Sorrow''s Point

  “A powerful spirit you’ve got here,” she said in a voice that sounded like a croak.

  O’Dell coughed. “Ma’am, I need you to move so I can close the door.”

  She looked at him, a puzzled expression on her face. Finally, she stepped aside.

  O’Dell closed the door.

  She sniffed and began walking towards the staircase.

  “Wait, ma’am,” O’Dell said. “Can I take your coat?”

  She ignored him and began walking up the stairs.

  “Damn woman,” he mumbled. He followed her. She didn’t stop until she entered a bedroom in the east wing. The Blacks hadn’t used it in years. The furniture was covered in dusty sheets.

  Mrs. Williams sniffed again, then she looked upwards. “What’s up there?” she asked.

  O’Dell cleared his throat. “Attic. I think there’s a storage room up there too.”

  She nodded. “Take me to it.”

  O’Dell took a deep breath and took her back downstairs.

  “You sure I can’t take your coat?”

  She shook her head. “Just take me to it.”

  O’Dell led her through the dining room and to the steps that led to the attic. Once they got up the stairs, she practically knocked him down and darted towards the extra room.

  She pointed at the door to the storage room. “That’s the heart.”

  O’Dell furrowed his brow. “The heart of what?”

  “The heart of the house of course.”

  ###

  He watched her prepare, never having seen anything like it. Then, she entered that storage room. Mostly, he heard bumps and growls coming from inside the room.

  “Mr. O’Dell!” She yelled from inside the room. “Get in my bag and bring me the mirror.”

  O’Dell raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. He got the large oval mirror out of her bag and crept over to the door.

  He took a deep breath. His heart was pounding in his chest—lub dub, lub dub. He grabbed the doorknob and jerked open the door.

  A huge black cloud filled the room. It glowed with a eerie purplish brightness. The smell of the thing drifted towards him. He gagged.

  “Mr. O’Dell!”

  He jerked his head around and saw Mrs. Williams motioning for him to hand her the mirror. He handed it to her and could have sworn that the black mass had eyes that stared at him.

  He backed out of the room and closed the door behind him. He didn’t care what she did, just as long as she took care of that thing.

  Sleep would be a long time coming from now on.

  Chapter Eighteen

  To Begin is to Try

  Present

  Tabby laughed. “Nothing here is normal, is it?”

  “And just think, you haven’t even met Lucy yet.”

  “I know, Jimmy. I know.” Tabby shook herself. “Okay, this is what we’re going to do. If, and I mean if, Lucy is possessed, then we can recapture the demon in the mirror. If she isn’t, we’ll simply seal up this room and put that mirror inside.”

  “Seal the room, you mean with wax?” I asked.

  “Basically, and wards.”

  I could just imagine how much of a mess that would be if and when we got the church involved. “Let’s wait and see if Lucy meets the requirements for exorcism. That’s what her dad wants anyway.”

  Tabby smiled. “All right, let the church decide, but here’s a good question for you. What if the church washes its hands of the whole thing and Lucy really is possessed?”

  She brought up a good question. The church would probably have notes from the local priest about his recommendation to the psychiatric hospital. If she really was possessed, the church could look at everything harder, and the church was anything but infallible.

  “I guess if the church wants no part of it, we’ll have to try ourselves—if Lucy’s possessed,” I said.

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” she asked.

  “Well, I figure we probably will be about on the same playing field. I mean, most of the priests who are the diocese exorcist in areas over here have never even performed an exorcism. It’s a title in name only, at least that’s what I read online.” I paused for a minute, thinking. “So, the way I see it, if they’ve never done an exorcism before and neither have we, then it’s about the same odds.” I ran my hands over my arms. It was cold near the room.

  “You know,” she said. “It’s almost like an old joke… an exorcist and a witch walk into a bar…”

  I chucked her lightly on the shoulder. “Shut up. Besides, I’m not an exorcist.”

  Tabby laughed at me. “Jimmy, I think from the moment you heard about all this, you’ve wanted to do it. Maybe you were meant to do this.”

  “And if it all goes bad?”

  “Maybe that’s meant to happen too.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t see how it’s meant to happen for a little girl to die.”

  She smiled. “Jimmy, kids die every day, and this little girl is sick. It could happen.”

  I can’t explain the feeling I got then. It was a mix between trepidation and empowerment. “Then it’s up to us to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  Tabby looked at me. She was skeptical, but she said nothing, almost as if she wanted to avoid a fight.

  “So now what?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I guess we can go back downstairs and wait for news. I don’t know what else to do.”

  Tabby grabbed something else from her bag. She began writing all types of symbols on the door to the attic room. I realized she had a piece of chalk. She moved so furiously that I could see sweat running off her neck.

  ”There,” she said. “That should help.”

  “What is it?”

  She put the chalk back in her bag. “I just warded this door to keep anything else from coming from the portal in that room.”

  “I thought we were waiting to see if Lucy really was possessed or not.”

  She laughed. “If the crap coming from that portal is what was causing Lucy’s problems, I’ve just solved your problem for you. If she is possessed, then what I did probably didn’t do any good at all.”

