Cursed Be the Child

by Mort Castle

  “Bless the Lord…” Evan whispered, reciting the opening verses of the 103rd Psalm of David “…bless His Holy Name and forget not all His benefits.”

  He touched Emerald Farmer’s cheek. She whimpered and then relaxed. Her limbs straightened as the shock-induced rigidity left her. She turned onto her back, trenchcoat puddling on either side of her. She licked her lips, squinted at him.

  “I…”

  “Shh,” Evan said, “God is with you now. God is with us.” He prayed, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who healeth all thy diseases…”

  The power of God burned inside him.

  It was in his soul and his heart and his mind.

  He was uplifted. He was transfigured.

  His eyes were as the eyes of the prophets of old, and as he gazed at Emerald Farmer, he beheld a vision.

  There was illness in this woman’s body, dark, insidious, and amorphous, but the disease lacked consciousness; a mindless thing, it meant her neither good nor ill. It simply existed.

  In the secret voice of the heart, Evan called upon the Lord to heal this woman of her sickness of the flesh.

  In a measureless instant of time, the woman’s illness ceased to exist at the command of God who heard the plea of His servant, Evan Kyle Dean.

  Emerald Farmer no longer had AIDS.

  But Emerald Farmer was not yet cured. The eyes of Evan Kyle Dean, opened by the Lord, saw that, and for an instant, he was afraid for her—and for himself.

  Not within her body but within her soul resided an evil, one of the limitless manifestations of The Great Evil. With a dark sentience not akin to human thought, it yearned for Emerald Farmer’s destruction, as it desired the destruction of all that is human and all that is good. It was a spirit of hatred. It was a spirit of murder. It was a spirit of dissolution and decay, of fury and madness, of catastrophe and cataclysm.

  “The Lord is my shepherd.” Evan put fear behind him, placing his soul in the hands of The Lord.

  God lifted him from the temporal world of three dimensions and surfaces and substances. Evan experienced a vision, not seeing it but within it.

  He stood on a desolate, colorless plane, a vast expanse of nothingness. A black cyclonic cloud whirled toward him across the limitless reaches.

  Then, close, so close to him, the frenetic advance ended, and Evan discerned the form of the spirit.

  It was a too angular, layered shadow, a shape meant to mock the form of Man who was made in God’s image. Its face gleamed leprous silver, neither male nor female. Its eyes were bottomless, red vacancies.

  Calmly, Evan spoke. “Leave the woman.”

  “Evan Kyle Dean.” When the spirit spoke, its voice was a cacophony of inhuman sounds—locusts devouring a wheat field; a derailed train careening off the tracks; the hiss of high tension wires and the thunder of erupting volcanoes. Then the voice changed. Though the spirit was not bound by the constraints of time as mortals reckon time, it chose to speak in the language of today. It had a distinctly twentieth-century voice, well-modulated, thoughtful, and even seemingly compassionate. It was a contemporary, cool, calm, and wicked voice, the very voice of sweet reason.

  “Evan Kyle Dean,” the spirit repeated. “Let’s talk.”

  “Back to the pit!” Evan roared.

  “Shh,” counseled the spirit. “No reason to boost the blood pressure, Evan. We can work this out. Compromise, so that we can both have what we want.”

  “Compromise? Never! I mean to free this woman’s soul from your pernicious grip!”

  “Evan, Evan,” came a chuckling reproof. “You’re being a bit stiff-necked about this, if you don’t mind my saying so. After all, this woman, Emerald Farmer, virtually sent me an engraved invitation, asking me to take up permanent residence in her soul. That is the way it works, you know.”

  “It was her grief, her pain, that gave you entry into her soul.”

  “Perhaps, Evan,” the spirit interrupted, “but it was still her choice.”

  “And it’s God Who loves her and Who will free her of you!”

  It seemed to Evan that the spirit shriveled, as though its angles were softening and compacting. But when it spoke, its voice was stronger and, if anything, more confident. “Why, Evan? Why involve yourself this way? The woman did not come to you for help.”

