That was almost twenty years ago. Still, Father Andrew couldn’t complain. He had been subjected to years of confessions concerning college promiscuity, drunkenness, the occasional abortion, drug abuse, academic dishonesty…there wasn’t much a college student could do that he hadn’t heard before. He had been the rock for an entire generation of young people battling the confusing and forming waters of college life. If he were to name a regret for a life spent in the priesthood, the only one he could come up with was that he had no children of his own. But God was a good God, and that void had been filled to brimming with students who had come to him in their hardest and most desperate hours for advice, for consolation, for a father. Combine that with the efforts of the town ladies of the church parish…their homemade pasties, potlucks, lovingly handmade gifts, and Father Andrew found nothing in his life to complain about.
In fact when a former student, one he had spent his time and heart upon, came back to visit, and often to thank Father Andrew for his efforts on their behalf, he was certain that even a natural Father could not feel more pride of a child and gratitude towards the creator.
It was a good life… and that’s where the one snag in the carpet lay. It should not be so easy.
He was not so young or so foolish as to pray for hardship. He had lived long enough to see that God answered prayers. He would never ask the Blessed Virgin to intercede on his own behalf, for his own fulfillment, his own life. From Mary, he only asked for intercession when it concerned the direct well-being of the children…his children, the students. She was the Holy Mother, after all. She knew better than anyone the sleepless nights one spent contemplating the paths a child could take, and as far as Father Andrew was concerned, she had always done her part. He would burden her with none of his own desires.
So it was a good life Father Andrew led, a life of small spiritual battles, untouched by the warfare he felt sure was waged somewhere. And then came the banging on his parsonage door…
If it hadn‘t of been for that old, reoccurring back pain, the one that was always worse on cold nights, he would not have been awake.
The young man at the door had a face Father Andrew felt sure he recognized, but also felt, with certainty, that it wasn‘t a face that watched him weekly from the pews. The stranger held an unconscious girl in a long white nightgown, and his eyes begged for help, though he didn’t say a word.
Another young woman, one with short, blonde, snow-flecked hair trailed behind the boy, watching Father Andrew with uncertainty.
The priest’s reaction was entirely knee-jerk.
“Come in,” he ordered, “Bring her inside. Was there an accident?”
The young man didn’t hesitate. He pushed past Father Andrew and quickly found the living room, the only lighted area in the house. Laying the girl on the couch, he whirled on the priest with those terrified eyes.
“She needs help. There’s something wrong. I know this sounds crazy, but you’re a priest and…and I think she’s possessed. I think it’s a demon or something,” he explained in a shaking voice.
Father Andrew checked the desire to laugh. With effort, he made his face grave and concerned.
“And have you all been drinking tonight, my son?” he asked.
“Ohhhhhhh yeah…definitely,” the blonde girl replied, stamping the snow off her high heeled boots. “Without a doubt, everyone’s had a lot to drink.”
Father Andrew took stock. A girl passed out on his couch, a terrified young man talking about demons, and the unaffected attitude of the blonde friend standing next to him.
“You need to take this young woman to an ER to get her stomach pumped, not to a priest,” Father Andrew addressed the boy.
“Nah, I’m willing to bet she’s only had a couple of shots all night,” the girl next to him disagreed. “If they did an alcohol level, it wouldn’t even be high enough to give her the charcoal, and trust me, I am an expert on alcohol poisoning.”
The boy in front of him began pacing in short, tight strides.
“It’s not the alcohol, okay? We saw something. There was a face in the window, and there was writing on the wall, and the whole school year…its just been one thing after another. The girls thought there was this ghost-”
“Oh, there was a ghost,” the blonde girl interrupted. “he never believed it, but there really was a ghost. We live in a converted mental asylum that was almost burned down a hundred years ago…I mean there should be a ghost or two by all rights.”
Father Andrew felt overwhelmed. He swerved his head dizzily between the pacing boy and the girl standing next to him. This was getting out of hand. The girl on the couch clearly needed medical attention.
“We’ll talk about all of this. I promise, we’ll all sit down and talk about this, but right now, I need to call an ambulance. This child is sick, she needs medical help,” Father Andrew pleaded, eyeing the phone on the coffee table.
“I’m telling you she needs another kind of help!” The boy almost screamed. “I thought that too. Sam thought she was having some kind of mental breakdown-”
“I did,” the girl next to him agreed calmly.
“But then there was this face in the window, this awful face, and it disappeared in front of us. We saw it! We both saw it! Help her, you have to help her!” He demanded.
“I will. I’ll do everything I possibly can…after we get her to a hospital,” Father Andrew reassured him, edging closer to the phone on the table.
But the young man was quicker, he saw where the priest’s eyes were directed. Quickly, he bent down and yanked the phone cord, ripping it out of the wall.
“Young man, you had better stop before I call the police!” Father Andrew warned.
“You’re a priest!” the boy accused red-faced. “I had my first communion, I went to catechism, I’m confirmed, I’m a Catholic, my last confession was twelve days ago, right before Christmas. I believe! I’m asking you to do your job! Do something, damn it!”
