Incubus

by Ann Arensberg

  At that same moment the dance developed a variation, or a hitch in the choreography. Was Emily trying to reverse the direction of the dancers or struggling to break away from them? The look on her face was desperate, ecstatic, a look of martyrdom. Her suffering was in good part physical. On either side of her Ruth and Walter were pulling against her, crushing her hands, wrenching her this way and that way. At length she appeared to give up and get back in step, a piece of cunning designed to make her partners relax their grip on her. In an instant she tore herself free and ran past them, knocking over a votive candle in her headlong flight. She flew up the aisle like a maenad down a wooded mountain. I felt I should follow her in case she should do herself harm. Her nerves were not sound enough for such frenzied exertions.

  At the back of the church a figure was standing in the aisle, blocking Emily’s passage. Just before impact, Emily stumbled and fell to her knees. Her arms embraced its trousered legs. The figure pulled her to her feet, then pushed her a little away, warding off further demonstrations. Even in the half light I recognized the prodigal daughter. She who was lost had been found. For her sake Emily had broken the magic circle. The fate of many was not so much to her as the recovery of one child. As I watched they disappeared into the blackness of the vestibule, my sister breaking into a run and my mother panting after her.

  A gasp rose up from the crowd. Heads twisted to the front, then the back. There was a movement toward the aisles, the pounding of feet, the thud of bodies colliding with the pews, the sound of pew legs, dislodged in the commotion, scraping on the stone. There were people trying to climb over the backs of the pews, people standing on the seats, people dropping lighted tapers, shrieking and stamping on them, people throwing jackets and blankets over their heads, improvising a hiding place. Emily’s defection had turned the tables. The travelers were in motion.

  From their positions in the rear, on the flanks, and in the vanguard, they pressed into the aisles, advancing at their dragging gait, arms swinging loose, uncoordinated with their footfall. Watching their progress, the dancers slowed to a standstill, frozen in place. Nerveless from fear, their hands fell limp at their sides. Their terror infected Henry, sickening his resolution. The light in his face faded out like a candle flame drowning in wax. He faltered and made a step backwards. The crucifix dropped to the floor, metal ringing on granite.

  It was Walter who snatched up the cross, Walter who pushed Ruth and Sally up the steps to the altar. Henry stood alone in the chancel. His friends and his spirit had deserted him. I saw his face as it might look in old age or on his deathbed, sunken, livid, and fleshless, all downward lines of austerity and pain. He was trying to pray, as one prays in utmost privacy, one hand on his chest and the other blindfolding his eyes. Some of his prayer was audible over the crowd noise. “My God, my God, why are you so far from helping me?”

  The travelers invaded the transept. They had almost climbed the chancel steps. The nearer they came, the harder it was to see them. Massed in the transept, they were losing substance and definition. Facial features dissolved, body blended into body, until they formed a darkening cloud, a miasma exhaling foulness and frigid air. Insubstantial, they were far more terrible than embodied. In their humanoid guise, they were too like cinema zombies, rickety, slow-moving.

  All at once the congregation grew quiet. We had arrived at that point beyond fear where curiosity takes over. Was the priest the travelers’ target or the sanctuary? The house lights flickered briefly, off and on, but the sanctuary lamp burned steadily, suspended in its red glass globe above the altar. If they swarmed the altar, would the sanctuary light die out? Would the lights go out all over Christendom? What would they do with us, the sheep penned in the sheepfold, when they captured their objective?

  As the blackness surged into the chancel, Henry retreated up the altar steps. Walter’s back was to the wall, supporting the women, pressing their faces against his shoulder, sparing them the sight of the malignant cloud. Facing the enemy, Henry braced himself against the altar. The altar was bare. The base of the cross was bolted to the granite block, but the crucifix itself was lying on a seat in the choir stalls, where Walter had tossed it.

