Chapter Five

FIVE

Father Cyrus looked older than the house itself and moved at the speed of molasses. He didn’t drive anymore, so he had one of the kids from the church drop him off, stopping at the end of the driveway in their souped-up sedan, music louder than Father Cyrus would have likely preferred. He maneuvered down the long driveway, a walking stick in one hand, a case of accoutrements in the other. His eyes were firmly planted on the uneven terrain in front of him but occasionally darted up at the house as if it were a predator.

He had understood the gravity of the situation when I called him. His voice had contained an extra tremor when he spoke to me, and he told me that he would be there the very next day, at three o’clock sharp. I could hear his heavy breathing pick up in pace as I thanked him and reminded him that, given the situation, I would need to remove the boards.

He made his way towards the house as I watched from the living room window, crashes and clatters sounding from back in the kitchen. Fredricka. Fredricka was upset with me and was behaving rather passive-aggressively about it, in my opinion. Earlier that day, I had sat her down as much as was possible, told her that Katherine was coming (of course, she already knew), and asked her in the kindest way I could if she could please make herself scarce during Katherine’s stay.

She looked offended, an expression I had never seen on her broken face. “Does ma’am not want me to help?” she asked.

“It would be more helpful to me if you weren’t around while Katherine is here. You can still be in the house of course”—a silly thing to say, as experience suggested Fredricka wasn’t capable of leaving—“but not in the same room as Katherine. Please.” I felt like scum; Fredricka was the only helpful prankster in this place. However, Fredricka was also the only prankster who listened to me even a little. I wouldn’t be able to control Angelica and her friends, and could make Elias go away only temporarily by reuniting him with the bones of his mother, but I had a chance of at least keeping Fredricka out of the way, which wasn’t nothing.

Fredricka looked as if I had insulted her ancestors. “Why?”

“I?.?.?.” I struggled with the most tactful language. “I don’t want you to scare her.”

“Scare her?”

“Yes, you know?.?.?. with your?.?.?.” I gestured to my own head, pantomiming her wound. “It can be a bit scary. Not to me. I don’t think it’s?.?.?. But other people might?.?.?.”

Her brow furrowed.

“I?.?.?.” I leaned forward. “Do you know what you look like?” It had actually never occurred to me that Fredricka might have been unaware of the volcanic split down her face. We had never spoken about it. I didn’t want to come off as impolite.

“Ma’am?”

“You have?.?.?. You have a very large?.?.?.” I pointed at where her wound would have been on my own head before abandoning the cause altogether. If Fredricka didn’t know, I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. “Never mind. It’s just?.?.?. your presence will scare Katherine.”

“But?.?.?.”

“Please trust me,” I begged. “It isn’t personal, I swear. I think you’re very helpful. I love having you around. But Katherine?.?.?. I don’t think she’ll be able to see all of that. She’ll just be scared.”

As a final plea to drive my point home, I placed my hand on Fredricka’s. Whenever I touched her, I was sent howling back to the last time she had been alive, and I saw the world through her eyes.

I saw the world through her eyes and I was in the dining room, the walls dark and unrecognizable, the thick smell of dinner—a roast—hanging in the air. I saw the world through her eyes, and although there were no windows, I knew it was nighttime and the flickering candles on the table cast jagged shadows that twitched and jumped on the wall. I saw the world through her eyes and there was a noise as someone shoved their way into the room, the swinging door slamming into the wall and shadows lilting to the side as the flames cowered in the wind. I saw the world through her eyes and a man with a wide, gleaming grin lifted his arms and, laughing, swung an axe into her head with furious strength. I saw the world through her eyes and I felt her skull collapse and heard a thick noise like a watermelon splitting in two. I saw the world through her eyes but one eye went dead, the other remaining trained on that man and his grin, laughter pouring from his mouth.

So, obviously, I tried to refrain from touching Fredricka whenever possible.

“For me?” I asked, shaking off the memory and trying my best to ignore the accompanying bloody nose I received whenever I touched her.

