Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow

by Lee Baldwin

  “Understood Ralph. I’ll need four of my team. My closest working group.”

  “Very well. Ship me their dossiers as soon as you get back. We’ll put tracers on them, physical, cyber, voice. All of you will be guarded continuously until this thing is over. Put them on sanitary profiles. I don't want to see any nightclub activity, unusual trips, hookers, parties or random meetings. Understood?”

  “Of course, Ralph. How will we receive the data?”

  “Guarded caravan with armed 24-hour presence. Where will your team do the work?”

  “Main office. Alexandria.”

  “Fine. The dispatch detail will meet you there in two hours. The second you get any indication of what’s in the data, pull me in face-to-face.”

  “Man in the hot seat,” Strand says.

  Solberg nods. “In fact, face-to-face will be the only way the team communicates. Absolutely nothing electronic in reference to it. And be effing quick about it. My ass is on the line here. The President and the entire command chain is barking up my butt for answers yesterday.”

  Priestess and Priest

  Tharcia alone in moonlit gardens, graceful bells of oversized blossoms hang from high in forest canopy. Evening air is warm, she walks the paths softly barefoot in her filmy gown, looking in wonder at the beauty of the night. She hopes to join again the whales, longs for their knowledge. Now serene in dream, memories of songs they sang nearly surface, closer than breath. But the voice that speaks her name from the dark garden is no whale song, it is a woman’s whisper.

  “Tharcia, come here.”

  Follows voice to secluded clearing. Warm wind strokes her legs. There. Bathed in silver light, the loveliest woman she has ever seen. Tall, a flowing gown and long dark hair, motioning her closer.

  Face to face now, the raven and the blonde. Slightly taller, about her mom’s height, the woman’s eyes are young but deep in wisdom. Tharcia, entranced, raises a hand. Her fingers brush the outstretched palm, clasp and hold. Warmth of a woman’s breasts.

  “Your mother caused you great pain,” the soft voice says. Warm breath strokes her cheek. Tharcia is not surprised that another person says this, senses only recognition. She receives the enfolding of being known, of being held, seen clear through as purest crystal.

  “Even now she causes pain,” Tharcia replies, “but how do you know that?”

  “I am a reflection of yourself. I support you in your journey. We will keep each other safe, my secret twin.”

  She notices behind the woman a dim shape, a male, tall.

  “This is Raziel,” the woman says. “A special friend. He wanted to meet you.”

  The smiling face comes near. “Tharcia,” Raziel says. It is but a single word, her name, full and rich and toned with secret knowing of everything she is.

  Her new-found twin whispers, fading like smoke, “You need a larger pentagram, my Tharcia. You are prepared to seek your mother.”

  Tharcia opens her eyes. Curled in her sleeping bag in the middle of Clay’s bed, Clay long gone. The window is bright with afternoon. Tharcia lies still, holding tight to visions of dream, the lovely garden, the woman speaking of secret twins.

  As she gets up, the cherished words stay with her. She looks at the clock. She has to get ready, that priest is coming today, Althea’s friend. Spends a few moments checking her phone messages, texts and tweets. Something weird at the 41st Street mall down in Capitola. Macy’s closed due to people who can’t stop laughing. She grins. Someone punked Santa Cruz.

  Father Gary Tilton guides his late-model car through the shaded curves of Highway 9, leaving the Felton town center and responding to spoken turn commands from his in-dash GPS navigator. Of the 43 exorcisms he has carried out, Father Tilton thinks fewer than seven have been genuine demonic possessions.

  The chief exorcist of the diocese of Rome had, during Tilton’s training four years ago, mentioned much higher numbers in his own experience, running into the thousands of actual cases. The priest understands that most modern Catholics see the Devil as a persona, a label, which the Church overlays on the evils people experience in daily life. Within the Church itself there is another view.

