She made a questioning face.
“Or take the calls?” Mark asked.
“Just go ahead and have your meeting,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ll screen the calls for you.”
That deserved a kiss. Cathy, a striking blonde with fine Nordic features, was remarkably serene. She’d kept her composure during this rough time, and Mark was thankful for her, more than he could say. Of course she didn’t enjoy tribulation—who does?—but right now, when extra strength and resilience were needed, she was supplying them, and that gave Mark a quiet assurance that they would get through this crisis.
He stepped through the kitchen door and out into the dining room. The four church elders were gathered around the table, listening to Tom’s account of what had happened up to this time.
“So what was it this spirit said?” asked Jack Parmenter, a hardworking, durable farmer with silver hair.
Tom didn’t enjoy the memory of it. “Oh . . . it said we were all fools to worship Jesus, that He was only a liar, and not God at all, but just an illegitimate child—uh, the spirit used another word, of course—and then it went on to accuse Jesus of sexual perversions . . . in graphic terms.”
“All that coming from a ten-year-old,” said Bob Heely in disgust. Bob was a Viet Nam vet, a diesel mechanic who kept all the farm machinery around Bacon’s Corner running. His hands were rough and grease-blackened.
“Sounds pretty weird to me,” said Doug Parmenter, Jack’s son and the spitting image of his father. “What do you think, Mark? I’ve never seen someone demon-possessed before.”
Mark took his place at the head of the table. “I have, and I think Tom’s impressions were correct.”
Vic Savan, who ran the farm right next to the Parmenters’, concurred with that. “Well, what that little girl—or that demon—had to say fits right in with everything else the Devil’s saying nowadays about Christians and about Christ. Just look at all the slander he’s been spreading in the papers and on the television, and I don’t mean just our own situation. Seems like it’s everyone else’s civil rights and freedoms that matter, but when it comes to Christians, people—and I guess demons—can say and do whatever they want.”
“Well,” said Mark, “like Wayne Corrigan said, a lawsuit, a test of Christian freedom, had to happen somewhere. Looks like that somewhere is here in Bacon’s Corner, and at our school.”
“But isn’t it just like Satan to use a child?” said Jack. “I mean, that’s getting really low.”
“Well, he can use God’s own people, too. How many of you have heard some destructive talk about this before coming to the meeting tonight?”
Every man put up his hand.
Vic related, “I ran into the Jessups at the filling station, and they were wondering how many other kids got abused.”
Tom cringed at that. “Abused? Just what do they mean by that?”
“You can fill in the blank, Tom.”
“Well, we have the newspaper and KBZT to thank for that,” said Jack. “They’ve been tossing that word around like it was a fact.”
“And that’s my point,” said Mark. “We’re the elders of this church, and we’ve got to keep a lid on this thing. There are going to be questions flying and a lot of accusations and gossip, and we’d better be thinking of how we’re going to handle it.”
Vic raised his eyebrows, shrugged one shoulder, and said, “Well, as far as the Jessups are concerned, they’re taking their two kids out. They don’t want any part of it.”
“Neither do the Wingers,” said Doug.
“And they said I was a fool for keeping my three in there,” said Bob.
The phone out in the kitchen rang again. They could hear Cathy answering it.
Mark commented, “That’s probably another family with the same concerns.” He looked at Tom. “Well, Tom, let’s get the first item covered and then we can go from there.”
Cathy peeked in. “Ted Walroth’s on the phone. He saw the news tonight, and he wants to know if we’re going to have a congregational meeting.”
“Tell him I’ll call him back,” said Mark. Cathy went to tell him, and Mark returned his attention to Tom. “You want to tell them?”
Tom didn’t hesitate. “I’m stepping down as headmaster of the school; I’m going to take a leave of absence until this whole thing gets cleared up.”
Jack was ready to debate that move. “Who says?”
“The school’s in trouble because of me. If we’re going to save it at all, I’ve got to get out of the picture.”