Father Andrew blanched. Do something. Be a priest, be a warrior of God against the Devil and his dominions, an enemy he truly believed existed. Do something. The girl on the couch gave a weak moan. For a second…only for a second, his pulse quickened, his mind racing to movie scenes from the Exorcist, to a one-on-one fight for the soul of one of God’s children. Thrilling, Hollywood-type horror-drama…a deployment of the home guard to the big war.
The painful sound the poor girl made brought him back to reality in an instant. Poor child…drunk to the point of passing out, her friends most likely on some type of hallucinogenic drug.
“Young man, I know my duty, now give me that phone,” Father Andrew ordered.
But the boy only backed away a few steps further, shaking his head.
“Call the police or an ambulance or whoever you want, I don’t care, I won’t try to stop you, as long as you help her first,” he demanded.
He wrapped one arm tightly around the phone, apparently ready to hold it hostage. With one eye on the girl, Father Andrew drew back his calm demeanor, and did his best to pacify the situation.
“My son, you seem to think that because I’m a priest I have the special privilege of performing exorcisms, casting out demons whenever I want, at my own discretion. This just isn’t the case. It’s quite a prolonged process. To begin with, the possessed subject has to exhibit a number of hallmark signs. I couldn’t give you a complete list from memory but there are many specific things. Has the individual spoken in languages previously unknown to them? Has the subject exhibited an aversion to religious artifacts, or have they exhibited direct knowledge of future events? I doubt she qualifies in one out of the three. You carried her under a cross, “ the priest nodded towards the wooden crucifix nailed over his door, “She hasn’t even spoken English since you‘ve been here, and as for knowing the future, I doubt that right now she even understands the present. She has no idea where she is. Yet let us say she had exhibited some of these signs, we would still need to apply for permission from the Bishop,
and that would only be granted after a thorough medical and psychological examination. A demonic possession is a serious matter, which one would never want to confuse with say…a psychological disorder or inebriation. That’s why there are rules in place. Now calm down and think rationally. Rather than leap to demonic possession as your first theory, don’t you think we should rule out the simpler explanation of excessive alcohol consumption? Possibly even talk with the people in the mental health department? They can come right to the hospital. I promise you that if we can eliminate all other possibilities, and the girl consents, the church will be willing to do whatever’s necessary. We have services in place that can offer treatment, even at very little or no cost. We will certainly help-”
“No!” the boy yelled. “No! No one would believe her, last time she tried to get help everyone thought she was crazy, but I’m telling you, we saw something, a ghost, or a demon, or…I don’t know what it was, but Sam and I both saw it, and I don’t even believe in that kind of crap!”
The boy stopped pacing and used his free hand to rub his forehead. He seemed to be thinking very hard. No longer talking to the priest, he began speaking, perhaps addressing a higher power.
“Look, if there really are things in this world like what I saw, like bad ghosts or demons or whatever, then there has to be good too. God has to exist, it’s balance or something, and if you exist then maybe praying or asking you for things might actually work, I don’t know. Why are you letting her suffer? Why are you allowing her to be treated the way she has, allowing this to drive her nuts? Why don’t YOU do something? Is that asking too much? I don’t think I’ve asked for anything before, not specifically. Or at least make him do something!” the boy raged.
Father Andrew glanced again at the young woman. She appeared to be breathing normally, her chest rising and falling with regularity. He was no medical expert, couldn’t even tell you what the symptoms of alcohol poisoning might be beyond passing out, but he did know that many of his students had admitted drinking to the point of passing out before, and then sleeping it off, and if it would get them to the point of being able to call an ambulance or take the child to the hospital, then maybe…maybe…
“Maybe there is something I can do,” Father Andrew decided.
“Thank you,” the boy said to the ceiling.
“It’s called the Chaplet of St. Michael the archangel. It’s not an exorcism, to be clear on that point, but is supposed to fight off demonic influence…among other things. I’ll have to find a book to be sure, but I will pray it for the girl if you’ll allow me to get her medical assistance afterwards,” the priest bargained.
“Do it,” the boy agreed, nodding at him.
Father Andrew strode towards the built in shelves on the far wall and selected a book bound in green leather. He opened it to the Index, found a page number, and quickly thumbed through it until he came to the chaplet.
“So is this going to take awhile, or…?” Sam asked.
“Well,” Father Andrew turned the pages eyeing the prayer over, “It begins with an act of contrition, followed by nine salutations, one for each choir of angels, and each of these nine parts is followed by one Our Father and three Hail Mary’s, then four Our Fathers, and lastly a prayer to St. Michael.”
“Well, I guess I’ll have a seat then,” Sam yanked off her boots, and sat down on the couch, lifting the other girl’s feet and setting them on her lap. “Sorry,” she apologized, “Go ahead, do your thing. I just had to sit down. I swear, outside I was fine, the minute I walked in here, my head just started killing me. Like, serious splitting headache. I think if Chloe comes out of this okay, I might try to cut back on the drinking…at least for a little while.”
“What is her name?” the priest asked him, ignoring Sam.
“Chloe,” the boy answered quickly. “her name is Chloe.”