  The cloud seemed to concentrate its force, regaining the substance it had lost, so dense and impervious to light that it blotted out Henry’s legs as far as the knees, mounting upward to obliterate the lower half of his body. Was he there behind the rising darkness or had it consumed him? Without talisman or props, he had one last chip to wager. In a voice like thunder he cried, “Take me, O Lord!” And was answered by a clap of thunder, so horrendous it seemed to issue from inside the chancel. The darkness engulfed him, assuming the shape of his body, as if he had been burned and blackened in a raging fire. He swayed like a collapsing timber, falling headlong down the altar steps. As he lay there the darkness moved from the periphery to the center. It was being absorbed into his body, funneling into the solar plexus.

  Peal after peal of thunder rolled over our heads. There was a clatter on the roof, unfamiliar at first, violent enough to damage the shingles. Like members of a desert tribe, we had lived so long without rain we’d forgotten the sound of it. The lights blazed on, mimicked by a flash of lightning outside the windows. Walter was at Henry’s side, feeling for a pulse, a heartbeat. I saw Henry lift his head and let it drop again. With an arm under his shoulders, Walter raised him to a sitting position, holding him steady until he could maintain his balance. From that point Henry took it on his own. Like the first man who learned to walk upright, he climbed slowly from his knees to his feet, wavering as he rose, half dazed by the distance he had traveled in that one effort.

  As he turned and came toward us, he walked with a noticeable limp, the only evidence of any injury from the fall. On his face was a look of exhaustion and pure relief, a look our volunteer firemen wear after a night of combat, when the spread of fire has been halted and each inhabitant, human and animal, conducted to safety. He limped to the chancel steps and invited us to pray. Every member of the assembly got down on their knees—nonbelievers, Unitarians, and Jews; Catholics and Episcopalians, who kneeled to worship; Congregationalists and Methodists, who were embarrassed by it. Raising his voice to be heard above the torrents pouring down on the rooftop, he uttered the last words he would ever speak as a priest of this parish:

  “Almighty God, who are a tower of defense in time of trouble, we give you praise for our deliverance from the peril and dread of this night. By your mercy and none of our doing has the intruder been driven from your temple. Make us worthy of your grace, and ever mindful of the subtlety of our enemies.

  “Let the light of your countenance shine upon us and give us peace, both now and hereafter.

  Amen.”

  Afterword

  When Dr. Bayer examined Henry’s right leg, he found nothing wrong with it. The X-ray pictures of both the leg and the brain (taken by a consulting neurologist) were clean and normal. An orthopedist in Portland concurred. There were no fractures, and no bruising, sprains, tears, or pain in the muscles and ligaments. Warning Henry about compensatory problems on his left side, the orthopedist gave him the name of a physiotherapist associated with the hospital in North Windham, who said, “You’re going to have to learn to walk all over again.”

  After two years of treatments with physical therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and kinesiologists, Henry still walks with a limp. Every one of them eventually suggested he see a psychologist. Henry blamed his disability on inexperience. “I was flying by the seat of my pants,” he said. “I took it on. I didn’t protect myself.” Trained or untrained, all exorcists ran the risk of losing a faculty. “I got off lightly,” said Henry. “I could have been blinded. Or struck dumb.” For myself, I didn’t know which was stranger: the fact that such a fall induced no more injuries than a slight limp or the fact that there was no organic reason for it.

  When Bishop Hollins received Henry’s letter of resignation, he was as baffled as any of Henry’s doctors.
It came as a surprise to him, and he disliked surprises. They ruffled his pride. He liked being in the know. In his position, he should have been the repository of diocesan secrets, not a passive respondent to them. If Henry had approached him in confidence beforehand, he might have smoothed the episcopal feathers. Bishop Hollins became suspicious. What was behind this—to his mind—sudden decision? Was there a parish scandal in the offing? Some clerical misconduct, as yet uncovered, that would discredit his own reputation? He sent his canon, Dr. Ethan Prine, to do a spot of investigating.