He was right. Every man at the table hated to admit it, but he was right. There was a long, fidgety silence. They all looked at the table or out the window or around the room, and only occasionally at each other.
Mark decided to break the silence. “Tom and I talked and prayed about it, and we agreed that all of us have to face the facts as they are: the ruckus is over him; he’s the center of the controversy. Now I know we’re all standing with him, but the matter of his innocence is secondary. The biggest and most immediate concern right now is the confidence of the parents and the community. That confidence is taking a real beating right now, and it’s going to be hard to get it back if we keep Tom in his position.”
Jack fidgeted, looked this way and that, and then gave the table a pound. “But, Mark, we can’t do that! It’d be like admitting Tom’s guilty!”
Doug jumped in. “But, Dad, some people already think that! I’ve talked to some folks just today who are ready to give the whole thing up, just pull out of the school and let it die. They’re knocked on their backs by this thing.”
Mark cut in. “But that’s part of the warfare, guys. Satan set this whole thing up so he could weaken us with gossip and slander. We need to do as much as we can to protect ourselves from that, or at least provide no fuel for the fire.”
Tom explained, “If I stay at the school, we won’t be able to convince anyone that we’re truly concerned about all this. I’m concerned. I’m willing to step down in good faith until we can get all this trouble resolved.”
“We’ll do all we can to keep the academy open. Mrs. Fields will stay on and teach the remaining kids in her classes. I’ll take charge of the remainder in the upper grades. Tom, what’s the prospective enrollment?”
Tom had scribbled down a tentative list. “Um . . . I guess we should go for a worst case scenario . . . which would mean that Judy Waring will take out her son Charlie . . . and then there are the Jessups and their two . . . and then the Wingers with their three . . .”
“What about the Walroths?” asked Jack.
Mark answered, “I’ll be calling him. I think I can talk him into hanging on for a while.”
“So we’ll leave those two children in?” asked Tom.
“For now.”
Tom wrote them back in. “Okay. That means five kids are out of Mrs. Fields’s class. Her enrollment’s cut in half. My class is down by one. That isn’t too bad.”
“So for now we’ll be able to survive,” said Mark. “But tonight we’ll have to talk about Tom’s salary while he’s out, plus some more volunteer help to keep things running—I won’t have time to do all the bookkeeping and administrating. Then we’ll have to reassign the bus route now that the Wingers are out and get someone else to organize the hot lunches now that the Warings are out.”
“Donna Hemphile called today,” Tom remembered. “She’s very supportive of the school, and willing to put in any time she can spare when she’s not tied up at the door factory.”
“Who?” asked Doug.
“Donna Hemphile,” said Mark. “She’s a supervisor at the Bergen Door Company, a single gal.”
“Yeah, she’s nice,” said Jack.
“Anyway,” said Tom, “she says she’ll take care of hot lunches, probably two days a week.”
“Good enough.” Mark wrote it down in his own notes. “Okay, other things to discuss tonight: We need to update you on what Wayne Corrigan told us, and what we have to do to fight
this thing in court.” Mark looked at Tom. “And there’s also the latest report on your kids.”
Tom looked tired. He’d been through quite a battle already over that issue. “Wayne Corrigan called this afternoon. He finally got in touch with someone at the District Court in Claytonville. They had the hearing today, in Judge Benson’s court. It took about ten minutes, I understand. I guess I didn’t miss anything; they would have barred me from the courtroom anyway. The judge approved the removal and set a date for the trial in October.”
“October?” Jack exclaimed. “So what happens in the meantime?”
“I’m supposed to get some counseling, but from a court-appointed counselor. I’ll be able to visit the kids, I don’t know exactly when, and it’ll be controlled; a social worker will have to be there . . .” Tom couldn’t continue.
