Sorrow's Point (9 page)

Long car trips; no matter how you try to dress them up with sayings like: “I can see more of the country,” or “There’s a lot more to do”—they're still fucking boring! Yeah, once in awhile, you’ll see a weird road side attraction in West Virginia, but not enough to make up for seventy-nine. Interstate seventy-nine is the bane of my existence. Never is there not construction on the damn thing, and people drive like maniacs. I’m not talking speed so much, but there are people who like to go at least ten miles under the speed limit along with idiots who consistently drive over eighty miles an hour with a cell phone in one hand and a drink in the other. Sometimes, I wouldn’t be surprised if the drink was beer, but that’s what you get when people think that they are invincible and they don’t think about anyone else.

I glanced around as I drove. Trees, farm land, cows, trees, the road ahead of me, hills, trees. I was slowly going insane. Then I saw the junction for seventy-seven. I just about jumped for joy.

Jimmy owed me for this—nah, not really, but it sounded good. My Ph. D. was now on hold. Isaac was staying with a friend. I took a leave of absence. I knew Jimmy was only calling me because he had to. I couldn’t imagine how the family must feel with their girl in such a state that the father became desperate enough to believe she was possessed. With the dead plants, the feeling in my gut, and the fact I was now on my way to Virginia, it just didn’t look good. At least I now knew what all the omens were about.

I wished Jimmy had been calling me because he wanted to, not just because he needed my witchy expertise, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

I looked at the dashboard clock. It was a little after six. Time to get something to eat. Each time a roadside sign appeared, I hoped it was a food sign, but none came. First came gas, then came attractions, and finally, food.

There was an Olive Garden. Perfect. I turned off at the exit. The way I looked at it, food with garlic was a good idea. Garlic had cleansing properties, and from what Jimmy described, I was going to need them.

After dinner, we settled in the living room, Will in the chair, Tor and myself on the sofa. Tor arranged it so that I was sitting in between them. It was uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.

Will never turned on the TV, we sat there, silent. I got the feeling that they didn’t entertain often, and that they almost never used the living room for other people besides Will.

“Does anyone sit with Lucy at night?” I asked.

Tor looked over at me. Her expression was guarded. “Not usually. When the sounds start, she’s asleep. When I look in on her, she’s asleep. She’s the only person able to sleep through the sounds.”

There was something about that that made me doubt that Lucy was sleeping. I didn’t think Tor was lying, I just thought that Lucy was very good at deceiving her mother.

Will played with his watch, twisting it around on his wrist as far as he could get it to go, then he’d twist it back. His wrist was turning red from the metal rubbing across his skin. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“She just sleeps,” Will said. “I checked to see if she was faking once, but she wasn’t. She was fast asleep.”

I let it go. Tons of kids have been fooling their parents by pretending to be asleep to avoid school for hundreds of years, so, why would this stuff with Lucy be any different? I allowed Will his little delusion. It didn’t really hurt anything. “So, whatever this is, it is causing havoc not only with Lucy, but throughout the house.”

“I guess so,” Tor said. “I mean, it’s scary. We don’t know what it is.” Tor ran her fingers through the fringe on the pillow she was holding. The pillow was some sort of mottled velvet with sparkles in the fabric. It was a completely girly thing that for some reason, reminded me of Morocco.

“Well,” I said.  “Maybe Tabby will be able to help.”

“I hope so,” Tor said. She looked away quickly, but not before I saw the tears forming in her eyes.

###

It was a long wait for Tabby to get there, made longer by the fact that we were sitting in a room, silent because no one wanted to talk. Why Will didn’t just turn on the TV I didn’t know. Maybe he wanted to say something, but couldn’t get up the nerve.

He needed to get himself together. I couldn’t help him if I didn’t have a clear picture as to what was going on. The house was such an odd place; made odder by its owner and his “activities.” I wanted to see if Tabby could close off any interference from the attic room. If it was cut off, maybe Lucy would do better, maybe she wouldn’t, but it was worth a try. Besides, if she got the interference cut off, it might be easier to see if Lucy was possessed, or just a very sick little girl who happened to live in a haunted house.

Almost as soon as night fell, the noises started. Because it was winter, night fell pretty early, around six. It got me thinking. Would a six-year-old really be asleep at six p.m.?

“Have you ever tried waking Lucy up while the noises are going on?” I asked.

Will looked at me. His eyes narrowed. He took it differently than I meant him to.

I shook my head. “I’m not trying to say you haven’t done anything, Will. I’m just trying to figure it out—that’s what you brought me here for anyway, so don’t get your dander up.”

Will’s look softened. “I’m sorry, Jimmy. I’m so used to getting ready to fight with doctors and everyone else. Really, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. So, I’ll ask again. Have you ever tried to wake Lucy up once the noises have started?”

“No.”

“Wanna see what happens?”

###

I felt like a fourteen-year-old dared to go into a haunted house. Will said he was too afraid to do it, and Tor didn’t want to, so I found myself going up to Lucy’s room alone. Was I freaked out? Not really. I mean, she was tied down for Christ’s sake. It wasn’t like she could hurt me. So far, I hadn’t seen anything to make me want to run out of there screaming, and the only thing supernatural I’d experienced was that room, the dream that could possibly be explained by other means, and the noises I was currently listening to.

When I got to Lucy’s door, I paused to see if I could hear anything coming from her room. I heard nothing. I knocked on her door and opened it. Again, the smell hit me. It was stronger this time. I had to suppress the urge to gag. I reached over and felt along the wall. As soon as I felt the switch, I flipped it on. Lucy lay there in her bed, but her eyes were not closed.

She smiled at me. “What do you want, Priest?”

“Nothing, Lucy,” I said. “I just came to check on you. Are you feeling okay?”

