Both men stood. Father Wanderly made a please leave the room gesture at us with his hands. Dr. Navidson walked slowly toward the door. Dad, Mom, and I stayed rooted to our spots.
Marjorie tried one more time, this time in a pleading, near-tears voice that wasn’t baby doll, but sounded a lot younger than Marjorie normally sounded. “Father Wanderly, don’t leave. I’m sorry. Help me.”
“I’m not leaving. I will help you, Marjorie. That is a promise.”
“H-have you ever performed an exorcism before?”
“No. But I have been present at many. I’ve witnessed true horror, and true salvation.”
Marjorie scrambled from her sitting position onto all fours and reached out to Father Wanderly. “Tell me. Have you seen a demon before? What did it look like? Could you see it inside the other person, pressing out on the skin from inside their body? Did you see the outline of a claw, a wing, a face, of a monster in skin? Or can a demon be someone who looks just like me, so it looks like a person stuck inside another person? Does the demon inside leave any marks? Are the possessed marked, so you can tell who’s possessed and who isn’t? Do the marks look like this?” Marjorie sat on her knees and raised her arms so that we could see her midriff. Mom and Dad gasped. I covered my mouth. Red slashes and gouges colored her skin. They crossed and looped and overlapped, like someone was trying to scribble her out, as though she were a mistake.
Marjorie kept talking while the adults scrambled and shouted orders at one another. Someone turned on the overhead light and someone else ran to the bathroom to get a wet washcloth and bandages. I stood there and listened to Marjorie.
“Father Wanderly, have you seen a demon or evil spirit actually leave the body? What did it look like? Could you see anything? Did you see a wisp, like smoke over a campfire? Does the demon get sucked into a void, clutching on to the old, possessed body like a life raft? Or does it go quietly, like a child leaving her parents’ home for the final time? What if you didn’t see anything? If you couldn’t see anything, if the spirit was invisible, then how could you know if the exorcism really, truly worked?”
Mom and Dad gave her a glass of water and asked that she swallow some pills. They said it would help her sleep. Mom mentioned Dr. Hamilton and the phrase “your doctor” to Marjorie repeatedly. They gently attended to her injuries. Marjorie let them guide her so that she was lying down and back under the covers. She was still talking but she was almost done. You could tell.
“After you performed the exorcism, how did you know that demon wasn’t still in there, hiding? How do you know it didn’t go in a hibernation state, quieting down to come out later, years and years later when no one would be around to help? Hey, how do you know if the wrong spirit left? What if you expelled the person’s real spirit and only the demon’s spirit was there to take its place? If I believed in any of that stuff, I’d be afraid that was going to happen to me.”
Her eyes closed. She rolled onto her side, away from the room and away from us. Her eyes were closed and she whispered her final questions. “Father Wanderly, how do you know if a person has a spirit inside their body in the first place? Have you ever seen that, at least?”
ALL WAS CHAOS WHEN WE left Marjorie’s room.
Dad shouted angrily at Jenn the camerawoman to stand in the hallway and keep an eye on Marjorie for a minute. Jenn yelled down to Barry—he was already downstairs—that she wasn’t taking orders from Dad. Mom yelled at Dad to shut up, and quickly led me downstairs. When we got to the foyer, she had her cell phone out and she told Dad and Father Wanderly she was calling the hospital, calling Dr. Hamilton to tell him about the marks. Mom and Dad wrestled over the cell phone. He grabbed her arm and she repeatedly slapped his hand. Father Wanderly attempted unsuccessfully to mediate. Barry and Dr. Navidson then joined in trying to calm everyone down.
I yelled, “Stop it, stop it, stop it!”