  A pink, tubby man with cold eyes and a ready smile, Dr. Prine wore plain clothes, a sports jacket and a bow tie instead of a turnedaround collar, the better to elicit unguarded remarks from his subjects. He made individual appointments with the vestry and a number of longtime parishioners, hoping to catch them out in contradictions. He covered all the bases—moral, financial, liturgical—trying to find out if Henry was leaving under pressure. Were they satisfied with Henry’s acquittal of his priestly duties? Was he diligent in the matter of sick calls? Did he allow a “hippie element” to debase the marriage ceremony—handwritten vows, secular music, readings from profane authors? Was he known to endorse the ordination of women? Was he popular with the ladies of the parish? There was a secretary, a young woman in her twenties: he understood she had departed rather suddenly?

  Reports came back to us from Michel Roque and Ralph Hiram, the former and present heads of the vestry, that Prine was sniffing around for irregularities in the church account books. Had Henry tried to sidestep the yearly audit mandated by the diocese? Where were the records that itemized disbursements from the rector’s discretionary fund? Told that the money for the fund came out of Henry’s own pocket, Dr. Prine grew sullen with frustration. The more his inquiries were thwarted, the more he became convinced of a parishwide cover-up.

  Prine took to laying traps for his subjects. There were rumors, he averred, that Henry had tampered with the liturgy, celebrating the feast days of saints found in the Roman, not the Anglican, calendar. Confronted with blank stares, he dug the trap even deeper. Spurred on by his own cunning, he dropped hints of confidential sources requesting anonymity, loyal parishioners who had come forward only after painful soul-searching. At that point Dr. Prine sprung the trap. Warning his interviewees that failure to report heretical practices was tantamount to heresy, he demanded confirmation of accounts of “healing sessions” invoking nature gods and the spirits of the dead. Prine never knew how close he came to the mark. Ralph Hiram called the Bishop and complained of gestapo tactics. Dr. Prine was recalled under a cloud and ordered to draft a letter of apology.

  The congregation and the town presented a united front. They didn’t talk to Dr. Prine; nor did they gossip among themselves. Were they trying to protect Henry? Or to erase unpleasant memories? It took diplomacy and patience to persuade them to talk to me, and I was one of them. They wanted to forget, but I intended to remember. Knowledge forearms us, even knowledge of disastrous possibilities. Everything was relevant to my chronicle: observation, conjecture, hearsay, and the tendency of human beings to belittle or exaggerate events as it suited their self-image. I wanted to record what happened, what seems to have happened, and what didn’t happen.

  To the third category belongs the abduction of my sister, Hannah, that reverse Persephone, who staged her own disappearance to escape from a too-devoted mother. After knocking around the region, crashing with friends and taking odd jobs, Hannah came back to Dry Falls, as she always did. She and Emily are living together in mutual widowhood. The pattern of their relationship was determined long ago. Each time I visit, the same kind of scene is played out over and over again. Emily made the coffee too weak or too strong and Hannah emptied her cup into a houseplant. Emily patched a hole on the knee of Hannah’s jeans. Hannah stormed into the kitchen and ripped the patch out. Emily sneaked into Hannah’s studio and did a house-cleaning. Hannah brought a bagful of sawdust into the living room and spread it on the rug. After a while I get up to leave. No one stops me. They’ve forgotten I was in the room. Hannah turns out very little work nowadays and Emily spends less time in her garden. They have limited time for outside activities. They are far too wrapped up in each other.

  Released from the corporate hierarchy, Henry seems more youthful than he did when I first met him. The zest he derives from his work releases energy for other aspects of life. He gives lectures all over the Northeast. He has time to serve on the town council and to organize kayak races on the Crooked River. He takes his bicycle out before supper. We have a sexual life on a schedule appropriate to our age, but not, for that reason, uninspiring. We have frequent and earnest disagreements, usually about which cases he should accept and which he should turn down. I’ve saved him more than once from getting involved with cranks and frauds. The Center receives so many requests for help that we’ve had to hire an outside reader to sort them into categories.

