by Morgana Best
Basil put his arm around me as Jezza-Belle’s form grew bigger and bigger. Her form, still spinning, headed straight for Mum. I briefly wondered if a ghost could harm a living human, and then all of a sudden, Jezza-Belle vanished.
“Where did she go?” Ernie asked me.
“She must have been so upset that she vanished, the poor thing,” I said. I shot a look at Mum, expecting her to berate me for talking to an empty space, but she didn’t say anything. She staggered forward and grasped my desk.
“Are you all right, Mrs Bay?” Basil asked her.
Mum reached out her hands and shook herself and then turned around. She looked down at herself, and then laughed. “On with the funeral,” she said, and she marched out of the room.
“Your mother’s strange,” Ernie said.
I snorted rudely. “You’re telling me! Quick, let’s get after her. I don’t want her insulting any of the mourners.”
Basil and I hurried after Mum, but to my enormous relief, for once she was not saying anything. I wondered why she was sitting in the front row, because she very well knew that we were to stay up the back and to remain inconspicuous throughout funerals.
I saw Detectives Wilkinson and Prescott over the other side of the room. They, at least, were doing a good job of looking inconspicuous. I sure hoped Mum wouldn’t cause any trouble. Just then, Lotti Lovelace and Delilah Divine walked over to sit in the same row as Mum. She jumped up and hugged each one in turn. They looked awfully surprised.
“What’s that all about?” Basil said in my ear. “Do you think she’s taken some of her own advice and repented for her harsh words?”
I shook my head. “Not a chance. She’s up to something, only I don’t know what it is.”
Much to my surprise, the funeral went off without a hitch. Ian sat up the back, near us, and muttered to himself the whole time, but considering that Pastor Green was conducting the funeral, Ian couldn’t really do anything. Mum continued to sit in the front row and I continued to watch her. When the funeral was over, Pastor Green announced that refreshments would be served in the anteroom. We always did that at funerals. I hurried in Mum’s direction because I wanted to keep a close eye on her.
When I reached Mum, I was dismayed to see she had enveloped a young man in a deep hug. He tried to get away, and only managed to extricate himself with difficulty. “Mum, what’s got into you?” I asked her.
For some reason, she thought my comment very funny. “Harper Harris was my boyfriend,” she said, sobering.
“What do you mean?” I wondered if I hadn’t heard her right.
She smirked at me. “I mean, he was Jezza-Belle’s boyfriend. He used to date Lotti Lovelace, but realised he liked Jezza-Belle more.”
I was puzzled. “How did you know that, Mum?”
Just then, Pastor Green appeared at Mum’s side. “Laurel, I’m afraid your mother and I have to take our leave. The church concert has already started. Will you be all right managing by yourself?”
“Of course. That was a great service, as always, Pastor Green.”
He nodded his thanks and put his elbow under Mum’s arm. “Come on, Thelma. It’s almost time for you to sing your hymn at the concert.”
A look of surprise passed over Mum’s face. “I’m singing at a concert?”
I really was beginning to think something was wrong with Mum. “Yes, did you forget? You’re singing a hymn at the church concert.”
“Yes, Thelma,” Pastor Green said. “You insisted on singing, God Save Us Righteous Ones from those Poor Wretched Sinners, remember? You wrote the hymn yourself. If you don’t hurry, you won’t have a chance to sing it.” I could tell the pastor was warring with himself, hoping Mum would be too late to sing the dreadful hymn she had written, but figuring it was his duty to let her proceed. I had heard her practising it, and it was worse than any funeral dirge I had ever heard, and about five times slower and more mournful.
Mum suddenly brightened up. “Sing? Yes, let’s go!” She turned to me. “You! What’s your name again? Laurel? Fetch me some scissors. And where’s that CD that was just playing?”
Chapter 3
“Something’s not right here,” Ernie said, scratching his head.
“I have to get back to work.” Basil kissed me, which meant I lost all focus and concentration.