They did stop grabbing and talking and arguing momentarily, everyone looking embarrassed. Mom told me to go to the kitchen and she’d be right there. I nodded and backed away slowly, not toward the kitchen, but into the living room, and as I did, I watched and listened for them to start talking again. Dad was first. He said he was sorry for grabbing Mom and he called her sweetie, but then he insisted that they couldn’t call Dr. Hamilton about this because he’d put Marjorie away again in the hospital and then she couldn’t be saved. He said they’d talked and prayed about this and had decided to believe in Father Wanderly and they had to see this through. Father Wanderly called Mom by her first name repeatedly, and told her that he knew what was happening with Marjorie was a parent’s worst nightmare, but that Dad was right about not calling. He told her that after what they’d just witnessed, he was sure that he would able to get the bishop’s permission and perform the exorcism soon.
Mom shook her head the whole time and said, “This is a nightmare, and we’ll never wake up from it.”
Ken was in the living room waiting for us. I said hi to him and he said, “Hi,” back sheepishly. Then he said, “Sorry.” I wasn’t sure why. I was going to ask him but Barry left Mom and Dad and beelined it over to Ken. He asked Ken if he’d watched everything from the trailer. Ken had. Tony the cameraman, Dad, and Dr. Navidson then swarmed Ken, who looked queasy, like he had my fake stomachache from earlier that morning.
Father Wanderly was still in the front foyer with Mom. I couldn’t hear them talking anymore. He shook both of her hands gently and left her in the foyer. As he passed he touched my shoulder and thanked me for my help, that I did great, and that he might need my help again. Then he, too, scuttled off to join the group that had encircled Ken, and he also bombarded him with questions.
Ken held up his hands for quiet. He told the group that he thought the demon name Yidhra was familiar when he first heard it while watching from the trailer but couldn’t recall exactly who or what it was, so he had Googled it. Yidhra was a minor demon in the fictional cosmic horror universe of the early-twentieth-century writer H. P. Lovecraft, a universe that featured nameless Elder Gods and tentacled beasties from other dimensions. Ken stressed that Yidhra was completely fictional and not found anywhere in Judeo-Christian or pagan lore. He did say it was interesting that in Lovecraft’s stories Yidhra appeared in a seductive female form.
Dr. Navidson said, “Marjorie spoke in a male’s voice when she was presumably under Yidhra’s sway.”
Father Wanderly said, “The demon is hiding its true identity. It always does until the end.”
“Why did she say you would know? Have you been talking to her, telling her about this stuff?” Dad said. He wasn’t quite yelling at Ken, but he was loud enough for Father Wanderly to say, “Easy, John.”
“What? No, I haven’t exchanged more than polite chitchat or hellos and byes with Marjorie since the earliest interviews when we first showed up. And to be clear, I didn’t know the demon by name. I had to look it up. I mean, yes, I am a big fan of Lovecraft the writer and all, but Yidhra was such a minor character I didn’t remember it.”
“So how did she know you were a fan?” Dad sounded like he was picking a fight.
Father Wanderly said, “I’m afraid we know the terrible answer to that.”
Ken shrugged, and said, “Look, she probably saw me wearing my Lovecraft/Miskatonic University T-shirt.”
Dad said, “Not likely. What fourteen-year-old girl would pick up on that?”
“Lovecraft is a pretty famous writer. She could’ve made the connection on her own. Or maybe she Googled my T-shirt, found Lovecraft and Yidhra on Wikipedia. Not a huge leap, there, I don’t think—”
Barry tapped Ken on the shoulder and shook his head. Ken nodded and stopped talking about Marjorie and Lovecraft and said, “I’m gonna go back to the trailer, okay, in case anyone needs me.”
Father Wanderly, Dad, and Dr. Navidson tightened into their own circle, and they talked fast and over one another so I couldn’t really make out who said what. But they were all talking about how Marjorie was in fact po
ssessed by a demon, with the proof being what she was and wasn’t capable of doing.
“—fourteen-year-old girl couldn’t possibly know all she claimed to know—”
“—to give details advanced seminary students wouldn’t give—”
“—the name of the book, in correct Latin—”
“—to refer to Freud and this fictional demon from a long-dead author—”
“—even if she looked it all up on the computer—”
“—no way she could’ve memorized it all—”
“—she did more than memorize, she synthesized—”
“—never mind anticipate that she’d need to say or use that information during our interview—”
“—right—”
“—a girl like her can’t speak as eloquently as she did—”
“—no way—”
“—a girl wouldn’t ask the questions she asked—”
Mom yelled at them, “Marjorie has always been an extremely intelligent young woman. Of course she can do all those things you’re saying she can’t do.”
