by Tim McGregor
The witch cursed him. Clicking together, the discoloured bones sat up like a stringed puppet, one arm raising to point a parched, accusatory knuckle at him.
Idiot, she had said. Fool.
“Nasty-looking blighter, isn’t he?” he had replied, snakily trying to charm his way out of this one.
Do ye have any idea what you’ve done?
Smug prick that he was, he thought he knew the score. She corrected Gantry on his ignorance, revealing what the foul thing was and how she had trapped it.
Ye let it loose. Now it’s your problem.
With that, she was gone, the bones crashing down onto the table. Where she had gone, he hadn’t a clue. Back down to the underworld or floating to that bright light everyone talks about. Margaret Read simply vanished and he had come away learning absolutely nothing. Collecting the stray fragments that had clattered to the floor, he placed them back on the stainless steel gurney and left.
A fortnight later, the reeking thing with antlers had come looking for him. He had been away. He was always away. But Ellie was home.
An hour later, the pale moon was hazy and watery behind a screen of clouds as a criminal returned to the scene of the crime. The security system in the museum had been upgraded but proved just as easily slipped as before. Gantry made his way down into the sealed inventory room where the stone ossuary had been kept since his first visit to the museum. It took a few minutes to locate its storage shelf in the maze of artifacts, but when he cracked open the door, the ossuary containing the remains of brave Margaret Read was gone.
~
By the time he got to her condo building, Mockler’s patience had run thin. Tucked under his arm was the large accordion folder she was so keen on finding. Packed away with the books, he had rifled through three different boxes before finding it. Wondering what the hell was so important, he sifted through the contents. Photographs, all glossy eight-by-ten prints from Christina’s modelling days. Fashion shoots, art photos and nudes. Lots of nudes.
Stuffing it back in the folder, he wondered what was so urgent about it.
He found out the moment she let him in the door. Christina was in the grips of another artistic work phase, creating new pieces at a frenzied pace. Sketches were tacked to every wall, paintings propped up here and there to dry. The easel in the centre of the room held the current work, an acrylic on stretched canvas.
“Here.” He handed her the folder.
Snatching it from his hands, she crossed the room without so much as a thank you and dumped the contents over the long work table. “Do you want a drink?”
“No.”
The condo was overheated, the air almost tropical with the temperature cranked and the humidifier blowing hard in the corner. It was how she liked to work, in a soupy jungle swelter so that she didn’t have to wear much while she attacked the canvas. Her hands and forearms were smudged with charcoal, her bare legs and feet spattered in paint. A dot of vermilion drying on her chin.
Mockler turned slowly, surveying the pieces that covered the walls like a type of crazy wallpaper. Each one a self-portrait. Some simple head-and-shoulder portraits, others full body renderings. “This is the emergency?”
“Yes, thank you.” She turned to look at him. “It was driving me crazy that I couldn’t find these. I thought I’d lost them.”
He had seen this before, these manic episodes of productivity. It was simply how Christina worked. She would be idle for weeks, irritable and moody and then, as if a switch had been hit, she would throw herself into the work with an almost possessed energy. Working around the clock, she would barely eat or sleep as she produced piece after piece with compulsive focus.
He looked at the small kitchen, the dirty dishes piled in the sink. The coffee table occupied with three empty wine bottles, a handful of dirty glasses and a few containers of prescription pills. Fetching one of the vials, he read the label. “Are you all right?”
“Couldn’t be better,” she said.
He shook the container, rattling the pills. “I thought you were off these?”
“Not yet.” Christina tacked a few of the glossy photos to the wall before coming around to the centre of the room. She took up her wine glass from the coffee table. Her skin glistened with sweat and her hair was damp. She hadn’t showered in days and he could smell her.
She reached for the open bottle of red. “Have a drink with me.”
“What are you doing?” His expression remained neutral.
“What I have to.” Christina shrugged, like it couldn’t be more obvious. “Working through it.”
