“Precognition.”
“Exactly. Exactly. What do you think? We could make a fortune.”
Brendan shrugged. Brendan the banana, Brendan the freak. Guessing the lottery number. The inanity of it: Malachi obsessed with money and babbling about it into his ear while Brendan sits obsessed by some pursuing demon.
“Money,” Malachi said into his stout, “answers everything.”
He’d lost his rabbit hole: Uncle Malachi couldn’t help him—couldn’t even understand him. Who else—what else—could aid him in his battle with a demon? Now there was truly no place to hide.
Sunlight made him hesitate: During daylight hours and in the mundane streets, the supernatural seemed a mental aberration to him. Demons didn’t thrive when the sun was shining. But then he would have a dream or a premonition that would leave him terrified. He had to find help somewhere.
To complicate his problem, he was in love with Anne O’Casey. He wrote her name everywhere on the margins of his lecture notes. He stared after girls whose hair was the same color. He gazed at wedding ring displays in jewelry store windows. Whenever he was to see her, he would arrive far too early and then wander the streets to kill time.
But he couldn’t consider himself a serious suitor. He was facing a terrible fate, who knew when? He couldn’t ask Anne to share that with him. She should find another to marry—not a freak. He decided to break off with her. It was too selfish of him to keep up the friendship. So for a long period he tried to avoid her. Yet whenever she called him, he always went and grinned like an ape when he saw her.
He yearned to hold her just once, to touch her hair, to feel her in his arms, to enwrap her warmth and softness. He knew she wanted him to; her fondness for him was obvious. If he proposed marriage, she would accept instantly. And he ached to marry her.
One Saturday he agreed to meet her in the Citicorp building, where they stuffed themselves with French pastry and hot chocolate before going off to a movie.
It was uncanny to him how she understood; there was a line neither of them crossed. If their hands touched, if he brushed her thigh, if their eyes met with too much frankness, they both retreated into light banter. Thin, worn Alphonse and Gaston jokes. It kept a cordon sanitaire between them.
“How’s business?” she’d ask him when she found him staring at her, over the hot chocolate.
“Sales are off. No one buys buggy whips anymore.”
“You need a new line.”
“Like what?” he’d ask.
She’d shrug. “Horse collars. Looks like they’re here to stay, don’t you think?” And they’d smirk and giggle at each other and avoid the real subject between them.
It was the memories of her that would be most difficult to live with. During rehearsal for a cousin’s wedding she put on the bridal veil.
“You’ll make a beautiful bride,” he blurted.
“When?” she asked softly. And she waited for an answer. She watched his face redden. Then she lifted the veil and turned the joke. “It’s not for me, sport. Can’t smoke my cigars under all that damned lace.”
They went to a Davitt christening and she held the baby and smiled radiantly at him. At another family gathering out on Long Island she came closest to raising the forbidden subject. She proclaimed National Reincarnation Day and required everyone to select a new identity in a future rebirth.
At the height of the hilarity, one cousin seemed to have won the palm by saying she wanted to be reincarnated as the world’s most pampered creature, the dog in her family’s home.
Anne stole the prize, though, when she said she wanted to come back as Mrs. Brendan Davitt, then turned the joke by saying, “because it won’t happen in this lifetime.” Everyone pointedly applauded.
He ached when he watched her. She had a fine carriage with long legs and a long neck that gave her ineffable grace. “A smashing girl,” an uncle said. The family considered them engaged.
How could he not see her anymore? He cast about in his mind for some other source of help with his problem.
There was only one other mortal Brendan could turn to: his confessor, Father Breen.
This was his last hope and he was doubtful of it. For all the man’s ecclesiastical saturation, Father Breen, Brendan felt, was a profound skeptic. There was enough evil stored up in the hearts of men without blaming a legion of imaginary underworld creatures drawn from an early Christian mythology. Brendan sensed that Father Breen really didn’t believe that Satan existed.