Dad said, “Sarah, we’re not saying she’s not an intelligent girl. That’s not the point. Now’s not the time to—”
Mom didn’t wait for him to finish. She tugged roughly on my arm and said, “Come on. In the kitchen. With me. Now.”
I followed her into the kitchen. I thought Mom was crying but she wasn’t. She was seething with anger and muttering under her breath. She slammed cabinet doors and poured herself a big glass of wine and a cup of milk for me. I asked her to warm it up and she put it in the microwave, slamming that door shut too.
We sat at the table with our drinks. I tested the milk with my lips and it was the perfect temperature. I finally asked her, “Who are you mad at?”
“Everything. Everyone. Myself included.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not mad at you, honey. You’re the only person I’m not mad at.”
“Marjorie too?”
“I’m not mad at her either. She’s sick and she needs help, and I don’t think anyone in the other room is really going to help her, but it’s my own damn fault that I can’t stop it now. I should never have let it happen in the first place. I mean, can you believe this? Any of this? How did we get here? The cameras, writers, producers, protesters, priests. What a mess. I was just so scared that we were losing her and I didn’t know what to do anymore—and I wanted to believe. Wanted to believe all of it. I still do.”
Mom looked down and saw me staring at her. She said, “Drink your milk.”
I wanted to tell her that it was going to be okay, that Marjorie had told me that she was faking so when Father Wanderly performed his exorcism she would fake that it worked too. But I didn’t. I can’t really explain why. I remember so much of that fall in detail (and I’m in the unique position of having six televised episodes of my family to revisit when I do forget something), and sometimes I feel like I’m still the same eight-year-old little sister who longs for big sis to tell her what to do and how to do it.
I said to Mom, “I believe. You should too, like Dad. Yeah. I think Father Wanderly can help. He can. He’ll make her be normal again.”
Mom crumbled into chest-heaving sobs. I didn’t know what happened so I kept saying Mom over and over again, and when I tried to ask her what was wrong and tried to hug her she shook me away. She wouldn’t let me pull her hands away from her face, and she told me to get out and go away. When I said, “Why, what did I do?” she told me to leave her alone and go see Daddy and the priest because they had all the answers and to leave her alone, and I still asked her why-why-why until she screamed, “Get the fuck away from me!” and threw her wineglass at the wall.
LATER THAT NIGHT WE ENACTED a new bedtime policy to help keep Marjorie from hurting herself any further and to give everyone “peace of mind.” That was the phrase Dad used, and I tried to make a joke out of it; pantomiming my presenting him with a literal chunk of my brain. It didn’t go over well.
The new policy: Marjorie was to sleep with her door open, and Dad was to be in his room with his door open. Mom was to sleep with me in my room. I could leave my door open or shut. It was up to me. Right before he left, I’d heard Dr. Navidson whisper to Dad about letting me choose whether or not to leave my door open as it would empower me, give me a sense of control over the situation.
Mom had finished a third glass of wine by the time I was sent to the bathroom to get ready for bed. When I got to my room she was in my bed already, still in her clothes but underneath the covers. Mom told me no stories. She said she was too tired and that I had to go straight to sleep. She didn’t apologize for swearing at me and throwing the glass in the kitchen either.
I stood in my doorway, undecided on whether to leave the door open. I saw it as an important choice, one not to be taken lightly. I said more to myself than to Mom, “If I close the door then we won’t be able to hear anything, you know, in case we need to hear it. But if I leave it open I think it’ll be too bright in here for me to sleep, and too noisy too. But I kinda want to leave it open because everyone else has theirs open. But if I close it”—I opened and closed the door like I was working a bellows—“we might sleep later than everyone else by accident and I’ll be late for school. And if I leave it open, I might not fall asleep and be too tired to go to school. If I close it—”
“Merry. Enough. Shut the light off. Get in bed. Now.”
