The Clock Strikes Nun

by Alice Loweecey

  “It always does. Here.” He handed her a somewhat scuffed hip flask. “Don’t give me that look. It’s holy water. Use it to bless the house for real. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been released from vows. Chosen is chosen.”

  She tucked the flask into her messenger bag. “When I was little and all the neighborhood kids played Mass with Necco wafers, I always demanded to be the priest. It made my little brother furious, but I was born the stronger person. Or the pushier one.”

  “Depends on whether or not you’re feeling charitable?” He became serious. “How’s the situation with him?”

  Giulia stuffed empty food wrappers in the takeout bag. “I’d like to stuff his head in here and shake it until it rattles.”

  “What happened with his marriage counseling? Carlos said he was making progress.”

  “Oh, he has. He stopped pretending his wife doesn’t exist. Last week they met with a family counselor and all three kids ran at their mother so fast they knocked her down.” Giulia’s smile flashed steel. “Her oldest refused to stop hugging her as he told the family counselor if he was married to Salvatore he would’ve run away too.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

  “Indeed. Now that their mother has her old job back and is in a small apartment, the kids will be able to see her and Salvatore can’t stop them.” The smile faded. “Carlos is a miracle worker.”

  Pat folded the letter into an envelope and handed it to her. “Does your brother still pretend you don’t exist?”

  Giulia laughed without a speck of humor. “That would be too good for me. He got my cell number off his phone records from when his daughter was calling me. Now he spews ultra-religious invective into my voicemail at least once a week.”

  “I don’t need to quote you the relevant chapter and verse regarding his behavior.”

  “You do not.” Giulia dropped the bag into the trash. “His kids are going to end up teenage parents or in juvie. Also probably atheists. I’m working with Carlos to see about having their visitation with their mother at our house.” She shook herself. “He raises my blood pressure simply by thinking about him.”

  “Which is bad for little Zlatan.”

  Giulia groaned. “Is nothing secret among the Driscoll clan?”

  “Not much.” He rose and opened the door. “Blot your brother from your mind and think about your upcoming ritual. A good exorcist is immune to distractions.”

  “If this massive house really does have a pet demon, I might put you on retainer.”

  Twenty-One

  Giulia hung up the phone from a terse conversation with Cissy Newton, waited until all sounds from the main office ceased, and posed dramatically in her doorway.

  “Guys, I am descending into the depths of hell. I require assistance.”

  As though joined at the hip, Sidney and Zane laughed, caught themselves, coughed, and turned startled eyes on Giulia.

  “Someday I’ll remember to video your reactions.” Giulia abandoned the doorway. “Half of our client team demands an exorcism because the staff wants to quit. Ignoring the simple fact that demons don’t infest houses, they possess people, I have shiny new credentials to impress said client.”

  “Hold it.” Sidney hit Ctrl-S on her keyboard. “You’re an exorcist now?”

  Zane stood and pointed toward the printer. “The power of Driscoll Investigations compels you!”

  Sidney choked.

  “What? It’s been jamming.” But when he looked over his shoulder at Giulia, his pink-tipped ears belied his attempt at comedy.

  Giulia grinned. “Clever. If this type of client keeps up, we should add it to our business cards.” She pretended not to see the narrow line of flop sweat trickle down Zane’s cheek as she handed her official letter to Sidney. “This is how I’m an exorcist.”

  Sidney squinted at it and then at Giulia. “Who reads Latin anymore?”

  “Latin? Let me look.” Zane scrutinized the paper but handed it back after two stumbling attempts. “I admit defeat.”

  Giulia translated her letter of authority. “You see, I’m official.”

  Sidney spoke with deliberation. “I want to make it clear that I’m not refusing to do my job. But first ghost hunting and now demon evictions? We sound like a lead story for The Scoop.”

  “Perish the thought. What we are is evolving. Organisms which adapt, survive. Basic biology and basic marketing.”

