Be Not Afraid (30 page)

Father William reached out with his right hand and pressed it against the middle of Cassie’s chest. He was fumbling, stammering, trying to get more words out, glancing at the book and then back at the girl. The lifted crucifix made a strange shadow along the shredded skin of her face, and the swollen shapes along her neck were ringed with pink marks. Suddenly, she jerked her head out from under the priest’s hand and then turned, clutching at her throat, moving toward him, her mouth opening and then closing
like a gutted fish. A new voice emerged from her mouth, childlike, desperate. “Oh, Booey! Booey!”

Father William’s face paled as Cassie clawed at the knees of his pants, burying her face against his legs. “Booey, help me! I can’t breathe! Please, Booey!”

Father William took a step back, his mouth ajar, the rosary in his hand forgotten. He looked stunned. Lost.

“Don’t listen to it!” I grabbed Father William by the wrist.

But it was clear that he could not hear or see anything except the innocent voice coming out of Cassie. “Booey, please!”

He fell to his knees, a bone cracking beneath the skin, his face gray. “Booooooey!” the demon wailed again in the child’s voice. “I can’t breathe! Booey, help me! It’s so dark! Please!”

Father William staggered to his feet.

And then he turned and stumbled from the room.

I followed, the sound of the vile cackling behind me as I slammed the door. Dominic was on the floor, knocked down by Father William’s abrupt exit, and he leapt to his feet as he saw me, reaching for me with both arms.

“What happened?” he asked, clutching at me.

“I don’t know.” I twisted out of his hold, moving toward the priest, who was at the other end of the hall, both hands covering his face.

“Father.” I stayed a few feet behind, not wanting to frighten him. “What’s wrong?”

He sank to the floor at the question, as if it had undone him, one hand still covering his face.

I slid down next to him, inches away. “Is it because of Booey?”

His head lurched up so quickly that I reared back. I stared at the sorrow swimming there in his eyes, the absence of hope.

I knew that look.

I did.

“Who’s Booey?” I asked.

He set his jaw with deliberation, even as the tears streamed down his face. “I’m Booey,” he said. “Booey was my nickname growing up, the only way my little brother could pronounce Billy. That day in the pool, when he was calling for me …” He broke off, his eyes searching something in the distance. “The demon knew. It knew.”

“Knew what?” My voice was quivering.

“That I pushed him.” The priest’s voice surged with fury. “That I let myself get so overcome at his little annoyances, his bugging me all the time, that I pushed him in.”

“But then you dove in,” I protested. “You told me you went in and got him. You saved him.”

“Not without hesitating first.” The sadness in the priest’s eyes was liquid-heavy, the crest of an impending tidal wave. “Not without letting him flounder for a few seconds. He called for me, and I turned my back. I let him suffer.” He buried his face in his hands. “I let him suffer, alone in that water. I let him drown.”

“But then you turned around again.” I grabbed the priest’s hand. “You turned around, and you dove in and pulled him out.”

He shook his head, not hearing me, a million miles away. “And I broke my neck. I was unconscious. It was too late.”

I thought about what I had admitted to Dad about leaving Mom, about not caring anymore. It was the same thing that Father William had done, the same walking away, turning his back, even just for a moment.

And yet.

A ferocity filled me then, and I squared my shoulders under the weight of it, lifted my chin. “Father, please. We make mistakes. And that’s all. It doesn’t mean we’re evil. It just means we’re human.”

He shook his head as I talked, resigned to his defeat.

“We’re still good people, Father.” I grabbed his shoulder, shaking it hard. “We are. But you have to believe it. You have to let the rest of that stuff go and make the decision to believe that you’re still good.” I rubbed my fingers over his gnarled knuckles. “You told me the other day at the hospital that you made the decision to do your rehab like you’d never done anything before. With a real commitment, remember? You said you had things to do. Places to see.” I was crying now, talking for both of us. “That’s still true. You still have things to do, places to see. But you won’t be able to do them unless you make the choice again to believe in yourself. To believe in your own goodness. Because I’m pretty sure after all this time, that that’s
what God is. The goodness in us. That’s his gift to us. Our blessing.”