He took a breath. “It’s coming back?”
“It always comes back. So, I’m keeping it at bay the best way I know how.” She waved the glass at the wall of sketches and paintings.
It was like being in a hall of mirrors, her face staring at him from every angle, rendered in different ways. In some of the portraits, she was stunning, the way she was now, but in others, she was angry or mournful. Even ugly, her features distorted into some nightmarish version of herself. In the current piece, propped on the easel, Christina had painted herself as Judith, holding aloft the ghastly severed head of Holofernes.
“You can’t do this anymore,” he said. “Call me with an emergency.” He forced himself not to sneer at that last word.
“Yes, yes, I know. You’re busy with your little girlfriend.” She took a step closer. “How is all that? Does she make you happy?”
As warm as it was in the room, he could feel the heat coming off her. Like standing near a hot stove. Invigorated by the work, Christina’s eyes were bright and clear, her pulse up. Aroused.
Get out, he thought. Before something stupid happens.
He turned and marched for the door. “Goodnight,” he said and went through without waiting for a reply. Halfway down the corridor, he heard the glass shatter against the door.
Chapter 16
“AFTER HIS BAPTISM by Saint John, Jesus wandered into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. Weak from fasting, this was when the devil came to tempt him.”
Reverend Joy looked up from his notes on the lectern to the congregation before him. Sunday morning services, an almost packed house. This was good, this was providence sending the faithful to him at a time when they most needed to hear. He cleared his throat and went on.
“That’s important to note. The devil did not come when our Lord was in good health and of clear mind. He waited in the shadows until Jesus was physically and mentally drained from his fasting. When he was at his weakest point, this was the moment the devil chose to strike. Why? Because he knew it was his only chance.”
A stillness had settled over the devoted in the nave, many of them leaning forward in attention, turning one ear to the lectern where he stood, eager to catch every word. A small number, three by a quick head count, were nodding off in the back row.
“Satan tempted Jesus three times. The first was to his base hunger, tempting our Lord to turn stone to bread, so he could break his fast. The second was to put the Father to the test but Jesus saw through this folly. But the third temptation proved to be the ultimate. Satan whisked Jesus to the top of mountain where every kingdom was visible. The devil promised to make each nation bow to him, if Jesus in turn, would bow down to the devil and worship him. This was the real test of faith.
“All Jesus had to do was worship the devil and the world would be laid at his feet. We all know that our Lord and Saviour shunned the devil, ordering Satan to get behind him so that he would not have to see his awful countenance. Defeated, the devil did as he was told and fled.”
An infant was fussing somewhere in the pews, a sustained moaning that hinted at teething, the child’s agony rebounding up into the rafters of a structure built to be an echo chamber. It didn’t bother the Reverend the way it rankled the others in the pews. Just the opposite, he rejoiced in it. He wanted families here, the faithful in every stage of their lives. That meant that the church was alive, thriving. A sil
ent church was a dead church.
Reverend Joy looked down at his printed sermon, drafted the night before and revised early this morning. It did not speak to him, a standard text about recognizing the hollow nature of temptation. Something far more serious had rattled his nerves and he needed to address it. He set the typed sermon aside and let his heart speak.
“The devil finds a foothold when we are at our weakest. When life has battered and abused us, that’s the moment when the devil comes to tempt us away. Satan is a coward who shies from a fair fight. He is an opportunist, that’s all. Our community, our city, has teetered on the edge of despair for so long that most of us no longer see it. But this is the moment when we need to be prepared, to keep our eyes open. Because the devil is here. He stalks this city as we speak.
“Over the past year, the incidents of occult crimes and pagan revisionism has bloomed over this city like the blisters on a leper. That is no coincidence. The devil knows we are weak and he has thrown up his tent here, waving us into his carnival. He tempts us with alluring, new paths to spirituality. Forget the prayers, he says. Try the Tarot. Put aside the stuffy Commandments and consult your horoscope. Forget the Bible, he whispers, and come have your fortune told by a gypsy.”