“Well, I say we fight this thing,” said Jack. “Let the others run and hide. If being Christian is too tough for them, well, they can’t say Jesus didn’t warn them. But let’s fight it! Let’s go to our knees, and beseech the Lord to show us a way out of this. Our God is greater than any lawsuit or any bunch of social service bureaucrats! He’ll stand with us, and that’s . . . well, that’s my final word on the subject!”
Mark looked around the table. “So how about the rest of you? Let me hear from you now, before we take another step.”
“Let’s fight it,” said Doug.
“We’re in this for the Lord,” said Bob. “He’ll help us.”
Vic raised his hand to be counted. “Hey, if it had to happen to us, then it had to happen to us. Looks like we’re first in line, guys. If we fall, all the other Christian schools are going to fall next. We’d better give them a good fight, with the Lord’s help.”
Mark felt the hand of God upon these men. He met Tom’s eyes, and through Tom’s tears he saw a quiet confidence.
“Then let’s go to prayer,” he said, “and let our agreement this night be settled in Heaven.”
They joined hands around the table, making their covenant with each other and God.
HIGH ABOVE THE town, hovering between Heaven and Earth, his wings a soft, blurred canopy, Captain Tal overheard the transaction. The saints had bound themselves together in prayer according to the will of God; the Lord Almighty had received their petition. There was agreement, and that agreement was now sealed.
“Good,” said Tal, “good enough!”
IN CLAYTONVILLE, the demons abruptly called it a day. The last of them swooped down, spit out some insults, and then soared off like a crazed swallow into the night, leaving Chimon and Scion alone on the roof of the motel. The sudden silence was jarring.
“Well,” said Chimon, “did we get a prayer?”
“Looks that way,” said Scion.
They sat on the roof, their swords resting on the shingles, their eyes scanning the sky. Below them, Sally Roe was lying down to sleep.
Perhaps now they would all have some peace for the night.
CHAPTER 11
THE BERGEN DOOR Company was a noisy, dusty place employing about a hundred people, the only real industry to be found in Bacon’s Corner. It was Friday morning, and during the regular work shift the planers, sanders, saws, and drills produced such a deafening din that ear protection was required and also a lot of lipreading.
Ben wore ear protection—little sponge-rubber earplugs—and also safety glasses as he walked through the factory. He’d never been here before, and found it a fascinating place, with the smell of sawdust filling the air, and doors, doors, doors everywhere, some stacked, some standing, some riding the forklift down to the loading dock; small doors, big doors, cheap doors, exquisite doors.
He was catching a few glances from the employees as he passed by. The sight of a uniformed police officer often roused curiosity, as if “something” was up. He just smiled cordially at the hefty women, the sawdusted men, the part-time students, the single mothers. He recognized many of them, including Donna Hemphile, busily supervising a big material sorting project. She recognized him and waved.
“Hey, Ben, what are you doing here?” she hollered.
“Oh, just a little business,” he answered, probably not loud enough for her to hear him. He was hesitant to talk about it.
Up ahead, at the center of all the hubbub, was the enclosed office space of the floor supervisor, Abby Grayson. She spotted him through the office window and gave him a wave. The front office had already called ahead, and she was expecting him.
“Come in out of the racket,” she said, throwing open the door.
He stepped inside the little cubicle and she closed the door after him, shutting out the noise.
“Have a seat,” she said. “You must be that new cop. I don’t think we’ve met before, and maybe that’s a good thing, you know?”
They went through some friendly introductions. Abby was a homely but personable lady in her forties; she and her husband were real career people in this place. She’d just received her twenty-year pin, and he his twenty-five.
“Well,” she said, “we’re all pretty shocked. Sally was a good worker. It’s too bad she didn’t open up a little more. We thought she might have some deep problems, but . . . Hey, we tried to be friends; what can I say?”
“I’ve heard from several people that she was reclusive,” Ben said.
“Yeah, pretty much a hermit. We invited her to the last Christmas party, and I think she almost came, but then she found some excuse and stayed home. She didn’t get out much as far as any of us could tell.”
