I sighed. “Alright then, sounds like I better start studying the ritual. Try to think of spells you can cast on Lucy and her room for light, health and honesty. Who knows, it might help.”
“Any spells you’d like me to cast for you?” she asked.
“Yeah. Luck. It looks like I’m going to need it.”
###
We went back inside and sat down at the table. Tor was futzing at the counter, making God knows what. Will sat across from me, nursing a cup of coffee.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.
I thought for a moment. What I needed him to do and what he was capable of were two different things.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” I said. “I’m going to need vestments and the rest. Tabby knows what she needs. Mostly, I need something that no one can help me with.”
“And what’s that?”
“Bravery, hope, strength and luck.” I ran my hands through my hair. “I can’t promise this is going to turn out okay, Will. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want Lucy’s death on my hands.”
Will smiled. He looked tired. “You know, Jimmy. Without you, Lucy would have no chance at all.” He pushed his coffee cup off to the side and clasped his hands together. “Okay, you don’t know what you’re doing, but more important is that you care about that. You care about making Lucy worse.”
I sighed. He believed in me too much. “I just don’t want you to put me on a pedestal or anything. I really just want you to understand. Once I start this, I don’t know what is going to happen. I don’t know what Lucy is going to do. I don’t know what Lucy will do to hurt herself. I know there’s a camera. I just don’t want you to blame me if something goes wrong.”
“Jimmy,” he said. “Tor and I have talked about this. Lucy has no other choice. If she dies anyway, well, at least we did all we could, including having you try to get this thing out of her.”
“And what if you change your mind? What’s going to happen then?” I asked.
Will grabbed me by the shoulder. I stared at him.
“We will never blame you, Jimmy. Never.”
I jerked my hand away. “You say that now, but people never really know how they are going to react.”
Will shook his head. “I’m going to be in the room, Jimmy. I’m going to help. How can I blame you if I’m in there doing the same work?”
I had no response to that. He wasn’t exactly reliable. I couldn’t help but think that this was going to be one huge fiasco.
“Maybe we should put this in writing,” I said.
Will laughed. “Nah, we’ll record it, give both Tabby and Tor a copy.”
I smiled. “That works for me.”
He grabbed his coffee cup and took a sip. “Good.”
###
Before the others came to bed, Tabby and I were in the library early. There was just too much to do. I didn’t know if I should study the ritual until I had it memorized, or if I should just wing it. I’ll admit it that I was scared. I didn’t have the church backing me up; I didn’t have the knowledge. Believe me, now I wished I had gone to school to be an exorcist, but how was I to know I’d ever need to know how to do it?
I tapped my pencil against my lips, staring at a blank piece of notebook paper.
“Are you going to need holy water?” Tabby asked.
I looked up. She was amazingly astute at times. “Actually, yeah. I do need some.”
“Does it have to be your type of holy water, or can it be any type of holy water?”
I thought for a bit. It wasn’t like I was going to be doing this completely by the book. “Honestly, I don’t know. I mean, you always hear about it the Catholic way with the holy water I’m used to, but I have no reason to believe it wouldn’t work with any other type of holy water. Why?”
She smiled. “Well, you can’t get holy water from Father John cause he’ll suspect something. Isn’t there something where you can’t make holy water now?”
I nodded. “Because I’m not a priest, I can’t make ‘Catholic holy water.’ I’m not supposed to be saying any rituals or masses at all, really.”
“I can make holy water,” she said.
I stared at her. It seemed lately that Tabby was the answer to everything, but there was still so much about her I didn’t understand. “How can you make holy water?”
“Witches and the Voudou do it all the time to cleanse areas and to fight bad things,” she said.
“What do you need to make it?”
“Prayers, rose petals and vodka.”
I just about swallowed my tongue. “You put vodka in holy water?”
Tabby laughed. “In Voudou, vodka is an offering to Papa Legba.”
I looked at her blankly.