A woman in the second row shifted guiltily in her seat. A man behind her lowered his eyes to the floor. Further back in the pews sat Noah Kemp and Robin Flores, their daughter, Maya, wedged between them. Robin’s belly was out of the Reverend’s sight-line but the pregnancy showed in her plump cheeks. She bowed her head in shame, eyes darting around her as if she was expecting an accusatory finger pointed in her direction.
“The psychics are the ones that worry me the most,” the Reverend continued on, gripping the bevelled edge of the wooden pulpit. His knuckles were white. “These tacky gypsies with their garish signs in the shop windows. These are not the Roma, not true gypsies, but rather, they are parasites on the collective body of a community, all promising an easy answer to the most troubling questions. All for a small fee. Have you ever noticed that these storefront psychics never open shop in well-to-do neighbourhoods? It’s only the poorest boroughs where they hang their shingles. Why? Like Satan, they are opportunists. They know that misery makes us prey to simple answers. We are all rubes to these charlatans with their strange cards and crystal balls. I understand the allure of these fortune-tellers, I do. We all search for meaning to our lives and the more chaotic our lives become, the more we’re willing to grasp at anything that could give us a hint as to what it all means. Some clue that it’s all going to turn out okay. But life isn’t that simple. It’s complicated and messy and it is hard. That’s because it is meant to be hard. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
The congregation was engaged now, the faithful leaning forward, their eyes glued to the pulpit. There was only one person that the Reverend could see who was still nodding off. That was fine, he decided. There was always a few who slipped through the net.
“Most of these psychics are fairly harmless. They may dupe you out of your money but they do not intend harm. But some are dangerous. The ones who claim to be mediums, able to communicate with the dead. These ones are trouble. And there is one, not five blocks from here, who is outright evil. She has been at the centre of a number of occult crimes perpetrated over the last year. A known associate of criminals and murderers, an ally to Satanists and New Age witches. And she, my friends, is dangerous. Disaster follows in her wake, death emanates from her like a bad smell. This woman, this charlatan, you must be warned of. Shun her, denounce her, convert her.”
A hush fell over the congregation now. Even the teething baby had quieted, as if it too, was eager to listen. Reverend Joy cleared his throat.
“The woman’s name is Billie Culpepper. And she is spreading evil through the fair city of Hamilton.”
Here endeth the lesson.
~
The sermon concluded, the congregation rose and shrugged back into their heavy coats and hats. The Reverend was outside of the propped-open tall doors, standing sentinel at the bottom of the church steps. He shook hands with each and every parishioner as they left, wishing them well until next Sunday.
Robin rose from the pew with effort, the belly weight keeping her off balance, and prodded Maya awake.
Noah shook her gently. “Maya, wake up, honey.”
The girl’s eyes opened dimly.
“She’s exhausted,” Noah said.
“We all are,” Robin added. The fatigue was etched sharp on all of their faces. No one in the house slept much anymore, awoken constantly by the thuds and scrapes.
Robin held her daughter’s coat open for the girl to slip into. “Time to go home, honey.”
Maya didn’t move. “Do we have to? Can we stay longer?”
An exchange of looks between Robin and Noah, both of them cracking a little under the child’s plea but each forced to be brave.
“Church is over, sweetheart,” Noah said. “We need to go so the Reverend can tidy up.”
Maya moved with all the speed of a slug. “Can we go for pancakes somewhere? Please?”
A tentative pull on both the adult’s features. Since taking the plunge into home-ownership, Robin and Noah had resolved to tighten their belts and get their finances under control. They hadn’t eaten at a restaurant in months, Noah brown-bagging it to work everyday, Robin stretching every dollar in the monthly budget.
“Maybe just this once,” Robin said with a pleading looking at Noah. She didn’t want to go home either.