Fredricka agreed, but she was not happy about it. The sound of a plate shattering in the kitchen suggested that she might continue not to be happy about it for the foreseeable future.

Father Cyrus reached the front porch and ascended the steps at a pace that allowed me to open the door before he needed to knock. He gazed up at the house as a child might stare into the face of the boogeyman, then forced himself to meet my eyes and smile. “Hello, Margaret.” His voice was like crinkled paper.

I smiled back. “Hello, Father. Thank you so much for coming out today.”

With skin drooping from his face, pale hair barely clinging to his head in patches behind his ears, and a nearly ninety-degree tilt in his posture, Father Cyrus looked every second of his age. His knotted fingers gripped at my hands in greeting. “No bother at all. It was about time, now, wasn’t it?” He looked away from me and the smile fell from his face as he crossed the threshold into the house, dropping my hands as an afterthought. “About time?.?.?. ,” he repeated, mostly to himself.

When that first September had been in its full rage, Hal and I had gone to the church for help. Neither of us was Catholic, or particularly religious at all for that matter—we were just desperate. Or, rather, I was desperate—Hal had spent most of the month pretending that nothing was amiss, and the fact that the pranksters tended to flee whenever he entered a room had certainly helped his cause. For longer than necessary, Hal had insisted that the screaming at night was just the wind and that birds smashing themselves into the side of our house was perfectly normal before he finally broke down and admitted that the river of blood cascading down our stairs was maybe more than just a leak and that the boy in his office wouldn’t leave him alone. At this point, I had already had one run-in with the thing in the basement and was strongly advocating a trip to the church. Hal, finally, acquiesced.

Nobody believed us, of course. I couldn’t blame them—I hadn’t slept in days and certainly rambled on a bit too much about the regenerating blood and the dead children. I definitely didn’t talk enough about the basement and I don’t think I even mentioned the birds. Hal was unhelpfully silent, save for a tirade or two about the boy in his office. Everyone we spoke to looked uncomfortable for a while before validating our feelings, leading us in a prayer for peace in our new home, and wishing us well on our journey as they showed us the door. Thank you for coming but kindly remove your crazy asses from our holy ground.

“Maybe we should’ve told them we’re Catholic,” Hal said as we stood in the church parking lot, pondering our next move.

“I can’t imagine lying to them would put us in their good graces,” I replied.

We were still arguing over the merits of lying to holy leaders when we noticed Father Cyrus making his way over to us, walking stick in hand, at his usual snail’s pace. “Excuse me,” he said, his voice barely a gasp, “but I couldn’t help overhearing that you two are having some trouble with your house.”

Father Cyrus, apparently, was the last living priest to believe in the paranormal. He didn’t look uncomfortable at all as I recounted our story; he only nodded as if I were telling him something he had known for a long time.

“You live in that old house on Hawthorn Street. Is that right?” he asked.

He was at our house later that afternoon. He’d still had his driver’s license back then, so it was easier for him to visit at the last minute. I was beside myself, overjoyed that—at last—someone was willing to believe us, to help. I imagined that if there were a God, He’d had a great chuckle at how easily this lifelong nonbeliever tossed her faith over to a man in a dog collar at the first sign of things going bump in the night. At which point, I would have reminded Him that the bumping had gone on for several nights now and I was quite tired, thank you very much.

These days, Father Cyrus was well acquainted with the layout of the house. He set his bag on the kitchen counter and began to unpack his holy possessions—the usual: a Bible, a crucifix, a vial of holy water, a small silver bowl and rod (an aspersorium and an aspergillum, I had learned during one of these little visits). A tiny box that contained some significant relic—the bones of some saint or another, he once explained to me (specifically whose, I have since forgotten). He had obtained it during a trip to Italy years ago. Very holy, he explained. It will help. I remembered reading something about ancient merchants—pranksters of the past—selling fake relics to unsuspecting people, bones of chickens in place of bones of saints, but I doubted remarking on that fact would be helpful.

“Where is Hal?” he asked once he finished setting up.

