Missing Soul

by Dominika Waclawiak

  "Thanks for the help, Harry," she said as she closed the trunk. He shrugged and walked back to the restaurant. She stared at his back for a moment. Why were boys so easily hurt?

  * * *

  Sara pulled into the bungalow's driveway and turned off the car without getting out. She peered up and down the street but saw no sign of Sam. Feeling silly, she finally got out of her car. His house was on another street anyway, and it was unlikely that he'd wander this far away. She laughed at herself and opened up the trunk. She should check that the security guard was there, she thought, before unloading the lamps. She ran up to the front door and knocked for about a minute before the guard answered the door.

  "Hi, I'm Sara. Joan the set decorator sent me here to drop off lamps," she said.

  "Do you need any help?" he asked. By the look on his face, she knew he was only being polite.

  "No, thanks. Mind if I leave the front door open though?" she asked.

  "Sure, I'll be over there," he said and went back to a small card table that had a cup of coffee and an iPad on it.

  It didn't take her long to get the lamps out of the car and placed in the exact spots that Joan had instructed her too. She didn't really need a good eye for this task, she thought. All she needed to do was follow directions.

  She took one last look at the living room. Joan had done an impressive job and had transformed it from the shithole it had been to an upper middle-class family home. Amazing what a fresh coat of paint and good furniture could do for a room. She turned to go when she heard a high-pitched scream coming from the backyard. The guard came running into the room, worry on his face.

  "Are you OK?" he gasped between pants. He was way too out of shape to be running so fast.

  "It wasn't me," Sara said.

  The screech sounded again, and Sara froze. She didn't want to go back there. She didn't want to face them, face whatever was happening to Sam. She knew her life depended on it.

  The guard started for the patio doors.

  "Wait, where are you going?" Sara said.

  "It sounds like a kid. We gotta help," he said and ran out the back door. Sara stood unsure, her heart pounding. She could just leave now. This wasn't any of her business.

  * * *

  The howl that came next was so filled with anguish that Sara forced herself to turn towards the backyard. Maybe it was just an animal that was hurt. Or maybe a seagull. She followed the guard out the door and across the yard to the alley.

  She stepped out into the alley and saw the guard holding Sam's body as his mother screamed over the both of them. Sara watched as apparitions gathered around the desperate group, none coming close enough to be the one with a hold over the small child. Though her legs felt like rubber and would buckle at any moment, she managed to get to them within seconds.

  "Did you call an ambulance?" she asked him. The guard nodded, and the woman turned to Sara.

  "You have to help him," the mother said through tears. "You know that you're the only one. The paramedics won't be able to do anything for him."

  "Ma'am, I don't know what this girl can do for you. Your son looks as if he's had a fit. Does he have epilepsy?" the guard said in a surprisingly calm voice. He shifted his position and placed the child's prone body into the woman's lap. She shook her head.

  "We've already been to doctors. They can't explain it," she said and glared at Sara. Sara kneeled down next to her.

  "I don't see anyone specifically haunting him, Ma'am. I see many of them gathered around us but not one that is close enough to control him like this," Sara explained and hoped that what she said was right. Father Johan had explained how ghosts and apparitions worked and how to tell whether someone was being haunted or, even rarer, possessed by one.

  "I've seen both possession, and hauntings and I don't see that near him. I'm sorry," she said as quietly as she could. She wished the guard didn't have to hear that, but she knew he wouldn't leave the boy until the paramedics came. As she expected, he was looking at her as though she'd sprouted two heads.

  "What nonsense are you speaking about, girl," he said in a tone meant to shut her up. Before Sara could respond, the mother cut in.

  "It's not nonsense. I asked her for this," she said and cradled her son closer. The guard looked back and forth at the both of them with a look of incredulity on his face. Sara shook her head at him.

  "Trust me, I know how nuts I must sound right now. Forget I ever said anything," she said and stood up, brushing the dust off her knees.