“Okay, okay. Papa Legba is the gatekeeper. Kind of like the equivalent to St. Peter as far as I understand it.”
“Okay, so, why are you making an offering to this Papa guy?”
She laughed. “You are so… you, Jimmy Holiday.” She put her hands on her hips when she stood up. “We want the gatekeeper to keep things from coming through the gate, so we put an offering to him in the water.”
“Why the rose petals?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Because doofus, as you well know, roses are related to God. I think there was an old story about roses being the thorns that the thorn crown was made from that Jesus wore during the crucifixion, or something like that.”
“I thought witches didn’t believe in Jesus, or didn’t like Jesus.”
She smiled. “I think we all worship the same being, Jimmy. I don’t think the supreme being is male or female. I think it just is what it is.”
“Okay, so, do you have what you need?” I asked.
“Nope. I need rose petals—fresh rose petals and vodka.”
I sighed and settled back into the sofa. “I just wish Tor and Will weren’t counting on me so much.”
“They count on you because they don’t have anyone else they can count on.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier. It’s just not good, Tab.”
She nodded. “No matter what, you gotta' figure out what you are going to do.”
She sat down on the sofa.
It was more like how I was going to do this. I wasn’t comfortable. I felt like I was stumbling blindly through a field of thorn bushes. “You know that my set of instructions equates to like a half-hour worth of prayer?”
“Seriously?” she asked.
“Yeah. I get a half-hour of instruction for something that is going to take weeks probably to deal with, maybe years.”
Tabby gasped. “Years?”
“Yeah. In Rome, people go to exorcists for years. It’s definitely not like how it is in the movies, though if Lucy lives through this, Will and Tor could make a killing from her story.”
“So, how does the exorcism go?” she asked.
“Well, you’ve seen the movies. In The Exorcist, they read most of the Roman Ritual of exorcism in it. That’s one of the reasons it’s banned, I think.”
“I wish there was another option,” she said.
“So do I. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Did you memorize your sermons?” Tabby asked.
“No, I just made sure I was familiar with what I wanted to say. I put post-it notes in my Bible to mark passages and I had my sermon printed out, sitting in front of me on the lectern of the alter.”
She nodded. “And how is the exorcism different?”
“Well, it’s like any other rite, I guess, except there is no lectern. It probably makes sense to do it in a room where there is the least amount of furniture to be thrown about.”
“Heck, Lucy’s hurting people and there isn’t much left in her room.”
I nodded. “It’s going to be really dangerous, Tabby. If you want to back out, I’ll understand.”
“Jimmy, don’t go all, ‘I’m the man and you don’t have to do anything cause I’m here to protect you’ on me. I’m here because
I chose to be. You need help. Maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be?”
“Maybe,” I said.
###
Tabby and I tried to relax. I stopped pouring over everything. The only thing I seemed to be doing was making myself crazy.
Tor walked into the library carrying a chocolate layer cake.
“What on earth is this?” I asked her.
Will stood sheepishly behind Tor.
“I wanted to give you something, something to thank you,” Tor said.
God help me. There was nothing worse than someone making a cake at a time like this. All I wanted to do was choke down a few Rolaids, not eat a piece of chocolate cake that was likely to give me a sick headache.
“How thoughtful,” Tabby said to Tor when she saw the cake.
Tor set the cake on the coffee table. Will grabbed a couple of chairs and brought them over, placing them on either end of the coffee table. Then, he put plates, napkins and silverware on the table. Soon, Tor had large chucks cut for each of us.
I swallowed bile. I hadn’t even eaten dinner, and I really didn’t want cake, but this was one of those types of situations where you can’t refuse. I smiled and choked down the piece of cake, even though this was one of the stupidest things I’d ever done.
I set the plate down as easily as I could, trying not to jostle myself. I could only hope that my stomach would hold out. I looked out the window. It was getting dark.
“When are you going to start?” Will asked.
