Abby tried to put a sentence together.
“I—but I didn’t do anything,” she said. “You even said I didn’t.”
“I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt because you’re my daughter,” her mother spat. “But God help you if you make a liar out of me. How far do you think your scholarship goes? When’s the last time you looked at the bills? Your father and I scrape to keep you here, and this is how you act?”
Abby knew she looked stupid, mouth flapping open, trying to form words, but this wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
“He said all that because he hates me,” she said. “He’s blaming me for what other people did.”
“Your job is to make that man like you,” her mother came right back at her. “He should speak your name one time in your life, and that’s at graduation when he hands you your diploma. He’s blaming you for what other people did? I wonder who those people are. I wonder why I heard Gretchen Lang’s name in there?”
Abby wanted to lie, but she was too raw.
“It’s not the way you think,” she began.
“I’m sure I can’t possibly understand anything about your wonderful friends,” Mrs. Rivers said. “I warned you those girls would take you down this path, and you thought I couldn’t possibly understand anything about your life. Oh, no, you’re too smart for me. So you ignored everything I said and here we are. Well, I hope you feel clever now.”
“I—” Abby began.
“Enough,” her mother snapped. “I have put up with enough from you today. I have to get to work.”
With that, she slammed into her car. Her dad walked slowly to the passenger door and got in. Abby watched as they pulled on their seatbelts, backed out, and drove away. Behind her, the halyard banged against the metal flagpole like an idiot trapped inside a cage, causing the metal to echo as the wind lifted impossibly higher. A sheet of white paper skirled across the sky, riding a crashing ocean of air currents over Abby’s head.
Abby watched her mom’s car brake at the stop sign, then turn onto Albemarle, chased by another sheet of paper snapping at its rear bumper. She looked back toward school and saw, framed in the breezeway, a blizzard of paper rolling and tumbling across the Lawn. Thin shouts reached her, and she started walking, then running, toward campus, her heart iced over with dread.
It was 4:05 and the sounds of volleyball practice were sucked from the open gymnasium door and torn to scraps by the wind. Afterschool detention was in full effect in Mr. Barlow’s computer room. Rehearsals for the Founders Day concert were under way in the auditorium. And a girl stood half naked on top of the bell tower, throwing papers into the sky.
One cartwheeled past Abby and she snatched it up. It was a photocopy of a handwritten note that began, “Dearest One, like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young women . . .” She let her eyes fall down the page to the signature: Bruce. There was only one Bruce on campus—Father Bruce Morgan—and she looked up and realized why the silhouette of the girl looked familiar, with her tan arms and white breasts.
A few students and teachers had stopped to stare, and more were drawn from their offices and classrooms; the girl on the tower was stumbling close to the edge. The ground lurched and rocked beneath Abby’s feet as the figure waved her arms, shouting, the wind pulling away her words and draping her hair over her face. Abby started to walk toward the bell tower. Now the box of photocopies was empty and the girl tossed it, but the wind didn’t lift it anywhere. It just fell straight down and hit the bricks, a dress rehearsal for what Abby knew would happen next.
Maintenance staff wrestled with the tower door as the girl teetered on the lip, set against the sky, the wind swaying her back and forth. Abby stopped because she didn’t want to hear what was about to happen. She knew that if she got too close, the sound would be something she would never stop hearing.
The girl prepared herself: She bowed her head, raised her arms to the sky, then stretched out one leg and stepped forward into the void just as two arms wrapped around her from behind and lifted her out of the air. A man pulled her against his chest, her legs kicking into empty space; he heaved himself backward, staggering out of sight with the girl in his arms.
Abby ran for the bell tower. Her feet kicked at swirling papers, and the noise of shouting became clearer as the auditorium blocked the wind screaming off the marsh. The door at the base of the tower banged open and a circle of maintenance men backed out, holding the girl thrashing in their hands.
“I want to die! I want to die! Let meeee!” Glee shrieked.