  "Please stay with us. What's your name?" the mother asked, and Sara felt she had to answer her.

  "Sara Caine," Sara said.

  "Thank you, Sara. Do you know of any priests who could help us?"

  Sara nodded. "Yes, Father Johan Luken," she said just as an ambulance rushed down the alleyway, cop cars right behind it. Flashing them a look of disgust and turning away from them, the guard got up and waved down the paramedics.

  "You know Saint Anne's on Beverly? You'll find him there. Ask for Father Luken," Sara said and the mother clasped her on the hand.

  "Thank you. Thank you so much," the mother said, tears springing into her eyes as the paramedics rushed to her side. Sara stood out of the way as they got to work, reviving the boy.

  A young cop came over to her.

  "Were you a witness to his collapse, Miss?" he asked in an accusatory tone, his notebook out. Cops always sounded as though you had done something wrong.

  "No. I heard a scream and came running out after the guard," she said, pointing to the guard talking to the other cop. "We're working on a film shoot. That house over there." She pointed behind her. "I was about to leave when we heard the screaming and rushed out here to help."

  "Is that it?" he asked, jotting down notes.

  "Yes," Sara said.

  "We will need your contact info for the report," he said and Sara nodded automatically.

  "Anything I can do to help," Sara said, her focus on Sam's face. He had finally come to, and his eyes were boring into hers. The apparitions came closer and closer to her. A chill ran down her spine and she knew right then they saw her for whom she was.

  3

  Father Johan Luken

  Father Johan Luken sat in the rectory of Saint Anne's and stared through the window at the empty parking lot. He needed to pick a suitable passage about anger for the midday mass homily, but he hadn't found it yet. He remembered a passage from Luke that he had loved when he was in seminary, but after spending the entire morning searching for it, he was convinced that he had only dreamt it.

  He sighed and closed the Bible in front of him. If he couldn't find a suitable reading, then maybe anger wasn't the way to go. He took a sip of his tea and stared back out at the parking lot.

  The heat waves spun and twisted right above the blacktop pavement on the sunny Los Angeles day. As a kid, he imagined those heat waves had to be what desert mirages looked like. He would lie down on the pavement and imagine the heat waves turning into a water oasis or a desert caravan. Johan smiled at the memory and turned back to his work feeling uplifted.

  He flipped the pages of his worn King James Bible searching for inspiration when he caught sight of a young woman pulling a small boy towards the rectory. He wasn't expecting any visitors today and the two altar boys for today's mass, weren't coming for at least another half hour. Betty, the rectory housekeeper, was the only one there today.

  Though he was waiting for it, the sharp buzz of the rectory doorbell made him jump in his seat. Betty clacked along the wooden floor to answer the front door and, happy for the diversion, he got up from his desk and tiptoed to the door.

  "May I help you?" Betty's singsong voice asked.

  "I was told I could find a Father Luken here?" The woman's voice had a hard to place accent. She had Germanic features, but the accent didn't sound like a German one.

  "You've come to the right place, but I'm afraid that Father Luken is occupied in preparation for the midday mass. Perhaps you could spe
ak with him afterward?" He had to hand it to Betty to try to come up with a solution on the spot.

  "I really need to see him." The woman's voice shifted an octave lower and Johan expected her to cry at any moment. His homily could wait, he thought and opened the door.

  "Hello, there. I'm Father Johan Luken." He strode over to the frightened woman and pumped her hand up and down. He noticed Betty's disapproving look and turned his back on her. She always knew when he struggled with his homilies. His guilty conscience got the better of him, and he gave her an apologetic shrug. The woman clearly needed him, and his homily would have to wait.

  "Would you like some tea, Mrs.?"

  "Caitlyn Rogers," she replied with a grateful smile. "This is my son, Sam." She pushed him forward a bit. The little boy stared up at him, and Johan stepped back in surprise. The eyes of an adult stared out of the little boy's face.

  "Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Rogers and Sam. Please join me in my sitting room." He recovered quickly and motioned to the open door. "Betty, could you prepare us some tea?"

