We should know for sure after the exorcism.”

We walked into the kitchen. Tor and Tabby were gone, Tabby must have taken Tor to the hospital, but I wondered why they didn’t just rush to the hospital in the first place. It just didn’t make sense to wait for us. I sighed. “They couldn’t leave Lucy,” I mumbled.

“What?” Will asked.

I looked up. “Nothing.”

We picked up the kitchen. Will grabbed some bleach wipes from the pantry and we cleaned the blood off the table. I sat down.

“You hungry?” Will asked.

“I could eat.”

Will pulled a frozen pizza out of the freezer and began preheating the oven. “It’s the only thing I’m allowed to make.”

I snickered.

“Hey, don’t laugh,” Will said. “I’m serious. Tor won’t even let me make macaroni and cheese.”

“You know, that’s really sad, Will,” I said.

He nodded. “It’s Tor.”

###

I was tired of feeling awkward, but that’s what this entire thing was. It was laughable really. Here was Will, the henpecked wonder and it was apparent that Tor expected him to save the day.

I stared out the kitchen window, wondering if this house had ever been happy. I doubted it. But it wasn’t really the house that was the problem, it was that upstairs room and what Black had unleashed in the house.

Three hours later, Tabby and Tor clomped into the house. Tor’s arm was wrapped in an ace bandage and she had a support board strapped to the arm as well.

“What’d they say?” I asked.

Tor sat down in the chair opposite from me. “They gave me a tetanus shot, and I have to go back in two weeks to get the stitches out. Thank God it was a disposable razor. It didn’t cut too deep. It just hurts like Hell.”

Tabby handed me her car keys. “You and Will go get her prescription filled. I’ll go clean that bathroom.”

I chuckled. “No you won’t.”

Tabby put her hands on her hips. “What are you talking about?”

I smiled. “Will and I already got Lucy in bed, strapped in, and cleaned the bathroom.”

Tabby looked stunned.

“While we’re out, want me to pick up something easy we can make for dinner?” I asked.

Tor smiled sadly. “Guess I won’t be cooking for awhile.”

I patted Tor on the shoulder. “It’s okay. We’ll survive. Tabby can cook, and so can I.”

Will stared at me. “You can cook?”

“Sure, as a priest, I was on my own a lot. Believe it or not, I can make lots of things.”

Tabby groaned. “Oh my God, I haven’t had your chicken in ages.”

I laughed. That was one thing I had perfected over the years. An old housekeeper had given me her recipe for Chicken Paprikash years ago, and after some experimenting, I came up with an extra spicy version made with cayenne and paprika. “You all like hot food?” I asked Tor and Will.

“Within reason,” Tor said.

I nodded. “Okay, we’ll be back. Grocery store, here we come.”

Tabby punched me on the arm. “If the next thing out of your mouth is ‘Here I come to save the day!’ I’m going to hit you so hard you won’t wake up for a week.”

I snickered, took the keys and waved goodbye as I left the house. I never got tired of bugging Tabby. It was just too much fun.

###

The small local grocery store reminded me of an old time general store. The walls, while white, did nothing to chase away the darkness that the dim lighting permitted. I wandered the aisles. It was never easy to find your way around in a new place, and this was no different.

Will was over at the pharmacy, getting Tor’s prescription filled. I was left with the charge of getting everything for dinner, but the extra time gave me time to think.

Was the demon putting a spell over Will and Tor to keep them from seeing the obvious? Or was it Will and Tor’s own personalities that kept all of this going?

How Lucy got the razor, I didn’t know, but the soul sucker wasn’t far from my mind. Too much was going on and too much was interconnected.

###

Will hopped into the car as I pulled up in front of the pharmacy. It was weird. Will was just so nonchalant about it all. He didn’t seem concerned about Tor at all, of course, maybe I was looking too far into it. Maybe that’s how it is when you fall out of love with someone. I didn’t know a thing about that.

“Are you afraid to die?” Will asked me as we left the parking lot.

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Not really, no.”

“Why not?” Will asked. “What if this is all there is? What if the only thing left is nothing?”

I laughed a little. He must be in denial. There was no other excuse for it. “Will, your daughter is possessed, right?”

“Yes…”

“Then you are contradicting yourself. How can you believe there is nothing out there after we die if you are afraid of demons.” I paused for a moment to let it all sink in. “There’s a line from an old movie that puts it as plain as I could ever say it, ‘If you are afraid of dying, you will see devils trying to take your life away, but if you have made your peace, the devils are really angels, taking you to heaven.’”

“What movie is that from?” he asked.

“Jacob’s Ladder.”

“Isn’t that a scary movie? I mean, you were all priestly when that came out. Was that allowed?” Will asked.

I rolled my eyes. “There is nothing out there that says that a priest cannot watch a scary movie. Is it looked down on if you watch
Harry Potter
? Yes, but you aren’t punished for it.
The Exorcist
is a little different though. It is banned by the church.”

“Aren’t the
Harry Potter
books banned?” he asked.

I chuckled. “Yeah, but I don’t think the movies are.”

“Tell me, how does that make sense?”

I laughed. “It doesn’t.”

Why he chose to bring all that up, I had no idea, but then besides his mother being an Orthodox Catholic, I reminded myself that I knew little of his religious upbringing.

“How long do you think Lucy’s exorcism will take?” he asked.

I looked at him. He seemed shakier than usual. “I don’t know. It depends on how powerful the demon is.”

Will wiped his mouth with his hand. He was so nervous he was sweating. “Can… can the sins of a parent cause a child to be possessed?”

So that was it? He’d done something and was afraid that something he’d done had caused Lucy’s possession. It was wild, his whole nasty demeanor was caused by simple guilt. It would be a good idea to keep all that in mind.

“It depends on the sin, Will,” I said. “If you’d say, hurt someone or beat them up, then no, you couldn’t have caused Lucy’s possession.”

Will swallowed.

I reached over and turned down the heat in the car.

“What is an example of a parent’s sin that could cause the possession of a child?” he asked.

I took a deep breath. “Just about the only thing would be if you participated in a black mass and promised her soul to the devil.”