by Lincoln Cole
Niccolo smiled. “I’d hoped you would ask.”
“Great. I’m going out, so I can drop you off somewhere. Would you like to wait here or at your hotel?”
“The hotel would be marvelous.”
◆◆◆
Once he had made it back to his room, Niccolo took some time to pray. He knelt in the corner of his room—the cleanest one he could find—and beseeched the Lord for guidance.
The tape Jackson had shown him had bothered him quite a bit more than he had felt willing to let on while he talked with the young priest. He had seen many such videos in the past, mostly at the Vatican, but never quite like this. Jackson had faced off against a deranged woman, and something about her demeanor left Niccolo feeling anxious and scared.
A vast difference lay between a real situation and a Vatican tape. The tape had shown Jackson, a real person that Niccolo had met, speaking to a real member of his congregation, and something about that made it all the more visceral.
For definite, though, it didn’t mean demonic possession. It just meant something had gone terribly and horribly wrong with the woman. Jackson had never studied to become an exorcist, which meant he had no idea how to deal with such a situation.
Niccolo had spent his entire life studying and learning about demonology and possession, but never once had he seen an exorcism in person. Everything came from a second-hand account, and if this were a demon, then Jackson already had more experience with the real thing than Niccolo.
That, however, seemed an unlikely situation. Demons, if they existed at all, proved incredibly rare and never showed up without a purpose. What purpose could one possibly have out here in the small town of Everett, Washington?
No, it seemed much more likely that the tape just showed a struggling woman dealing with a difficult situation in her life and nothing more.
At least, Niccolo chose to tell himself that as he knelt in his room and prayed for guidance. This just came down to a woman seeking help and guidance.
◆◆◆
Father Reynolds called a short while later to say that he was running late and would come back to pick him up in another hour. Niccolo had grown hungry again and headed out in search of food. The part of town he stayed in seemed empty, though, and after some time walking, he found himself back at the corner diner to which Father Reynolds had taken him.
He didn’t know the town well enough to search out any other options and felt too tired and hungry to continue exploring. The breakfast had proven acceptable, and he hoped for a repeat with his late lunch.
Patty remained on shift when he got there, and she remembered him from a few hours earlier. She smiled at him as she stepped out from behind the counter.
“Just you, Father?”
“Yes, thank you.”
She seated him next to a window at a two-top table, and then disappeared back into the kitchen. He watched her go, and then turned to the menu she had dropped in front of him. This one looked different from the morning and had hundreds of options listed out. Only a few of them sounded appetizing. He stared at the menu, trying to decide what sounded good.
Or, if not good, then at the least, not disgusting.
He wished himself back home in Italy where he could have some simple street food with his friends. Oh, to have a nice bowl of soup and a salad, neither of which appeared on Patty’s overloaded menu. Instead, everything looked deep fried.
In the end, he opted for a sandwich and cup of tea, careful to make sure she heard him this time, not wanting another cup of burnt coffee. He placed his order, and then settled back in his chair to look out the window and ponder his situation.
Part of him looked forward to meeting with Rose and resolving this situation, but another part felt leery about the entire thing and dreaded seeing her. The way her face had remained hidden in shadow, and her eyes. It felt like the images from the tape had burned into his mind, and whenever he closed his eyes, they became all he could see.
What if this situation did involve a demonic possession? He had met several exorcists over the years, and their time remained incredibly valuable to the Church. If he made the judgment call that they needed one of them out here in Everett—the first time he would make such a judgment in his career—then the situation would change dramatically.
When he reported back to the Vatican, he couldn’t afford to get it wrong. Jackson believed that this was a demonic possession, but Niccolo would need to make his decision clearly and factually.
He would need to get a newspaper to see local stories and ask around town to see if any omens had occurred in the area. The demon—if one had turned up—would try to hide from him, so he would need to remain cautious and thorough in his investigation.
Jackson Reynolds’s heart lay in the right place, and to be honest, Niccolo couldn’t deny his slight feeling of concern regarding what he had seen on the tape. It had not necessarily convinced, yet certainly compelled.
He doubted the young priest would have dared to doctor the footage. It didn’t seem like something Jackson might do, but it remained a possibility he couldn’t discount. For that reason, evidence like this seemed so fickle. Still, even if Jackson hadn’t tried to trick him, that didn’t mean that it came down to a case of demonic possession. A whole host of other possibilities beckoned that could explain what had happened to this poor woman long before he got to demons.
The food arrived after only a few moments, and he found the sandwich greasy, cold, and entirely unappetizing. He swallowed a few bites and then settled back with his tea, taking small sips. He stared out the window, watching people flow past and absorbed in his thoughts. He still had twenty minutes or so to relax before he needed to get back to his hotel, and it only took a five-minute walk.
Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice when Patty came back over to his table. She just stood there, staring at him without speaking. When he did notice her, she surprised him, and he shifted a little in his seat, causing him to blush.