  “Is the portal why the room felt so weird?”

  Tabby smiled at me. “Yes, Jimmy.”

  She was being so condescending, but I didn’t mind. When we were first together, she tried to teach me, but I wouldn’t have any part of it. She had the right to lord it over me now.

  “So,” I said. “Do you think the original owner, Archibald Black, was possessed?”

  Tabby stood, thinking. “Well, it’s possible, but there is also the possibility that his spirit is the one doing the possessing.”

  “So, do we think Lucy’s possessed?” I asked.

  Tabby looked at me, her eyes steady. “I think it’s possible.”

  ###

  Later that evening, after Tabby and I made the most of delivery pizza, Will stormed into the kitchen through the back door.

  “Jimmy, I’m fucking sorry, really fucking sorry.” He threw his keys down on the table so hard that I was afraid that the glass was going to break. It didn’t. He threw his coat on the floor.

  I stood up, rushed over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “What the Hell happened?”

  He roared. I let him go and stepped back.

  “I’ll tell you what fucking happened, goddamn doctors.” He threw himself into a chair at the table. I found him a soda in the refrigerator and sat down in front of him.

  “I’m tired of it,” he said. “No more.”

  “Alright, Will,” I opened his soda can for him and placed it back in front of him.

  “I just spent six-fucking-hours at the police station, wanna know why?” he asked.

  It was Tabby who asked. “Why?”

  He slammed his fist into the table. My empty soda can fell over with a clang. “They, somebody, thought I was abusing my own daughter. Fuck!”

  “Calm down, now,” Tabby said. “You’re going to hurt yourself.” She
placed her hand on his arm.

  That’s all it took. Tabby was full of special gifts, and her ability to calm people down was one of them. All it took was a touch, and your whole body relaxed.

  “Now, why did they think Lucy was abused?” she asked.

  Will took a drink of his soda. “Her eyes. It finally took Tor getting her G.P. to fax over a note explaining the reason her eyes are the way they are.” He wiped his hands over his face. “I guess some nursing student reported that Lucy looked abused, and called the cops. The doctors didn’t even know about it until I was already dragged down to the station. Turns out it’s severe oxygen failure, and those fuckers…” He collapsed into sobs

  “Is she going to be alright?” I asked.

  Tabby handed him a napkin.

  He wiped his eyes. “For now, I think. They gave her a few things, got things going again. She’s going to have to be on dialysis for awhile.”

  I nodded. “So her kidneys too?”

  “Yeah.”

  How much sicker could she get? “And her breathing’s better?”

  “Fluid in her chest, they had to do a chest tap to release the fluid.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said.

  “Yeah…” He wiped his eyes again with the napkin. “I don’t want my little girl to die.”

  I took a deep breath. “I know, Will. The doctors have her. Tor is going to make sure they do right by Lucy.”

  He nodded.

  “Want some pizza?” Tabby asked.

  Let’s just say she didn’t have to ask a second time.

  ###

  It was strange to go to sleep without a sound at all. At home, I was used to the cars passing by on the street next to my house, but with Lucy gone—the sounds had ceased. The only sounds I heard now were the sounds of the old house settling.

  Tabby and I stayed up late into the night talking, but even she finally drifted off. I just wasn’t used to this much quiet. The last time I slept like this was when I was in seminary, and believe me, that drudged up some memories I’d rather forget.

  It was interesting. My mind couldn’t stop bowling over the same facts and events. I couldn’t fault the hospital staff for questioning Will. Even I wondered at first.

  It just wasn’t a normal situation. Perhaps, for safety’s sake, Will really should put a security camera in Lucy’s room so that she is monitored at all times. Then, if she does something to hurt herself, it will be on tape and Will will have something to back himself up with.

  Plus, if there is an exorcism, the church will want video documentation anyways. It was standard practice now. I remembered hearing about a case in seminary where a priest was arrested for abusing the girl during the course of an exorcism. Now, I don’t know what the priest did, but if the movies were any indication, trauma was something that the possessed did to themselves. It could look like abuse, sure, but it was probably self inflicted.

  Finally, my mind stopped spinning and I was able to drift off.

  ###

  Tabby woke me a little after eight.

  “Jimmy, wake up. I’m bored,” she whined.

  I sat up. From past experience I knew that it was pointless to argue with Tabby when she was like that. She always had this unspoken rule—if she was up and couldn’t sleep, those around her couldn’t either. This impulse was one of the reasons we broke up in the first place.

  “Tabby, why do you have to do that?” I asked.

  She grinned her obnoxious grin. “Cause it’s fun to devil you.”

  I ran my hands through my hair. “You know, Tabby. There are times I really miss you, but not right now.”

  “Oh, come on, you know you love me,” she said, batting her eyelashes at me.

  I stared at her. “That’s the problem. I do.”

  My utterance had a reaction from Tabby I wasn’t anticipating. She kind of shivered, then left the room. I didn’t mean to unsettle her, and honestly, I hadn’t meant to let that slip. We knew each other too well—knew what buttons to push. But it wasn’t just the buttons, we’d left a lot of things unresolved. I had to wonder if I was inviting more trouble by having her come. I hadn’t really thought about any of this before I’d asked her, but now, I knew I might have made a mistake.