I tried to keep my face flat. “He’s gone,” I said.

Father Cyrus nodded in understanding, placing a gnarled hand on mine. “Shall we pray for him?” he asked.

I smiled, forcing a small laugh that fooled nobody. “It’s a little late for that, I think.”

“It’s never too late for prayer,” Father said, but he didn’t press the issue. “When will your daughter be in?” he asked.

“A few days,” I said.

“And she’s never been here before?”

“Never.”

“And so we’ll need to?.?.?.” He let his sentence drop off as he glanced at the basement door, still boarded up.

I nodded.

Father Cyrus nodded back solemnly. He sighed, a shaky whine of air. “Let’s get started, then.”

Father Cyrus draped the crucifix around his wrinkled neck and stood tall. He lifted his hands in the air, palms outward, and closed his eyes. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he said, moving the ridge of his palm in a pantomime of a cross in the air.

I dropped my eyes and clumsily blessed myself in response. I was never sure if my hand moved in the right direction to shape the cross over my forehead and shoulders, but Father Cyrus never corrected me. “Amen.”

“May the Lord God bless this house. Peace be with all who live here.”

“And also with you.” I knew my lines.

“Praise be to God, who fills our homes with his love.”

“Blessed be the Lord.”

Father Cyrus lifted his Bible, which yawned open in his hands. Whether it fell open to the correct passage was unclear. Father’s eyes never looked downward as he read aloud to the room, left palm still hovering in the air, greeting the kitchen. “And now a reading from the holy gospel according to Luke?.?.?.”

The process always began in the kitchen, as this room tended to be the least favored by the pranksters. It was the spiritual equivalent of dipping a toe into a pool before diving in. All Father Cyrus usually did in this room was a quick prayer. Typical house-blessing stuff.

It had been mid-September the first time Father Cyrus came over. He said his prayers in each room, kindly whispering at Hal and me when we missed our call-and-response lines. I trailed behind him like a lost child, wringing my hands and barely blinking as he sprinkled holy water on our nice antique furniture. Hal followed at a distance, occasionally giving my arm a nudge. Let the nice priest work, Margaret. The pranksters—annoyingly—were calm the entire time Father Cyrus was there. No Fredricka’s bleeding head, Elias’ biting fangs, or Angelica and her team of pointing children to be seen. Even the birds seemed to take a break from their suicide missions for the afternoon. We took Father Cyrus upstairs and pointed out the blood, but he couldn’t see it.

“Goddamnit,” Hal said. I slapped Hal’s shoulder and shot him a look. We had just gotten this house blessed.

“You believe us?” I asked Father Cyrus, needing reassurance more than I ever had in my life. “We aren’t crazy. I bet if you stayed the night, you would hear the screaming.”

Father Cyrus lifted a palm and shook his head. “I don’t need to see or hear anything,” he said, and glanced all around him, as if there were pranksters in the room that not even Hal or I could see. “I can feel them. This house is dark. The things that live here, they blot out God’s light.”

Hal and I smiled and breathed sighs of relief.

Today, Father Cyrus came to the end of his prayer and poured holy water into the aspersorium. He bowed his head and whispered a little intercession to the bowl before lifting it and shuffling out of the room. I followed close by, ready to support him in place of his walking stick, abandoned against a counter.

Father Cyrus paused in the hallway, facing the front door. The basement door was to his left, but he didn’t look at it. He closed his eyes and raised his hands, right hand still holding the aspersorium, as he prayed, his voice loud, too loud to give away a tremor. “Lord, defend us against the wickedness of the devil. Rebuke him and cast into Hell the evil beings who seek to harm your children. Amen.”

“Amen,” I said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fredricka pass between the dining room and the living room. She glanced at me and shook her head slightly. Still mad, I supposed. Fredricka always wondered why I bothered with Father Cyrus in the first place. I shrugged at her. What did she want me to do?

Father Cyrus moved forward and turned into the dining room, dipping the silver aspergillum into the holy water. “Lord, save this home.” He flicked the aspergillum over his head like a whip, little flecks of water landing on the tablecloth.