Though she smiled, her expression looked blank. “Would you like another glass of tea?”
“No, thank you, I’m quite all right,” Father Paladina said.
“How are you enjoying your time in Everett, Father?”
“Loving it,” he said. “The whole city, at least what I’ve seen of it, feels rather … quaint.”
She nodded. “I love it here. It’s so peaceful. Detached from the world, like our little corner of paradise.”
For certain, he wouldn’t have described it that way, but he didn’t dare object. “How long have you lived here?”
“My entire life. I moved to Minnesota for a few years way back in my twenties, but I was born and raised up the road and found my way back.”
He hesitated, deep in thought. Patty had lived here her entire life, so she would know a lot about the goings on. If anyone would have their finger on the pulse of a place like this, it would be her.
“Have you noticed anything … strange happening in the last few weeks?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Strange? How so?”
He felt unsure how to explain demonic omens. Thousands of options offered themselves, and most of them obscure.
“Just something different. The weather, maybe, if it has been completely wrong for the season, or insects behaving erratically.”
She laughed. “Insects?”
“Clustering or odd behavior. Maybe migratory birds started flying in the wrong direction recently, or odd smells showed up at different places around town. Just strange happenings.”
“No, nothing like that.”
He nodded. It had been a stretch, and he didn’t feel at all surprised by her answer.
“Thank you.”
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason in particular. Just some business I have, and I thought that maybe you might have heard things from your patrons.”
“Church business?”
“Yes. Just some simple Church business on behalf of the Vatican. Would
you mind bringing the bill?”
“Your money is no good here. A man of the cloth like yourself can eat for free anytime in my restaurant.”
Father Reynolds hesitated, remembering that only a few hours earlier, Jackson had paid for their meal. He wondered if maybe her behavior came from prejudicial reasons and decided he didn’t much appreciate her generosity.
“That’s so kind of you, but I would much prefer to pay. I like to settle all my debts.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself. Father Reynolds said the same thing when I made him that offer, but he does get a discount. Would you prefer that?”
Niccolo hesitated, and then nodded. “That is acceptable.”
“Call it an act of faith,” she said. “I miss more Sunday sermons than I make, and this is my way of hedging my bets.”
She pulled out a blank receipt slip, scribbled on it, and then handed it to him. It totaled far less than the meal should have cost, yet still more than he felt it worth. He pulled out his wallet and fished inside for a few bills.
“What’s your opinion of Father Reynolds?”
“He’s a good preacher. So kind.”
“How does his congregation feel about him?”
“Most everyone loves him here. He’s much better than the last priest we had, an old stuffy and gray bastard without a sense of humor. Plus, Jackson isn’t too bad to look at.”
“He’s a man of God.”
“I’m not.”
Father Paladina only smiled. “That’s good to hear. It’s always nice when a priest fits so well with his congregation.”
“There are some people who stopped going because he’s …” She looked uncomfortable.
“Black?” Father Paladina said.
She nodded. “But in the last few years, most of them came back. Skin color doesn’t matter at all where God is concerned.”
“So true.”
“What about you? Where do you come from? Do you have a congregation in a town like this that you call home?”
“Alas, that never became a duty I had the privilege to undertake. My duty has always remained to the Vatican, and I never had the good fortune of looking after a parish of my own.”
Patty nodded, smiling down at him. “Probably because of your mother.”
Father Paladina nodded his agreement, and then hesitated in confusion when the words sank in.
“Excuse me?”
“Your mother abandoned you and left you at the door of that Catholic orphanage in Italy, right? That filthy little place that never had any heat and always felt cold. Probably, you didn’t get a congregation for yourself because your mother was a lying whore, and the apple never falls far from the tree. They wouldn’t put the son of a whore like that in charge of a flock of people, now, would they?”
Father Paladina sat there, stunned and trying to process what Patty said. Flashes of his early life flitted unbidden through his mind; memories conjured up from a deep past that he never spoke of openly.
How could Patty possibly know about his mother?
The waitress nodded at him and left, walking away from the table and disappearing into the kitchen at the back of the restaurant. Father Paladina stood to follow her, thoroughly off-guard by her words as he tried to understand what had just happened. He wanted to follow her and question her and find out what she was talking about.
She had spoken correctly; he had gotten abandoned as a young child, but he’d never met his mother and didn’t know her identity or why she’d left him. Moreover, how could she possibly know about his childhood and the years spent at the orphanage?
Why would she even care?
Maybe he had misheard her or jumped to conclusions about what got said. The words hung fresh in his mind, however, and powerful emotions he hadn’t felt in a long time tainted them. She must have said something else than what he thought he had heard, and he could have simply misinterpreted it.
A long moment passed as he stood there leaning his hands on the table and trying to get back in control of his raging emotions. He’d known he’d gotten abandoned as a child at the door of Saint Francis’s Church in Italy, but he hadn’t known who had left him, mother or father. He had always wondered if maybe it was his mother, and he had prayed as a boy that she would come back to retrieve him.
