Welcome to Witchlandia

by Steven Popkes

  “But you knew about Misty, didn’t you?” asked Dooley.

  Miegle nodded. “As part of my nature I could detect all four of them.”

  “So you released David knowing he had something like that in him?”

  “No. After Misty helped David remove the other intelligences she managed to make herself undetectable. We accepted David’s statement that he had removed them all. After that, he improved markedly. There was no reason not to release him.”

  “You didn’t tell Eli about Misty?” I asked.

  “No. He knows now, of course.”

  “Why not?” Dooley said idly, as if he were finishing off a list of questions on a checklist.

  “It wasn’t germane.”

  “Martin?”

  He turned to me, his face quizzical and without any real feeling at all. “Yes?”

  “What is Misty?”

  “Like all of us, she is a self-organizing assembly of quantum Toffoli Gates in an unknown configuration.”

  There was a deep and sudden silence.

  Dooley said, “I was sure you were going to say ‘black lectroids escaped from the eighth dimension.’”

  Martin said, “I don’t understand.” I just stared at Dooley.

  “Come on! Another perfectly good movie reference just wasted on you guys.” Dooley threw up his hands.

  We continued to stare at him.

  “All right,” he grumbled. “Dr. Miegle—”

  “Just Martin. I don’t have any advanced degrees.”

  “—Martin, then. Here’s what we know.” Dooley walked Miegle through the entire set of murders, Dooley’s own possession, Katelin’s escape.

  I added my own embarrassing history.

  “What do you see that we don’t?” Dooley finished.

  “Interesting,” said Miegle. “All of the subjects—Officer Dooley included—have high paranormal potential. That is probably why they were chosen as subjects. I have never forcibly entered a host. Nor have I ever entered a child, so my experience here is limited. However, it is clear each murder served at least two purposes.”

  “Which are?” I prompted.

  “The first is clear: to cover the tracks of what is happening. Clearly, Misty didn’t want her activities traced before she was ready. She needed time to prepare the next vessel for entry. Both religion and tragedy can make a subject open to suggestion. In the case of Wallace and Rabbitt, the preparation appeared to be largely religious. The murder of Sean Gifford is what prepared Loquess. Are you religious, Officer Dooley?”

  Dooley looked uncomfortable. “A bit.”

  Miegle nodded. “But not in the same vein as Wallace and Rabbitt. Any recent tragedies?”

  “No.”

  “Interesting. I don’t know Misty’s constraints. Perhaps she didn’t need to occupy you for long and that made it easier. Or you might have an easier accessibility than some others and require less energy. Or by that point she had become strong enough to force herself on you. But I knew Katelin, and she was emphatically not religious nor particularly susceptible to suggestion. Hence, the use of the murder of Sean Gifford as a tool, a shock, to open Loquess sufficiently for Misty to gain entry.”

  “She tried to force herself into me,” I said.

  Dooley looked at me. “What happened?”

  “I didn’t let her.”

  “Neat trick,” said Dooley. “Wish I knew it.”

  “If I knew how I’d tell you,” I said. To Miegle: “Why the hell is all of this happening?”

  “For you, David,” Miegle said mildly. “She wants to get back inside of you.”

  “What’s special about me?”

  Martin looked at me for a moment without speaking. “Isn’t it obvious? You created her. You created all four of them.”

  oOo

  I stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

  Martin stared back. “I don’t do that sort of thing. I never learned the knack.”

  “I created all four of them?”

  “I think so, yes. My model of these entities is of self-organizing Toffoli Gates, as I mentioned before. But the energetics are incorrect. Once the gates are organized they can stay organized—and grow or change. But the model denies the possibility of that organization coming spontaneously into existence. For a long time I thought the flaw was in the model. I couldn’t recall my own creation so I had no empirical evidence of how initial self-assembly occurred. Then, we met David.” He nodded towards me. “Few can contain more than one parasitic intelligence, much less four. I concluded my model was correct but incomplete—it described the existence of the intelligences, either hosted or free living, but it could not in and of itself describe initial conditions and assembly. I’ve been working on extending the model for the last ten years—with some success.”

