Sorrow's Point (3 page)

I left the living room and went upstairs to my bedroom. My phone was on top of my covers where I’d left it. I wanted to go back to sleep so bad, but I made myself sit down. It didn’t matter how I felt right now. I grabbed my phone.

I knew I could walk away right now. It would be easy. All I’d have to do is lie to Will and tell him I couldn’t get time off work. But that kid’s face would not leave my mind—the freaky looking one.

I pressed the button on my phone to light up the screen, then I scrolled through my contacts list and pressed the talk button. I hoped my boss wouldn’t kill me for calling this early. I really did.

He answered on the fifth ring, coughing into the phone. “Holiday, what are you doing calling me at four-o-clock in the damn morning?” he asked.

“Mr. Sorenson, I’m sorry, I wanted to let you know as soon as possible that I won’t be at work today. Not sure how long I’ll be off.”

I heard the bed grown as he sat up. He cleared his throat. “What’s wrong?”

I sighed. “An old friend of mine has a very sick little girl. He came to my house tonight. He wants my help with her. Not sure what I can do besides support him, but his little girl is very sick.”

He sighed. “Is it cancer?”

“The doctors don’t know,” I said. “She has more than one thing wrong I think, but they haven’t been able to get a decent diagnosis.”

“Nothing like a sick kid to put things into perspective, huh?” he asked.

“I know, Mr. Sorenson.”

“Well, I tell ya what. I’ll contact your contracts for now. If any of them need something done immediately, I might have to reassign them to someone else. You got sick leave?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright, take some time off. If anything else, there’s always a leave of absence. You’ll have e-mail access right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep me posted. If that girl needs prayers, I’ll put her on the list at church.”

Mr. Sorenson was something else. At times, he could be a hard-ass, but underneath it all, he really was a good guy. I seriously doubted if another boss would be as understanding, but that didn’t mean he was a push-over. If I screwed up a project, he would have my ass. “I’m positive the family would appreciate that.”

Sorenson grunted the affirmative and hung up.

I set my phone down on the bed and looked around. My bedroom was a mess, but I liked it that way. Books were piled all over the top of my dresser. A small cabinet held my television that I’d forgotten to turn off. Sleeping with a little light and noise always made me feel more comfortable. It was something I’d adopted when I left the priesthood. Somehow quietude became the enemy.

I stretched my back, arms up over my head. I was in it for the long haul. Was Lucy possessed? Who knew. But if Lucy needed an exorcism, that was for the church to decide. It had nothing at all to do with me. All I could do was help gather evidence and take some preliminary notes. If I thought Lucy might be helped by the church, I would try to get their attention. That’s all I could do — that and worry about my bills when my sick leave ran out.

###

I put my phone in the pocket of my pajamas and went back downstairs. The stairs creaked as I descended. Will looked up from the recliner. “Just a second.”

I walked past Will and crossed the living room to the bookcase. It was too full. Books upon books were crammed into every space. I began pulling some books off the middle shelf. Last I remembered, I’d put the religion stuff on that shelf, but other tomes had long since been shuffled around. Finally, after moving about ten of them, I found my copy of the Roman Ritual. It had been buried underneath a Stephen King novel and a book of Thai cuisine. I grabbed it, stacked the others so that they wouldn’t fall on my feet and walked over to my desk. I grabbed a notepad and a pen, walked over to the sofa and sat down.

“What are you doing?” Will asked.

I looked him in the eye. His eyes didn’t appear to be hiding anything. “What is it you want for Lucy?”

“I want her to get better. I think she needs an exorcism.”

Will looked crazed. I could understand having a child that is so sick that you no longer know what to do about it, but exorcism? It’s not like it’s something you hear about very often. I had to wonder what would drive him to even think about calling in a priest, let alone thinking his daughter was possessed. I sighed. “If you’re going to get an exorcism, you first have to convince me she’s possessed. Then, I have to look into the process.”

He looked puzzled. “You don’t know how to do it?”

I laughed. It never failed. Ever since the movie,
The Exorcist
, people think that every Catholic priest can walk right up to anyone who seems possessed and drive the demons out of them immediately. Somehow, they never get that the story of
The Exorcist
is one of an exorcism gone awry. The exorcist dies, and his assistant somehow gets the demon to possess him and leave the little girl, then he promptly throws himself out the window. “No, I don’t know a thing about exorcism,” I told him.

“Didn’t you go to school to be a priest?” he asked.

I laughed again. “Yes, I went to school to be a priest.” It was funny how clueless he really was. “Let me let you in on a little fact, Will. The church likes to sweep exorcism under the rug. In the past, there were many people who were thought to be possessed, but really had psychiatric disorders.”

He started to get mad again. I could see it in his eyes. His face had turned red and his eyes were bulging, ever so slightly.

“I’m not saying that it can’t happen, Will. I’ve just never seen it. More importantly, the only ones who really know a thing about exorcism are exorcists. The Vatican even has a school.”

