The third doll conversation

Me: Hello?

Ingrid: Hey, it’s Ingrid.

Me: Hi.

Ingrid: So, sounds like you’re stuck behind an abandoned house with some kind of devil doll attached to your leg.

Me: Actually I’m…oh, wait, that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Ingrid: [chortling]

Me: So, are you going to be around? I thought you or Spindle could help get rid of this.

Ingrid: Yeah, I’ve got some ideas. Most of them involve you keeping your leg.

At this point Leticia arrived. She was wearing large sunglasses, a gardening hat, and a shirt she told me she ordered from Threadless. She stroked the doll’s head and asked it to let go but it only hissed at her, which made Leticia giggle. I heard a car door close and saw someone approach.

“Are you expecting someone else?” asked Leticia. I told her it was probably Pastor Jill. “Oh,” said Leticia. “Is she OK with…you know.” She smiled widely, exposing her fangs. I told her I hadn’t really asked. “Well, I should probably just go,” said Leticia. “It might get awkward.”

Pastor Jill greeted me and looked at the doll. I think she may have been a little amused as well. She looked closely at the doll’s forehead and tried to look in its mouth. She asked who had just left and I told her. “Leticia…she’s the vampire you write about?” “Yeah, that’s…that’s kind of where she’s at, yeah.” I couldn’t read her reaction.

Pastor Jill carried the same satchel she had the last time I saw her, and withdrew a small silver crucifix from it. She placed it on the doll’s forehead and said some Latin words. The doll batted the crucifix away but regained its hold on me before I could take advantage. Pastor Jill placed the crucifix on the doll again but this time the doll just jerked its head around.

“Well,” said Pastor Jill, “that trip to Ingrid’s is probably in order.”

Awkward conversation

Continuing my report of the conversation started last post. The one with the allegedly demon-possessed girl.

“I hear you’ve been asking for me,” I said.

“Heh. More respectful this time, aren’t you?”

“Why did you want me here?”

“I thought it would make a good story.”

“Story?”

“Oh, yes. I am no longer content to exist only in the hidden places of the creator’s mind.”

I was puzzled by that statement. Ella and Pastor Jill started talking at once and Pastor Jill deferred to Ella.

“Tell me about your creator,” Ella said.

“Oh….that is forbidden knowledge even you are unprepared for,” the girl purred.

“Why is Arthur favored of the creator?” asked Pastor Jill.

“His chronicles reveal the creator’s universe. Limited as it is.”

“And you are bound by your creator’s mind?” asked Ella.

The girl uttered something that sounded like a combination of a hiss and gurgle. “My creator?” she said. She looked at Pastor Jill and started oscillating her head slowly. “These two have grown wearisome,” she said. “I invite whatever challenge you believe you can present, shepherdess.”

Pastor Jill opened her satchel and removed a thick book. She looked at the two of us. “I’d like you to wait outside for this part.”

We left the room and the parents entered. Outside I asked Ella what she thought. She said she didn’t hear anything that the girl couldn’t have gotten from my blog. I agreed, though it was still a creepy experience.

We heard Pastor Jill speaking in the girl’s room, though couldn’t pick out specific words. There was cackling laughter and Jill’s voice got louder. We heard a shriek that sounded like “See ya, Christian!” which I assume was a reference to Pastor Jill.

After a few minutes a shaken Pastor Jill came out to join us, telling us she thought the girl was going to be all right. She asked if we heard anything that wasn’t on my blog and we told her no.

“So she could have been acting,” said Pastor Jill, “though I have no idea why she would. And why would she talk in those terms? ‘The hidden places of the creator’s mind.’ Singling out Arthur’s blog as revealing God’s creation.”

We were silent for few moments. Then Pastor Jill said “I think we could use one of your famous trips to Perkins.” We agreed that a normalcy infusion could do us good. Pastor Jill didn’t give us details about the exorcism over coffee and apple dumplings but kept us engaged with stories of her work with other congregations to stimulate our interest. She and Ella had a conversation about something called the Order of Dagon, which I was able to follow but don’t really remember.

I saw the girl and her family in church Sunday but didn’t greet them and I don’t think they saw me. I’m still not sure what to think about the incident, whether she was actually possessed or just using my blog as the starting point for her own personal fiction.

Somewhere between science and superstition

Continuing the story from last post…

I was surprised by Pastor Jill’s revelation, though it didn’t take me long to realize how the girl may have heard of me.

“It’s possible,” I said, “that she got my name from this…blog I write.”

“Blog?” said Pastor Jill. “Hm. Useful to know. This is the blog where you talk about me being hot, correct?”

Uh-oh. Pastor Jill’s face was difficult to read. “I…it’s possible I may have used that…nomenclature…in a …weak moment.” Now I was the one looking out the office window. I glanced at Ella, who was covering her mouth the same way she did when Ingrid read from my Perkins post. I looked at Pastor Jill, who was smiling faintly.