He delayed a long time before seeing the priest. This was his last sanctuary: He dreaded to lose it. The autumn had worn into winter before anxiety and a need to have done with it all drove Brendan to Father Breen’s office.
The priest had recently been ill. There had been an operation and he was still gaunt and slow-moving. The care of his parish had pressed deep lines in his face. The church was in disrepair; it needed a new roof. And do you know how expensive slate is? And the heating system and—well, it’s an endless tale, Brendan. How can I help you?
Brendan began to tell him—a small piece at a time. He told the priest things he’d never told him in confession, things he’d never told another mortal. And the priest’s eyebrows kept rising to meet his receding hairline. Indeed. I see. And then what? I see. Imagine. Go on.
Brendan never managed to tell him the whole story. The old priest was too stunned with the little bit he’d heard. Father Breen got up and paced along the long-worn carpeting of his floor. He stood at his casement window and looked out at the distant church spire of the Episcopal Church, then at the people in the street hurrying through the cold. He came back to his battered oak desk and drummed his fingers lightly on it and said:
“Let me sleep on this. I’ll call you.” And he led Brendan by the arm to his door.
“How old are you now, Brendan?”
“Eighteen.”
A few days later, after dinner, his aunt sat with her hands in her lap. “I have to talk to you,” she said.
There was a ship loading down on the pier under arc lights in a high wind and the ship’s horn had sounded. Something was going on in one of the holds and the horn was like a warning.
She drew in her breath. “Have you been talking to Father Breen lately?”
“Yes.”
“He spoke to me. He’s very fond of you. He feels in a way like a substitute father to you.”
He knew what she was going to say, could in fact see and hear Father Breen saying, “The boy is deeply disturbed and needs psychiatric counseling immediately.”
Brendan, the banana, should be caged.
And in his mind another great door slammed next to the one marked MALACHI DAVITT, PRIVATE. This door said, R.C.C. MASSES SUNDAY 6:15, 7, 8, 9, 10:30 AND 12:15. ALL WELCOME. Bang went the carved oak portal.
Now there was no one he could talk to. He was worse off than before, more completely isolated than ever.
A seething anger began to grow. Somehow he would find a way to fight this demon his nightmares. And he would hack it to pieces. His fantasies were becoming obsessive visions of himself butchering a horned devil. Over and over. He would conquer it and marry Anne. Somehow.
Brendan was taking a laboratory course in psychology. The instructor discussed the anatomy of the human brain and the body, and the various theories of human mind, genes, personality and character.
He brought in a strange-looking camera one day. Kirlian photography, he called it. To take photographs of the human auras. “We all have auras,” he said, “and the Russians claim they can read character in the colors.” He took photographs of the fourteen students with the Kirlian camera.
“Irascible,” he said, looking at one student’s aura. The rest of the class laughed.
“You don’t need a camera to find that out,” a girl said.
“Placid,” the instructor said, holding up another photo. And for another; “Nervous.” And “Competitive. And this one is very warm and loving.” The class applauded the girl and she took
a blushing bow.
“Fanatical,” the instructor went on. “And this one—hmmmm.” He looked at Brendan. “Never saw anything like this one before. It’s shot with purple. See? Wide streaks of purple. Mind if I keep this?”
Brendan shook his head. Purple. His father had said that. Purple. So had the monk on horseback.
The hawk rode the air currents of early winter down through the mountains of New England, its hills and ski slopes already deep in snow, then down the Connecticut River with its many frozen tributaries and on to New York City.
And, as always, she circled over the city a number of times, conscious of the unusual faint emanation. More than once her shadow had passed directly over Brendan’s house. And this time she felt that the emanations were stronger than ever. Possibly the next time. … She wheeled off southwestward to pick up the convection currents over Pennsylvania.
Brendan had begun to set his mind along a forbidden path. If there was no help for him from his family or his church, was there help from the occult world?