  Her snort was barely audible, but he heard it nonetheless. "Of course, Father," she said and headed for the kitchen.

  * * *

  Once Mrs. Rogers and Sam were ensconced on his comfortable sofa with steaming tea, he got down to business.

  "What can I help you with, Mrs. Rogers?" he asked in a fatherly voice.

  "It's Sam. He's been having seizures and blackouts," she said and touched the small boy's head. "We've been to numerous doctors and, from all the tests that have been run, he's a healthy, six year old boy. In my country, when we've exhausted our medical options, our traditions..." She trailed off, biting her lip.

  "Where are you from?" Johan asked.

  "The Czech Republic. A small town across the border from Austria," she explained. "I am sure he is being, how do you say, haunted? I met a seer. In the old country, people who can see the dead are called seers," she offered in explanation. "And she told me about you."

  "What was the girl's name?" Johan asked, working hard to keep the smile off his face. It had to be her. She was the only one who knew what he really was.

  "Sara Caine," Mrs. Rogers said and noticed the change in his composure. "You know whom I'm speaking about, don't you?"

  He nodded. "Did she see anything?"

  Mrs. Rogers shook her head. "That's why she sent me to you. She witnessed his last seizure and said many entities were drawn to all the commotion, but none of them were close enough to be causing his spell," she said.

  "If she said she didn't see anyone then I doubt he's being haunted. I have the utmost trust in her abilities. She was a student of mine," he confessed.

  "Which is why I'm here. Could he be possessed? I haven't seen or smelled anything about him that could signal a demonic possession, but I felt that would be for you to say," Mrs. Rogers said matter-of-fact. Johan took a sip of tea and nodded. This was the first time that he'd had such an open conversation on phenomena that most people would have laughed at.

  Johan traveled to villages throughout Central Europe where the old customs lived comfortably next to science and technology and thought it was a healthier way to view the world. Science couldn't explain everything. Not yet, at least.

  "Have you had experience with possession?" he asked.

  "I've only been told of them. I have not witnessed such an event, but the seer in our town was very specific on the warning signs," she said.

  Johan nodded and focused his attention on Sam. "How old are you, Sam?"

  "I'm six," the boy answered in a confident voice.

  "Have you been having nightmares?"

  "Yes."

  "Has he been having night incidents?" Johan directed the question at Mrs. Rogers. She shook her head.

  "Do you remember when you get sick, Sam?"

  "No. It's like falling asleep. I'm awake, and then there is nothing, like when I sleep, then I wake up again," he explained. Johan cocked his head at the boy's sentence structure and sophisticated thought pattern.

  "Has he had an IQ test at school?" Johan asked her.

  "So you hear it too?"

  "He's quite advanced for a six year old."

  "That's what his teachers have intimated as well. His IQ test came back at 142, which is high but not high enough for his maturity level. I'll be speaking with him, and he sounds like a grown man. Have you heard demons causing that? He's not become foulmouthed or rude; it's the knowledge he has at his age. The seizures are frightening, but that aspect is more unsettling to me," she said. Johan noticed her shaking hands and nodded.

  "Sam, would you mind if I put my hands on your head?" Johan asked. Sam shrugged. "Here I go," he said and lay his hands on the boy's blond head. Johan closed his eyes and opened his mind.

  The demons typically presented themselves immediately. They loved making contact with priests and couldn't wait to show off. His mind searched for the tell-tale signs: the dark aura around the person, the smell of something burning, the feel of something ancient. The feel of a demon was hard to describe but once a cleaner made first contact with such an entity, he never forgot the sensation.

  He took his hands off the boy's head. "I'm not finding any demonic entities in or around your boy," he said and saw tears in Mrs. Roger's eyes. "I'd think that would be a relief. I've only been able to banish half of the demons I've come across. It's better to keep searching for the cause of his unusual symptoms then having it be a demon. Trust me." By the look she gave him, he knew his words provided her some relief.

