Upon finishing, the other priest gave him the aspergillum and Father Wanderly sprinkled holy water on us all. I ducked and a lone, icy drop spotted the top of my head and it felt like the tip of a finger. He sprinkled Marjorie up and down with the water, waving his wand madly, striking out at an invisible assailant. He doused Marjorie with so much water, sizable wet spots ink-blotted her gray hoodie. Marjorie didn’t move or say anything. She only blinked when the drops splashed her face.
Father Wanderly turned to Mom, Dad, and me, and held out his hands, palms turned up. “To all present—”
Marjorie stared at the ceiling, and said, “For all those playing along at home, he’s going to kneel next to my bed and recite the Litany of Saints. This is going to be the really boring part. He has to say the name of, like, every saint ever.”
Father Wanderly repeated his instructions. “To all present, please respond with, ‘Lord have mercy.’”
Marjorie said, “But later when he invokes the name of a saint you’re supposed to say ‘pray for us’ after each one. Merry, if you don’t do this correctly, you’re going to get a demon inside you, one that has pointy scales and sharp horns, and then you’ll be in hell, like me.”
Mom and Dad breathed out fast, air hissing through their clenched teeth.
Marjorie said, “In my hell, my parents are teakettles.” She giggled, but it was forced. I could tell. She was scared. I don’t know if she was afraid because she didn’t know what was going to happen or if she was afraid of what she’d already decided would happen. Even now, I’m not sure. I think it was a little of both.
Father Wanderly said, “Barretts, you must ignore what she says. Remind yourself that it isn’t the real Marjorie saying such awful things.”
“It’s me. It has always been me.”
Father Wanderly knelt by Marjorie’s bed, and his purple stole and tunic pooled around his knees, giving the illusion that he was disappearing, melting into his vestments. He opened his red leather-bound book and he said, “Lord have mercy.”
Dad and Father Gavin were the only ones in the room who gave the response. “Lord have mercy.”
Father Wanderly: “Christ have mercy.”
I tried to respond like I was supposed to, but I did so incorrectly. I said “Lord” when I was supposed to say “Christ.” It happened again with the next response when I got it totally wrong when they said “Christ, graciously hear us.”
Mom squeezed my shoulder. She wasn’t participating. She whispered in my ear that I could just respond in my head if I wanted to.
I shook my head no because if I didn’t do my part this wouldn’t work and we’d all be stuck in Marjorie’s hell forever. Marjorie had told me she was faking and doing it all on purpose and I believed her, but just in case she wasn’t faking, just in case there really was a demon inside her, I was going to do what Father Wanderly said. Even if I didn’t believe in him or his God, I wanted to believe that what he was going to say would make her better, would turn her back into who she used to be.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter what I believed because Marjorie wanted me to be there for a reason. I didn’t know what that reason was, and until I did, until I knew what I had to do, I would do what was expected; I’d play the part of the scared little sister that she and everyone else wanted me to play.
“Have mercy on us.”
Marjorie said, “And here comes the litany.”
Father Wanderly: “Holy Mary, pray for us.”
Father Gavin echoed with, “Pray for us.” Father Wanderly waited until the rest of us said the same. Mom whispered it too.
Marjorie said, “He’ll say fifty saints’ names. Try counting along, Merry.”
Father Wanderly read the litany. I was supposed to say “Pray for us” after each name, and I did, but I also couldn’t help but counting the saints. I used my fingers to help, curling each one into a balled fist, then starting over again with an open hand. She had the correct number.
Father Wanderly said, “From all evil, deliver us, O Lord,” and he waited.
Marjorie said, “Now the response is, ‘Deliver us, O Lord.’ Come on, now, try and keep up. Didn’t anyone else do their reading homework?”
“From all sin—”
“Deliver us, O Lord.”
Father Wanderly continued to pray, like he was reading a grocery list, and we responded in kind. Marjorie started talking over Father Wanderly. He tried to project his voice louder, but she matched him in frequency and decibel. Their voices were synchronized sound waves and Father Gavin and my parents were off in their response timing, as though they couldn’t distinguish between who was saying what. I focused on Marjorie. I watched her speak and in my memory, she was as clear to me as if she were speaking inside my head.