He lifted his head, tried to fix his gaze upon my face. He seemed to be trembling under the weight of my words, steadying himself with one hand against the wall.

“I don’t know if I can go back in there again,” he whispered. “I don’t know if I have it in me.”

“You do have it in you.” I stood up, pulling him to his feet. “I can see it. Let’s go in there together. You can lean on me when it gets too hard, and I’ll do the same.”

He hesitated, deliberating my words.

And then he nodded, once, and pulled himself back up.

The priest took his place next to the bed again, the sweat wiped from his brow, the purple stole around his shoulders, the rosary entwined in his right hand. Just as before, he gripped the crucifix in his left hand, holding it now like a sword. A rip stood out in the knee of his pants, and his shirt hung loose and untucked over his belt, but his voice sounded different. Stronger.

“I command you, vile spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ, to leave this daughter of God and go back from whence you came!”

Cassie lolled her head to one side, cackling insidiously. “But I
like
it here!” The demon’s voice was a mocking falsetto. “It’s so warm! And she smells so sweet!” The voice changed again, deepening into a throated growl. “You will
never make me leave. She’s mine now! All mine! And I will live in her forever!”

Father William wiped the sweat from his brow and readjusted his hold on the crucifix. He looked startled as I knelt down next to him, but when he turned back to Cassie, his voice was louder. He addressed her again, the determination behind it unmistakable, a new vigor in his tone.

“I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every satanic power of the enemy, every specter from hell, and all your fell companions; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

At the words, Cassie arched her back and shrieked. I reached out with my good hand and held on to Father William’s belt loop as he continued to chant the prayers from
The Rite.

Cassie’s fists clenched under the words. She shouted obscenities over the litany, and the pupils in her eyes disappeared once more. A groan sounded again, a deep, guttural sound, like metal tearing from the inside out. Her head tossed from side to side. She made a sudden jerking movement with her arms. Her biceps bulged, and a vein in her forehead strained as the ropes around her wrists loosened and then split.

Before I could tell what happened, Cassie leapt from the mattress, knocking Father William to the floor. He landed with a sickening thud, crying out in pain as the crucifix fell and skittered to one side. The force of the blow knocked me in the other direction, opposite the priest. My casted arm made a dull knocking sound against the floor as it hit,
and I curled it up against me, struggling back to my feet. Before I could blink, Cassie had ripped the rosary out of Father William’s other hand and roped it around his neck. Foam curled and spit from the corners of her mouth, and her tongue flicked in and out as she yanked tight along his throat and pulled. “You’re nothing, Priest! She’s mine now!
Mine!
”

Father William’s arms flailed. His lips began to turn blue, and I could see the crystal edges of the rosary cutting into his neck. I lunged for Cassie, grabbing her around the waist with one hand. But my injured arm made the movement a futile one, and Cassie didn’t budge. She moved up farther along Father William’s neck instead, tightening the rosary even more, her neck bulging with exertion. Father William’s eyes protruded from their sockets; his hands clawed the floor.

“Dominic!” I screamed. “Dominic!”

He burst in all at once and rushed over to the priest, struggling to dislodge his sister’s grip on him. But it was as if Cassie had turned to stone. Dominic pulled and strained, to no avail. Father William was making wild gasping noises, his legs banging like heavy logs on the floor. I could see a trickle of blood leaking out from beneath one side of the rosary, and his Adam’s apple stuck out of the middle of his neck like a walnut.

“It’s me you want!” The words came out of my mouth before I had a chance to think about them. “It’s
me
you want!” I said, louder this time. “Not him. Me!”

Even from behind, I could see the muscles loosen in Cassie’s arms. With a whip of her head, she glared at me over her shoulder. Beneath her, Father William still thrashed, desperate for air. I did not move, did not even blink. The repugnant grin reappeared on Cassie’s face, a thin widening of the lips that stretched from ear to ear. A throaty giggle came out of her mouth as she let go of the rosary and slid in my direction.