More than once he’d heard Aunt Maeve’s friends in her kitchen of an evening talking about Mrs. Dunning. Roberta Dunning. They said that she’d held séances for years in her home, a little row house off Grace Court Alley, with her husband and an old woman named Mrs. Tinsman. They called Mrs. Tinsman Miss Mouse, she was so small and frail and had such wee little hands just like a mouse’s paw.
Aunt Maeve’s good friend Grace Smiley lived not two doors away from the Dunnings, and she never tired of telling about the night that Mr. Dunning disappeared.
“Such shouting and bumping and crashes and broken glass you never heard,” she was wont to say. And each time she told the tale, the others would question her meticulously with fresh awe.
“Séances,” she would say. “Demon worship, it was a whatchamecallit—a coven. A proper witch’s coven. They said that Dunning woman had crossed over, whatever that means.” And the others would quickly explain again to each other that crossing over was supposed to mean going into the spirit world. Through mirrors, they all believed.
Whatever it really meant, Mr. Dunning disappeared the night of the great rumpus in his house and never came back. One of those halfhearted police investigations came to nothing.
“If you ask me, she killed him and buried him in the cellar,” Mrs. Smiley would opine, and clap her teacup into her saucer with the finality of a door closing.
At first, Brendan simply strolled past the Dunning house on his various errands to eye it speculatively. Several times he stood in a doorway across the way and studied the building. It stood in an old cobbled lane barely wide enough for an automobile. A small structure, three stories high, it was a brick house with white marble windowsills and steps but it was neatly cared for with freshly pointed bricks. There were brass fittings on the black-patent door and brass finials on the wrought-iron step railing. The windows had crisp curtains, Queen Anne or Colonial checks, and hanging plants. There was certainly nothing sinister about its appearance.
But there never seemed to be anyone at home during the day. Brendan wondered if Mrs. Dunning worked. And usually most evenings there were no lights at all.
The first time he saw her was on a Saturday morning. Mrs. Dunning came swinging down the street with a heavy shopping bag stuffed with parcels. She took inordinately long strides and held her head high as a goose. But what made her noteworthy was her dress: She wore black—black cape, black stockings and shoes, black pleated wool skirt and a black hat. The hat was almost a bonnet. The only variation was her gloves. They were white.
Brendan watched her enter her house. He couldn’t speak to her: He couldn’t blurt out nonsense. “Would you help me fight a demon?” Terrific. How about “There’s this demon after me—”? Indeed, he wasn’t sure he wanted to speak to her at all. Maybe she was one of Them. On reflection, he usually decided that he was best off just leaving her alone with her murdered husband’s corpse in the cellar and a houseful of baleful spirits.
But then Anne would change his mind again. When he was near her, he yearned for a normal life—a career, a home, a wedding, children.
Anne said she was fat.
“I like you just the way you are,” he said.
“Now, Brendan, a model I’m not. Too big in the bust, too wide in the hips, built for breeding, and ample in the flesh. I’m just an everyday girl. I’m going to have to make it on brains and dieting. You know what’s the worst thing about dieting?”
“Yes.” Brendan said. “The worst thing about dieting is discovering you don’t need it.”
“Dieting is like fighting the sands of the desert. All victories are temporary and there’s never any cessation of hostilities.”
He wanted to say more, that he thought she had a wonderful figure with long beautiful legs, that he didn’t want to hug a skeleton, that he could shut his eyes and see every detail of her merry face. Then he’d realize anew he couldn’t. He had no claims on her and it was only by an effort of will that he kept himself from taking her in his arms and kissing her.
One evening in her home he spent the whole time in her darkroom, helping her develop photographs for a photography school project. They stood side by side, transferring the prints from one stage to another. She often touched his hand, they often bumped their hips, they often bent over almost cheek to cheek and he felt her soft hair touching his face. It was too much. He left early and on the subway home composed a farewell letter to her. When he got home, he wrote it out.