  The solidly-built priest, in his mid-60s and with a face that looks ten years younger, is thoughtful as he follows the swooping bends. In some aspects, this appears a classic case. A young woman, still in her teens. Some presence or apparition in her bedroom. Twin symbols of sexual lust, the virgin female and the bedroom. What he often finds with women is a disturbance of the psyche more suitable to the realm of psychiatry, not demonology or witchcraft. These need not be cured with holy water and commands of out, out unclean spirit. Prayer, counseling, meditation are usually prescribed, in keeping with current mainstream Christianity.

  However, Father Tilton admits a small number of genuine possessions, outwardly-normal individuals living ordinary lives. And when he exorcises them, what exactly happens, what breaks the connection with the visiting spirit? Tilton does not actually know. It is the consciousness that controls reality, even creates it. But the person, and the brain it walks around in, is seldom in control of the mind.

  He drives up the short lane, stops in the clearing before the old wood-sided bunkhouse. On the porch, he casts his eyes around. The door of thick redwood planks bears the charcoal outline of a totemic Haida beaver, ready for carving. Tilton had learned through police database searches that a murder once took place here. The girl’s experience is possibly a simple haunting.

  A blonde woman opens the heavy door a crack, regards him levelly. She wears a lavender T-shirt with the words Goddess Culture on the front, white jeans that can most charitably be described as snug. Her feet are bare.

  “Hello,” the priest says with a smile, “I am Father Gary Tilton, from Sacred Heart Catholic Church, in Mountain View. I received a call from Althea Crasz, who helped us arrange this appointment. Are you Tharcia Harrison?”

  “I am. Please come in.” She swings wide the door. Tilton steps into the large room, furnished with old but comfortable furniture. A large long-hair cat sleeps in a patch of sun on the floor. The room looks like someone removed all the walls except for what is possibly a bedroom and bath. Althea had not told Tilton what to expect, which he appreciated. Always best to begin with an open mind. How the psychic tracked him down however is subject to further inquiry. She’s a lightweight palm reader, intelligent, who follows psychic trends enough to relieve confused women and a few men of their cash. A trained hypnotist. But how would she access his network, know of his shadowy second calling?

  “Sit anywhere,” Tharcia says. “I’m making tea. Would you care for some?”

  “Tea would be nice.”

  Instead of sitting, Tilton follows her to the kitchen area of the open room, watches her as she starts the kettle on the gas stove, sets out two cups.

  “I have herbal, green, white, black, scented.”

  “Green is my favorite, please.”

  “Milk and sweetener?”

  “Thank you, no. Ms. Harrison, may I ask a couple questions before we begin?”

  She looks at him with a smile. “That’s really beginning, isn’t it?”

  At this moment Tilton registers her face. The skin so flawless, features perfect, angelic symmetry that makes his breath catch. He nods. “It is. Our friend Althea, whom I have known since college, tells me you have had an appearance. Would you agree with that description?”

  “Or an appurtenance. What I have, Father, and please call me Tharcia, is a bedroom that thinks it’s a deep freeze.”

  “Ah. It is cold in your room?”

  “As of this morning, the walls were two inches thick with ice.”

  “Actual ice.”

  She pulls an ice cube tray from the freezer, holds it under his nose. “Ice like this, transparent, bluish. I’ll show ya whenever you’re ready.”

  Tilton sees no trace of self-conscious guile in her speech, decides he can move the interview right along.

  “Ms. Harrison
, Tharcia. Are you a virgin?”

  Tharcia looks at him straight, as though she’d found an amusing curiosity at a flea market. She doesn’t blink. Takes a moment to consider, decides the Church does not believe in lesbians, therefore he must be referring to penis-vagina sex, as in screwing. “Yes,” she says. No trace of qualifying smile.

  Father Tilton watches carefully her eyes. This young woman shows no obvious signs of possession, yet claims her bedroom is inhabited. They will get to that in due course. Tilton has studied the connection between sex and Satan, older than Christianity. He needs to find out quickly if she sees herself as copulating with demons or with Satan himself. Some who claim this show signs of pregnancy, or predict they will birth Devil spawn. At no point does Tharcia’s gaze waver. Tilton refers to the small notepad in his hand, questions he had thought of earlier, which seem fuzzy now and meaningless to apply. Tilton’s eyes are captive to her smooth flanks as she bends to pick up a dropped spoon.