“You wouldn’t have any photographs of her, would you?”
“Funny you should mention that. I guess she hated having her picture taken. We were all going to pose for a company picture . . . When was that? I think around Labor Day, and I remember she just kept hiding behind people and turning away. Ehh, some people are like that.”
“So what kind of person was she really? What were some of your impressions?”
Abby took a moment to consider the question. “She was bright and intelligent, good with her hands, and caught on to the job right away, really easy to train. But there was always something a little strange about her.” Abby smiled about a thought that came to her. “Well, I suppose I can say it now. You know . . . I think she was hiding something. A lot of us thought that.”
“Hiding something?”
Abby shook her head and chuckled. “Oh, we came up with all kinds of silly notions, talking about her maybe being a fugitive from the law, or an ex-con, or a witch, or a hooker, or a lesbian . . . It was pretty silly, but when people are that secretive, that quiet, you wonder about them a little. It’s only natural.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Was she any of those things to your knowledge?”
She laughed. “No. It was talk, nothing but talk.”
“But still you think she was hiding something . . .”
“I don’t know. She just acted like it, I guess.”
Ben chuckled to keep the atmosphere relaxed. “Well . . . how about a description? What did she look like?”
“Oh . . .” Abby’s eyes drifted about the room as she reconstructed an image of Sally Roe in her mind. “About my height, and I’m 5’ 6”. Red hair . . . long . . . I saw her brushing it out once; it went down to about the middle of her back. But she kept it bound up in a checkered scarf when she was working here, so you never saw much of it.”
“Color of eyes?”
“Color of eyes . . . Boy, I never gave it much thought. Seems to me they were brown.”
“How old was she?”
“Thirties. Maybe a little older.”
“How about her weight?”
“Pretty good,” and with that comment Abby laughed. “I don’t know, she looked all right to me, enough to be jealous about, anyway.”
Ben had heard enough for now. He stood up. “Well, thanks a lot. If I think of any more questions I’ll give you a jingle. Oh . . .” He scribbled his phone number on a piece of
paper. “If you come up with anything you think I’d want to know, just give me a call at home. It’ll be fine.”
“Sure thing.” She stood and shook his hand. “Well, it was a real shock, just really tough news.”
He nodded.
“And then that news this morning about the Christian school and what that teacher was doing! What a world, huh? You just never know about people . . . It’s kind of scary.”
ANGO WAS NOTHING significant, nothing to bow to, worship, revere, or dread. He was small, thin like a spider, and ugly. Oh, he knew it. He lived with it. He put up with the taunts of the other spirits who lorded it over him, ordered him this way and that way, took his glory, gave him their blame. Ah, it was all part of the warfare, all part of the master’s plan for the earth, and each spirit had his own role, his own station, his own level of power. He knew his was a lowly station. To the rest of the demonic kingdom, what was the Bacon’s Corner Elementary School? What did it matter among all the schools in the world?
His lips stretched open, and his jagged teeth clicked and gnashed as he hissed a giggle. Oh, this place did matter now! The other spirits had laughed and chided, but somewhere, seated loftily at the peak of power, the Strongman himself had chosen this place to begin the Plan. He had spoken the name of Ango as the spirit to be placed in charge! Now little ugly Ango had the Strongman’s favor—and the other spirits’ envy!
But why not? He deserved it. It took years to take control of this school—to oust the resisters, to implant the sympathizers, to blind the parents to what was happening to their children. It was no small task.
But it happened, and all because of Ango! Let the other spirits call him little and ugly. At this school he was Ba-al Ango, the beautiful and mighty. All the deceivers who flitted, darted, and hovered around that place were at his command, and through them many of the teachers, as well as the principal and the vice-principal. That was a precious power, a constant titillation, a marvelous reward for all those years and all that work. As he sat on his haunches on the expansive tar roof, he indulged himself in some hacking, sulfurous laughter.