As if to confirm his decision he had another premonition. His visions were occurring more frequently now. And this one was particularly frightening.
He was on a raft with no rudder, no sweep or oar. And the raft was caught in a rapid current, floating into great darkness. From the water rose a towering goat figure with a black goat’s face and mad, burning green eyes. It waited for the raft to float up to it. So huge was the demon, it would be able to crush Brendan and the raft in one hand. In his dream Brendan searched for a weapon. But there was none. Then the demon bellowed—a terrible deafening shout—as it reached for the raft. Brendan woke soaked with sweat.
He lay staring at his ceiling in misery. He could not go on living like this.
With a prospect like that who could consider love, marriage, babies? He brooded that whole day on finding a way to fight this looming demon. He was filled with anger, eager to kill the thing. And frightened by it too. In some way, the whole confrontation was predicated in the word purple. That is what his father had said as he had clambered into the carriage. Purple. He could see his father mouthing the word. Purple. Purple what?
In the morning—it was a Saturday—he wrote another draft. But he threw it away. The thought of not seeing her anymore filled him with such sadness, he couldn’t bring himself to write the letter. He went for a walk along the docks. If only he could get shut of this demon business, what a wonderful life he could have with Anne.
He found himself walking by the Dunning house. The weather was thickening. The forecast was for snow. And under a grim black sky, a harbor breeze was sliding through the streets, chilling his ankles.
He saw Mrs. Dunning coming down the street with the same purposeful, ground-gainer’s stride, head high in the breeze, all in black, flashing her white gloves as she carried a few parcels in her shopping bag. Could she help him?
If there was no help for him in the mortal world, was there help in the spirit world? Was there some shade or wraith or ghost who could tell him how to fight this demon who tormented his dreams? Could Mrs. Dunning help him cross over into the spirit world? He was becoming more sure every day that the attack from the demon was not far off. He felt he had to do something soon.
He watched her enter her house. With sudden resolution he went up the three steps, and ignoring the heavy brass knocker, rapped on the door with his knuckle. The door opened a few inches. “Hello,” he called through the crack. He knocked again and the door swung almost completely open.
It was like a ban
dbox inside. Aunt Maeve would have loved it. A striking Oriental rug on the floor ran the length of the hall. Beside it a carved walnut staircase rose to the upper floor. At the back he could see a kitchen filled with plants. A handsome grandfather clock stood against the wall.
“Hello,” he called again. “Anybody home?” He stood by the newel-post. Then the hallway went dark as the door shut behind him. Mrs. Dunning stood with her back to it, her eyes fixed severely on him. She had very thick dark eyebrows and fierce eyes.
“Now. Young man. Explain yourself.”
It rolled off her in waves: a bottomless sea of loneliness. And there was mixed with it a crosscurrent of rage.
“I’ve seen you looking at my house for days,” she insisted. “What do you want?”
“That was very foolish of you to shut that door,” Brendan said.
“Are you trying to frighten me, young man? Maybe you’re the one who should be frightened.”
“I came to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“Crossing over.”
She stepped closer and peered at his face. “I think you’d better explain that.”
She kept him standing in the hallway, letting him talk, while she continued to block the door. Unlike Father Breen, she showed not the slightest trace of skepticism. She believed every word and in fact writhed with pain as he explained his plight.
“Oh, I can’t help you, Brendan Davitt.” She pulled her front door open. “No one can help you. You’ll have to fight it out by yourself. Please go quickly.”
He nodded in acquiescence and stepped past her. “Maybe you have some suggestions.”
“No, no. I can’t help.” She was watching his feet, waiting to shut the door.
“Your loneliness is very painful,” he said.
“Oh, please.” She pushed his shoulder. “I no longer have the strength to do what it would take to help you. Forgive me.”
He was getting the waves of emotion sorted out. The great loneliness was coming directly from her, but the anger—blood-red anger, a homicidal fury—was coming from the house itself. As though the walls were running with blood.
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