  I stared at him. I didn’t know what to say.

  He continued in his dry voice, showing what for him passed as excitement. “Consider these facts. The mere occupation of a vessel requires energy on the part of the vessel.” Miegle gestured to himself. “Eli Boor is fairly well adapted to being inhabited by me. Even so, it causes significant stress. He requires heart medication, a strict diet and at the same time a significant food uptake. Look what it did to Tim Rabbitt. Officer Dooley said it had a similar effect on him after barely a day. David, however, managed to house four intelligences at the same time without significantly increasing his energy expenditure. Looking at Wallace’s scores, he may have had an even better ability to house an intelligence but created none. It also happened to make him psychotic—though it’s possible Misty did that for her own purposes. David was never crazy even sharing his brain with four other people.”

  “Will I make any more?” I felt numb. If I had inadvertently created Misty, I was responsible for everything that happened. I was the alcohol in a drunk driver. I was the car. I was the enabler.

  Martin shrugged. “As far as we can tell, you haven’t. Eli has speculated that the creation of intelligences occurs during specific stages in childhood neural development—specifically when the neural pruning occurs around ages three and six. They grow from there.”

  “I did it to myself.” And to Katelin.

  Dooley leaned back. “You realize this changes everything.”

  Martin turned towards him. “How so?”

  “Ever since the public first heard about paranormal abilities, they’ve been constrained to the physical world. Fire. Movement. Energy. That sort of thing.” He pointed to Martin and then at me. “But now you’ve opened the box. Now we have evil spirits—”

  “Come now, Officer Dooley!”

  “—telepathy.” He spread his hands. “Ghosts. What’s next? Past lives? Prognostication? Reincarnation? Werewolves? Vampires?”

  “We’re hardly spirits.”

  “Disembodied beings with the ability to take control of the living. Sounds like demonic possession to me.”

  “Hardly scientific—”

  Dooley shook his head. “Americans have, at best, an uneasy relationship with science. Until now, they’ve had an uncomfortable relationship with the paranormal that was enabled only by science telling them constantly how normal and explainable the paranormal was. ‘Everything is explained by science. It’s just that we don’t have all the science.’”

  “That’s true.”

  “Now we find out that not only was science wrong, it lied to us. How’s that going to play?”

  Martin didn’t say anything for a long moment.

  oOo

  “I believe Misty is looking for a permanent host,” Martin said suddenly. “A free living… spirit—” he nodded towards Dooley “—has a rough life. Misty is quite a powerful entity as we have seen. It’s quite possible that only someone with an equal aptitude—such as David—can house her without injury.”

  “Let’s line it up,” Dooley began. “David creates these parasites when he’s a kid. He gets picked up by the police. Natick Labs is trolling for things like this and realize what’s
happened. Boor contacts David and manages to get him committed to McLean’s instead of Roslindale where he, and the Army, can watch him. But it’s not clear if David has MPD or parasites. That’s the way of things for a while. David begets Misty—a super parasite. She knows more than the others. One of the things she knows is how to get rid of parasites. This is something she teaches David. David dumps his earlier parasites and keeps Misty. One of the other things Misty knows is how to lay low. She does and Boor and Miegle decide David’s a dud and let him go.”

  “She taught me the piano,” I said.

  “And she teaches him the piano. In the annals of the miserable earth her efforts are duly enshrined.” Dooley looked at us for a moment, then shrugged. “Time passes. David keeps Misty, thinking she’s just a personality and he’s just sick. He gets famous. Misty just hangs around—what does Misty want, Martin?”

  Miegle shrugged. “I have no idea. Long life. Wealth. Happiness. Reproduction.”

  “These things can reproduce?” Dooley said, aghast.

