“Why, what happens when he goes outside?”
“Panic. Terror. First he gasps for breath, can’t get enough air in his lungs. His eyes bulge out like he is afraid of what’s out there. Visible to Jack but invisible to the rest of us. Then come the spasms and convulsions. You would swear some physical presence is sitting on his chest, crushing his ribs. His arms flail out, but he can’t move, can’t get rid of the thing kneeling atop him. Becomes helpless as a newborn, crying and shouting for rescue, but there’s nothing to be done. And I can’t bear to watch it, can’t stand the gulping and retching sounds coming from my own son; and it doesn’t stop, only intensifies to the point where all we can do is bring him out of the sun and air and back inside. And suddenly Jack calms himself, but it takes a lot out of him. He acts as if he’s been in a fight or just been chased, panting, slipping into fatigue, and then he falls asleep like a baby after a crying jag. But he’s no baby. He’s growing up, getting bigger, too strong for me to handle, and I’m worried that there’ll come a day…” She stopped herself with a shudder.
“And these … incidents happen only when you try to take him outside?”
“Lately he’s been worse. Two weeks ago, he hit me when I woke him up. To be fair, I had startled him, but he’s never done that before. And that same day, he started jabbing his finger against his skull, like he was trying to drill a hole into his brain, completely unprovoked. He seemed possessed.”
Father Bolden curled his lip over the brim of his cup and took a considered sip of coffee. One eyebrow arched like a snake as he swallowed. Far off in the rectory, a telephone rang.
“Do you have to get that?” Holly asked.
“Miss Tiramaku is here,” the priest said. “She’ll answer the call. Why do you say ‘possessed’?”
She laughed and began smashing the crumbs on her plate with the tines of her fork. “Not possessed in the way you mean. I’m not looking for an exorcist, God forbid.”
“God forbid, I never thought anything of the kind. Just an interesting choice of words.”
The fork dropped from her hands, and her voice rose an octave. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Father. I’m afraid of my own son, afraid of what he might do to me, to himself. The punching, the fits, the way he looks at us sometimes, like he’s scheming. Out to get us. He sees things, monsters under his bed, but he’s trapped as well by his thoughts and dreams and his inability to just say what he feels—”
A loud knock at the front door made her jump. Not two seconds later, the doorbell chimed, then chimed again. Father Bolden pushed back from the table and stood, bowing slightly to his guest. “You’ll forgive me, but I believe my housekeeper may still be on the phone, and whoever’s at the door insists on an immediate answer.”
The doorbell rang again.
“Unfortunately, talented though she may be, Miss Tiramaku has not yet mastered the trick of being in two places at the same time. You will excuse me, Mrs. Keenan, for a brief moment.”