  “No.” Evan smiled. “But I am a child of God, and she is a child of God. It is our duty to the Father and to each other to help one another. I will bring God’s miracles to her because she is my sister, and Our Father commands us to love one another.”

  “I understand, Evan. You say that even better live than you do on television. Is that it, Evan? Are we being filmed? Is it like a cinema verite documentary?”

  “I serve God Almighty, our Eternal Father…”

  “But you have served the Nielsens and the Arbitrons, and you have served yourself rather well, too, isn’t that so?”

  The spirit laughed lightly. “Evan, let’s cut to the chase. A deal. I do have valuable connections that could be of aid to you. You can be big, my friend, the biggest. The times are right for someone like you; you’ve got credibility. Evan, this is not nickel and dime stuff we’re talking. Think mega-ministry! I’m seeing the future, and it’s a Billy Graham scene, Preacher to the Presidents. And, Evan, you like it. You know you crave that kind of power and celebrity.”

  “No.”

  “Evan!”

  “Yes!” Evan admitted. “Yes, I sought to magnify myself and to glorify myself, but I have changed. I am humbled and I am humble.”

  “There’s pride in your saying that, Evan,” chided the spirit.

  “Offer what you will, tempt me as you shall,” Evan continued, “I answer you in one way only. ‘For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”’

  The spirit no longer spoke in the diplomatic voice of a business manager. The spirit screeched, and its screech was the roar of nuclear wind. “Only two choices, Evan! Two! You can sell your soul, or you can lose it. Those are the options your loving God has so thoughtfully provided Mankind.”

  Evan laughed. “One other. Salvation. A gift. An offering of love. His love!”

  A crooked black finger pointed at him. “Salvation? We’ll see if that is your fate. Another spirit awaits you, Evan Kyle Dean, far more powerful and devious than I. And when you confront that spirit, it just could be that the soul you prize so highly will be thrown down and lost, eternally lost.”

  Evan said, “I don’t fear you or the future.” God was with him. “It is ended,” he said. “Leave the woman.”

  “No!”

  “God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God…” Evan recited from John, Chapter Four, “…and this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us…”

  “NO!”

  “And in His name, according to His will, I pray God to send His love to the woman, His all-powerful, healing love to drive you and all unclean spirits that have sought her undoing back to your lonely, devastated and loveless realm!”

  With a single, lipless snarl of defeat and disgust, the dark spirit yielded before the indomitable force of God’s love and vanished.

  It no longer dwelled within the woman.

  In his living room, Evan Kyle Dean, on his knees, gazed down on Emerald Farmer and knew she was whole once again.

  And so was he.

  — | — | —

  Twenty-Two

  On Thursday, Vicki Barringer sat at the kitchen table, pen in hand. Autumn’s afternoon sunlight poured through the window above the sink, as though promising there would never be a winter.

  In the past 15 minutes, all Vicki had managed to put on paper was “Dear Carol Grace.” She’d considered telephoning, but feared the silences that might plague the conversation; there’d already been too many years of silence between her sister and herself.

  So she decided on a letter, asking if they coul
d renew their relationship—no, begin a new relationship.

  This was something she had to do.

  Strange, she thought, but one day everything is chaos and craziness, and the next it’s all so normal that you’re almost convinced that nothing will ever be wrong again. Thank you, God. The phrase was in Vicki’s mind, and it felt as though it belonged there. The future somehow seemed to promise no crisis that could prove more than an annoyance. The furnace’s thermostat might need replacement, but its heat exchanger wouldn’t crack and fill the house with deadly carbon monoxide. Missy might trip on an uneven sidewalk and split her lip, maybe even require two or three stitches and gain an interesting scar, but she would not fracture her skull and slip into a coma from which she’d never awaken. A customer at Blossom Time, thinking he was overcharged, might get surly, but he wouldn’t be out of his mind on cocaine or angel dust and burst in blasting away with a shotgun.

  And Warren was and always would be all right. She really felt that. Warren and she together were all right.

  And things would be even more all right once she and Carol Grace were reconciled.

  When Missy got home from school, Vicki had written three lines to her sister and crossed them out.