I hurried back into the anteroom, but everything was fine. And why wouldn’t it be? Towards the end of the funeral, I had slipped out to make sure everything was ready, filling all the urns for tea and coffee, and arranging the various assortments of cupcakes.
I shook hands with Lotti Lovelace and Delilah Divine, both of whom said it had been a good service. I spotted Harper Harris standing over by the wall, all alone. I walked over to him. “I heard you were Jezza-Belle’s boyfriend,” I said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He mumbled something and wiped his eyes. Ernie was frantically waving his arms to one side of Harper, so I excused myself and headed into the foyer.
“Earth to Laurel; earth to Laurel!” Ernie said, waving a hand in my face. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“What are you thinking?” I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
Ernie pointed in the direction of the front door. “I think Jezza-Belle has possessed your mother.”
“Possessed!” I shrieked, and then shot a look around the foyer. Luckily, everyone was in the anteroom. “You can’t be serious!”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Ernie said, floating a little above the tiled floor. “But the ghost was very angry, so angry that she didn’t even notice me in the room, and then she did vanish into your mother, and then your mother started acting strangely.”
I clutched my stomach. “Is that even possible? Can ghosts actually possess someone? And please land. You know how floating freaks me out.”
Ernie obliged. “I’ve been around here for some time and I’ve never seen it happen, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Laurel, think about it. If Jezza-Belle possessed your mother, then she’s on her way to sing at a church concert.”
I stood there, trying to take it all in. “Okay, let’s say for a moment that Jezza-Belle did possess Mum, then what’s the worst that could happen?”
Ernie rolled his eyes dramatically. “Sometimes I wonder about you, Laurel. As much as I think it would be funny if your mother sings that hymn in punk rock fashion, I worry about how that will impact on you.”
I clutched my head. “She did take scissors and The Vengeful Harlots’ music with her.” With that, I sprinted back to my office, grabbed my car keys, and shot out the front door.
“What about the mourners?” Ernie called after me.
I didn’t have time to respond. While I wasn’t entirely sure that a ghost could possess a person, I couldn’t take any chances, and Mum had been acting very strangely. On the short distance to the church, I thought it over. If Jezza-Belle had possessed Mum, then I didn’t know how thorough that possession would be. Would it be sometimes Mum, and sometimes Jezza-Belle? I shook my head. The whole thing seemed entirely preposterous, but then again, some people didn’t even believe in ghosts. I knew ghosts were real, so I supposed a ghost possessing someone wasn’t so much of a stretch.
Although the drive to the church was short, it seemed to take forever. In this small country town, one side of town was only about fifteen minutes from the other. Victorian miners’ cottages lined the highway. Some had been renovated beautifully, but others had not been painted in the hundred plus years since their very first coat. These unkempt ones sat precariously on their old, leaning, wooden stumps. Here and there were modern buildings, all concrete and glass, and standing on the sites where Victorian beauties had been sacrificed to make way for modernity.
I parked the car and hurried inside the church. Music was already playing, and I looked around for Mum.
I finally located her near the front of the church, and was surprised to see that she was wearing sunglasses. I made my way over to
her, conscious of everyone turning to look at me. Mum’s snooty friends sat next to her. On her other side was a man I hadn’t met. He had a large camera and was scribbling in a notepad. Ian was on the other side of him. “Ian, could I please sit closer to Mum for a moment?”
He frowned at me, but moved across one seat. The man sitting between us turned to look at me. “Hello, I’m Stephen Stonewall of the Good News Monthly.” I must have looked blank, because he supplied, “It’s the most successful Christian magazine in New South Wales.”
I nodded. “I’m Laurel, Thelma’s daughter.”
His face lit up. “Oh, you must be so proud of your mother. She’s a veritable pillar of society. And to think she composed her very own hymn. What a wonderful woman. It was Thelma who invited me here, to do a feature story on the church concert.”