  "What else do you think it could be?" she asked, clutching her son tightly to her.

  "I have some ideas, but I need to speak with Sara Caine first. Once we've discussed your situation, I could get back to you? What's the best way I could reach you?"

  "My number is 310-222-3526. That's my home number. If I'm not home you can call Lincoln Boulevard Emergency Care. I work the front desk." She fumbled through her purse and found a card. "Here's the number," she said and handed it to him. "If I'm not home, I'm there."

  Johan wrote down her number right underneath his failed sermon notes. "I'll contact her right after my noon mass. I know how much you want to resolve this."

  "Thank you so much for helping me. I have to admit..." She paused. "My meeting with Ms. Caine was not a positive one. When I told her I knew she was a seer, she wanted nothing to do with us. She ran away," she said with an arched eyebrow. "I have never seen a seer react like that. In my community, they are revered. The seers take their talent as a gift, not to be wasted," she said, her face unreadable.

  "Ms. Caine has had a difficult time coming to terms with her talent. The old beliefs are derided here, and the gifts are viewed with suspicion."

  Mrs. Rogers nodded at that. "I hadn't thought of it that way. Poor girl," she said. Johan checked the time and realized Mass was starting in ten minutes.

  "I hate to cut this short, but I have a mass to attend to. Will you be joining us today?"

  Mrs. Rogers got up, pulling Sam up with her. "Thank you for taking the time. I can't tell you have relieved you've made me," she said and extended her hand.

  "It was a pleasure meeting you both." He smiled, shaking it. He tousled Sam's hair and with one last goodbye, they left. The moment they were gone, Johan grabbed the phone on his desk and dialed Sara's number. As expected, he got her answering machine.

  "Sara, it's Father Luken. I'm so pleased you sent Mrs. Rogers my way. We need to meet, and today. Please call me back. I'll leave the entire day open for you and will stay at the rectory. Please, Sara, call me back," he said and hung up.

  His eye caught Mrs. Rogers crossing the parking lot with Sam, who kept turning around and looking back at his study window. His gaze was so unsettling that Johan looked away. If he was right in his diagnosis, then this was the first time he'd seen this phenomenon. The implications of it were tremendous, he thought to himself.

  He smiled as a new homily took shape. The theme would be death, and the afterlife, and he knew
the perfect reading.

  4

  Old Friends

  Sara Caine took another swig of her Jack & Coke and flipped the channel to KTLA. At this time of the night, the channel played old reruns of The Jerry Springer Show. Its trashiness was perfect for the mood she was in. She was well into her third glass, and the liquor gave her the welcoming warmth of oblivion. She melted into the sofa and watched as a woman confronted her cheating husband. She knew the other woman must be somewhere offstage ready to present herself to the wife and the audience. As Sara expected, the bottle blond teenager stepped onto the stage and the middle-aged wife threw herself at her.

  Sara smiled and wondered how much of this was staged. Her cellphone buzzed just as the hair pulling on TV started. She checked its screen and saw the caller was Father Johan. She put the phone down again without answering and hoped he'd leave her alone. She polished off the drink and got up to make herself another one when she heard the knock on the door.

  She froze. It was him. It had to be.

  The knocks turned into bangs. "I know you're in there, Sara. Let me in," he yelled from behind the thin door.

  "Leave me alone, Father," she hissed back at him, her voice slurring.

  "You're drunk," he said through the door. She became enraged, stalked to the door and threw it open.

  "What the fuck do you care? Why are you here? When someone ignores your calls, you do realize they don't want to talk to you, don't you?" she yelled. He pushed past her into the living room, and she realized she'd been duped.

  "Close the door, Sara," he said in a tight voice. "I didn't come here to fight. Just to talk."

  "What if I want to fight?" she said and closed the door anyway. Her anger drained away and left her exhausted. She put the empty glass on the end table and sat back down on the couch. Feeling childish, she crossed her arms and waited for him to speak.