She said, “He’ll ask to deliver us from an unprovided death and deliver us from earthquakes and storms and plague and famine and war. Those prayers have never worked, have never stopped those things from happening. They won’t now and they never will. And I don’t see what any of these prayers have to do with helping me. These prayers are designed for you, Merry. To make you think his God controls all things, especially you.”
At some point the response changed to “We beg you to hear us.” Dad was nearly shouting.
Father Wanderly stood up shakily, and he was breathing heavily, frozen breath billowing from his mouth like he was a smokestack. The younger Father Gavin rushed to his side.
Father Wanderly said, “I’m all right. Just my trick knee acting up.” He gathered himself and recited the Lord’s Prayer and read Psalm 54: “Turn back the evil upon my foes; in your faithfulness destroy them.”
Upon finishing the psalm, he launched straight into a solo prayer that for the first time directly addressed the evil spirit inside Marjorie. The prayer seemed to go on forever and no one else spoke, including Marjorie. In it he referred to a God who was merciful and forgiving, and he said something about an apostate tyrant, a noonday devil destroying God’s vineyard. At the end of the prayer, he finally said Marjorie’s name, and he called her a servant of God.
Everyone said, “Amen.”
The younger priest handed Father Wanderly a white cloth. He wiped his face with it.
Marjorie suddenly became animated, like a switch had been flipped. She squirmed and pulled on her restraints. Her lips were blue and her teeth chattered.
Father Wanderly addressed the demon directly. “I command you, unclean spirit—”
Marjorie said, “Wait. Please, wait. It’s me. I thought I could take the cold, but I can’t. I’m freezing. Please, Father. I’m doing the best I can, but I’m soaked with holy water and I’m right next to the window, the freezing cold air is blowing directly on me. My demonly powers don’t keep me warm, you know. I’m joking. Seriously though, can someone just shut the windows or pull up the blanket?”
Mom stepped forward and Dad grabbed her arm. “No. Not unless Father Wanderly says it’s okay.”
“Let go of me.”
Marjorie spoke at the same time, “Dad, please. I’m so cold.”
Father Wanderly stopped reading. He said, “Family members cannot come into contact with her now that we’ve started the rite, particularly when I’m directly addressing the demon. It’s not safe. Her pleading could be a trick.”
Marjorie said, “Yes, I’ve made my lips turn blue, willed goose bumps to appear on my skin, and I’m fake shivering. Just like all those women the church had drowned and burned as witches were trying to trick the faithful with their screams.”
Mom said, “I’m pulling up the blanket.”
Father Wanderly said, “Please,” and held up a hand to stop her. “Let us do it. We’ll pull up the blanket, okay?” He asked the younger priest if he would pull up the blanket.
Father Gavin stepped forward as Mom retreated back to me. I was freezing too. I wanted a blanket but I wouldn’t ask for one. He hesitated at the foot of the bed. “Should I pull up everything, or just the comforter?”
&nb
sp; Father Wanderly didn’t really answer him. He just said, “Quickly, now, please.”
Father Gavin wrestled with the turned-down sheets, leaving them behind and crumpled at the foot of the bed, finally choosing to pull the puffy white comforter slowly over Marjorie. He was quite nervous and avoided any contact—both eye and physical—with her.
She watched him; watched him hard enough to burn a hole into him. She said, “Please tuck it up as close to my chin as possible, and get as much of my arms under it as you can. Thank you so much.” Father Gavin did as he was asked, and carefully molded the thick blanket around as much of her outstretched arms as he could without covering her face. “That’s so much better.” Marjorie shivered, and her body shook under the sheet. Father Gavin skittered away from the bed, a rabbit sprinting through an open field.
Father Wanderly started in again, commanding the unclean spirit to name itself and obey him.
Marjorie said, “Really? We need to go through this again? Fine. I know what you want me to be: I can be Azazel, the serpent, the fallen demon.”
Father Wanderly soldiered on. He put his hands on Marjorie’s forehead and prayed for her healing.
