Dead Souls (2 page)

Luke 24

August 24th, 1988

5:00 AM

I
t began with four bells, each tolling simultaneously throughout a large farm home commonly known in town as the Conroy House.

They rang once, their vibrations sounding much louder than usual, signifying a singular event. Thirteen seconds later, they rang again, stirring those in the house from their fitful slumbers.

This early morning, a quarter moon beamed proudly in the sky, the winds blowing gently from the southwest, carrying with them the cries of blackbirds now searching for the day's first worms. Rainclouds had dominated the skies the first two weeks of July in the summer of 1988, leaving everything in
Wellfield
gray and wet. Two days earlier, the power had gone out, and in parts of town the houses were still dark. The outage had only affected the Conroy House for twelve hours, an event soon thereafter considered to have been a small grace from God.

At the tolling of the third bell, at exactly twenty-six seconds after the onset of the first, a man of forty-three years of age sat up in bed. He swung his feet over the edge of the quilted mattress and placed them in the perfect white circle painted on the oak flooring. The sweat-matted sheets drifted away from his naked form. He clasped his hands together, then closed his eyes and silently recited two prayers, the first to the Lord Jesus Christ, the second to the Lord Osiris. His lips moved gently against the hushed words escaping his throat, parched tongue parting them between verses, helping to absorb the determined vibrations of the tolling bells.

At the conclusion of his prayer, the man stood in the circle. He set his sights on its intricacies, at the outer border and running queue of hexagrams, then at the inner border and the many sacred names of God etched into the bright paint. Upon each magnetic pole of the circle, pentagrams jutted: from the center of each, white candles rose like the stripped branches of ash trees. At the top of the circle, painted on the floor directly before him, was a triangle with the name of OSIRIS divided up, three letters at the lower right point, two at the left, and an 'O' at the uppermost point that faced south.

The bells continued to toll.

He raised his gaze and aimed it out the window overlooking the wide stretch of land leading to the barn. A lone blackbird fluttered into the still picture and landed on the sill, one oil-drop eye ignited by the faint moonlight, peering in at him. It cocked its head once, twice, then pecked a gentle message against the corner of the window, making a sound not unlike the soothing carve of a paring knife on soft wood. The bird hopped along the sill, then flapped its still-damp wings and flew away, leaving behind a sole black feather: a gift from Osiris.

At the thirteenth toll of the bells, the man, unsmiling, paced heel-to-toe about the circumference of the circle, knowing that in three of the other bedrooms, a woman, a girl, and a boy, were carrying out the same exact procedure. He performed sixteen revolutions, then stepped away and paced to the window. He cracked it open and removed the feather from the sill.

After closing the window, he stepped to the bureau, where he struck a wooden match and lit a white candle. A yellow flame rose four inches high, its point flickering energetically, releasing a thin black line of wavering smoke. Alongside the candle, he lifted the pyramid-shaped top of a brass censer. Inside, loaded from the evening before, was a cone of sandalwood. He placed the feather alongside the cone, then lit the incense and inhaled the escaping aroma as if sniffing from a pot of steaming soup.

Still counting the toll of the bells, he waited until they struck thirty, then opened the bureau drawer and removed a leather parchment. He paced back to the circle, lit the four candles, then knelt inside the circle, hands resting lightly on his lap, palms facing upwards and holding out the parchment like an offering. He relaxed his shoulders, facing his head toward the triangle. He began to breathe more slowly, inhaling deeply through his nose, holding the air in his lungs until the bell tolled thirteen seconds later; then, exhaled for the same stretch of time. He repeated this process until he achieved a rhythmic state of reflexive breathing.

Concentrating solely on the spirit of Osiris, he unfurled the parchment and placed it down flat inside the triangle. He read the sigil etched in black ink on the worn leather, clearing his mind of all unwanted thoughts and worries. He repeated the spirit God's name for the toll of thirteen bells, his voice chanting in unison to the voices of the woman, girl, and boy performing the same ritual in their prospective rooms.