Father Andrew took a few steps closer to the couch, standing near Chloe‘s head. He made the sign of the cross, more from habit than anything else.
“O God, come to my assistance! O Lord, make haste to help me!” he began.
The boy watched him, nodding his head and still clutching the phone. He looked over his shoulder once, then twice. Father Andrew had a strong feeling that the boy might have more wrong with him than the alcohol.
“Glory be to the Father,” he continued, “and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
* * *
Chloe walked unsteadily across the beach toward George. The ground seemed to move just a little, the way a boat might. The beach was much the same as she remembered it, ice curling strangely where the water lapped against the rocks, snowflakes falling silently, few and far between. Even the way the gleaming snow seemed to glow red then orange then yellow, mirroring the lights in the sky. Chloe realized that she wasn’t wearing a coat or shoes, yet she didn’t feel cold.
“It’s nice here,” George said quietly, “nicer by far than what I’m used to. I wish I could stay.”
“If I’m imagining this, why can’t you?” Chloe asked, sitting down carefully on the rock beside him, she seemed to sink into it.
“Like I said, you’ve a body, a beating heart, a working brain. A living brain is what makes it easy for you and impossible for me. Dying is like uncorking a pressurized flask. You kind of stream out into the ether, nothing to hold you together, but your memories, the experiences of the body. I expect some poor spirits dissipate to nothing. Others, like me, can be trapped in a larger space…like a building,” he explained.
“What about heaven?” she asked.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that. I believe it’s there, somewhere. There were experiments you know, so we could learn about these things. People died and were brought back with electric current. Some spoke about seeing light, loved ones, others didn’t. If science has taught us one thing, it’s that anything is possible,” George nodded.
“You experimented with bringing people back from the dead?” Chloe gulped.
“No. They did though--the bad ones. It started long before I was born. Murderers mostly…gallows flesh…the bad ones took the bodies. I suppose it started as science. The dissecting theater, the medical colleges…it started in these places of learning. There were theories…the idea that electricity was a life fluid within the body, and then came galvanism. They took electrical currents, used it to stimulate the muscles of dead bodies, made them leap all over the table, sit up, smile…breathe. Even to set hearts stilled by the noose to beating again. In at least one case that I heard of, they brought a hanged man back completely. He was up and drinking again within seven hours from the time they cut him from the scaffold. That was in Ireland.”
“The people…the scientists that did these things, before you were born…they’re the bad ones?” Chloe asked, confused.
“Not exactly. Precursors to them, really. You see, when they discovered that you could stimulate a body to rise again, it raised other questions…other theories. Most governments were quick to put rules in place. Defining what could and could not be done to bodies. They had their reasons. Science doesn’t always confine itself to morality.” he nodded again.
“I don’t understand. What do you mean by other theories?” Chloe asked intently.
“Oh, they learned many things by trial and error. The longer a body remained dead before galvanization, the less mind it came back with. This lead to the study of the brain, experiments on how much damage a brain sustained when it lacked oxygen, how much time could pass in death before the person, when brought back, would lose the concept of self. Sometimes they could force a body to draw air, blink it’s eyes, even eat, swallow, walk…but not think…not remember. And from this, came another question: What is self? Do souls exist?” George grinned and held his hands out palms upward. Chloe could see through them.
She squirmed and the rock moved under her the way the mattress of a waterbed might. Did she hear someone calling her name?
George didn’t seem to notice.
“This question brought new trials, new theories, new…experiments. Can we talk to the dead? There were scientists who put down the scalpel and picked up the planchette,” he continued.
“Planchette…like Ouija?” Chloe remembered.
“Yes, exactly that. Scientific minds began finding new ways to answer their questions, and it caught on…became a movement, spread like wildfire through America and England. It was called spiritualism. Mediums, clairvoyants, séances, automatic writing….ghosts rapping on walls to answer the mystic’s questions,” George chuckled.
“This is starting to sound familiar,” Chloe smiled weakly.
“This was in my day, you understand,” George said. “It started, even before the civil war, and grew, and in my time, it was a booming industry. Elegant ladies of the upper classes would give dinner parties that featured readings by spiritualists or mediums. Newspapers would report on hauntings, these things were generalized, accepted, one might say.”
“I don’t understand how this ties in with the asylums, with Abraham’s Men…with me” Chloe reminded him.
“I’m getting there, patience child,” George said.
He paused, cocking his head to the side as though he were listening to something.
“What?” she asked. “What is it?”
“We’re moving. I think we’re moving,” he said, still listening.
“What do you mean moving?” Chloe worried. “How can we be moving? I thought you said I was inside myself. I’m in my room right now, barricaded in. How can I be moving?”
“You’re moving,” he confirmed, jumping to his feet, and looking upwards quickly. “If you leave, if they take you outside. I don’t know what happens. Probably nothing. It’ll probably rip me right out of here and you’ll find your own way out, but I don’t think I can leave. I don’t think it’s that easy.”
“You can’t go until you explain what I’m supposed to do,” Chloe argued. “We’re not moving George, how could we be? How can you even tell?”
Asylum Page 31