  Martin shook his head. “You must comprehend this about our understanding: we were wrong. I can’t reproduce. No other intelligence I know can. But Misty is something different. She knows things. She has capabilities. Perhaps reproduction is among them.”

  “Now that’s a nightmare I’d rather not see,” Dooley said dryly. “To continue: David meets Katelin and falls in love. He dumps Misty. He gets together with Katelin. They live happily for a while, split up. Katelin becomes a drunk and David a pervert.”

  “Hey!” I yell. Dooley looked at me and I didn’t say anything more.

  Dooley went on. “Meanwhile, Misty floats around and hooks up with William Wallace—which drives him over the edge. Or she drives him over the edge on purpose—since religion seems to have some enabling effect. Wallace and Misty move to Boston. They follow Katelin around for years making their plans. They hook up with Rabbitt and convert him to a more intense form of Christianity—religion again. They start up Where’s Katelin to drag in David. They milk Rabbitt’s church and sock away the money to a place only they know about it. Then, when the time is right, Misty bails on Wallace in a series of murders that are intended to ultimately snare David. Am I right so far?”

  Miegle nodded. “I think this is supportable.”

  “But David’s not so snareable. Turns out David has a trick up his sleeve: he can’t be forced. Misty tries twice and fails twice. What’s she going to do now?”

  Miegle considered for a moment. “If David can’t be a host, she’ll have to find another one or perhaps try to make do with Katelin. I expect that won’t last long. Katelin’s not talented in that area. I would expect being occupied by Misty is taking a great toll on her.”

  “How long does Katelin have?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

  Miegle shrugged. “She has a strong talent for the paranormal as expressed in flight. So her ability to channel energy is good. How much of that talent Misty can repurpose to maintaining herself is an unknown. A week? Two weeks? Two years? I have no suppositions.”

  Dooley glanced at me, looked down at the table, looked back at me. “Wallace lasted two years and looked fine. Rabbitt looked like he’d been ridden hard and put away wet. How did Katelin look when you saw her?”

  “Tired,” I said. “Thin.”

  “It’s only been two days.”

  “Two and a half.”

  “Fair enough.” Dooley nodded. “I held her that long. I’m fine.”

  “It’s not the same thing at all,” Martin said. “From what you’ve told me, you, Wallace and Rabbitt just housed her. But Misty is using Katelin, not just residing there. She’s using Katelin’s talent to fly. Whatever the base cost of Misty occupying Katelin it must be considerably less than Misty occupying Katelin, and flying her all over the city.”

  “Yeah,” said Dooley, giving Martin a sour look. “Thanks for pointing that out.” He thought for a moment. “Wait a minute. Something’s not right.” He pointed at Martin. “You let David go because you thought he was a dud. But you also said you had modified your model based on what you’d learned from David. You can’t have it both ways. Something happened.”

  The shift in Martin’s face happened again and Eli was watching us. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, he leaned his elbows on the table. “We found Gerald, Amanda and Donald. That’s what happened.”

  “Where are they?” I asked.

  Eli grinned and rubbed his hands. “We have them.”

  “Who is ‘we’?” Dooley asked.

  Eli looked at him with a smile. “U.S. Army Laboratories in Natick, of course.”

  oOo

  “You knew what was going on after all this time?” I half rose. “I thought I was crazy all these years and you knew I wasn’t and didn’t tell me? God damn you!”

  “It wasn’t that simple,” Eli conceded. “We figured things out later. Gerald came sniffing around Salem a few years after you left town. You were in France. Once we found him, it wasn’t hard to find the other two. They were happy to be found.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You seemed well enough. We didn’t know about Misty—for all we knew you were happy and whole. Why change things?”

  “I don’t believe this.” I was never crazy. Everything I had known about myself was a lie. All those times with Katelin, holding it together, trying to make her feel loved even when she was slipping away from me, trying so hard because I knew I was damaged goods. I knew that it was only a matter of time before something else in my brain would go wrong.

  “Would you like to meet them?”