  ###

  After getting my shower, I went in search of Will. I had a question for him. It came to me while I was in the shower. It had to do with what he’d mentioned about the mental hospital. If the story were true, there was something big unanswered. If it wasn’t, I was too far invested in Lucy now to quit, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t give Will the riot act.

  I found him in the kitchen. Still no sign of Tabby.

  “Tabby went to get her shower,” he said.

  Since I’d just left the bathroom, I didn’t know where she’d gone. But then, there were some eight bedrooms to this flipping house. She could be in any bathroom. I nodded, grabbed myself some coffee and sat down. “We need to talk.”

  Will looked at me, wounded. “About what?”

  Why he seemed wounded, I didn’t know. Maybe he and Tabby had talked about me. Maybe not. Either way, it had nothing to do with what I wanted to talk to him about. “There’s something that’s been bothering me about the night you came to my house,” I said. “Something you said.”

  “About Lucy?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” he said and wiped his upper lip.

  I took a sip of my coffee. “So, you told me the hospital wanted her gone after she almost gouged out a nurse’s eye, but you said that you took her out of there when they were going to try shock treatment. So which is it, Will? If she really tried to gouge out a nurse’s eye, wouldn’t there be criminal charges?”

  He sat still, very still. “And if the nurse didn’t press charges?”

  It was my turn to pause. “What do you mean?”

  He took a deep breath. “Lucy did try to gouge out her eye, but luckily only scratched the cornea before others pulled Lucy off the nurse.” He took a drink of his coffee. “So, we made a deal. Lucy is so young… Tor and I paid for the nurse’s hospital bills. Luckily, her eye fully recovered. It was after the attack that the hospital considered ECT.”

  The answer satisfied my question, but it did nothing to ease my mind. Lucy could be psychotic. There were odd cases where children killed. She could grow up to be a monster. That thought almost made possession preferable. “What if an exorcism isn’t granted, Will, what are you going to do then?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I honestly don’t know.”

  ###

  Tabby appeared soon after Will left for the hospital. She didn’t speak to me for a long time. She sat in her chair at the table. I sat in mine. The only break in the silence was the kicking on and off of the fan in the refrigerator. Finally, around noon, she asked me to join her outside. I didn’t question it. She was throwing me a bone. I followed her, wandering around the grounds.

  They were beautiful. Underneath the snow, you could see the outlines of the hedges that bordered each garden. There were snow covered statues and fountains placed around the grounds. If it wasn’t for the history of the house, I would say it was a stunning place, but somehow, beauty and evil don’t go hand in hand in my mind.

  Outside, the house seemed normal, but I knew what lurked in the attic. Then, Tabby froze just at the edge of the woods surrounding the property.

  “What’s wrong, Tabby?” I asked.

  “This isn’t good,” she said.

  I walked up to her. “What isn’t good?”

  “This,” she pointed at my feet, “is a ley line.”

  “What?”

  She smacked her head with her hand. “I forget how damn clueless you can be sometimes. A ley line is a power source, kind of like a grid, but a magical one. They are also doorways.”

  “To what?”

  “To let things go, and to let things in.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I hate it when you talk in riddles.”

  She h
uffed. “Someone who can do magic can tap into the power source that is the ley line and use it for magical purposes. Supposedly, very powerful practitioners can actually travel by way of them, but I’ve never seen anyone that powerful. But the bad side is that there is something about a ley line that is dangerous. There are dark beings that can use them as doorways into our world.”

  “So what does this mean?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “It means that Mr. Black was probably a very accomplished practitioner with a penchant for the dark side. Think of him as Darth Vadar to your Han Solo.”

  I laughed. “If I’m Han Solo, who’s Luke Skywalker?”

  “Whoever can send this damn thing back from where it came from.”

  “So, do you think it jumped the line? Or did Black invite it in?” It was an honest question. I was really clueless about all this stuff.

  “Right now,” she said, “I don’t know. But when Lucy comes back, we can ask it.”

  I shook my head. “Nope, bad idea. Demons are liars. We can ask it its name. We can ask it when it will leave, but we cannot ask it anything else.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the rules say so.”

  She laughed. “Jimmy Holiday, since when are you ever the sort to do anything by the rules?”

  I smiled. “Never.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  ###

  A couple of hours later, Tabby and I were sitting in the kitchen. When we’d gotten back inside, Will had left a note on the counter telling us to fend for ourselves for our meals. He’d gone back to the hospital.

  My phone rang.

  “Hello?” I asked.

  “Lucy’s coming home,” Will said.

  “She’s well enough?”

  “The doctors figure that since the worst is over and we have her feeding tube equipment here, we can probably manage her at home. I don’t know if she was just that weak, or if she wanted back here, but she didn’t act out or cause anything weird this time. Her organ failure has stopped. It happened suddenly.” He paused. “So much of what’s going on with Lucy is odd. They think that it’s probably all right for her to leave the hospital since she appears to be stable. Honestly, I don’t think they know what to think.”

  I could hear the hesitation in his voice. “Anything Tabby and I can do?”