Calm, reasonable, boring Glee was screeching and howling, clawing at the men who carried her. Glee, who refused to fight because she was a “no drama mama,” kicked at their thighs, scratched their arms, spat in their faces. The girl who had once proclaimed that nothing in the world was worth getting upset about, really, who said crying was the way boring people showed off, began to scream and sob. Her black stirrup pants had been pulled low in the struggle and her soft belly hung out; Abby noticed Glee wasn’t wearing a top, and someone brushed past her holding a blanket. Across Glee’s breasts was written “For you” in black marker.
“Let me die. Let me go, please, let me go,” she wailed.
A sharp odor tickled Abby’s nose. Glee reeked of vodka. Her entire body was now wracked with sobs, jerking in time to her heaving chest as “For you” twisted and swayed. While the maintenance men wrapped Glee in the blanket, her rescuer hung back in the bell tower’s doorframe, obscured in darkness, afraid to step into the light. It was Father Morgan.
“I love him, I love him, I love him,” Glee sobbed, turning around, reaching for him. Glee’s voice was hoarse and full of passion, and Abby didn’t recognize her anymore.
Like a Prayer
The exorcist loved corn dogs. He sat across from Abby at a plastic table bolted to the floor of Citadel Mall and inhaled the steam rising from his order of six. He picked up the first one, pulled out the stick, dunked it in ketchup, and chowed it down in two bites. As his enormous jaws worked up and down, he leaned back and closed his eyes. His huge neck flexed as he swallowed the wad of meat and breading.
“Corn dogs,” the exorcist said, “are all the proof I need that there is a God.”
Then he picked up another one.
Big bands of muscle flexed as he swallowed his second corn dog. While he chewed, Abby tried to think of how to start this conversation, but he saved her the trouble.
“So,” the exorcist said, blotting his lips with a teeny paper napkin, “you’re friends with that girl who’s possessed by Satan?”
This is not what Abby had expected when she’d called the number on the Lemon Brothers Faith and Fitness Ministry pamphlet. She’d dialed, a finger resting on the cradle, ready to hang up if things got uncomfortable. Her finger relaxed when Christian himself had answered the phone.
At first he’d agreed to meet her at Waffle House in West Ashley, but he called back five minutes later and changed the location to the Hot Dog on a Stick at Citadel Mall. Apparently, he loved corn dogs. When she arrived, he gave her a firm handshake and then placed his order. Abby got a lemonade she didn’t want.
The exorcist was huge. Far bigger in person than he had been onstage, and the plastic table stretched across his lap like a napkin. He wore a gray sweatshirt that he’d cut the sleeves off himself, and his pants sported a busy neon-green and pink pattern and an elastic waistband. A hot-pink fanny pack was strapped around his waist and a pair of Aloha Surfer sunglasses hung from a strap around his neck.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her, Mr. Lemon,” Abby said, unwilling to use a crazy Bible word like possession out loud.
“Call me Brother Lemon,” the exorcist said. “Mr. Lemon is my dad. My parents call me Chris, but I don’t know. They named me Christian because we all have Bible names, but I was a whoopsy-
baby. So by the time I popped out, they we
re short on inspiration. Ha! I probably shouldn’t say that around you. Do you know where babies come from yet?”
“I’m sixteen,” Abby said.
“Rad!” Chris Lemon beamed, swallowing his final corn dog.
Carefully, he folded up his garbage, tucking one item into another, then into another, then another. When it had all been reduced to fit into his large Coke cup, he reached into his fanny pack and pulled out a wet wipe, then cleaned off his spatula-sized fingertips. “I don’t want to shock you. What do know about demons?”
“Demons?” Abby asked.
“Demons, devils, unclean spirits,” he said. “Incubuses, succubi, creatures from the pit. They have many names.”
Abby looked around to make sure no one was overhearing this craziness. All around her, Citadel Mall shoppers continued about their business, totally oblivious to the discussion at the corner table of Hot Dog on a Stick.
“Why do you think Gretchen has one?” Abby asked.