  After Missy hurriedly changed out of her school clothes, she asked if she could go play at Amy Lynn Elliot’s. The Elliots lived only a block and a half away. There was only the one street, and Missy reminded her mother that she was always real careful crossing streets. Dorothy was going to Amy Lynn’s, and they’d just be in the backyard at the Elliots’ in the playhouse, and it wasn’t cold or anything, but in case it did get cold, she would take her jacket.

  “Sure,” Vicki said. “No problem.”

  Missy blinked in surprise and didn’t get a chance to use the rest of the persuasive arguments she’d prepared.

  “I want you home in time for supper.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “And one other thing.”

  “What?” Missy frowned with suspicion.

  “Before you go, I want a real big hug. You know why?”

  “Uh-uh!”

  “Because I love you very, very much.”

  Missy giggled, hugged her mother, added a bonus kiss and an “I love you very, very much, too!” assurance and raced out.

  “Let’s be the Brady Bunch,” Dorothy Morgan said. Like her mother, Dorothy was red-haired and tall, the tallest girl in the second grade.

  “I don’t want to,” Amy Lynn Elliot said. “The Brady Bunch is stupid.” “Stupid” came out “thtoopid”; twice a week, Amy Lynn was taken out of class to work with the speech therapist. “And they’re all old reruns, too. Let’s play school.”

  “Oh, sure,” Dorothy said. “That’s what you’d want to do. You love school!”

  That was true. Dark-haired, petite Amy Lynn had been teacher’s pet in kindergarten, first grade and now second grade. Teachers seemed to think her lisp was charming, an extra cute touch on a totally cute little girl.

  “We have to play what I want to,” Amy Lynn said, with a possessive wave of her hand, “because this is my playhouse. And if you don’t like it, you can go home, Dorothy Morgan.”

  Maybe Dorothy didn’t like it, but she did like the playhouse. It was ten by ten with a pitched shingled roof and windows all the way around and a battery operated doorbell that really rang. It was excellent! Amy Lynn had just about everything in the world in it, too—toy kitchen appliances, a table and chair set, and a canvas camp cot in the corner for a bedroom.

  “Missy,” Dorothy appealed to her friend, “you don’t want to play school, do you?”

  Sitting on the cot, Missy shrugged.

  “Come on, Missy.”

  “Maybe we could do The Cosby Show,” Missy suggested.

  “That is really ignorant!” Amy Lynn declared. “I want to play school and we’ve got all the stuff, and it is my playhouse, so there!”

  “Okay, okay.” Dorothy sighed, then she brightened. “Come here, Missy,” she said, and when Missy came over to her, Dorothy whispered in her ear.

  “It’s not nice to have secrets,” Amy Lynn whined. “You guys stop it or I’ll go tell my mom right now!”

  “It was not either a secret,” Dorothy said. It was only something I wanted to tell Missy.”

  “Well…”

  “Come on, let’s play school!” Dorothy said.

  School began, but not the way Amy Lynn had planned. Not more than ten seconds after the morning bell—a long ring of the playhouse doorbell—started the pretend day, an outraged Amy Lynn Elliot was being taken to the principal’s office by her teacher, Miss Barringer.

  “She was bad,” Miss Barringer announced.

  “I see, I see,” the principal, Miss Dorothy Morgan, said. Looking stern, she folded her hands on her desk, the playhouse table. “What did she do?”

  “She didn’t do her homework.”

  “I always do my homework. And I always get it all right. And I always get a gold star!”

  Dorothy wagged a threatening finger at Amy Lynn. “Don’t you dare interrupt your teacher, little girl!”

  “You guys aren’t playing right!”

  “That does it!” Dorothy pushed back the chair and rose. She glowered. “Now you’re going to get punished.”

  “You’re dumb and mean!”

  Dorothy came round the table and gripped Amy Lynn’s elbow. “You need a good spanking, young lady!’’

  “No!” Amy Lynn jerked free and backed away from the advancing Dorothy. “Principals can’t spank kids. It’s against the law!”

  Shooting Missy a look, Dorothy said, “Let’s get her and spank her!”