I thought the magazine must be grasping at straws if they wanted to do a feature story on a small town concert, but I had more pressing concerns. I had to find out as fast and as subtly as I could if Jezza-Belle had possessed my mother.
While I was silently debating what to do, one of Mum’s friends, Martha, leant over to me. “It’s about time you came here, Laurel. Your poor mother has such a hard time of things, and it will make her life easier if you become a good churchgoing girl.” Mum’s other annoying friends, Francine and Doris, nodded in agreement.
I leant across Stephen Stonewall and tapped Mum’s arm. “What are you going to do, Mum?”
Mum patted my knee. “Sing, Laurel. Sing.” She finished with a giggle.
I broke into a cold sweat. The room swam and then receded a little and I realised I was about to faint. I leant forward and put my head between my knees. I knew then that it wasn’t Mum, because Mum would have responded to my question with an insult.
Just then, a hand clamped hard on my back and I heard someone muttering something over me. I sat upright, and pushed Ian’s hand off me. “What on earth are you doing, Ian?”
Ian was visibly affronted. “I was laying hands on you and praying for you, Laurel.”
“Well, cut that out,” I said. “Save your prayers for Mum.” Another wave of dizziness hit me, so I put my head between my legs again. I just knew something terrible was about to happen. I was feeling so woozy that I didn’t hear Mum called up to the stage.
I looked up in time to see Mum handing someone the CD. Another wave of shock hit me, because I saw that her tweed skirt had been shortened considerably and had slits all over it, and the skirt was held together with safety pins. “Her skirt, her skirt,” I said in a small voice.
Martha adjusted her glasses and looked at Mum’s skirt. “You’re right about your mother. She should have pulled her skirt down to cover her knees. It’s most unseemly for a woman of her age to be showing her knees.”
Ian clearly took issue with the woman’s words. “Poor Thelma’s skirt ripped somehow, and she asked for safety pins to fix it,” Ian said in a pious tone. “She is such a good, godly woman, that she decided to go ahead with her hymn.”
I fought a manic desire to laugh. There was nothing I could do now, but watch the scene unfold. Part of me wanted to run from the church, but part of me had a morbid fascination to see what would happen.
Someone adjusted the microphone for Mum, but instead, she walked over to the drums. She whispered in the drummer’s ear, and he vacated his seat for Mum. Mum nodded to Pastor Green, who turned on her music.
What followed after I have tried to forget many times, but I have never been able to put it from my mind. The music blared and reverberated all over the church walls. Mum ripped off her sunglasses and threw them down, and then launched into a screeching, raunchy song at the top of her lungs, while beating the drums and gyrating.
Ian gasped loudly beside me. “She’s been possessed by the demon of rock music!”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said.
Ian rounded on me. “It’s your fault, Laurel. There was rock music at the funeral service, and that opened the gateway for the devil.”
I didn’t bother thinking up a suitable retort, because I couldn’t take my eyes from Mum a.k.a. Jezza-Belle. She really was going for it. Her cashmere cardigan followed the sunglasses onto the floor, and then she ripped off her pearls. The pearls bounced across the stage and then rolled down the aisle into the audience.
I was surprised that Pastor Green didn’t turn off the music, but he simply stood there, both hands clasped to his cheeks, his mouth wide open in a perfect imitation of Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream.
I heard Ian gasp, and I followed his gaze. There, to my right, were people dancing.
“They’re Methodists,” Ian said by way of explanation. “They’re Methodist Youth. You don’t see our Youth behaving like that.” He pointed to a group of young people sitting over to the left. Some of them were giggling, and the others looked shocked.
I looked back at the people dancing to see an elderly man. He was getting right into it, busting some moves that would have put a young person to shame. He kept giving Mum the thumbs up.
She was oblivious of course, singing wildly and beating the drums. I stole a glance at Mum’s snooty friends. One had either passed out or pretended to, because she was lying backwards in the seat, her eyes rolling in her head. Her two friends were too busy looking at Mum to notice. Stephen from the Good News Weekly was snapping photos as fast as he could.