Following the tolling of the thirteenth bell of which he repeated the God's name, he recited a prayer, his voice drawing out each word in a string of monotone notes: "
I beseech thee, O Spirit Osiris from the vast astral plane, by the supreme majesty of God, to allow the child Bryan Conroy an association to our purpose, so that he too may benefit from your empowering gift.
"

As his words ended, the bell tolled again.

The Conroy house immediately grew hot. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. He closed his eyes, and in his shuttered sights, a warm glowing sphere appeared. He reached out for it, fingers extended like tiny tree branches. The light of the sphere seeped toward him in a thin tight line, as though it were composed of liquid. It ensconced his grasping fingers, quickly filling his body, snug and comforting, his legs, body, and head fully absorbing its fluid offering.

Once the light saturated his body, a slow vibration filled him, his body wholly accepting of the powerful beat. He could hear it in his head, his ears, each
 
encompassing cadence taking on a tonal contour that eventually formed into lucid echoes. His ears popped with every echo, and he could see two dark misty spheres now settling in the space alongside his head.

Windows to the astral plane.

The dark spheres expanded, faint gray holes appearing at their cores. He could hear a cadence emerging, like the distant footsteps of a great and powerful giant that approached in perfect unity with the vibrations in his body. The man's lips moved on their own accord, his voice a long flat line of pronunciation as he repeated his prayer to the spirit God Osiris.

The golden light before him expanded, as did the dark spheres alongside him, whose gray focal points had expanded now to swallow up their once near-black states. A doorway appeared in the golden light, a glowing blue image on its flat metallic-like surface. The image took on a definitive shape of curved lines atop an inverted triangle, bisected by a crooked arrow.

Slowly, the doorway opened. The pounding vibration exploded out from the darkness beyond—from the realm of the astral plane, into the physical plane.

The man gazed into the swirling black eddies, a storm of whistling winds that backed the slow, thunderous pulse. From within its murky depths, he could hear the spirit's message clearly, each word spat out one syllable at a time, embedded within a single booming pulsation.

"
Benjamin Conroy…proceed with the ritual
."

September 7th, 2005

12:56 PM

D
espite the persistent rain and pain-filled thoughts that had kept him company on the bus ride into New England, Johnny Petrie was still able to unearth a bit of excitement in his heart—his stomach fluttered with invisible butterflies, his skin tingled with nervous anticipation. It was all so bittersweet: he'd spent most of his eighteen years, at least those of which he could recall, in Manhattan under the roof of a brownstone on the Upper East Side, 88th between Lexington and Park. Now, to see this: trees and mountainsides displaying their browns and greens in never-ending arrays; the hidden sun whose filtering daylight still managed to illuminate the moist environment. Despite its simplicity, it was such a grand feast for his city-bred eyes. Just south of Providence, on I-95, he'd caught sight of a raccoon or possum that'd met its fate beneath the tires of some unassuming vehicle, but even this was something new and exciting to behold. The country, yes, that's what this was, and he cursed himself—his parents—for never having gone further north than Westchester County before.

Dear God, my parents
, he thought, tears filling his eyes.

Regrettably, there'd never been any good opportunity until now. Mary Petrie had kept a very short and tight leash on her boy throughout his growing-up years. With the city being a dangerous place and all, Johnny was forced to keep to the paths and schedules granted to him, attending (and eventually graduating) from St Anthony's Catholic school (obedience school, if you asked him), instead of PS 35 which was more than ten blocks away—it might as well have been on the other side of the world. All summer he'd been made to continue his Catholic Studies at St Anthony's, and he respectfully complied despite his pleas to obtain a more formal education in college. On the weekends he was allowed recreational time in Central Park, but only if Mary or Ed had come along, or if he'd had an adult chaperone joining him, preferably a God-fearing parent of a well-known school friend. Mary Petrie had done everything for Johnny's own good, at least in her own mind, treating him with all the love and protection a child could expect from a parent. That, and so much more.

So much more
…

He thought of his mother, of how she would remind him every time he protested her protection:
Remember, Johnny, everything I do, I do for you. Parents know much better than their children. God created us to steer you from evil, to teach you from right and wrong. To protect you from the evils of the world…it is my sole purpose to do so, praise God
. Despite his mother's idiosyncrasies, and religious zealousness, he loved her…he would always love her, realizing now, after spending his entire childhood and teen years controlled by her repressive discipline, that she did everything out of fear—a fear she was incapable of understanding.