  “Why do you suppose this presence has joined you?”

  Tharcia thinks about this. Tilton watches her swift movements pouring from the kettle, selecting tea bags. She hands him a steaming stoneware mug.

  “I think I invited it. By mistake. I was trying for something else.”

  “Something else.”

  “Shall we sit? Last year I lost my mother. Suddenly.”

  Ah. Severe psychological shock. Check.

  “After months went by, I found myself feeling anger. First it was at my bad luck. Spent some time with self-loathing. Now it is directed at her. And anyone who gets in the way. What I have wanted since then is to talk to her.”

  “Talk to her,” Tilton echoes. Repetition his usual quiet mantra, to urge petitioners along.

  “What I wanted,” she says, folding her legs under her on the rumpled sofa.

  “What you wanted.” Tilton watching the white fabric grip tightly her legs, eases himself into a comfortable leather armchair.

  She decides this priest sounds like a parrot. “I want to talk to her. I want to say how she hurt me then send her back to hell. By the way, do you capitalize hell or not?”

  Tilton grins at the question. “We use it lower case.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Are you a writer, then?”

  “I was studying Journalism and New Media before Mom died.”

  “You’re a writer.”

  “You might say I enjoy writing,” she admits. “Reading, especially. Anyway, as I worked through all the grieving stages, I spent time with anger then lately began hearing a message of redemption, not retribution. It was Althea who schooled me on conjuring.”

  “Conjuring.”

  “Yeh. She doesn’t know spells herself, but she got me started. I got this idea in my head I could summon my mom, cuz she must be a full-on demon by now, and get everything out with her.”

  “And be done with it?” Does this girl know how peculiar she is? How lovely and how very peculiar?

  Tharcia sips her tea, gazing at the priest through the steam. Tilton finds her eyes inquisitive, feminine. “Father, you ever lose anyone? Family?”

  “Both parents, in their proper season. Several good friends.”

  “Then you know there is no ‘be done with it’ to be had.”

  Tilton nods. Tharcia goes on. “At least I want to get stuff on the table with her, let her know how I feel.”

  “What would be your top-of-mind message for her?” The priest’s voice is warm.

  Her eyes water. “That I so love and miss her.” Tharcia’s voice breaks, she excuses herself, goes for a tissue. Dabs her eyes and blows her nose quietly, back turned to the priest.

  “Do you need to summon her, as you put it, to accomplish that?”

  Tharcia turns, speaks firmly. “There is a lot more she needs to hear.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as the abandonment. Such as the weird boyfriends. Such as keeping me quiet about the abuse.”

  “Abuse. But you said you are a virgin.”

  “It’s not what people always think.” Tharcia’s mind drifts back to the time she’d first told Clay these things, in this very house, opening her confidence to him, only a bit. It was the moment their friendship dawned. “It was all her, turning into a goddamn loony about wealth and power. My shrink tells me there is no cure for narcissism.”

  Father Tilton watches her face, tracks her body language. It comes clear to him, this girl is the furthest thing from possessed. Many of the young people he encounters are attention-seekers with psychic wounds, using shameless exaggeration and play-acting as a cry of loneliness. She admits to being hurt, but meets it directly. If in peculiar fashion.

  Tilton’s schedule today is full. He needs to see for himself whatever staging the girl may have created to draw special attention from the Church, get permission to contact her psychologist, and be on his way. He sets down his cup.

  “Thank you for the tea. By chance, might we see your room now?”

  She leads him to the stairs. As he follows her up, his eyes track the swing of her snug-fit white jeans. He sighs inwardly. Since attending the Vatican exorcism school, working with dozens of demonic possession cases down the years, it is his celibacy that has been most under attack from the world of dark spirits. And this girl is seductive without being a seducer. He envisions an instant wish-fulfillment fantasy, the earth yawning wide beneath them, an apocalyptic moment that allows him, as they plummet screaming into the fires of hell, a final guilt-free opening to possess her himself. For her own good, of course. The Devil has special training for virgins. Tilton shakes it off.