Marjorie said, “I’m exaggerating my cosmic standing a little bit. How about if I’m just plain old Azazel, as described in the Hebrew Bible? I’m only the scapegoat, the outcast sent into the desert.” Marjorie had recovered. Her voice was hers again; calm, matter-of-fact, tinged with that unmistakable undercurrent of teen dismissal and disdain.
Father Wanderly read the first of three gospel lessons.
“Maybe we should spice it up, and because Ken is such a big fan of H. P. Lovecraft, I can be Azathoth: the demon sultan, the nucleus of infinity. No one dares speak my name out loud and I feast in the impenetrably dark chambers beyond time and space. Rawr!” She thrashed and wiggled about in her restraints, and the carefully tucked comforter slid down, away from her arms and away from her chin and pooled around her midsection. “I am the dead dreamer, older than sin, older than humanity. I am the shadow below everything. I am the beautiful thing that awaits us all.
“Hey, Merry, that reminds me. I miss your books. You don’t bring me your books anymore. I miss writing and making up stories for you. Do you miss my stories?”
I wanted to answer her, though I knew I wasn’t supposed to interact with her in any way. She looked over at me and her face flashed disappointment when I didn’t say anything. So I nodded my head, just slightly, so only she could see it.
Father Wanderly did not engage her in discussion but continued to read his gospels. He droned on without any change in pitch or timbre. I couldn’t tell if he was listening to her or not. His head and neck glistened with sweat.
“I’m cold again. Can you pull up the blanket again? Sorry, I’ll try not to move around so much.”
Father Gavin didn’t wait for permission. He swooped in and pulled up the comforter, this time wrapping and tucking the corners under her arms and shoulders.
Fingers snapped somewhere behind me, and then Jenn the camerawoman crept up in front of Mom, Dad, and me, toward the headboard for a hard close-up.
Father Wanderly crossed himself and made the sign of the cross over Marjorie again, slow and deliberate. He picked up one corner of his purple stole and draped it across Marjorie’s neck. She strained to look down at it. He placed his other hand on her forehead and gently pushed her head back into the pillow.
Marjorie smiled and said, “Your hand is warm. Make sure you say the rest in accents filled with confidence and faith, like it says in your book.”
Father Wanderly nearly shouted his prayers, and Dad eagerly shouted back the responses. I didn’t turn around but he must’ve been on his knees because he was shouting in my ears. I covered them with hands and fingers that hurt they were so cold. I wanted to leave that room, that house, and I had a brief runaway fantasy where I ran away to California, which I’d never been to, to where all the Bigfoots were, and I’d disappear into the woods and live alone, become a rumor, an occasional blurred sighting.
Father Wanderly filled himself up and shouted, “Let us pray.” Then, shaking, voice breaking, he asked that he would be “granted help against the unclean spirit now tormenting this creature of God’s.” He traced the sign of the cross on her brow three times.
Marjorie said, “I’m not a creature. I’m—I’m Marjorie, a fourteen-year-old girl, scared of everything, who doesn’t know why she hears voices that tell her confusing things. And I try to be good and I try. Try not to listen to them.” She paused in places where there weren’t supposed to be pauses and she stumbled over the words like she’d forgotten her lines she hadn’t spent enough time memorizing. Marjorie was suddenly unconvincing. Unlike when Father Wanderly and Dr. Navidson had previously interviewed her, it didn’t feel like she was in danger, and it didn’t feel like she was a danger to us.
An emboldened Father Wanderly said that Marjorie was “caught up in the fearsome threats of man’s ancient enemy, sworn foe of our race, who befuddles and stupefies the human mind, throws it into terror, overwhelms it with fear and panic.”
Marjorie asked, “Are you scared and confused like I am?” Her voice was as small as I’d ever heard it. “I think everyone is secretly like me.”
Father Wanderly asked that this servant be protected in mind and body. He folded down the blanket and traced the cross on Marjorie’s chest, over her heart.
“What are you doing? Why is he touching me there?” Marjorie twitched and arched her back against the restraints, trying to avoid the priest’s touch. The rest of the blanket slumped off the side of the bed.