“Lord, hear our prayer,” I responded, trailing behind him. The dining room looked so different from how it had when Fredricka died in there. Instead of candles, a large chandelier hung from the ceiling. The dark wallpaper had been taken down sometime before we moved in and we had painted the room a deep maroon with gold detailing. At the time I thought it looked grand, but if I had to do it again, I would choose a color that reminded me less of blood.

That first night after Father Cyrus blessed the house three years ago, I slept like the dead. I awoke, disoriented and stiff, around noon the next day. The sleep deprivation had taken quite a toll. I checked the walls in the master bedroom—no blood. No blood on the stairs either. I couldn’t remember any screaming in the night. The house was quiet in a way it had never been before. I made Hal swear that he hadn’t heard the screaming either. Couldn’t see the blood. Hadn’t noticed the boy in his office. Hal had a habit of minimizing these sorts of things. I needed the truth. He swore it was over. Scout’s honor.

Hal was convinced we had solved the problem once and for all. “We need to start going to church,” he said.

Me, I didn’t trust the quiet. It didn’t seem like the rainbow after a storm—I had been in enough storms to know the difference. Rather, it was like the eye of a hurricane. Calm but hinting at chaos in a few short moments. These things, they don’t go away so easily. These things, they only wait.

Still, we had a solid day and a half during which the house was ours again. I started on a new painting in my studio. Hal tapped away at a novel in his office, another one about cowboys. We had pasta for dinner. It was nice. Then, a couple days later, I found Fredricka in the kitchen rearranging plates.

“Tea, ma’am?” she asked, barely glancing up from her task.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. Perhaps my phrasing was rude, but I had almost started to believe that I might not see her again.

If Fredricka found my question rude, she didn’t show it. “I live here,” she said.

“But I?.?.?. but we?.?.?.” I mimicked the tossing of the aspergillum.

Fredricka’s good eye rolled back in her head. “Ma’am would do best not to fall so readily for fancy men and their toys.”

So that was that. Elias returned a few days later, much to Hal’s dismay. A few days after that, we woke to find blood dripping down the walls again, and it was down the stairs in no time. Blythe, the woman who had been burned to death in one of the fireplaces, showed up again, howling and scratching at the walls. Her husband, Jasper, returned as well, but he was less of a concern, seeing as he had never done much of anything to begin with. The screaming returned, as did the dead birds, as did Angelica and her friends.

Father Cyrus crossed the foyer into the living room. “Cast away the evil from this house, and in your almighty power destroy it.” Flick. Flick. Flick.

I followed. “Praise be to the Lord.”

We had decorated the living room with charming antique sofas that were never quite comfortable enough to sit on. We had also bought a lovely old piano to serve as a finishing touch in the room, and I harbored fantasies of starting to play again. Unfortunately for us, Blythe liked to play as well, and the piano started playing when neither of us was in the room. A few isolated notes at first, but before we knew it, we were hearing full Beethoven concertos. Initially, I thought it was nice, but the music became constant and didn’t stop during the night. It got a little old. We sold the thing—problem solved. There was still a large empty space in front of the picture window where it used to sit.

Father Cyrus walked through the living room and into my sunroom studio. This room tended to be free of pranksters and required no more than a cursory blessing. “As it was in the beginning,” Father Cyrus said, flicking the aspergillum. I flinched, watching tiny droplets of water land on some of my unfinished paintings. I would need to paint over those spots later. More work.

We passed back through the living room and ascended the stairs, the wood groaning under our feet. The blood had reached midway down the second flight this morning, but the stairs between the first and second floors remained clean. Father Cyrus took each step carefully, painfully, panting and clutching the bowl of holy water with an unwavering grasp. I stayed by his side, hands hovering near his elbow in case he needed support. We reached the second-floor landing and Father paused to catch his breath. “Amen,” he gasped, as if he had just finished a silent prayer, before heaving forward.

The first guest room. “Save this house, Lord.” Flick.