  Tharcia goes no further than the landing. “I’ll wait here. Tell me what you see.”

  Tilton is ashamed, certain the girl picked up a menacing echo from his thoughts, doesn’t want to be with him in her bedroom. He’s seen this reserve before, with sensitive women.

  “Of course,” the priest says evenly.

  The doorknob, hung with a bundle of ferns and wilted flowers, turns hard. It is stiff with cold and it creaks. He puts his shoulder to the door, once, then again. On the fourth assault the door flies back and a crystal spray of ice showers from above. Tilton’s face gets it first, the biting cold, like sticking his head in the freezer as a boy, trying to cool himself in tepid Milwaukee summers. Inside, it’s as she described. Every surface, the walls, furniture, floors, her bed, all are coated in a thick rime of frozen water. A single window the black of night.

  Beneath clear layers Tilton can discern Tharcia’s décor. Posters of dragons. Image of a serpent coiling around a voluptuous female body. Pink-breasted goddesses in see-through gowns. Images of pre-Eden Genesis. Tilton is jarred by the angel images. In one, a male angel guides two small girls toward the light from a dark wood. The bedside table is crowded with vials of essences, exotic oils, crystals, jeweled pendulums, all sheeted with ice. A purple glass bottle shaped like a phallus. An icy lover.

  Tilton’s gaze stops at a cluster of charcoal drawings thumb-tacked above the bed. The ice sheen makes of the grouping an installation piece that would be at home in a New York gallery. The priest touches a wall, colder than ice should be. Backing away, about to close the door, Father Tilton notices the rolled-back rug, beneath the frozen surface the vague form of a hand-drawn pentagram on dark wood. Standing with her at the top of the stairs, Tilton’s breathing is shallow, quick. Her face is open, eyes steady. No sign of told ya so.

  “Is this the location where you were attempting to conjure a demon?”

  “If you mean my mother, yeh.”

  “You mother is not a demon.”

  “The hell she isn’t.”

  Amused, Tilton smiles. “My child, a demon is considered an unclean spirit, sometimes an evil angel, which may inflict demonic possession. Many think that demons are spiritual entities that may be conjured and controlled. However, control is elusive, and requires a good deal of knowledge and practice. And help.”

  “Help. What kind of help?”


  “Such as the conversation we’re having right now. A demon might indeed show up, if the conjurer finds an accurate spell, but then might take control of the entire situation. And of the conjurer. Demons are what we deal with when called to an exorcism.”

  “So, I couldn’t call my mom this way?”

  “Doubtful. You might get yourself into a lot of trouble. I suggest you stop immediately until you can find trained guides. There are complex rules about what certain demons can do. Satan as well as supreme angels must abide by fixed rules. Not all demons hold the same powers.” Tilton contemplates for a moment, switches tack. “Do you believe in sin?"

  “What do you mean by sin?"

  “Transgression against Divine Law.”

  She nods, casting a glance past his shoulder at the door to her room. “I do, but I don't believe the Devil makes us do it."

  “But you believe in God.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But not in religion.”

  Surprised at his perception, she turns her head slowly, left, right.

  Tilton nods. “The Devil's deepest wile is to persuade us that he does not exist. You were conjuring in there, to reach your mother.”

  She starts down the stairs. He’s a likable guy, someone she could trust. But she is ready for him to go.

  "I recommend you cease your activity at once.”

  “You said that already.”

  “It bears repeating. You don’t need a priest," he tells her outside on the porch. The day is like summer, warm for early November. He looks at her critically, weighing their conversation against other first contacts with possession victims. Her belly is not swollen, her eyes do not roll, no clawed or winged shapes move beneath pallid translucent skin, she emits no fiendish screams.

  “You already have a psychologist. What you need is a perhaps a clairvoyant, a seer. To talk to your mom. Safer for you to resolve it that way.”