Jenn retreated a few steps back from the headboard, toward the newly plastered wall with its heavy pewter crucifix. Jesus peeked out over her shoulder and she kept her camera pointed at Marjorie like it was a gun.
Father Wanderly traced the sign of the cross above her heart twice more, and said, “Keep watch over the innermost recesses of her heart; rule over her emotions; strengthen her will. Let vanish from her soul the temptings of the mighty adversary.”
Marjorie turned and looked at Mom, with a look that said: You’re letting him do that to me? Mom couldn’t return the look.
Father Wanderly paused to drink from a bottle of water he’d placed on Marjorie’s desk.
Marjorie said, “This isn’t working,” and she sounded so far away, so lost inside herself. “You know, I thought I’d play along and that it couldn’t hurt, but you’re making everything worse.” Her voice broke and she started shivering again.
I looked down at my feet, feeling guilty, but I wasn’t sure about what. I guess I had to blame myself to have something to hold on to.
Mom must’ve felt the same way. She said, “I’m sorry, honey. This is all my fault.”
Dad whispered a prayer.
Father Wanderly drank deeply from the water bottle. When he put the bottle back down, the middle desk draw sprang open. Still covered by the white cloth, that desk’s ghostly tongue protruded out into the room toward Father Wanderly, and then slammed itself shut.
Marjorie yelled, “What was that? That’s not me! That’s not me! I didn’t do that! What’s happening?” She tried to sit up and she spun her head wildly left, right, then left again, looking accusatorily at everyone.
The wind gusted outside, whistling through the window frame, fluttering the curtains and the candle flames. The desk drawer continued opening and closing as regularly as the ticks of a metronome.
Father Wanderly shouted, “He now flails you with His divine scourges!”
“What do you mean? I didn’t do anything. Don’t blame me for that. Mom, Dad, help me! I don’t know what’s happening!”
Mom and Dad were shouting now too. Dad shouted Jesus Christ’s name; Mom shouted Marjorie’s name. Mom pulled me over to her, held me in front of her like I was a shield.
Father Wanderly: “He in whose sight you and your legions once cried out: ‘What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Have
you come to torture us before the time?’”
There was a loud banging sound from underneath Marjorie’s bed, like something was trying to ram up through the floor.
Marjorie screamed and my parents went quiet. She said, “Who’s doing this? Stop it! What I’m doing and saying isn’t enough for you? Everything I’ve done isn’t enough for you? I’m scared and I’m cold and I want to stop. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”
Father Wanderly continued. “Now He is driving you back into the everlasting fire.”
Father Gavin quickly scurried to the bed and bent down at Father Wanderly’s feet to gather the comforter.
Marjorie cried hysterically, her chest heaving. “I’m so cold. Please stop banging. Please, Father. I’m so cold. Can we stop? Take a break? I’ll stop too. Make them stop. Make them stop . . .”
Father Gavin quickly readjusted the comforter and pulled it up to her chin again.
Father Wanderly: “Begone, now! Begone, seducer! Your place is in solitude. . . .”
Marjorie shot her head forward and clamped her teeth onto Father Gavin’s meaty and hairy wrist. He let out such a high-pitched scream it made my knees wobble. He tried to extract himself by lifting his arm over his head, but he only got it halfway up. Marjorie still held on with her teeth. The large sleeves of his tunic slid down past his elbow. Blood leaked from the sides of her mouth and ran down his arm. Father Gavin screamed for God to help him. Dad rushed past me and, along with Father Wanderly, stepped in and tried to separate Marjorie and the younger priest, and separate them they did, but slowly. Dad pulled Marjorie back and her mouthful of flesh was still tethered to Father Gavin’s arm by a thin rope of skin that stretched out like taffy. Father Wanderly pushed the younger priest off the bed and that spaghetti strand tore down the entire length of his forearm, all the way to his elbow.
Dad and Father Wanderly fell on top of Father Gavin, who thrashed around on the floor as though he were having a seizure. Father Wanderly was knocked backward and he rolled into my ankles. He held his left shoulder with a shaky right hand and his eyes were closed against the pain.
A Head Full of Ghosts Page 20