“Okay,” Noah ceded. “But just this one time.”
Joining the long, slow queue shambling out of the church, Robin pulled her husband’s arm to whisper in his ear. “Why would the Reverend say that awful stuff about Billie?”
“Because she’s trouble.”
“But it isn’t true. She was only trying to help. She isn’t evil—”
“Shh,” he admonished her. Squeezing out of the church, it was too crowded, too many ears around them. “The Reverend knows about this stuff, honey. It’s not our place to question his thinking.”
Robin was unconvinced of the preacher’s reasoning but agreed that this wasn’t the place or the time to discuss it. At the bottom of the church steps, she shook the Reverend’s hand.
“God be with you, Robin,” said Reverend Joy.
“And also with you,” she replied.
~
In the window of the bar, snow was falling in soft tufts against the lights of the street. Night descending early but the snow twinkled in the streetlight and scalloped in a corner of the window. It was all very Christmas card-like, Billie thought as she hooked a glass under the draft tap.
Sundays were typically slow nights at the Gunner’s Daughter, and snowy midwinter nights were especially anaemic in patronage. Billie had resigned herself to a quiet night with little to show for tips when she cashed out at the end of her shift. Everyone was still feeling the holiday hangover, eager to stay home, save money and detoxify. By the time Valentine’s Day rolled up on the calendar, which wasn’t that far off now, all the resolutions would be forgotten and renewed gym memberships would go to waste.
It was already February. Her birthday looming fast. She didn’t want to think about it. Thirty, for Christ’s sakes. Time to grow up. What was that line from Trainspotting?
Choose a life.
Choose a job.
Choose a family.
Groan. In the movie, it had sounded like poetry, rolled off in that Scottish brogue. Reciting it in her own bland Canuck twang, it simply sounded depressing.
And yet, here she was, slinging drinks in a divey bar for tip money while almost everyone she knew was moving forward with their lives. Jen was getting married. Married, for Christ’s sakes! Why did that bother her? She should be happy for her. She was, honestly, but something was needling her nerves about it. Was she worried they would drift apart even more, once her oldest friend was married? How long before Jen and Adam decided to have a kid? That would be the en
d. She’d never see Jen if she had a wee one. Not unless Billie herself had one.
Shudder.
“Why the long face, kiddo?” Tammy sat at the bar, nursing a pint of pale ale. A magazine on the bar before her. Quiet Sundays, Tammy would often come alone and kill a few hours as a barfly.
“It’s nothing.” Billie nodded at her friend’s drink. “You ready for another?”
“Don’t be stoic, Bee. Doesn’t suit you.”
Billie wiped the bar down. “Were you surprised at Jen’s big news?”
“Surprised it didn’t happen sooner.” Tammy tilted her head at her, almost annoyed. “Tell me that’s not what’s bothering you.”
“Not for the reasons you’re thinking.”
“Better not be,” Tammy said, turning back to her magazine. “Otherwise I’d have to disown you.”
Billie tossed the cloth back into the sink. “Do you think it’ll change things? Between the four of us?”
“It might. But so what? Things change, life barrels on. You cope or you don’t.”
“You make it sound easy. We barely see Jen as it is since she opened up the shop. The four of us haven’t been out in ages. Everything’s changing.”
Looking up at her friend behind the bar, Tammy dropped the attitude. “Change can be scary,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean change is bad. It usually turns out to be a good thing. It’s okay to be rattled now and again. Keeps you from stagnating.”
“How is it you always have this wise perspective on things?” Billie asked, not wanting to sound resentful. “Me, I never know what to do. The smallest problem frazzles me, never mind the big stuff. What’s your secret?”
“Apathy,” Tammy said, winking for good measure.
Billie flung a lime wedge at her. “Cheater.”
“Jesus, the service here has really hit the shitter, hasn’t it?” Tammy picked up her phone, popped it to life. “I’m also a hypocrite, too.”