“Okay,” he said. “All you need to do is answer truthfully, okay?”
Abby nodded again. Her throat was dry and she’d lost the ability to form words. He was taking her seriously, and she felt like she’d set foot on a road that couldn’t be untraveled. Her heart was fluttering against her rib cage; she couldn’t breathe deep.
“Did your friend get sick?” Brother Lemon asked. “Real sick? Like, physically she got all grotesque and horrible?”
Abby nodded.
“And then what happened?” he continued. “Did she talk about suicide and depressing things? Maybe try to hurt herself?”
Abby thought about Gretchen in her bedroom, she thought about the gouges down Gretchen’s arms, about Gretchen grabbing the wheel, and she nodded.
“Did she get obsessed with death and violence? Maybe obsessed with talking about religious stuff, like Hell?” Brother Lemon asked.
Abby remembered Gretchen’s daybook and her obsession with Molly Ravenel. She nodded again.
“Then, all of a sudden, she got better, right?” Brother Lemon asked. “In fact, she looked better than before. She seemed alive again?”
Abby’s eyes widened. All she could do was nod.
“She’s better in body,” he continued, “but not in spirit.”
Abby didn’t understand that one.
“She looks copacetic,” he explained, then tapped his skull. “But up here she’s coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.”
Abby took a sip of her lemonade. It coated her throat with citrus-flavored chalk.
“Yeah,” she croaked.
“Is she committing sins?” Brother Lemon asked.
Abby thought about Wallace, and Glee, and Margaret and the German milkshakes, and she wondered how many of the Ten Commandments Gretchen had broken by now.
“Yeah,” she said again.
“Is she grouchy? PMS-ing all the time?” Brother Lemon asked. “You know what that means?”
“I know,” Abby said, nodding.
“Has she committed desecrations of holy ground?” Brother Lemon asked. “Vandalism of churches and graveyards? Burning the American flag?”
Abby paused.
“Maybe,” she whispered.
“Is she leading others into sin?” Brother Lemon asked. “Tempting them? Causing them to do bad things?”
“Yes,” Abby said, and she thought about Glee screaming, stinking of vodka. “A lot.”
“And did her eyes turn black, so there’s no more pupil?” he asked. “Like a shark or an alien?”
Abby caught herself and shook her head.
“No,” she said, confused. “Her eyes are fine.”
“Oh,” Brother Lemon said, disappointed. Then he brightened. “Even without the eyes, it sounds like demonic possession to me.”
Abby was embarrassed to be talking about something so crazy at Hot Dog on a Stick. She looked around again to see if anyone was listening to Brother Lemon’s booming voice. He saw what she was doing.
“Don’t stress,” he said. “Demonic possession is a lot more common than people think.”
“It is?” Abby asked.
“If I’m lying, I’m dying,” Brother Lemon said. “My brothers and my daddy have been doing deliverance ministry for years, and there’s more of them all the time. You won’t read about it in the paper, but at Columbia Hospital, where they keep the crazies, they’ll sometimes clear the rooms, close off a floor, and my daddy’ll perform a deliverance after-hours. The Health Department just puts ‘irregular procedures’ on the medical chart. Right there in black and white. Everyone knows it’s a code word.”
“How many have you done?” Abby asked.
Brother Lemon leaned back and looked out the window onto the mall concourse for a moment.
“Well,” he said, “I’ve assisted on a few, you know, with my brothers and my daddy.”
“You’ve seen it?” Abby asked. “For real?”
“Oh, sure,” Brother Lemon said. “I’ve seen some real blast-’em-out deliverance ministers do their thing, and I tell you, it is a privilege to see those fellas work. These are real hour-of-power-
type deliverances, you know, with screaming and fighting and howling and vomiting all over the place.”
“So you’ve fought a demon?” Abby asked.
Brother Lemon stretched his arms wide, then scratched the back of his neck and tried very hard to look casual.
“As an assistant,” he said. “You know, helping out. I’ve seen demonic influences, and I’ve met plenty of people who have.”
“Maybe I should find one of them?” Abby asked. “Like, an expert?”
Brother Lemon looked alarmed and lowered his voice.
“Come on now,” he said. “There aren’t any experts in the field of deliverance. Most people kind of make it up as they go along. Which means I’m as good as the next guy.”
“Maybe I should talk to your dad,” Abby said.
“You don’t want to do that,” Brother Lemon said. “He’s getting old. I’m young and strong, and that’s what you need. You’ve got to blast the demons out of your friend, have a good old-fashioned power encounter. We went up to a puke and rebuke in Spartanburg a couple of months ago, my daddy got so winded he had to take a breather in the middle. That’s not going to happen with me. Plus, I’ve picked up things. Like, you never wear a tie during a deliverance. Do that and you’ll wind up getting strangled, guaranteed. Happens every time.”
Abby nodded. That sounded like the voice of experience.
“So what do you do?” she asked.
“Well,” he said, “do you think she’d go somewhere with you? Like on a trip?”
“Maybe?” Abby said.
“Okay,” he said. “So we’d have to find somewhere to go.”
“Like where?” Abby asked.
“Somewhere private,” Brother Lemon said. “With a way to tie her down so she doesn’t hurt herself. Or us. And then we’re there for a few hours, praying over her. I’ve got some holy oil I can bring. Really, we just get in there and pry the demon out of her. It’s better not to use a hotel. People can get the wrong idea. Oh, shoot, there I go again!”
He laughed nervously.
“I think I know a place,” Abby said.
“Great,” Brother Lemon said. “We just have to get her there. There are all kinds of demons. There are demons of confusion, and nihilism, and self-harm, and anger, and pride. There’s demons of infant baptism, Roman Catholicism, Jewish mysticism. They all know different things, like some know about theology, and some know about nuclear missiles, and some know a whole lot about science. But the one thing they all have in common is that they’re sort of wily creatures. So we have to have a backup plan for what to do if the demoniac—that’s your friend—says yes, she’ll get in the car with you, then at the last sec she changes her mind.”
“Like, trick her?” Abby asked.
“Or drug her,” Brother Lemon said casually, looking off into the distance behind Abby.
“This is a bad idea,” Abby said. “I’m sorry, I—forget I came.”
“What?” Brother Lemon said, leaning forward and waving his hands. “It’s not a big deal. Sometimes, you know, you have to break a few eggs.”
“She’s my best friend,” Abby said.
“Not anymore,” Brother Lemon said, staring at her. His eyes were green and beautiful. “She’s a demoniac. One possessed by a demon. She’s a creature of Andras now.”
“What?” Abby asked.
Brother Lemon enveloped her wrist in an enormous hand and pressed it to the table, lightly but firmly. “You know why I’m talking to you like this? Being so open and up-front? Because I’ve seen who’s inside of your friend, and I’m scared for you. This demon wants to isolate you. It wants to drive everyone else away. Then, when the time comes, it’ll make the demoniac wipe herself out and take you with it. You won’t have anyone left to help you when that hour is upon thee.”
It sounded crazy, nuts, insane. But also very close to what was really happening.
“Demons are ideas made flesh,” Brother Lemon said. “Bad ideas. The one inside your friend is discord, anger, and rage. He is the bringer of storms with a smile like lightning, brother of owls and giver of nightborn intelligence. He is the cleaving that can never be healed.”