  Sidney’s disappointment appeared for an instant before she masked it with as neutral an expression as Giulia had ever seen her assume. She commandeered Sidney’s client chair.

  “What’s the real problem?”

  Sidney’s hands clenched together. “No laughing, okay?”

  “Never.”

  “One winter when I was little we lived with my grandmother in one of those big old houses meant for about fifteen people.”

  Zane got up and closed the window. Giulia nodded at him. The traffic was overpowering Sidney’s voice.

  “My older sisters shared one bedroom, but I wanted my own room. The house was full of steam radiators and the floors creaked and cracked all night.” Her hands tightened. “Every Saturday night I’d wake up after midnight. It felt like someone was watching me. I was too scared to tell mom or dad, but I asked my sisters if they saw anything weird in their room.”

  “Did they?” Giulia’s voice was as subdued as Sidney’s.

  “They said no, and of course the very next night they both hid under my bed to scare me. If they hadn’t giggled, it would’ve worked too. I went to the bathroom and filled two cups with freezing cold water, and when they tried to rise up like ghosts I drenched them.” A small smile. “They’d put on white face paint and the water made it drip all down their nightgowns. Mom was ticked.”

  Zane, also quiet: “But that wasn’t all?”

  Sidney appeared to come to grips. “No, eleven more times that winter I woke up positive someone was in the room with me. We moved to the farm over spring break and never went back to grandma’s house. When I was a senior in high school I helped take care of Grandma before she passed, and I asked her about the house’s history. She said she could never get one of her cocker spaniels to go in my room, but she never saw anything.”

  While Giulia tried to find the right words to ask her next question, Zane stuck his foot in it.

  “You’re scared of ghosts.”

  Sidney flipped him off. “Sorry, Giulia.”

  All the times Sidney had insisted “There’s no such things as ghosts” fast-forwarded through Giulia’s head.

  “I never dreamed I’d want us to take divorce cases again, but I do. A whole parade of cheating wives and scumbag husbands would make me happy.”

  “Divorce cases?” Giulia raised one eyebrow. “You wouldn’t really.”

  Sidney sighed. “You’re right. I wouldn’t really. But I’m going to need more time to adapt than the genius at the other desk.”

  Giulia squeezed her hands. “Take all the time you need. Zane, are you up for some undercover?”

  Zane rubbed his hands in the universal mad scientist gesture. “Ms. D., my girlfriend is going to look at me like I’m Superman.”

  “I’m pleased to add spice to your relationship. We’re off to Elaine’s castle tomorrow morning for an eleven a.m. exorcism.”

  Zane checked his desk calendar. “If only tomorrow was Friday the thirteenth.”

  After supper, Giulia rooted around in the spare room closet where they kept the winter clothes and emerged with a plain purple scarf. She seldom wore it since the plum tones of the scarf clashed with her beloved violet wool coat.

  Frank followed her into the kitchen. Giulia brought the trash can out from underneath the sink and attacked the scarf’s fringe with the scissors from her sewing basket.

  “Honey, what are you doing?” Frank’s voice conveye
d trepidation.

  Giulia looked up and grinned. “Worried about crazed Sicilian woman with potential murder weapon? I’ll keep this in mind.” She started on the other end of the scarf. “I need a reasonable facsimile of a priestly stole for tomorrow.”

  In the same tone of voice, Frank said, “Why?”

  The scissors paused. “Does my church-avoiding husband think I’m going over to one of the sects that allow women priests? You forget I’m married and pregnant.”

  “Well, Pope Joan…”

  Giulia laughed and resumed de-fringing. “Drag yourself into the twenty-first century, dear husband.”

  “All right then, why are you creating a fake stole?”

  “Because I’m going to perform an exorcism on my client’s house tomorrow.” She put the scissors aside and began to slice the remnants of fringe with an X-Acto knife.

  “I thought you were giving Tarot readings and going all clairvoyant for this client?”

  “They upped the ante. I upped ours.”