“Sure as Hell isn’t going to be tonight,” I said. I was trying not to puke. “I feel safer during the day. Besides, Tabby needs to get some supplies before we can begin.”
Tor’s hands began to shake a bit. Will grabbed her hands to steady them.
This was getting harder and harder. The last thing I needed was to see how badly this was affecting them. If I was selfish, I would have had Tabby try to ward another room, but I couldn’t do that. Will wasn’t there yet. He was still too afraid of losing his own skin.
Tabby looked a little green. Apparently, the sugar influx hadn’t done her any favors. Being extremely nervous and sugar just didn’t mix.
Slowly, I sat up on the sofa. “Tor,” I said. “As usual you’ve outdone yourself, but I just can’t eat stuff like this anymore.”
Tor looked like I’d just stomped her pet hamster. “I’m sorry, Jimmy. I didn’t know you wouldn’t like it.”
This was one of those times I wanted to knock myself out. I didn’t have the stomach for sensitive anymore. I held up my hand. “Dammit! That’s why I didn’t want to say anything. It’s not your cooking, it’s my stomach. I’m so nervous I’m about to puke, and now I got a slab of chocolate laying in there like a disgruntled wildebeest. It’s my stomach, not your food.”
Tor relaxed. She looked sheepish. “I cook when I’m nervous.”
I raised my eyebrow.
Tor laughed. “No, I meant to say that I cook more when I’m nervous.”
“Well, I don’t care if you cook things for us, but while we are doing this and preparing for it, I’m just not going to be able to eat much.”
“Why are we always talking about food?” Tabby asked. “I mean, we’ve got major shit going on, and we’re sitting here talking about making food and eating or not eating.”
I laughed. “Tabby, I think food is just what we’ve focused on because Tor cooks. Truth be told, we’re all just trying to avoid the pink elephant in the room as much as possible.”
“Well, fuck the food,” Tabby jumped up from the sofa and walked over to one of the huge windows. “I’m scared, dammit, and it’s not okay.”
I got up and put my hand on Tabby’s shoulder. “You know, it’s okay to be scared. I’m scared. Tor and Will are scared. But you know who is the most scared?”
Tabby turned to me. “Who?”
I smiled, sadly. “Lucy. Lucy’s scared to death. She sees what this thing is doing to her parents. All she wants is to have things go back to normal.”
I heard a sob behind me. I turned around, Tor’s head was buried in her hands and her chest was heaving. I turned back to Tabby. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I think it just got to me.”
###
Hours later, I was still awake. It was one of those quiet nights, the ones that really scared the crap out of me because I knew she was building up and saving her power for what was next.
I passed the hours reading the Roman Ritual. There was some comfort in reading the prayers, but it left me with a lot of doubts too. The ritual itself was too short.
I don’t know how the priests before me had managed to do what they did. Being a regular priest was easy. Being an exorcist wasn’t. Jesus himself simply laid his hands on the possessed and told them to get lost—I wished I was that powerful, but I was just a man.
I drifted off to sleep.
Soon, I was aware that I was standing in the middle of a misty room. I’m not sure if it really was a room or just an expanse of mist with no walls.
I stepped forward. Suddenly, I heard the laughter of a child.
I looked around. I saw nothing.
Then, just as if she appeared there—Lucy was standing in front of me. The real Lucy, I could feel it was her.
I felt no fear, no nothing. I felt calm.
“Hi, Mr. Holiday,” she said.
I crouched down. “Hello, Lucy.”
She smiled shyly in the way that little girls are apt to do.
She leaned forward. “He says for me to tell you that no matter what happens, it was meant to be.”
It sounded odd coming from her mouth. Again, she didn’t sound like a six-year-old. “He who?”
She grinned. “You know.”
I shook my head and she returned it with a knowing look. Then, she wandered off into the mist.
“Lucy, don’t go,” I said.