Had his mother been the one to leave him?
It couldn’t be. No way could Patty, a waitress out here in Everett, Washington, know something like that.
The more time that passed, the more Niccolo came to believe that his mind had played tricks on him. He had misheard, and his imagination had gotten the better of him. The conversation seemed impossible, and his brain must have exaggerated.
He forced himself to stand up tall and take a deep breath, pushing away the angst and worry of his childhood and regaining control.
Patty didn’t return from the kitchen, and patrons sat and stared at him. With a sigh, Father Paladina dropped two bills on the table to cover his meal. He straightened out his coat, adjusted his collar, and then headed back out into the cold for the short walk to his hotel.
By the time he got there, he felt simultaneously more and less unsettled by the conversation in the restaurant. The memory of it had already grown fuzzy, but he couldn’t deny that something strange had just happened. It didn’t bring him anything that he could deal with just now, though, so he tucked the concern away to examine later.
Still, something strange had just happened.
Chapter 5
A short while later, Father Reynolds stopped by to pick him up at his hotel. The events from the restaurant with Patty had taken on a distant unreality that Niccolo found difficult to focus on. Part of him knew it had happened the way he remembered, but another part warned him that the memory was faulty and he should just ignore it. At first, he thought that he might bring it up with Father Reynolds, but then decided it wouldn’t be prudent.
The beautiful morning, sunny and bright, further helped to distract him. He didn’t much care for the extreme rain in the region but had to admit that, when not raining, the city and surrounding forests looked gorgeous.
When Niccolo climbed into the car, Father Reynolds offered him a sandwich wrapped in a plastic bag. It looked like tuna fish, though Niccolo couldn’t be sure.
“I didn’t know if you might feel hungry. I got stuck meeting with Brad Coley, and it ended up taking a lot longer than I thought.”
“Ah,” Niccolo said. “No, thank you. I ate already.”
Jackson nodded, and then put the sandwich back into a cooler. “I’m sorry. I’d hoped to get back much sooner.”
“Think nothing of it,” Niccolo said. “I went for a walk and saw more of the city.”
“Oh? See anything interesting?”
Once again, Niccolo lied, “No. Just got a bite to eat and enjoyed the fine weather.”
Jackson nodded and put the car into gear. He drove them outside the city center and to a suburban housing district in a quiet little neighborhood called Lynwood. Though still sunny out, clouds gathered in the distance that might herald another storm later in the afternoon. Father Paladina didn’t know the city well enough to make a general estimation about such things, but he had brought his umbrella with him just in case.
The house they’d driven to looked like a quiet little one-story affair with a quaint and tiny yard and a garden filled with tulips. It had a brick façade that appeared faded and worn with age. Many similar houses lined the street it ran along and seemed to form part of a larger retirement complex. They seemed cheap and old houses and had a faint air of death about them.
“Tell me the entire story,” Niccolo said, pulling a notepad and pen from his pocket. He flipped about halfway through the book to a blank page. “From the beginning.”
“You know most of it, I think.”
“Humor me,” Niccolo said. “I want accurate records of everything that’s happened up to this point.”
Jackson frowned but didn’t object. “Her name is Rose G
allagher,” Jackson said as he pulled the car into the driveway. “She never missed a sermon after I first arrived in Everett until about two months ago, and then she stopped showing up altogether. I reached out to her, but she wouldn’t return my calls. We fell out of contact.”
“Maybe it happened due to health reasons?”
“That was what I thought at first, but then one of her neighbors—Georgia … she lives across the street—” Jackson pointed toward another house, this one with a maroon-colored roof. “—called me and asked if I would check in on her. She said Rose was acting strange. Erratic. She told me that Rose would come out of her house at all hours of the night and always muttered to herself. It seemed like she talked to someone not there … that’s how Georgia described it. Like Rose was never alone.”
“And at that point, you went to check on her?”
The young priest nodded. “It had gone on for a few weeks, Georgia said, and she got to worrying. I didn’t have any expectations of what I might find on that first visit, but I could tell that something seemed badly wrong. Her house looked a mess and smelled like rotten food.”
The hairs prickled up on Niccolo’s neck. “Rotten food? Like eggs?”
“Yeah. Rotten eggs. Why?”
“No reason,” Niccolo said, scribbling away. “Please, continue.”
“Anyway, when I showed up, Rose would barely even look at me, just kept rocking in her chair and whispering words I didn’t recognize. I didn’t stay long. I got too freaked out. When I went back a second time, I brought a video camera that I’d borrowed from a friend who used it to make home movies.”
“You tried compelling the demon, too.”
Jackson hesitated, and then nodded. “I read a few books about it before I went back. I thought …”
When he didn’t finish the sentiment, Niccolo dropped the issue. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You saw what I managed to capture while there. That happened a few days after my first visit, and I contacted Bishop Glasser about it to report what had happened. It felt …”
“It felt what?” Niccolo caught the priest’s gaze.