Just when I thought it would never end, Mum leapt from the drums, and ran to the edge of the stage. I caught my breath, realising she was about to do a stage dive. Mum flung herself into the air, but the Methodists apparently were not used to stage diving and all ran for it, clearly not wanting a middle-aged woman to fall on them. Mum landed face down on the church floor.
Two of her friends raced over to her, as did Ian and some people I hadn’t met. I hurried over too, thinking they were helping Mum, but it turned out they were trying to cast out the demon of rock music. “Out foul demon!” Martha yelled.
“You don’t have permission to abide in this woman!” Ian screamed at the top of his lungs. “I bind, evict and dismiss you, you demon of rock music!”
I tried to pull Ian off Mum. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to deliver her, of course,” he said over his shoulder.
I was confused. “Where to? The hospital?”
“Deliver her from the demon,” Ian said.
Stephen Stonewall bent over the group, taking photos and gasping at intervals. Pastor Green appeared at my side and managed to pull the people away from Mum, who was lying on the floor, groaning. “I called an ambulance,” he said to me. “Laurel, whatever has happened to your mother? Is she on medication?”
“Yes, she is,” I lied. “Strong medication,” I added for good measure. I could hardly tell him she was possessed by a punk rocker by the name of Jezza-Belle.
“Am I still dead?” Mum asked weakly.
Pastor Green bent over her. “Thelma, I think you might be concussed. Do you remember what day the last women’s prayer group was on?”
Mum let out a string of language that made everyone gasp, and Stephen scribbled furiously in his notepad. “I’ve never met anyone who needed so much deliverance before,” he said gleefully. “I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen it with my own eyes. I wonder if I can sell this story to Sixty Minutes?”
The paramedics pushed everyone aside. Mum tried to sit up, but one of the paramedics restrained her. “Do you know what happened to you?” the male paramedic asked.
“Someone hit me with a car, I think,” Mum said.
The male paramedic exchanged glances with the female paramedic before speaking. “What’s your name?”
Mum rubbed her forehead. “Jezza-Belle.”
A collective gasp went up from the crowd, accompanied by murmurs of, “She needs deliverance from a Jezebel spirit.”
The female paramedic held up her hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Five,” Mum said. She looked
down at her clothes. “Oh, it’s all coming back to me.”
“What’s your age?”
Mum sat up abruptly and glared at the paramedic. A change came over her demeanour. “How dare you ask me my age! How insolent! You should never ask a lady her age. And Laurel, why are you staring at me? Help me off the floor, you silly girl.”
Stephen Stonewall leant over and peered at Mum. “She sure does need deliverance. She’s really rude and cranky!”
Everyone shook their heads. “No, she’s back to normal now,” the closest woman said, to a murmur of agreement.
“We’ll need to take you to hospital,” the male paramedic said.
Mum’s face changed again. She lay back on one elbow and laughed. “It’s a bit too late for that. I’ve been dead for a few days.”
The paramedics wasted no time in placing Mum on a gurney and wheeling her out to the ambulance. I chased after them. “I’m her daughter,” I said.
“Would you like to ride with your mother?” one of them asked me.
I shook my head. “No, I’ll have to drive back afterwards, so I’ll follow you in my car.”
The hospital was in the nearest town, twenty minutes away. It was a long boring drive there, just highway and flat paddocks occasionally dotted with sheep. There were no nice trees to break the monotony, as most of the native trees in this part of the district suffered from Dieback, a mysterious ailment that was variously attributed to beetles, pesticides, over-grazing, fertiliser, or clearing of the undergrowth. Whatever the reason, it left the Australian New England landscape dotted with bare, dead trees.
Still, the drive afforded me plenty of time to think. Jezza-Belle had possessed my mother, that was for sure and for certain. Even Jezza-Belle’s attempt at stage diving in my mother’s body hadn’t snapped her out of it, so to speak. What was I to do? What if Jezza-Belle permanently possessed my mother?