She laughed in her choppy way. The laugh seemed to travel to the ceiling and out through the rest of the house. How she made her voice travel like that, I didn’t know, but she could make money with it one day if it really was just a trick.

“You like to feel things in this house, strange things, don’t you?” Lucy asked.

I nodded. “There’s a lot strange here.”

“You like to feel other things, don’t you, Priest? You can feel me if you want.” She raised her hips in a suggestive manner.

“No, Lucy. I’m not interested. I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

She smiled at me with her broken teeth and licked her lips in a way that made me uncomfortable. “I’ll be fine if you untie my hands. I’ll be really fine then.”

I backed up, turned off the light and closed the door. Now, I was torn with what to tell them. Part of me wanted Lucy looked at for possible sexual abuse, part of me wanted to investigate further. Sexual abuse didn’t feel right somehow, not as an answer, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that Lucy shouldn’t be sexual at six. She also shouldn’t even know what she knew about sex at six. But, plenty of kids did these days; some by way of evil people, others just by watching things on TV they weren’t supposed to.

I couldn’t withhold anything from Will and Tor. I didn’t want to tell them, but I knew I had no choice.

###

I walked down the steps, trying to figure out how to approach this. It wasn’t going to be easy. I found them in the living room where I’d left them. “Lucy wasn’t asleep,” I said.

Will sat up in the chair, his eyes widened in surprise. “She wasn’t?”

I crossed the room and sat down on the couch. “No.”

“The noise never stopped,” Tor said, almost accusingly. She then put her hand over her mouth and made a sound similar to a squeal.

I tapped my chin with my fingers. Tor’s damsel act was really getting annoying. I could see how Will was about ready to throw up his hands at the whole thing. I think that if it wasn’t for Lucy, he would have already left her. “This incident at Lucy’s daycare, you never said what it was…”

Will sighed. “A male caretaker molested some kids. We had Lucy checked. He didn’t molest her.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“The doctors said she hadn’t been touched,” Tor said.

“And you asked her?” I asked, turning my head and looking at them both.

“She said no.” Will wrung his hands together.

I sat back in on the sofa. “She definitely needs some psychiatric help, possessed or not.”

“Why?” Tor asked.

I sighed. “Because she just came on to me. That and the way she spoke to me; it just wasn’t normal. We need to start videotaping conversations with her.”

“Why?” Will asked, setting his soda on the coffee table.

“Because,” I said, “the things we’re looking for, they are going to come out in what she says and does while we are with her. Taping everything is our best recourse in documentation when we go to the church.”

The doorbell rang. One word escaped my lips: “Tabby.”

###

I walked out into the hallway and looked out into the foyer just in time to see Will let Tabby inside. She looked just as I remembered, with her long red hair twirled up on the back of her head. Her pale skin was flushed red from the cold, and her green eyes were tired.

She looked around Will and stared at me.

“Jimmy,” she said. She ran over and hugged me. She smelled of something flowery, just as she always did.

I sniffed her. “I missed you, Tabby-cat.”

“I missed you too.”

The choppy laughter rattled the ceiling.

Tabby jumped back. “What the fuck was that?”

“Oh,” I laughed. “That’s just Lucy saying Hello.”

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Nope.” I looked past Tabby and saw Tor and Will standing there, watching. I coughed. “I’m sorry, Will, Tor, this is Tabby.”

Tabby turned from me and walked over and shook their hands.

“Lucy’s upstairs,” I said.

Will picked up Tabby’s suitcase. It was one of those older models without wheels. As far as I knew, she’d always had it. It was a faded olive green with a hard case.

“If you don’t mind,” Will said. “You can share the library with Jimmy.”

Tabby looked at me, a question in her eyes.

“That’s fine,” I said to Will. I looked at Tabby. “The noises are quieter in the library.”

“Lucy’s noises?” she asked.

I nodded. We followed Will down the hallway into the library.

“This is some place, huh?” she asked me.

“You haven’t seen the half of it,” I replied.

We set Tabby’s suitcase down next to the other sofa—the one that wasn’t facing the door.

“Did you eat?” Tor asked Tabby from the doorway.

Tabby turned and smiled. “Yeah, I stopped on the way.”

Tor nodded. “Are you tired?”

“Not yet, I’m not,” Tabby said.

But she’d lied. I could tell Tabby was tired because of her eyes. The circles really stood out against her pale skin. I said nothing.

Tor ushered us all down the hallway and into the kitchen. “I’m making hot chocolate,” she said. “Then, I think Tabby needs to know why she’s here.”

It was weird.  It was like Tabby’s arrival had brought back Tor’s confidence. She seemed to feel comforted by the presence of another woman. Maybe she’d felt ganged up on by Will and myself, but I couldn’t think of anything I’d said to make her feel that way. “Yes, Ma’am.”

###

Tor arranged us around the table. Tabby and I were seated near the window, Tor and Will near the door. With Tor, I noticed, that like everything else, hot chocolate wasn’t simple. She melted real chocolate on the stove and added it to a pan of hot milk. When it was finished to her liking, she sprinkled a bit of cinnamon on top and served it up in porcelain cups.

“You sure you want to trust me with one of these?” I asked. The thing was ornate with gold gilding around the rim. I knew my limitations, and since Tor and I were mostly prickly towards each other, I didn’t want to be blamed if something went wrong. Besides, I’m a klutz.

Tor patted me on the shoulder. “Of course I’ll trust you, Jim. It would be childish to make you use something else.”

Tabby took a sip of her chocolate. “Oh my, that’s good.” She looked up Tor. “Can I have the recipe?”

Tor smiled. “Of course. Just remind me to jot it down for you before you leave.”