  Frank turned on his bare heel and snatched his phone from the coffee table. “Come on, come on. Don’t be teaching a night class…Pat? Frank. How did my ex-nun wife wrap my dogmatic priest brother around her little finger?”

  “Don’t blame him,” Giulia said from the kitchen.

  “Of course I blame him. Driscoll men were raised to be immovable as the Richmond Tower.”

  “As the what?”

  “Famous Dublin landmark.” He put the call on speaker. “Well?”

  The sound of tapping came over the phone. “Have you forgotten the tower was dismantled and relocated in the mid-eighteen hundreds?”

  “Damn. Yes.” Frank recovered. “Then you’re malleable as long as the right circumstances arise. Who’s your confessor?”

  “Frank, dear, stop harassing your brother. Who better than he and I to know when to adapt to the needs of the afflicted?”

  “And you’re sure afflicted now,” Frank said. “What if The Scoop tails you?”

  “I’ll fling holy water on their creeper van and watch it burst into flames. Do we still have s’mores fixings?”

  Both Driscoll brothers laughed.

  “Giulia,” Pat said over the speaker, “what are you wearing?”

  “Oi. That’s my wife you’re talking to.”

  “Frank.” From his wife and brother.

  “At the second used clothing store of the day,” Giulia said, “I found a plain floor-length black dress. It makes me look like one of Jane Eyre’s bridesmaids.”

  Silence.

  “I weep at your dearth of classic literature knowledge.” She sheared a few stubborn fringe remnants. “Think of an extremely plain choir dress which flatters no one.”

  “She’s shaving the fringe off a purple scarf,” Frank added. “It’s like our kitchen has been transformed into a vestry for my wife the priest. It’s unnatural.”

  “Excellent touch, Giulia,” Pat said. “Frank, be a man.”

  “Jump up my butt, older brother.”

  In a pious voice Pat said, “Allow me to recommend several ejaculatory prayers, the repetition of which will decrease your extensive time in Purgatory.”

  “Only if I get to make adolescent jokes about ejaculation.”

  “Good night, baby brother. Giulia, if you forget a line, slip in a Paternoster.”

  “What do you think?”

  Up in their bedroom, Giulia modeled her black dress with the long ends of the altered scarf hanging down to her waist.

  Frank gave an exaggerated shudder. “It’s almost as bad as the time you went undercover in your old convent a few years ago.”

  “Good.” She slipped into her black flats and studied the complete impression in the wall mirror. “If it affects you, then it should impress the client.”

  “Take it off, okay?”

  Giulia looked at his reflection. “I hate it, but I have reason to. After ten years of wearing nothing but black from veil to sensible shoes, the color gives me flashbacks. But why does it bother you? You can be my research subject since I don’t know how the client will react to it.”

  He closed the distance between them. “Because it makes you look like the church is dragging you back into its maw. You’re not a Bride of Christ anymore, you’re my wife and Zlatan’s mother.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Damn right.” His arms circled her waist and he turned her around.

  “Please stop blasphem—” His lips on hers cut off the rest of the word. She steered him toward the bed.

  And stopped when his legs bumped into the mattress. “Wait.”

  He kept moving. “What?”

  “I don’t want to have to iron this.”

  “Works for me.” He ran his hands along her ribs, over her hips, and down her legs until he reached the bottom of the dress. Grasping the hem with a light touch, he pulled it up and off, hanging it from the footboard’s corner post.

  “You’re the perfect husband.”

  “Of course I am.”

  Twenty-Two

  The next morning, Zane drove to Elaine’s house in his silver Cruze because the school-bus yellow Clown Car clashed with their exorcist image. Zane wore all black as well: a button-down shirt and plain trousers.

  “I should’ve tricked out my speakers.” Zane gestured as they waited at a red light. “We could’ve broadcast ‘Tubular Bells’ as we drove.”

  “Copyright infringement.” Giulia opened up a Google search on her iPad. “A classic hymn instead…‘Solid Rock’ or ‘Blessed Assurance,’ but the usual arrangements are dirges.” She played a sample of each.