Father William inhaled once, hoarsely, as if coming up from the depths of the ocean. Dominic rushed toward him, cradling his head in both hands.

I took a step back as Cassie crawled toward me on all fours. Her hair—what was left of it—stuck to the sides of her bloodied face, and her nails made a scraping sound against the floor. This demon was going to try to kill me right here, right now. I backed up into the corner. One step. And then another. Cassie matched my movements, right down to the pauses in between them. There was nowhere for me to go. I was trapped.

A voice sounded behind her then, so strong, so forceful that I screamed, not recognizing it, unsure of where it was even coming from.

“I adjure you, ancient serpent, by the judge of the living and the dead, by your Creator, by the Creator of the whole universe, by Him who has the power to consign you to hell, to depart forthwith in fear, along with your savage minions, from this servant of God!”

It was Father William, up on his feet again, holding
The
Rite
in one shaky hand, the crucifix in the other. Cassie stopped crawling, regarding him with a mixture of contempt and amusement, but Father William did not move, except to raise the crucifix in his left hand. He looked back down at the black book and began again. His face was set like stone, the words pouring from his mouth in a torrent.

Cassie shrank back at the holy words, regarding the priest with wary eyes. Inside, the black snake slipped effortlessly through her arms, her chest cavity, down among her bowels, flicking its pink tongue, silent as silk.

“It is the power of
Christ
that compels you!” Father William said.

Cassie brought her hands up to her ears and screamed. Her fingertips had begun to turn blue again and the skin around her lips was a deep violet color.

“The power of
Christ
!” he roared.

“No!”
Cassie backed up into the corner behind the mattress, cowering and whimpering.

Father William stepped toward her. His breath came out of his mouth in tiny white bursts, and he walked without the aid of his cane.
“It is God Himself who commands you, the majestic Christ who commands you!”

“Stop!” Cassie curled up inside herself, hiding her face between her knees, clutching at her ankles. “I beg you, stop!”

“God the Father commands you; God the Son commands you; God the Holy Spirit commands you. The mystery of the Cross commands you.”

With every mention of God, Cassie’s body recoiled, as
if a whip were striking her skin. She thrashed and flailed, screamed and pleaded, her voice growing weaker and weaker. “No more! No more! Stop! Please!”

The snake slithered and recoiled, once and then again. It was working. Somehow, somewhere, Father William had found the strength not only to confront the demon, but also to expel it. He believed again. He did.

“The faith of the holy apostles Peter and Paul and of all the saints commands you. The blood of the martyrs commands you. The continence of the confessors commands you. The saving mysteries of our Christian faith commands you!”

Cassie had stopped flailing. She lifted her head from between her knees and let her legs settle indolently in front of her. Another eerie giggle came out of her mouth, softly at first, and then getting louder, until it became a hideous-sounding scoff.
“Gotcha!”
She laughed again, a raucous, evil noise that came from deep inside her chest. “Made you think you had it in you, Father, didn’t I?”

Father William took a step back, scanned the book again, frantic.
“Depart then, transgressor!”
His voice trembled around the edges.
“Depart, seducer, full of lies and cunning, foe of virtue, persecutor of the innocent.”

I could hear the fear again, thick as syrup, as he continued to struggle. I moved closer to him, stretching out my good hand and resting it firmly on the priest’s shoulder. He glanced at me, his eyes full of terror, and then nodded. His jaw seemed to clench itself, and the skin along his forehead was slick with sweat.

Cassie seemed to pause at this show of unanimity. She raised her legs again and shrank back into the wall, as if caged, her eyes gleaming with suspicion. I took another step forward. Cassie’s hooded eyes followed me. I took another one, moving in front of the girl. What was I doing? I didn’t know. But it was time. I had to try.

Behind me, the priest continued his litany. Cassie was no longer concerned with him. She stared at me instead, the hate seeping in and around the bones behind her eyes. “You faithless bitch!” she hissed. “Don’t you look at me!”

I moved in closer.

“Look past the evil!” Father William’s voice rang out behind me. “Look for the good, Marin. Look for God!”

And right then, I understood.

Here, now, was the time to choose the good.