“We trust in you, Lord,” I murmured in response.

The second guest room. “Let the enemy be powerless over this place.” Flick.

“Lord, protect us.”

The bathroom. “Lord, send us aid in your holiness.” Flick.

“Lord, watch over us.”

The third guest room. “Lord, hear our prayer.” Flick.

“Lord, hear our prayer.”

Father Cyrus, pausing a heartbeat to take a deep breath, pushed open the door to Hal’s office. Even though Father Cyrus had never seen Elias, he said he could feel Elias’ presence in this room. I had a feeling that if Father Cyrus only waited patiently and let these pranksters grow comfortable with him, they would approach him in no time, stray cats creeping towards a dish of tuna. That was how it had worked with Edie. Unfortunately, Father Cyrus seemed to have no interest in being a dish of tuna.

Father Cyrus began moving through the room, dipping the aspergillum in the holy water. “Almighty Father, hear our call for help.” Flick.

Fredricka still avoided this room in her cleaning, and the holy water left wet marks as it landed on the thickened dust on Hal’s desk. I felt a twinge of something like sadness. Hal never would have liked to see his office in such an obvious state of neglect. I even spied cobwebs starting to form in corners.

“Strike fear into the hearts of those evil things that wish to bring harm into this place of peace. Give us the courage to fight against this devil.” Flick.

Hal had decorated the room in dark wood and lined the walls with bookcases filled with vintage books, most of which he had never read. Copies of his first book—his first one that made us any money, anyway—were displayed prominently on the shelf behind his mammoth desk. His old desktop computer sat in the middle of the desk, dust turning it gray as it waited for him to return.

“By all the power you possess, cast this unholy presence out of your kingdom and redeem this dwelling through your Son, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, forever and ever.”

“Amen,” I said, tracing my fingers through the dust on the desk.

We made quick work of the third floor; the only rooms of interest were the master bedroom and the bathroom. There was no way Father Cyrus could climb the ladder into the attic. Not much happened up there, anyway. As we approached the landing of the stairs, preparing to descend to the one room we had neglected, Father Cyrus grabbed my hand. “Let us pray.”

I knew the drill. “Our Father who art in Heaven—”

After all the pranksters returned following Father Cyrus’ first visit, Hal and I concluded that he hadn’t solved our problem. Still, we had nearly a week and a half of relative calm, and it was almost a month before things got back to the way they had been before. So, while Father Cyrus with his holy water and Bible weren’t a cure-all, it seemed as if they acted as a Band-Aid on a larger wound. At this point, I couldn’t complain about Band-Aids. Something needed to slow the bleeding, after all.

So, after another month, I asked him to come again.

That first year, there wasn’t a schedule as to when I’d ask Father Cyrus back. I would let the pranksters stir up trouble until I couldn’t bear it anymore, then have him over to buy us some solace. Then September rolled around again and everything was so much worse. By that time, I had figured out which of the pranksters were most affected by Father Cyrus. Fredricka was completely unaffected and dropped the pretense of disappearing after a few visits. Elias adopted a similar strategy, although his comings and goings were always much more erratic than Fredricka’s to begin with. Blythe and Jasper were mildly affected, Jasper more so than Blythe. The basement and Master Vale, they seemed strongly affected, and ultimately they were what was in most need of controlling. It started to make a bit of sense. Fredricka was related to the goings-on in the basement only in an ancillary way, as were Elias and—to a lesser extent—Blythe and Jasper, so it stood to reason that they wouldn’t be very affected by Father Cyrus’ prayers against evil. On the other hand, Angelica and her friends were directly related to the goings-on in the basement, as was the blood, as were the screams. And Master Vale, he was the basement, so it went without saying that he would be affected. I was never quite sure about the birds.

So, after a bit of math and charting out various responses, I decided that Father Cyrus should come by at least once every other month. And, nonnegotiably, he should come by in September. Hal had shrugged, feigning nonchalance. If it makes you feel better, he’d said. But he had always reminded me to call.

“Amen.”