He stared at me, eyes pleading. “Why didn’t you go?”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t appointed to go. The church decides what you would be best for. They thought I would be best as a general parish priest, so that’s what I was. It doesn’t matter anyway because I’m not even a priest anymore, Will. Besides, if the church were to decide if Lucy were possessed, there is a huge matter of meeting the criteria.”

His eyes began to sparkle. His knees bounced up and down. He was acting more than odd, and I had to wonder if he was on something, but his pupils were normal. “Well, what are the criteria?”

This wasn’t going to be easy. He seemed so excited and desperate. His mood swings were killing me though, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could stand. I sighed. “We will get to them. First, I need to document the story. If and when the church decides to take the case on, they will interview you and make sure there are no discrepancies in your story. So, make sure you tell me the truth, leave nothing out.”

“Tor and I were looking at houses online.” He paused. That far away look reappeared in his eyes. Again, I was stunned by his mood swing. He seemed sedate now. His eyes were calm, if a little sad. His posture was slumped in the chair. Was Lucy really the problem?

“We wanted something near a small town, kind of like Martinsburg,” he said.

I remember Martinsburg, W.V. well. It was where I grew up, and it was where Will grew up. It was a small town, not a bad place, but bad enough that tragedy happened there. Both Will and I had moved far away.

The irony was not lost on me. Why he left and suddenly decided that a town like Martinsburg would be good for his daughter, I didn’t really understand. Maybe it had been so long since he’d lived in a small town, that he’d somehow romanticized the place. Maybe in his mind, small towns were safer, but I knew differently. I motioned for him to continue.

“She happened to look at a listing I’d found for this huge old monster of a mansion. It looked like a castle almost. Of course, Tor wanted it.” He finished his coffee. “Tor came from money, old money. Daddy made sure princess always got what she wanted.” The last part he said with a sneer.

I wanted to put down a note “Hostility towards his wife” but I didn’t. He could end up reading the notes. I would keep the unusual signs about him to myself. “Why’d you marry her?”

“Love is blind, I guess,” he said. “I still loved her then, not so much now, but then I did.” He scratched his neck.

“What changed?” I asked.

“This thing with Lucy.” He sat up straighter in the chair. “Tor was in denial for a long time. But finally, I think she gets it.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I caught up my notes. “Go on.”

“I should have known when we were driving through the town, honestly. Sorrow’s Point just has a feel about it, but somehow, even though it didn’t feel right, it didn’t matter. I never said a thing.” He looked at his empty cup. “Any more?”

I put my stuff down. Why had he stopped there? It just didn’t make sense to me. But, if he wanted more coffee, far be it from me to deny him. “Yeah, I’ll get you some.”

###

When I came back, I found him standing at the window, staring at something I couldn’t see. His shoulders were slumped so much that it seemed like he’d decreased his height by inches. This was the most dejected I’d seen him. The lines of his face were deeper in the morning light. It was round about five. The blue hue of the sky was slowly lightening. He looked twenty years older than he was.

I set his coffee down on the table beside the recliner. At the noise, he turned around.

“Will you come with me to Sorrow’s Point?” he asked.

I had a feeling this was coming. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I was going to have to embark on this colossal mess of a journey. I knew where it was leading Will, but I had no idea what was in store for me. I looked at him and grinned. I don’t know why, but I did. “Thought you’d never ask.”

He returned the smile, walked over to the recliner and sat down.

I stretched my back. “Look, let’s get some sleep. We can get our stuff together when we get up, then we can try to figure out how to help Lucy.”

He nodded.

“You can take the couch if you like,” I said.

He got up from the recliner and moved over to the sofa. He got his cell phone out of his pocket and put it on the coffee table.

I went to the hall closet, opened the door and grabbed a blanket. When I came back, he had the extra pillows on the couch arranged at one end. I handed him the blanket.

I walked back into the living room and crossed towards the lamp.

“Leave it on, please.”

I dropped my hand from the switch and went upstairs, leaving the hall light on as well. It unnerved me to think that he was afraid of the dark. The Will I’d known had been fearless; this new Will was something else.

###

A few hours later, I woke to a loud sound that just wouldn’t quit. After a moment, I figured out what the noise was — the loudest snore I had ever heard. It was so damn loud, it echoed up the stairs and seemed to bounce around the hallways of the house.

I knew he was tired, but damn.
Sleeping to that was impossible. I got up, grabbed a quick shower and threw a few sets of clothes and some toiletries into a duffle bag. Hopefully, I wouldn’t be gone that long.

I crept down the stairs as quietly as I could, but with the old wood, the stairs creaked anyway. Will continued to snore, and something told me I didn’t need to worry about the noise I made.

I almost missed a step and bounced my duffle bag off the wall with a thud. The snores did not stop.

How long has it been since he’s slept?

His exhaustion wasn’t a good sign. I wondered if his wife was just as tired. If so, it looked like I was going to be spending a few days without much sleep myself. Happy happy,  joy joy.