“Because I’ve got the gift of discernment,” Brother Lemon said, and grinned. “Well, my brothers say it’s Elijah who can discern demonic entities, but I can do it, too. I see them all the time. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t see at least three or four. My brothers give me a hard time because, well, that’s how brothers are. They rail on you, ride you; it’s their job, I guess. Do you have any brothers?”
“No,” Abby said.
“I love my brothers,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, but I’m the baby so they treat me like I don’t know anything. But you know what? Our show relies on me. They’re all strong guys, but none of them has the muscle definition that I do. I’m one buff specimen and they’re just jealous I’ve got all this.”
He curled one arm and popped his biceps. It quivered next to his face, the size of a football.
“I think I made a mistake,” Abby said, and she stood up and slid her purse off the back of her chair.
“Oh, wait a minute,” Brother Lemon said. “You came all the way out to the mall, at least tell me if I’m right.” He grinned and leaned in close, lowering his voice. “She is possessed by Satan, isn’t she?”
Abby blushed.
“There’s no shame in asking for help,” Brother Lemon said. “I’ve been there. You come up against something that’s bigger than you are, bigger than anything you’ve ever experienced before, and you’re lost and you need help. You want to turn to someone who understands spiritual warfare with the Enemy, am I right?”
Abby stood still, holding her purse, and nodded. Brother Lemon patted the table.
“I’m a good listener,” he smiled.
Slowly, Abby sat down.
“I don’t really know why I called you,” she said. “But when you said you saw something, it kind of clicked with me. And then I found your pamphlet, and I guess I was upset and gave you a call. I almost didn’t come but I thought, because I called, it’d be rude not to show up.”
Brother Lemon squeezed her arm reassuringly. It left a bruise.
“You did the right thing,” he said. “Now the first order of business is, we’ve got to be sure she’s really possessed. It’s easy to get it wrong, you know. A lot of people think someone’s possessed, but they’re actually being misled by the Enemy.”
“Well,” Abby said, “Gretchen’s changed a lot. She used to be nice and we were best friends. But now she’s really horrible.”
She felt a pang of disloyalty saying this kind of thing out loud about Gretchen. Brother Lemon leaned across the table, way too eager to hear what she had to say, and it made Abby self-conscious. She looked down and traced patterns on the yellow plastic.
“You’re scared because the Enemy doesn’t want us to be open with each other,” Brother Lemon said. “He wants to make us feel ashamed and alone. Will you let me help you? Will you let me ask you some questions?”
Abby nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “All you need to do is answer truthfully, okay?”
Abby nodded again. Her throat was dry and she’d lost the ability to form words. He was taking her seriously, and she felt like she’d set foot on a road that couldn’t be untraveled. Her heart was fluttering against her rib cage; she couldn’t breathe deep.
“Did your friend get sick?” Brother Lemon asked. “Real sick? Like, physically she got all grotesque and horrible?”
Abby nodded.
“And then what happened?” he continued. “Did she talk about suicide and depressing things? Maybe try to hurt herself?”
Abby thought about Gretchen in her bedroom, she thought about the gouges down Gretchen’s arms, about Gretchen grabbing the wheel, and she nodded.
“Did she get obsessed with death and violence? Maybe obsessed with talking about religious stuff, like Hell?” Brother Lemon asked.
Abby remembered Gretchen’s daybook and her obsession with Molly Ravenel. She nodded again.
“Then, all of a sudden, she got better, right?” Brother Lemon asked. “In fact, she looked better than before. She seemed alive again?”
Abby’s eyes widened. All she could do was nod.
“She’s better in body,” he continued, “but not in spirit.”
Abby didn’t understand that one.
“She looks copacetic,” he explained, then tapped his skull. “But up here she’s coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.”
Abby took a sip of her lemonade. It coated her throat with citrus-flavored chalk.
“Yeah,” she croaked.
“Is she committing sins?” Brother Lemon asked.
Abby thought about Wallace, and Glee, and Margaret and the German milkshakes, and she wondered how many of the Ten Commandments Gretchen had broken by now.