The two of us had finished our prayer. There was a distinct tremble in Father Cyrus’ hand. We took the stairs down to the ground floor one by one, my hand tight on his elbow for guidance. Father Cyrus was breathing heavily, and he seemed to take the stairs even slower than usual. I couldn’t exactly blame him.

Finally, Father Cyrus and I stood in front of the basement door. For a moment, the only sound was the tremor of the aspergillum in the bowl he clutched in his hand.

“Do you think we should go ahead and take the boards off now?” I asked.

“While I pray,” he responded. He looked at me. “Do you still have the holy pages on the inside?”

I nodded, then went to retrieve the crowbar from the kitchen. I had left it on the counter for this occasion.

Taking a deep breath, Father Cyrus raised the aspergillum over his head with confidence. “I banish you from this home, unholy beast, in the name of God the Almighty.” His voice was booming, all hint of tremor gone.

I wedged the crowbar underneath the topmost board and heaved with all my strength. I heard the wood crack as I yanked the nails from the doorframe.

“In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to leave this dwelling.”

The first board clattered to the floor. I felt flecks of holy water dance on my arms and face as I positioned the crowbar underneath the second board.

“In the name of the Holy Spirit, I cast you away from these children of God. It is Christ Himself who compels you, under whose might you are rendered powerless. Cower before him, O evil being.” He dipped the aspergillum in the bowl again and flung the water, whiplike, at the door.

The second board fell to the floor, splinters spraying into the air.

“It is God the Almighty who commands you.” Flick. “Our Lord Jesus Christ commands you.” Flick. “The power of the Holy Spirit commands you.” Flick. “All the saints and martyrs command you.” Flick.

I wasn’t even halfway through the boards and was already starting to breathe heavily. I took a moment to wipe the holy water from my brow before returning to my work.

Father Cyrus’ voice amplified in intensity, achieving a volume I wouldn’t have thought he was capable of anymore. “Begone, you foul creature, you fiend who has wiled your way out of the gates of Hell. You will tremble in fear under the might of our Lord. For it is He who cast you down from the heavens and sent you to endless destruction. And it is He who will render you powerless yet again.”

The third board was proving to be a bit of a challenge. I grunted as I threw my weight against the crowbar. The wood splintered and I thought I heard something like a yawn echo just beyond the door.

“I expel you, in the name of the Father.”Flick. “And of the Son.” Flick. “And of the Holy Spirit.” Flick.

“Amen,” I grunted, cracking into the fourth board. Holy water flecked into my eye.

“Glory be to the Father.”

Crack. “As it was in the beginning.” My response was coming in puffs of heavy breath now. I could feel sweat dripping down my back. The splashes of holy water were starting to feel refreshing.

Father Cyrus lowered the aspergillum. He released a breath. “The Lord be with you.”

The fourth board clattered to the floor, and I allowed myself a pause before attending to the final board. “And also with you,” I panted.

“Let us pray.” Father Cyrus bowed his head, but I continued working. One board to go—no time to pray. “Father God the Almighty, please hear the cries of your poor children. Lord, look upon this dwelling with pity and love and banish this foe back to the fires of hell. This we ask through Christ our Lord, and in His name we pray.”

“Amen,”I grunted triumphantly, the fifth board collapsing to the floor. That yawning noise sounded again, just audible over my gasps. I leaned back against the wall to catch my breath. When I opened my eyes, Fredricka was standing in the kitchen, her expression unreadable. Water? I tried to mouth to her, hoping she wasn’t too upset with me still.

Next to me, Father Cyrus put his hand on the knob of the basement door.

My eyes darted to his hand, then back to Fredricka. Her expression likely matched mine, horrified. She shook her head. I pushed myself off the wall to face him. “Father—,” I began.