  “Let’s think on this,” Dooley muttered. “Meet the ghosts David created that possessed him as a little kid. How about no?”

  I didn’t move. I felt like I’d be betraying myself if I did. “I’m surprised you’re not blown up, set on fire or killed yourself.”

  Eli chuckled. “They’re better adjusted now.”

  Dooley turned to me. “You’re not considering this, are you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said as honestly as I could. “Maybe they could tell us how to get rid of Misty. If Misty can’t get in me, what could they do?”

  “Gang up on you for one. Make you do what they want.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Misty never made me do anything. She just told me what I should do. Like any kid, I did what the adult told me to do. If she couldn’t force me to do something I don’t think these others stand much chance.”

  “Like I said: we’re in new territory.”

  I shrugged. “We’re taking a risk.”

  “Do we have to go to Natick?” Dooley demanded of Eli.

  “Oh, no,” Eli said, rubbing his hands. “They’re at my house. I had the Army bring them.”

  Dooley sighed and pointed a lazy finger at Eli. “You do know your house is being watched.”

  “Not anymore. Being connected to the Army has its perks. If everything went according to plan, my boss spoke to his boss who spoke to his boss, who spoke all the way downhill to your boss. I expect all of the surveillance has been pulled.”

  Dooley leaned against the hull and just looked tired. “Had we known that, none of this crap would have been necessary.”

  Eli smiled sweetly. “My heart bleeds for you, Officer Dooley.”

  Chapter 3.6: Sunday Morning, October 31

  The show goes on.

  Joey’s permit expired at midnight so we hauled up anchor at eleven and steamed over to the Salem docks. Dooley tied us off and together we put down the gangplank.

  Joey came down from the wheelhouse and watched as we shepherded the few guests besides ourselves that were disembarking here. Then, he shook my hand.

  “Let me know how this turns out,” he said, gripping hard with twenty years of handling nets. “And don’t be such a stranger. You’re a lot more likeable since you grew up.”

  “You, too.” I grinned and gripped back. Twenty years of six hours a day practi
ce made it no contest.

  He yelped and pulled back his hand, laughing.

  Eli had a car waiting for us. It was, not surprisingly, big and black and driven by someone in uniform.

  “I didn’t know you were this important,” I said as we got in.

  “It’s for Martin,” he said. “He likes the show.”

  Eli’s house was only a few blocks away and we were in the car, down the street and out again too quick to notice. Then, inside the house I’d known so well. In the main foyer—the big staircase in the front, the white banister across the second floor above us, through the hall and in front of the study. The doors were closed. I stood in front of them, unmoving.

  “Go on in, David,” said Eli gently.

  I could hear them muttering—no. Not hear, exactly. Feel them? Smell them?

  I opened the door and stepped inside.

  Two attendants were playing on the floor with a middle-aged woman, her mouth open and drooling. An old man stood at the window, the right side of his face, his right arm and leg, all slack as he leaned against a chair, watching us enter. A young boy, a grotesque scar on the side of his head, sat on a chair, rocking, his hands clasped tightly around his knees, his eyes screwed tightly shut.

  Eli touched me gently on the elbow. “Can you see them?”

  And it was like suddenly recognizing a figure in a painting or seeing the design crystallize out of a mosaic.

  Gerald was leaning against the chair, his right side slack. Amanda looked up from the game she was playing. Donald was watching me even though the boy’s eyes were so tightly shut.

  I saw them in spite of the bodies they wore.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” slurred Gerald. Amanda grunted but Donald clearly said “Hello”.

  “What happened to them?” Dooley asked.

  “Mrs. Burgess was in a persistent vegetative state when we found Amanda. Mr. Shale was in a stroke-induced coma. Billy shot himself playing with a gun. They were all permanently damaged. Brain dead, as it were.” He glanced at me. “You didn’t think we’d use real, living people, did you?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know what to expect.”

  “Well, not Night of the Living Dead,” said Dooley softly. “That’s for sure.”