“I’m not angry,” she said. “Though in the future I think I’d prefer ‘Pastor Jill’ for a tag. Some other time I’d like to talk more about the experiences you wrote about.”

I was feeling relieved but still awkward by the time Ella and I got up to leave. We would come back to the church again that night and Pastor Jill would drive us to the girl’s home. When Ella and I were in the doorway Pastor Jill said there was one more thing she wanted to ask.

“That filmmaker who’s in the blog, Pike, he’s your cousin, Ella?” Ella confirmed. “Do you happen to know if he’s single?” Ella said she believed so.

“Hm,” said Pastor Jill. “OK, thanks, see you two tonight.” She looked at me with a courteous smile. “Everything all right, Arthur?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I…yeah. See you tonight. Uh-huh.” On the way back to our cars, I got to amuse Ella with a monologue that went something like “Pike? She can’t…Pike? I mean…OK, she’s just doing this to, like, play a joke. That has to …seriously, Pike?”

That night, when Ella and I went back to the church, I brought a digital voice recorder with me. Pastor Jill was carried a satchel. She said we didn’t have to be silent when we confronted the girl, but she urged us to be cautious.

The girl’s parents greeted us quietly at their home.  Pastor Jill held them in conversation for a few moments, after which we all went upstairs to the girl’s bedroom.

Lying on a bed, under the covers, was a young woman in her late teens, pale, tall, and with long blond hair spread over her pillow. She appeared to be sleeping. Pastor Jill stood at the foot of the bed, Ella on her left and I on the right. The girl’s parents stood in the doorway. On the dresser was a lamp that provided the only illumination. A trophy near the lamp glistened with reflected light

The girl raised her head and opened her eyes. She leered at Pastor Jill. I switched on the recorder.

“Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” said the girl in a rough, mocking voice.

“Someone who won’t fail like the sons of Sceva,” said Pastor Jill.

The girl snorted. “Indeed?” she said. She tilted her had to the left. “The power of a frigid bookstore clerk will compel me?”

Ella scowled but said nothing. The girl snorted again and looked at me. Her leer widened.

“But here,” she said, “here is one favored of the creator.”

At this point there’s a long pause on the recording. I had heard that salutation before.

Pastor Jill’s invitation

Last week, I got an e-mail from Pastor Jill asked me to stop by her office after church that Sunday. She didn’t give details, so I spent the intervening time figuring out what I was going to say if she wanted to talk about the tag I have for her on this blog.

Sunday I arrived at the scheduled time. Pastor Jill has her office set up with a desk against the wall, so there’s no barrier between her chair and the two visitor’s chairs. One of the visitor’s chairs was occupied: it was Ella. Were we going to have to talk about the werewolf incident?

“I wanted to talk to you privately because there’s a…situation I thought you would want to know about,” said Pastor Jill. She took a long breath and exhaled slowly. “You’re probably familiar with the idea of…possession?” she asked. We were. She explained that, out of nowhere, a girl in the congregation had started exhibiting behavior that was drastically aberrant. Everyone who had visited her was baffled. After some lengthy discussions and a variety of attempted solutions, Pastor Jill was going to be performing an exorcism that night and had invited us to observe.

“Lutherans do exorcisms?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “Have you done anything like that before?” “I’ve… had experience with the…less common duties of a pastor,” she responded.

Pastor Jill smiled at Ella. “I suppose you’re wondering why I thought you would want to know about this,” she said.

“I was,” said Ella. “I mean, I wouldn’t describe my spiritual views as…Lutheran.”

Pastor Jill smiled again. “Very diplomatic. That night in the woods when I came across you, Arthur, and that intriguing friend of yours, I saw you wearing a sweatshirt with the word Miskatonic on it. That’s the New England university?”

Ella confirmed that it was. “You’ve heard of it?” she asked, a little surprised.

“I have,” said Pastor Jill. “I heard a talk by a Miskatonic professor about cults, in fact. I don’t know a lot about the school but I think it’s safe to say that people go there because they have a taste for the unusual, correct?” “Oh, yes,” said Ella. “Well,” said Pastor Jill, “perhaps when you see this situation you’ll have ideas about how to resolve it.”

“So, why did you think of me?” I asked.

“Ah,” Pastor Jill said. It wasn’t a glad-you-asked “ah” or a contemplative “ah,” it was an I-knew-I-wasn’t-getting-out-of-this “ah.”  I figured she was about to say something like, “Well, I read on your blog that in addition to thinking I’m hot, you have some personal experience with possession.”

Instead, Pastor Jill picked up a photograph that was lying on her desk and showed it to me. It was a group of boys and girls in their late teens, and she pointed out one of them, saying it was the girl who had allegedly been possessed. She asked if I knew her. I had seen her around church but we hadn’t met and I didn’t know who she was.

“I see,” said Pastor Jill. She put the photograph back on the desk and looked out the window. “Well,” she said, still looking out the window, “when she was in her…state…” She sighed and frowned. She moved her gaze to the floor for a few seconds. Then she looked at me.

“When the girl was in her state she asked for you. By name.”

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