But he was already turning the knob. “Dear God, we ask that you keep this unclean being far from this home and grant all who dwell here peace in their days.” The door opened with a groan, and I moved behind Father Cyrus, backing away. The Bible pages we had taped to the back of the door waved gently at the disturbance, their edges frayed. “We pray that the light and love of our Lord Jesus Christ shine down upon this home.” I could smell it now, the heady air moving up the stairs, thick and slow as blood. “May we have no reason to fear the devil, for our Lord Jesus Christ is with us.” Behind me, Fredricka was shaking her head violently now. “He who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, forever and ev—”

At that, Father Cyrus’ body was pinned with a rigidity akin to rigor mortis. His arms stiffened and dropped like metal rods to his sides, the aspersorium clanging to the floor, holy water spilling all over the nice wood. The heels of his shoes left the ground, his toes now barely scraping the floor. His head wrenched backwards, eyes unblinking, mouth gaping, the vowels of the final words of his prayer grating out of his mouth with an ear-shattering volume.

This was new.

“What the hell do I do?”I hissed at Fredricka. As unprecedented as this was, it seemed like a bad sign. Fredricka was no help whatsoever, her mouth open and her head still shaking no.

With the care one takes to test the heat of a pot on the stove, I grazed my fingers over Father Cyrus’ shoulder. “Father?” I needed to speak quite loudly to be heard over the rattle coming out of his throat.

As if my fingers corrected the skip of a broken record, the sound stopped, his mouth frozen open in a silent scream. He hung there, rigid and unmoving. I was about to try touching him again when a gush of black fog erupted from his mouth, releasing into the air, buzzing. It was flies—a swarm of fat black flies exploding from his body and spilling out into the hallway. The flies landed on his neck and face, crawled into his nose and over his open eyes. A thick gagging noise sounded over the buzzing, coupled with a low scream that could have been coming from either Father Cyrus or somewhere in the basement. I couldn’t quite tell.

“Cut it out!”I screamed into the basement, shoving Father Cyrus aside and slamming the door, my shoulder pressing hard into the wood, my hip jamming into the doorknob.

As soon as the door closed, Father Cyrus crumpled onto his hands and knees and vomited violently, coughing and gasping. I knelt beside him and rubbed his back, not particularly sure what had just happened.

Father Cyrus hacked and gagged through his final retches, falling to his side on the floor, chest heaving. He trapped my foot under his arm, somewhat uncomfortably. I patted his shoulder, waiting as his gasps quieted. My own breath needed a moment to calm itself as well, I found. Between the thickness of the flies in the air and the smell of his vomit in front of me, I was starting to feel a little nauseous.

“You maybe shouldn’t have opened the door,” I said.

Father Cyrus shifted on the floor, struggling to raise himself, a trembling hand underneath him. “This house is so cold,” he stammered. I stood and offered a hand to help him up. He took it and pressed his weight against me but didn’t meet my eyes. Instead, he turned to the kitchen, where his things waited on the counter. “So cold,” he said.

He stumbled into the kitchen and began shoving his accoutrements into his bag. Crucifix, Bible, holy water—all tossed in with no semblance of care remaining. Guiltily, I lifted the aspersorium and aspergillum from the floor and walked over to him, offering them out like an olive branch. Still not meeting my eyes, he grabbed them from my hands and tossed them in, then closed his bag with haste.

His ritual wasn’t finished yet. There was a whole other bit after he blessed the house, and we still needed to say the Apostles’ Creed. I thought about pointing this out, but the hurried nature with which he snatched up his walking stick and hobbled towards the door suggested that my words would land on deaf ears.

I jogged along after him. “Thank you for coming, Father. I’m really sorry about, you know?.?.?. the flies?” I opened the front door for him and he nearly leapt onto the porch. “That has never happened before.”

“No need for apologies,” he panted, already down the porch steps and heading for the driveway. “Call me if you need anything else. Julio!” This last bit was directed towards the driver of the car, still parked at the end of the driveway, a faint hum of rap music emanating through the cracked windows. “Julio, we’re leaving.” He dove into the car and they sped away, dust in their wake.

That all could have gone much better. I left the front door open for a minute, trying to fan away the flies that made their way to the foyer. These goddamn things would be in the house for days.

