different denomination.” Sampson harrumphed a little louder. “I’ll try, though. Even though he is your ancestor, and nice enough, I don’t really want him for a permanent mantel ornament.”
I had only a vague impression of what an exorcism rite included. I had read one once in Latin in my grandmother’s Missal. I remembered mostly that it needed a bell for ringing, a candle, and a copy of the Bible, so I collected these items and brought them out and put them on a card table.
“What is all that paraphernalia, young man?"
“It is exorcism equipment, Sampson.”
“Exorcism? Do you understand that could be painful to me?”
“I don’t care. Molly Ann and I want you out of here. We’re not willing to have a child to do it.”
“There is nothing reasonable in a healthy woman’s refusing to bear a child,” Sampson snorted.
Molly Ann snorted. “That is more reasonable than an ancestral spirit in a Twentieth Century family room.”
“Be quiet, both of you. I’ve got to do an exorcism. I want to do it right.”
Sampson was quiet, glowing pale blue, with only an occasional silver and purple spark. I told myself I really could exorcise him. I almost fooled myself into believing it. I hoped I fooled Sampson. I sent Molly Ann for my pulpit gown. I heard her brushing the dust off it. I hadn’t used it for several months. I frowned at both of them. They stayed quiet, and rather solemn. The gloom that falls over my face when I put the black robe on kept them both quiet. Then I lit the candle, and put it on the card table between the Bible and the bell. Molly Ann shut out the lights, which made the whole thing look very eerie. She has quite an eye for artistic details.
“In the name of the King of the Universe,” I chanted, and rang the bell three times with my left hand, “I abjure thee, Sampson,” three more shakes of the bell, “to be gone to rest and eternal peace.” The bell again. I put my right hand on the Bible. “By all that is holy, by all that is sacred, by all that is true religion, I send thee to thy grave,” the bell, “there to rest forever untroubled until the Judgment Day.” I rang the bell three times as before.
I closed my eyes and began to intone my phrases. “Sampson, go as the candle flare goes when the light is blown out. Lord, now let your servant Sampson go in peace, according to your gracious word. Amen,” ring of the bell, “amen,” ring of the bell, “and amen.” Ring of the bell, and under it a startled sound. I opened my eyes and looked at Molly Ann. She was staring, astonished, at the mantel. Sampson seemed to be choking on something. Two phosphorescent figures, one on either side of him, took shape. They were female, dressed in the ruffled dresses of a hundred years ago.
“Young man,” Sampson said triumphantly, “you’d have exorcised me forever, if you hadn’t made one mistake. Hold the bell in your right hand next time. When you hold it in your left it reverses everything you say. Now I’m here for good, unless you have that child.”
“Sampson,” the voice was strange to me, “are you meddling again? I thought you had learned your lesson in that earthquake.” I wasn’t sure who she was. Molly Ann knew, though.
“Welcome, Great-Great-Grandmother Jennie,” she said. “Maybe you can do something with Great-Great-Grandfather Sampson. He demands we have a child.”
“He was always a strong family man.”
“Now, Jennie.” I could tell that Sampson didn’t have the upper hand with his wife he’d claimed he had. She ignored him completely.
“Who is that woman on the other side of you, Sampson?” I asked. I almost regretted asking; purple sparks started shooting through his ectoplasm.
“That, young man, is your great-great-grandmother, Lucy May.”
“Oh, the one you were supposed to marry instead of Great-Great-Grandmother Jennie, Great-Great-Grandfather?” Molly Ann sounded sweet and innocent. I knew Sampson faced trouble.
“What, Sampson,” Jennie said sternly, “is all this about?” The two ancestresses glowered at each other.
“Oh, you’re that Sampson,” said my ancestress. “My how you’ve aged, or should I say matured?” My ancestress sounded a lot like my wife, sweet, innocent, and full of danger. Sampson was pitifully uncomfortable. He was sparking pink and blue and sickly yellow-green.
“Ladies, I have been true to both of you, after my fashion,” he said.
“Oh, quit prattling like a stupid third rate poet, Sampson,” Jennie said. “You don’t do it very well, and it solves nothing. Why were we called here? And why did you never mention Lucy May to me?”