Very faintly, I heard her sing: “Jesus loves the little children…”
I jerked awake. The only sound to be heard was the ticking of the clock in the hallway. After a few moments, I went back to sleep. Nothing happened, and I actually got some rest. It was rest I needed, and the dream, though somehow comforting, made me feel unsettled.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Beginnings
The next morning, my eyes popped open because of a wonderful smell. It was the smell of freshly baked muffins. Not any muffins mind you, but blueberry ones. My favorite. I looked up, Tabby was sitting across from me, reading a book.
She looked up from her book. “Finally awake?”
I wiped the sleep from my eyes and sat up. “What time is it?”
She picked up her cell phone from the coffee table and looked at it. “A little after eight. Did you want to get your shower first?”
I rubbed my hands over my face and tried to blink the exhaustion away. It didn’t work. At least I had gotten some sleep, but I was so tired that it felt like I was going to need to sleep for a year to recover from this.
“Nah,” I said. “I’ll get mine later.”
Tabby stared at me for a moment. “There isn’t a later, Jimmy. We need to go shopping, remember? Then we need to get ready—that is if you are planning to start the exorcism today.”
I stretched. Yeah. The exorcism. I was hoping that it all had just gone away. I never was that lucky. “Yes, Tabby, I plan on starting today.” I popped my back. “Wish I didn’t have to do it at all.”
Tabby ignored me. I grabbed my last set of clean clothes out of my bag. Tabby grabbed hers and I followed her upstairs.
“Jimmy?” Tabby asked.
“Yeah?”
I noticed that we were outside the bathroom we’d been using. I’d blacked out. I didn’t remember walking up the stairs.
“Get in there. Good God, I don’t want you falling asleep out here waiting on me.”
I shook myself and did as she said. I knew it was pointless to argue with her.
It felt good to crawl under the spray of water, but it didn’t have
the effect Tabby was hoping for. Usually, when warm water hits me, it wakes me up, but today, it made me want to go back to sleep. I had to force myself to stay awake.
When I got out of the shower, I stared at myself in the mirror; same brown hair that would never stay still, same brown eyes that were so normal it was pathetic. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping I’d see, but it definitely wasn’t that.
I guess I’d hoped that I’d been magically transformed into the classic image of a priest; tall with white hair and a look that could be stern when it needed to be. Probably, I was hoping beyond hope that somehow there was someone other than me doing this, but I was shit out of luck.
I exited the bathroom fully dressed and ushered Tabby inside.
“You didn’t use all the hot water, did you?” she asked.
I laughed. “No.”
I closed the door behind me and leaned against the wall. To keep myself awake, I continuously pinched the skin of my right wrist; the small amount of pain serving as my own brand of caffeine.
“Ready to go?” Tabby asked, coming out of the bathroom. I’d been so intent on the pain that I’d lost track of everything.
“I guess so,” I said.
I followed her back downstairs. We stowed our things in the library, then went to the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Tor said from the kitchen table.
I nodded to her. “Any coffee left?”
Tor hopped up, ushered Tabby and I into chairs and poured us both some coffee.
“I could have done that, you know.”
“Jimmy, you look dead on your feet,” Will said from the other side of the table.
I snorted and grabbed a muffin from the plate on the table. “I feel like it too.”
Tabby looked at me, then looked at the muffin, then looked back at me. “I thought your stomach was upset?”
I shrugged. “It isn’t now. Maybe I’m just too tired to care.”
Lucy’s laugh echoed throughout the kitchen.
“Guess someone’s up,” I said. No one laughed.
###
It took about thirty miles to find the place Tabby had seen on the internet. It was some sort of special new age store. I didn’t mind. If it helped Lucy, what did I care. I was just along for the ride. The items I needed for the exorcism: the vestments and everything else had appeared on my sofa in the library. I didn’t question how they got there. I knew I hadn’t somehow packed them in my bag and then forgot. I hadn’t had any of the garb in my possession since I’d left the priesthood. Was it divine intervention or something else? Which one it was, I had no idea.