“Yeah,” she said again.
“Is she grouchy? PMS-ing all the time?” Brother Lemon asked. “You know what that means?”
“I know,” Abby said, nodding.
“Has she committed desecrations of holy ground?” Brother Lemon asked. “Vandalism of churches and graveyards? Burning the American flag?”
Abby paused.
“Maybe,” she whispered.
“Is she leading others into sin?” Brother Lemon asked. “Tempting them? Causing them to do bad things?”
“Yes,” Abby said, and she thought about Glee screaming, stinking of vodka. “A lot.”
“And did her eyes turn black, so there’s no more pupil?” he asked. “Like a shark or an alien?”
Abby caught herself and shook her head.
“No,” she said, confused. “Her eyes are fine.”
“Oh,” Brother Lemon said, disappointed. Then he brightened. “Even without the eyes, it sounds like demonic possession to me.”
Abby was embarrassed to be talking about something so crazy at Hot Dog on a Stick. She looked around again to see if anyone was listening to Brother Lemon’s booming voice. He saw what she was doing.
“Don’t stress,” he said. “Demonic possession is a lot more common than people think.”
“It is?” Abby asked.
“If I’m lying, I’m dying,” Brother Lemon said. “My brothers and my daddy have been doing deliverance ministry for years, and there’s more of them all the time. You won’t read about it in the paper, but at Columbia Hospital, where they keep the crazies, they’ll sometimes clear the rooms, close off a floor, and my daddy’ll perform a deliverance after-hours. The Health Department just puts ‘irregular procedures’ on the medical chart. Right there in black and white. Everyone knows it’s a code word.”
“How many have you done?” Abby asked.
Brother Lemon leaned back and looked out the window onto the mall concourse for a moment.
“Well,” he said, “I’ve assisted on a few, you know, with my brothers and my daddy.”
“You’ve seen it?” Abby asked. “For real?”
“Oh, sure,�
�� Brother Lemon said. “I’ve seen some real blast-’em-out deliverance ministers do their thing, and I tell you, it is a privilege to see those fellas work. These are real hour-of-power-
type deliverances, you know, with screaming and fighting and howling and vomiting all over the place.”
“So you’ve fought a demon?” Abby asked.
Brother Lemon stretched his arms wide, then scratched the back of his neck and tried very hard to look casual.
“As an assistant,” he said. “You know, helping out. I’ve seen demonic influences, and I’ve met plenty of people who have.”
“Maybe I should find one of them?” Abby asked. “Like, an expert?”
Brother Lemon looked alarmed and lowered his voice.
“Come on now,” he said. “There aren’t any experts in the field of deliverance. Most people kind of make it up as they go along. Which means I’m as good as the next guy.”
“Maybe I should talk to your dad,” Abby said.
“You don’t want to do that,” Brother Lemon said. “He’s getting old. I’m young and strong, and that’s what you need. You’ve got to blast the demons out of your friend, have a good old-fashioned power encounter. We went up to a puke and rebuke in Spartanburg a couple of months ago, my daddy got so winded he had to take a breather in the middle. That’s not going to happen with me. Plus, I’ve picked up things. Like, you never wear a tie during a deliverance. Do that and you’ll wind up getting strangled, guaranteed. Happens every time.”
Abby nodded. That sounded like the voice of experience.
“So what do you do?” she asked.
“Well,” he said, “do you think she’d go somewhere with you? Like on a trip?”
“Maybe?” Abby said.
“Okay,” he said. “So we’d have to find somewhere to go.”
“Like where?” Abby asked.
“Somewhere private,” Brother Lemon said. “With a way to tie her down so she doesn’t hurt herself. Or us. And then we’re there for a few hours, praying over her. I’ve got some holy oil I can bring. Really, we just get in there and pry the demon out of her. It’s better not to use a hotel. People can get the wrong idea. Oh, shoot, there I go again!”
My Best Friend's Exorcism Page 20