Call it gender bias. I felt Sampson needed a rescue, so I spoke up.
“I called you here,” I said, “though what I meant to do was get rid of Sampson. I’m sorry for the trouble I caused.” I was, too, especially the trouble I’d caused myself. I had a hunch three spirits were harder to exorcise than one.
“And?” Jennie turned to Sampson.
“And what, my dear?”
“What about Lucy May?”
“I can tell you about that,” Lucy May said. “One spring day in 1850, Sampson came riding up to my father’s farm, and oh! He was so handsome he fair took my breath away. He stayed the summer, and we became betrothed. It was a harvest moon in September, I remember, when he quenched the ember of our love. He mounted his horse and rode away. I never saw him again, though I watched all the bitter winter for his return. I had a letter from him in 1851 that said he had wed another.” Lucy May was crying. Jennie was crying. Sampson looked miserable. Molly Ann looked like she could either cry or giggle.
“Sampson, for shame!” Jennie was very hurt. “To abandon this poor child and to marry me under false pretenses. This is even more upsetting than your unseemly leering at those undressed women in San Francisco during that earthquake business. For shame!” By this time Jennie had her arm around Lucy May and Lucy May’s head was on Jennie’s shoulder.
“Men are such brutes at times,” Molly Ann said. I thought it prudent to say nothing. “Noble ancestresses, do you know that Sampson has threatened to haunt us until we have the child?”
“Men are always wanting children to make them feel important and to prove that they are men,” my ancestress replied through her tears. “My Luke got twelve on me. Raising that many led me to an early grave.” As I remembered family history, Lucy May had been eighty-five or ninety when she died. I chose not to remind her of it.
“Whatever are we to do with you, Sampson?” Jennie asked. The question sounded very rhetorical. I had a hunch Jennie had an idea all worked out. It didn’t look good for Sampson, or for his eternal rest.
“You know, dearest Jennie,” Sampson said, “that because I failed to have a child of destiny with Lucy May, that our descendants must make up the deficit even unto the third and fourth generation. It is so written. It is the Law of Compensation.”
Molly Ann started laughing, a very relieved laugh. “Sampson,” she said between laughs, “you know your Scripture, and it does say even unto the third and fourth generation. Jim and I are off the hook; we’re both fifth generation.” I started laughing too.
“Late again, Sampson,” I said. He was a very pale blue glow now. Laughter was hard for him to take.
“He usually is,” Jennie said. “I think we’ll all be going now. He won’t haunt you anymore. I’m pleased to see that my descendant is so strong of mind, and that she has married an understanding man.”
“And I am pleased that a descendant of mine is so handsome,” Lucy May said. I appreciated her compliment, though I doubted her ectoplasmic sight. I’ve looked in the mirror often enough.
“Go back into the eternal shadows,” I said, “and rest, though if you want to come visit us again sometime, we might have quite a chat. Please give us some advance warning, though. Goodbye.”
The three figures were fading. Jennie and Lucy May were arm in arm, two Victorian schoolgirls plotting bedevilment. I felt sorry for Sampson. He was a faded thin, blu
e, and hunched over. All his “harrumph” had gone.
“We may come back sometime,” Jennie said. “I’d like to see the new fashions. Goodbye!”
“Goodbye!” Molly Ann called after the fading figures. The two women turned and waved, then disappeared. Sampson, hunched over, just faded.
That was two months ago. This past week Molly Ann has been sick every morning. She’s going into town for a kit from the drug store. I’ve begun searching the want ads for a job. Last night we both dreamed we heard a chuckle and a harrumph. If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Sampson, I guess. I don’t know what name we should choose for a girl, though, Jennifer or Lucy.
Bobby’s Shrine
Tom came from the kitchen carrying two bottles of beer. One he put beside his father, the other he took to his own chair. Ed studied Tom over the top of his glasses. “That’s your second beer since you got here. What’s eating at you?” Ed said.
Tom put his bottle on the table beside his chair and went to look at the portrait on the credenza against the wall. “Still got Bobby’s shrine, eh? Just like Mama left it,” he said.
Ed
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