  Zane stuck a finger halfway into his mouth to an accompanying gagging noise. “No offense, Ms. D., but Catholic music is a cheap alternative to Ambien.”

  Giulia laughed. “You’re preaching to the choir. Now these arrangements—” She played the opening bars to the Denver and the Mile High Orchestra arrangements of the same hymns.

  “Yeah.” Zane drummed on the steering wheel. “When did the Catholics get into Big Band style music? Love that beat.”

  “They didn’t. These guys aren’t Catholic. Their arrangements are also copyrighted.” She closed the tablet. “Besides, if we’re going to be the Mr. Softee of ghostbusting, we should’ve taken my too-bright rental car.”

  “I’ve got it. We can design one of those car wraparounds with our phone number and our new slogan: The Power of DI Compels You. I can doctor a photo of you when you were a nun to make laser beams shoot out of your eyes. People would take pictures and post them online. We’d go viral in a week. What do you think?”

  “I think I’d get excommunicated.”

  “We’d be swamped with business. We’d have to move into a bigger office and hire more people.” He glanced over at her. “All the financial gurus say you should start saving for your kids’ college education from the moment of conception.”

  “You are shrewd.”

  “I’m practical. You don’t want to know how much a year at MIT cost when I graduated. It’ll be astronomical in eighteen years.”

  The sound out of Giulia’s mouth combined a sigh and a chuckle. “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

  The car swerved. “What?”

  “Look it up later. We are not going to remake ourselves into The Scoop.”

  “My hopeful spirit is crushed underfoot.” Siri’s voice from his phone told him to turn left in half a mile.

  “Why do I doubt that?” Giulia said. “Did I mention you look completely unlike yourself in that outfit?”

  “Back at you, Ms. D. My girlfriend says I look like a community theater ghost. I reminded her of my smashing success as multiple ghosts on the MIT stage.”

  Giulia reopened her iPad.

  “Come on, Ms. D. Don’t disappoint me.”

  “All ri
ght.” She closed it and ran through her knowledge of Gilbert and Sullivan’s repertoire without benefit of checking the online archive. “It begins with R…No. It’s not coming. I surrender.”

  “Ruddigore.”

  “Drat.”

  Zane laughed. “I was the ghost of Sir Roderic Murgatroyd. The director said my hair and skin color made me the natural choice. I only needed to add dark makeup under my eyes and white on my lips. Good thing I’m a baritone.”

  Siri informed them their destination was two hundred feet ahead on their right.

  Giulia slid her iPad into her messenger bag. “I’ll get everyone together and let them talk. Please key it all in for me. Afterward I’ll put the electronics away. Today your otherworldly looks should make our clients give you enough personal space to let you take mental notes unimpeded.”

  Zane pulled into the driveway. “Holy One Percenters, Batman. No wonder she calls it a castle.”

  The three-story stone house did indeed have a huge tower on one side. And a front balcony with a smaller tower. And a wraparound water feature long enough to be a moat with a miniature waterfall at each end. The stone colors shaded from fawn to buff to tan, the shapes ranging from huge square blocks to narrow vertical and horizontal strips and smaller squares of several sizes. Two arches spanned the first floor porch with a smaller arch at the top of the wide entrance stairs. Long ivory curtains softened the stone arches.

  A wrought iron fence enclosed it all, naturally. A short one, allowing the peasantry a glimpse of heights unattainable even in their dreams. Artistic arrangements of roses and dahlias around the moat reflected the graceful iron flowers atop the enclosing pickets.

  Four-petal openwork designs in the stone bordered the porch and balcony. Two chimneys, one on the right, and a narrow one rising from the tower continued the shaded browns theme. The roof was the only part of the castle with a connection to the average house. With dark brown shingles interspersed with random squares of tan, it made up for its ordinariness with dahlia-shaped finials at every corner and a copper bouquet of dahlias on the weathervane.