  I lost the most recent argument. Next week Henry takes off for East Readfield, a small town west of Augusta, to look into the strange disappearance of twelve-year-old Mary Belcher. According to eyewitness reports, she was playing Chopin’s fifth nocturne in a piano recital at the middle school auditorium. When she finished her piece, she curtsied to the audience, walked off stage right, and has never been seen again, although there were a number of people in the wings at the time—her piano teacher, two other performers and their mothers, and the school custodian. The police launched a statewide investigation, broadcast her picture on the television news, and quickly brought in the FBI. There was a stepfather, a factory worker, who was moonlighting at the local filling station during the concert.

  Little Mary made good grades and had a sunny disposition. She was a popular child, whose friends thought of the Belcher house as their headquarters. The case was seven months old and stone cold. It was Mary’s mother who wrote to the Center. “She’s a runaway,” I insisted to Henry. “I don’t believe in this perfect family business.” “Maybe,” he said, and reminded me of the piano teacher’s statement. A few seconds after Mary passed her, Mrs. Wilson turned around and saw her opening the door to the emergency exit, some fifteen feet away. “I assumed she wanted to be alone,” said Mrs. Wilson. “She had made a few mistakes and I thought she was upset about it.” When the police began the search they found a trail of shoe prints (size five and a half, Mary’s size, made by the kind of low-heeled pumps she was wearing), leading around the side of the building, stopping abruptly by an outside electrical meter. No other prints of that kind were found anywhere on the grounds. “That’s easy,” I said. “She took off her shoes and went barefoot.” Once again, Henry bested me. “You’ve forgotten the weather report. It was a wet night in May, a steady drizzle. The temperature was in the forties.”

  I have finished this chronicle, for whatever use it may be to my townspeople. Henry had expected me to resume full-time work at the Center, writing up case notes and grant applications, running interference with the press, organizing out-of-town investigations. I don’t like going out on the road. Generally our cases take us to backwaters where there is no place to stay except those old-fashioned rows of cabins, the precursors of modern motels, and no restaurants for miles except roadhouses where they can heat up a slice of frozen pizza. The locations are uninteresting. The public image of a “haunted house,” a granite baronial pile with gables, turrets, and crenellations, derives from gothic novels and is entirely inaccurate. It is amazing how many paranormal manifestations take place in tract houses, commercial lofts, and trailer parks.

  Verifying a manifestation is rather like making a movie, as I understand it. More time is spent setting up the equipment—infrared cameras, sensors, motion detectors, tape recorders—than in watching the actors perform. Just when everything is ready, some technical difficulty arises and the day’s, or night’s, work is wasted. Even if the instruments work flawlessly, we can sit around for days waiting for something to happen. What happens is usually a matter for open debate. Wa
s that blur on the film a ray of light getting through the blackout curtains or the shape of a human figure? Was the sound on the tape an unearthly wail or the wind in the chimney? Everyone has her own definition of boredom. I would rather pluck the leaves from twenty pounds of thyme branches than work on location.

  A few weeks ago I made a proposition to Henry and he has accepted it. There is a two-acre plot of land at the end of Nagle’s Lane, which runs off Main Street. The land is owned by the Baldwins, whose house abuts it. The Baldwins keep the parcel mowed so it won’t revert to forest. When they heard my plans from Lorraine Drago, the Baldwins lowered their price. They were relieved to learn I had no intention of building on it, except, of course, for putting up a storage shed. Someday I hope to add on a glass extension, for starting seeds and wintering over pots of tender herbs. I have money put aside from my earnings and the sale of some Beaulac heirlooms, in particular the attic bed. Henry offered to pay to have the well dug. In the end, my project will prove to be economical. I can grow and preserve all our produce, and eventually market the surplus.

  The terms of my proposition are clear and equitable. For six months I will work with Henry in his basement offices; the remaining six months I will tend my allotment garden. In the dark of the year I can manage to work underground. When the winter blows over, I yearn for release into the sunshine. In spite of his robust physique, Henry is a thinking type. I have a limited appetite for theories, abstractions, and shadows. Trapped in Henry’s domain, I’d grow haggard and melancholic. I require a more balanced division of mind and matter. I will have some lean seasons in my garden—rainy springs that retard flowering, dry summers that stunt the crops, early frosts that decimate the harvest. I expect them; I even welcome them. They are part of the natural order.