I left the door half open, which I figured was a good compromise. I took off my glasses, put them on the bureau all folded up, and I crawled over Mom and into bed. She was on the outside and I was pinned between her and the bedroom wall. Her back was turned to me. I sloppy kissed her ear and said, “Good night, Ear.” Mom didn’t turn her head and just sent an empty air kiss back to me.
I was wired, twitchy, leaking giggles and random noises. I tried breathing my end-of-the-day sigh, the one that signaled it was truly time for bed. It didn’t work. I put my icy-cold feet on the back of Mom’s bare calves as a joke. She barely flinched, and told me from some faraway place to go to sleep.
I lay there on my back with my hands folded across my chest, trying to remember and recount everything that had been said in Marjorie’s room. I knew that the adults would pick through the video and be able to break down what she’d said and find the potential meanings and secrets. I knew that for them, words meant so many different things. I worried that they would figure out Marjorie didn’t have a real demon inside her, that she was faking, and then they’d cancel the show and our family would be back in trouble with money again. But then I thought about her scratch marks and how scary she was, and I wondered if it was possible for her to be both possessed by a demon and be faking it too. And then I worried about getting a demon stuck inside me, and I worried about it happening to my parents—what would we do then? I rolled the word demon around in my mouth, squeezing it with my tongue, tasting it, letting it flick off the back of my teeth, saying it in my head until the syllables didn’t fit right and it sounded weird and indecipherable, just like the strange demon name Marjorie had given them.
I woke up later that night and Mom was snoring deeply. I didn’t really have to go pee but I went to the bathroom anyway. I left the bathroom door open and my peeing was so loud I giggled with embarrassment, but I was also laughing at whoever would be stuck watching and listening to the tape from the hallway cameras.
I crept out of the bathroom without washing my hands and stood in the hallway. It was chilly even though steam whistled in our old radiators and I could smell the heat, which I’d imagined was the smell of burning dust. Dad’s door was still open. He slept pushed all the way to the side of the bed closest to the hallway. His mouth was open and his lips drooped like one of those silly dogs with the saggy skin.
Marjorie’s door remained open as well. Getting up to pee when I didn’t really need to was how an eight-year-old lied to herself: Of course, I only got up to use the bathroom, not to go see what Marjorie was doin
g.
I watched my sleeping father as I slunk into her room. Without my glasses, everything was a little bit fuzzy. Like my father, Marjorie was lying on her side, facing the door. But she was wide awake.
“Did you hear me peeing?”
She whispered, “I’ve been watching Dad all night. I’m worried. I think he might be the one who’s possessed. No lie. His face twitches like he’s in pain. Hasn’t he been acting so strange? So over-the-top religious now, and always so angry? I’m scared. I think he thinks about doing bad things, really bad things, like in the growing-things story I told you.”
I shrugged and thought about telling her that Mom had been angry too. “I think he’s okay.”
“He spent over an hour reading from the Bible. I think he was reading the same passage over and over because he wasn’t turning any pages.”
“Marjorie—”
“Shh.”
I’d forgotten to whisper. “Sorry. Are you still faking?”
“What do you think?”
“Yes.”
“Then I am. No worries, monkey.”
“Why’d you say all those things? Why’d you scratch yourself like that?”
“I had to do it. To make them all believe.”
“Mom doesn’t.”
“She just says she doesn’t. But she does. I can tell. Whenever she looks at me now, it’s like she’s watching a scary movie.”
“Did the scratches hurt?”
She didn’t answer my question right away. She said, “Be prepared. It’s going to get worse. Mom and Dad are both going to get worse. But this is the only way, now. We have to show them.”
“Show them what?”
“The scratches hurt, yeah. But that’s nothing. I’ll have to do something worse, much worse, eventually. Go back to bed. They’ll wake up soon.”
I tiptoed out of her bedroom, almost believing that if I was sneaky enough, if I was light enough on my feet, the hallway camera wouldn’t see me, or whoever was watching the footage would think I was just coming out of the bathroom again.
A Head Full of Ghosts Page 16