But then he wondered:
Is she really incapable of understanding her fears? There is so much more to the story she's not telling me, so much hurt, so much pain. She has spent her entire life trying to keep me from learning about it. No, she does understand her fears, and has been keeping them locked away in the dark her entire life. Now, dear God, they're out in the open, and she is too terrified to face them, to reveal them to me
.

Ironically, Johnny had spent his entire life obeying his mother's every demand because he feared her. So, in a convoluted, roundabout way, he was able to empathize with her—he could see the odd direction from which she had come all these years. But, there was one chief difference between them: Johnny had finally found the strength to confront his fears, and was able to flee them, something Mary Petrie had never been able to achieve, in spite of her support from Jesus, and the doctors, and the church groups.

I've fled my fears…that, and so much more…

So much more
…
 

The bus shifted lanes, jarring him from his thoughts. It passed a sign that said, 'Dover, Exit 43'. Johnny kept his gaze out the window, nature's scenery blurring as he recounted the events that had changed his life—his parents' lives—less than twenty-four hours earlier...

September 6th, 2005

3:38 PM

H
e returned home from the library (the only place he didn't feel guilty about sneaking off to without his mother's knowledge) and retrieved the mail from the clouded glass box in the lobby. He took the stairs three flights up instead of riding the elevator because the old man from 4F that smelled like cauliflower had just gotten in, and Johnny didn't really want to bear such an undying torture. Once on the third floor, he entered the two-bedroom apartment and tossed the mail on the kitchen table, never once thinking to look at it because nothing ever came for him, except his monthly delivery of Catholic Digest—one of the few periodicals both Ed and Mary approved of. He went into his room, dropped his knapsack on the bed, and changed into a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt, thinking of how he might take pleasure in the next ninety minutes before his mother returned home at five o'clock. Maybe read the copy of Wells'
War of the Worlds
he had checked out of the library, or watch the talk show that came in on the UHF channel his parents didn't know about. It was a daily ritual, this time alone where he could take part in some of the simple pleasures of life (God forsaken sins, if you asked Mary) before he was made to contribute to the whims and ways of his mother. He'd have to perform his chores—every eighteen year-old was expected to do
something
—either taking out the trash or helping with dinner; but Mary pushed the envelope with Johnny, making certain that the bathroom was free and clear of the germs that'd undoubtedly festered while the house was empty; or, the shelves in the fridge, God forbid if some errant crumbs made their way out of the bread bag. And then, after dinner, Johnny would be forced to perform his bible studies, sitting at the kitchen table in plain sight so that his mind wouldn't stray. '
There's more than enough to keep you busy until bedtime'
, Mary would say, regardless of whether he had assignments or not. And then she'd add, more than once,
and don't forget to say your prayers before you go to bed!
'

He went into the bathroom, washed up, then pulled open the medicine cabinet and experienced the same disheartening feeling he felt every day when performing this routine act. The new bottle of the day was something called
Lexapro
, but Johnny had no idea what that was used to treat, not yet anyway. It was set alongside a few dozen other bottles, the end-results of Mary Petrie setting aside her paralegal duties at three o'clock every day, so that by three-fifteen she could be seated in the waiting room of some non-discriminating doctor's office on the Upper East Side in hopeful search of that magic pill to cure all her woes. Johnny had performed a bit of research on his mother's tribulations, writing down the names of the scripts from the tiny brown bottles—Valium,
Darvocet
,
Xanax
,
Celexa
, amongst many others—then searching them out on the web in the library. What he discovered was that mom had a considerable number of personal issues, ones she never elected to talk about, at least with Johnny. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, panic attacks (he'd never seen her in a state of panic, so he wasn't quite sure what that was all about), Attention Deficit Disorder, amongst some other serious sounding mental ails. Johnny had wondered if there was a pill she could take that would alleviate her 'iron-fisted control disorder' and 'over-zealous Jesus-worshipping disorder'.