I looked up to see Edie hustling down the driveway, arms pumping as her body waddled towards me. “What happened?” she shouted. “I saw a car peel out of the driveway like a bat out of hell. I waved at them to slow down—there might be kids around, you know—but I think they actually sped up.”

“It’s fine,” I said, still fanning at the flies. “Just a bit of a hiccup with the blessing.”

Edie climbed the steps to the porch, panting from her jog down the driveway. “A hiccup? What do you mean?” She peered through the door and into the foyer. “What’s with all the flies?”

“They came out of the priest,” I said.

“You don’t say.” Edie sounded perplexed but unsurprised.

“He opened the basement door,” I explained.

“Ahhh,” Edie murmured, the sound of a person who had found the last piece of a puzzle. “He maybe shouldn’t have done that.”

I groaned, brushing away a fly that had landed on my face. “And now I have to clean up his vomit.” I tried not to think about the stains the vomit and the holy water were going to leave on the nice hardwood floors and—unfortunately—the wall.

“Oh dear.” Edie glanced past me into the house. “Will you need any help?”

“Oh, I couldn’t subject you to that,” I said, although not necessarily because of the vomit. Edie didn’t like the house and avoided going past the front porch as much as she could. I decided to spare her the fright. I had frightened enough people today.

Edie gestured towards the flies. “What about with these?”

I sighed, glancing around at the swarm. “Actually,” I said, “yes. If you don’t mind.” There really were a lot of flies.

Edie nodded and I left her at the front door shooing their thick black bodies away with both hands. I walked down the hallway, steeling myself. I had cleaned up plenty of other people’s vomit before—including both Katherine’s and Hal’s—but that didn’t make the task any more pleasant. However, when I reached the basement door, I found Fredricka on her hands and knees in front of it, scrubbing away at the floor, soapy bucket at her side.

“Oh, no,” I said, trying to wave her away without touching her. “You don’t have to clean this up. Really.”

“It’ll leave a stain,” Fredricka responded, her scrubbing not even slowing as she spoke.

I felt terrible. I had already upset Fredricka by asking her to stay away while Katherine visited, and now she was cleaning up the vomit of a priest she didn’t even approve of my bringing to the house. “I mean it, Fredricka. I’ll clean it. It’s my fault, anyway.” Technically, it was the basement’s fault, but Master Vale wasn’t exactly going to climb the steps and clean up the vomit himself, so I was the next in line for blame.

“It’s no trouble, ma’am.”

I sighed. I knew a lost cause when I saw one. I grabbed a second rag and settled at her side, scrubbing away at the mess next to her.

We worked in silence for some time. Finally, Fredricka sat back on her heels, hands in her lap, and spoke, her gaze lingering on the remnants of the mess in front of us. “I will stay away when ma’am’s daughter visits,” she said.

I looked up. “Are you sure?”

Fredricka nodded. “I will still be around to help,” she said, seeming to—on some level—comprehend that she was not physically capable of leaving entirely. “But when ma’am’s daughter comes, I will keep my distance as best I can.”

“Fredricka, I—” I felt at a loss. There is nothing like watching a person scrub up vomit that isn’t theirs to make you realize just how much you ask of them. “I don’t know what to say.”

Fredricka was still looking away from me, her expression calm. “It is no burden,” she said. “I don’t want ma’am’s daughter to be frightened”—she glanced at the vomit on the floor—“like he was.”

I could have cried. I scooted closer to her. “This is so kind of you. I asked so much of you, and?.?.?. this is just?.?.?.”

Fredricka smiled about as much of a smile as she usually mustered. “Anything to help, ma’am. Needs must.”

I flung my arms around her. With that touch, I was again sent howling back to the day she died, to the unrecognizable dining room, the thick smell of the roast, the jagged shadows of the candles, the grinning man, the swinging axe. I felt the weight of the axe sink through my—her—skull, felt it collapse, heard the cracking-watermelon noise, and saw the world fade out through one eye. It gave me a terrible headache, but I only hugged her tighter. My nose bled onto my sleeve. It was worth it.