Maintenance staff wrestled with the tower door as the girl teetered on the lip, set against the sky, the wind swaying her back and forth. Abby stopped because she didn’t want to hear what was about to happen. She knew that if she got too close, the sound would be something she would never stop hearing.
The girl prepared herself: She bowed her head, raised her arms to the sky, then stretched out one leg and stepped forward into the void just as two arms wrapped around her from behind and lifted her out of the air. A man pulled her against his chest, her legs kicking into empty space; he heaved himself backward, staggering out of sight with the girl in his arms.
Abby ran for the bell tower. Her feet kicked at swirling papers, and the noise of shouting became clearer as the auditorium blocked the wind screaming off the marsh. The door at the base of the tower banged open and a circle of maintenance men backed out, holding the girl thrashing in their hands.
“I want to die! I want to die! Let meeee!” Glee shrieked.
Calm, reasonable, boring Glee was screeching and howling, clawing at the men who carried her. Glee, who refused to fight because she was a “no drama mama,” kicked at their thighs, scratched their arms, spat in their faces. The girl who had once proclaimed that nothing in the world was worth getting upset about, really, who said crying was the way boring people showed off, began to scream and sob. Her black stirrup pants had been pulled low in the struggle and her soft belly hung out; Abby noticed Glee wasn’t wearing a top, and someone brushed past her holding a blanket. Across Glee’s breasts was written “For you” in black marker.
“Let me die. Let me go, please, let me go,” she wailed.
A sharp odor tickled Abby’s nose. Glee reeked of vodka. Her entire body was now wracked with sobs, jerking in time to her heaving chest as “For you” twisted and swayed. While the maintenance men wrapped Glee in the blanket, her rescuer hung back in the bell tower’s doorframe, obscured in darkness, afraid to step into the light. It was Father Morgan.
“I love him, I love him, I love him,” Glee sobbed, turning around, reaching for him. Glee’s voice was hoarse and full of passion, and Abby didn’t recognize her anymore.
Like a Prayer
The exorcist loved corn dogs. He sat across from Abby at a plastic table bolted to the floor of Citadel Mall and inhaled the steam rising from his order of six. He picked up the first one, pulled out the stick, dunked it in ketchup, and chowed it down in two bites. As his enormous jaws worked up and down, he leaned back and closed his eyes. His huge neck flexed as he swallowed the wad of meat and breading.
“Corn dogs,” the exorcist said, “are all the proof I need that there is a God.”
Then he picked up another one.
Big bands of muscle flexed as he swallowed his second corn dog. While he chewed, Abby tried to think of how to start this conversation, but he saved her the trouble.
“So,” the exorcist said, blotting his lips with a teeny paper napkin, “you’re friends with that girl who’s possessed by Satan?”
This is not what Abby had expected when she’d called the number on the Lemon Brothers Faith and Fitness Ministry pamphlet. She’d dialed, a finger resting on the cradle, ready to hang up if things got uncomfortable. Her finger relaxed when Christian himself had answered the phone.
At first he’d agreed to meet her at Waffle House in West Ashley, but he called back five minutes later and changed the location to the Hot Dog on a Stick at Citadel Mall. Apparently, he loved corn dogs. When she arrived, he gave her a firm handshake and then placed his order. Abby got a lemonade she didn’t want.
The exorcist was huge. Far bigger in person than he had been onstage, and the plastic table stretched across his lap like a napkin. He wore a gray sweatshirt that he’d cut the sleeves off himself, and his pants sported a busy neon-green and pink pattern and an elastic waistband. A hot-pink fanny pack was strapped around his waist and a pair of Aloha Surfer sunglasses hung from a strap around his neck.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her, Mr. Lemon,” Abby said, unwilling to use a crazy Bible word like possession out loud.
“Call me Brother Lemon,” the exorcist said. “Mr. Lemon is my dad. My parents call me Chris, but I don’t know. They named me Christian because we all have Bible names, but I was a whoopsy-
baby. So by the time I popped out, they were short on inspiration. Ha! I probably shouldn’t say that around you. Do you know where babies come from yet?”
“I’m sixteen,” Abby said.
“Rad!” Chris Lemon beamed, swallowing his final corn dog.
Carefully, he folded up his garbage, tucking one item into another, then into another, then another. When it had all been reduced to fit into his large Coke cup, he reached into his fanny pack and pulled out a wet wipe, then cleaned off his spatula-sized fingertips. “I don’t want to shock you. What do know about demons?”
“Demons?” Abby asked.
“Demons, devils, unclean spirits,” he said. “Incubuses, succubi, creatures from the pit. They have many names.”
Abby looked around to make sure no one was overhearing this craziness. All around her, Citadel Mall shoppers continued about their business, totally oblivious to the discussion at the corner table of Hot Dog on a Stick.
“Why do you think Gretchen has one?” Abby asked.
“Because I’ve got the gift of discernment,” Brother Lemon said, and grinned. “Well, my brothers say it’s Elijah who can discern demonic entities, but I can do it, too. I see them all the time. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t see at least three or four. My brothers give me a hard time because, well, that’s how brothers are. They rail on you, ride you; it’s their job, I guess. Do you have any brothers?”
“No,” Abby said.
“I love my brothers,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, but I’m the baby so they treat me like I don’t know anything. But you know what? Our show relies on me. They’re all strong guys, but none of them has the muscle definition that I do. I’m one buff specimen and they’re just jealous I’ve got all this.”
He curled one arm and popped his biceps. It quivered next to his face, the size of a football.
“I think I made a mistake,” Abby said, and she stood up and slid her purse off the back of her chair.
“Oh, wait a minute,” Brother Lemon said. “You came all the way out to the mall, at least tell me if I’m right.” He grinned and leaned in close, lowering his voice. “She is possessed by Satan, isn’t she?”
Abby blushed.
“There’s no shame in asking for help,” Brother Lemon said. “I’ve been there. You come up against something that’s bigger than you are, bigger than anything you’ve ever experienced before, and you’re lost and you need help. You want to turn to someone who understands spiritual warfare with the Enemy, am I right?”
Abby stood still, holding her purse, and nodded. Brother Lemon patted the table.
“I’m a good listener,” he smiled.
Slowly, Abby sat down.
“I don’t really know why I called you,” she said. “But when you said you saw something, it kind of clicked with me. And then I found your pamphlet, and I guess I was upset and gave you a call. I almost didn’t come but I thought, because I called, it’d be rude not to show up.”
Brother Lemon squeezed her arm reassuringly. It left a bruise.
“You did the right thing,” he said. “Now the first order of business is, we’ve got to be sure she’s really possessed. It’s easy to get it wrong, you know. A lot of people think someone’s possessed, but they’re actually being misled by the Enemy.”
“Well,” Abby said, “Gretchen’s changed a lot. She used to be nice and we were best friends. But now she’s really horrible.”
She felt a pang of disloyalty saying this kind of thing out loud about Gretchen. Brother Lemon leaned across the table, way too eager to hear what she had to say, and it made Abby self-conscious. She looked down and traced patterns on the yellow plastic.
“You’re scared because the Enemy doesn’t want us to be open with each other,” Brother Lemon said. “He wants to make us feel ashamed and alone. Will you let me help you? Will you let me ask you some questions?”
Abby nodded.