  “I’ll tell!” Amy Lynn squealed, blinking back tears. “I’ll tell my mom and then you’ll be sorry.”

  “I…I was only kidding.” Dorothy retreated from the potent ‘I’ll tell’ threat. “We were only teasing you, weren’t we, Missy?”

  “Yeah, we were just kidding. That’s all. Don’t tell. Okay, Amy Lynn?”

  “Well, will you guys play school right?”

  “Sure we will,” Dorothy said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  For the next ten minutes, the children played school Amy Lynn’s way. Amy Lynn was the teacher. Missy and Dorothy were the pupils. According to the teacher, the pupils passed notes when they should have been working on their arithmetic. They shouted out answers without raising their hands. They were naughty and had to be punished—the right way. The misbehaving students had to write “I will attempt to improve my shameful conduct” 20 times.

  Placated, Amy Lynn agreed when Dorothy asked, “Could we play something else now?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Missy said quietly. “I know a special game.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “It’s like a secret game, just for us and nobody else. Do you promise you won’t tell anyone about it?”

  “Sure!” Dorothy’s eyes sparkled with enthusiastic curiosity; she was ready to try anything once—and most things twice.

  “I guess so,” Amy Lynn said.

  “Okay.” Missy dipped her head and sucked at her lower lip as though having second thoughts.

  “Come on,” Dorothy said. “How does it go?”

  “You’re the little girl, Amy Lynn, and Dorothy, you’re her mama.”

  “What’s my name?” Amy Lynn asked.

  Dorothy giggled at the silly way Amy Lynn pronounced the name Missy gave her: “Lithette.”

  “What about you, Missy?”

  “I’m the uncle, see, and Lisette comes to my house to live.”

  “So what do I get to do?” Dorothy demanded.

  “You just go over there”—Missy gestured at the corner—“and that’s all you have to do. And if Lisette calls you, you never come for her. Not ever.” Missy’s voice was dreamy and faraway.

  Dorothy sneered. “Wow! Some fun for me!”

  “It’s the way we have to do it,” Missy said. “This is the real way. Later, you can be the uncle.”


  “And you’ll be Lisette?”

  “Yes,” Missy said, and she held the final hissing sound of the word a long time. “That is who I will be.”

  “Okay,” Dorothy said, “just as long as I get to really play later, too.” She took up her position in the corner as the mama who could not come to her daughter.

  Missy sat down on the chair. “Come here, Lisette,” she called, making her voice so deep she had to whisper. “Sit on your uncle’s lap.”

  Amy Lynn did, even though she commented, “This is kinda silly.”

  “Do you like your old uncle?”

  “I guess.”

  “I know you like me, sweet baby girl. You like all the men, don’t you?”

  “I don’t either like boys!”

  “Shh, play our game, Lisette.”

  “Huh, some game!” called Dorothy from her corner exile. “For me, it’s boring!”

  “You have to be nice to Uncle, Lisette.”

  “Hey, you’re tickling me. Quit it.”

  “You like when I tickle you, Lisette. Sure you do. You want me to touch you, touch you all over.”

  Amy Lynn tried to squirm away, but Missy’s arms tightly held her. “I don’t like this. This is…funny. It’s creepy.”

  “You do like it,” Missy whispered, her mouth brushing Amy Lynn’s cheek. “You’re a whore, a whore the way your mama was a whore. And this is what whores like.”

  Amy Lynn was afraid in a way she had never before been afraid. She sagged against Missy. She couldn’t move or do anything but whimper.

  Then Amy Lynn felt Missy’s hand inside her clothes, beneath her undershirt, resting on her stomach.

  “Don’t…” Amy Lynn bleated thinly.

  “Hey, what are you guys doing?” Dorothy left the comer and came nearer, just as Missy kissed Amy Lynn on the lips.

  Amy Lynn catapulted off Missy’s lap as though she’d been propelled by a trampoline. She hit the floor on her knees and scrambled to her feet, gasping.

  “That’s sick! That’s dirty! You stuck your tongue…in my mouth! You…You queer!”

  With each word, Amy Lynn backed up a step. “I’m telling my mom!” she vowed. “I’m telling her right now!”