“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Father Barry said. He was quiet for a moment, his eyes on the vegetable omelet the waitress had delivered to him as Sherry told her story. Finally, he looked up at her again. He looked worried. Hedefinitelydidn’t look like a man who’dheard crazier. “What doyouthink happened yesterday?”
She could feel herself go very red. “I’m not really sure,” she tried, hedging. “Maybe just—the stress getting to the sheriff.”
“But you calledme,” he said. She could swear that he was almostfidgeting. “And not a friend, or the police.”
“Ican’tcall the police, thesheriff’s possessed,” she said, and then went redder. She’d planned on trying to introduce that idea a bit more delicately. It sounded even more ridiculous now that she’d said it out loud, in a diner, over a plate of pancakes.
“Oh,” Father Barry said, looking more nervous than ever. “You think that it’s a…demon problem.”
“Itoldyou that you’d think I was crazy,” she said, already feeling a sense of rising despair. She was going to be…eaten by a demon, or whatever demons did, like the character in the very first scene of the movie who noticed that something strange was going on in the abandoned hospital and decided to have a look around alone in the middle of the night. FatherBarry would be regretful about having not believed her after he saw Sheriff Brown’s head spin around 360 degrees, but by then it would be too late for poor Sherry.
“I don’t think that you’re crazy,” he said. He was fidgeting again. “Obviously I take the devilseriously, otherwise I wouldn’t—” He flapped a hand in the general direction of his collar. “I just, uh. I never took that seminar.”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“It’s a special seminar,” he said. Nowhewas blushing, and practically whispering, as if they were talking about some kind of exotic sexual practice that required you to custom-order the necessary equipment from a single specialty manufacturer in Baden-Württemberg. “At the Vatican.”
“A seminar for what?” Sherry asked, thoroughly baffled. Then it clicked. “Demon problems?”
“Youknow,” Father Barry said, and reallydidwhisper this time. “Exorcisms.”
“There’s aseminar?” Sherry asked, and then started to giggle. “Are there…PowerPoint presentations?” She imagined a gaggle of priests in their cassocks during their afternoon lunch break on day three of the exorcism conference, eating dry sandwiches and complaining about the quality of this year’s speakers.I can’t stand it when these theologians with no real-world experience try to tell actual working exorcists how to do their job, one priest might say to another, earning a genteel chuckle of professional agreement from a nearby cardinal.
“I don’t know,” Father Barry said. He sounded almost as full of despair as Sherry felt. “I’ve never been. It’s sort of—advanced, you know? They usually want you to have a degree in psychiatry before they let you exorcise people.”
Sherry blinked. “That’s very…reasonable of them,” she said after a moment. Then: “So if Ididneed an exorcist…?”
“There’s supposed to be one for every diocese, I think,” Father Barry said. “I could…call the bishop and ask if there’s one available?”
“Are they usually allbooked in advance?” Sherry asked. She was starting to feel a little hysterical. She hadn’t slept all night, which didn’t help at all with her profound sense of unreality. “Is organizing an exorcism like planning a wedding? Is there aseason?”
“I don’t think it’s afull-time position,” Father Barry said. “He probably has to fit the exorcisms in around the rest of his schedule.” Then they both just looked at each other for a moment, as the full, bellowing madness of that statement echoed around the red vinyl booth.
Father Barry was the one to finally break the silence. “I was only ordained last year,” he said, in a tone that reminded Sherry of miserable childhood confessions of having forgotten her homework.
She allowed herself the smallest bit of softening. “I’d never be able to tell,” she told him. “Your homily the other week was very professional.”
“Do you really think so?” he asked, brightening. “That was the fifth draft.” Then, evidently a bit emboldened, he continued. “You know, there could still be a more”—he flushed slightly—“earthlyexplanation for everything. Your friend Janine acted strangely, but that’s really common when people die unexpectedly. People forget how to behave. And Sheriff Brown could just be stressed. We talked about it the day we met, didn’t we? How there’s such an unusual number of murders around here. It has to be hard on the sheriff.”
“But that’spartof it,” Sherry said, leaning forward in her chair until she realized that her sweater was in danger from pancake syrup and was forced to retreat. “It took—it took Alan dying for me to see it. It’s not normal. We probably have the highest murder rate per capita on earth, and everyone acts like Winesap is just a sweet, ordinary little village. But it’snot. Everyone should be fleeing for their lives, but theyaren’t. There’s something incredibly strange going on here.”
Father Barry was wincing again. “Maybe people are willing to overlook it,” he offered. “Itisa nice little town.”
“Father Barry,” Sherry said. “Just because you don’t want it to be demon problemsdoesn’t mean that it’s not demon problems.”
He gave a small, restrained sigh. “I just want to make sure that we’re not ignoring a simpler explanation.”
“Like what?” she asked. “Ergot poisoning?”
“Sherry,” he said. “Just because you want it to be demon problems doesn’t mean that it’s demon problems.”
“I don’twantit to be demon problems,” she said, and then immediately conceded defeat. “Right. You’re right. I never actually fell asleep last night. I might be a little…not at my best.”
“No one would expect you to be,” Father Barry said, very kindly. “I think that we should both eat our breakfasts. And—I think that I should go with you to talk to Sheriff Brown when we’re done.”
“Oh,” Sherry said, feeling herself relax before she’d even had the chance to register that this was exactly what she had been wanting to hear. “Would you really? That would be so nice of you.” If itwasn’tdemon problems, it would be nice to have a big strong young man with her when she went toconfront the man who’d spent hours screaming at her front door last night. If itwasdemon problems, then she’d probably be better off to come armed with a priest. If nothing else, if things went truly awry, he’d be able to give her the last rites.
“Of course,” Father Barry said, and then started eating his omelet with the energy and enthusiasm of a dog that had finally been allowed to sprint for its food bowl.
