“Boxes everywhere are better than demons everywhere, Father,” Sherry said reasonably. “We won’t mind. None of us are the world’s best housekeepers, either. I’m going to bring pastries.”
“I guess I could make some coffee,” Father Barry said sullenly. “Don’t expect anything special, though. I haven’t even had time to unpack the espresso machine.”
Sherry took a moment to marvel over that particular pronouncement before she said, “I don’t think anyone will expect a cappuccino, Father. I’ll see you in the morning.” Then she hung up and returned to her growing pile of library books. She needed to learn everything about demons that she could, with the inaugural meeting of her local demon-hunting society in just a few hours.
•••
Sherry arrived at the rectory the next morning a few minutes after eight. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said, as Father Barry ushered her into a completely spotless living room with no evidence of so much as a packing peanut anywhere in sight. “There was a line at the bakery.” She deposited her greasy bags of doughnuts and Danishes on Father Barry’s gleaming coffeetable and then blinked at Charlotte, who was seated on his couch dressed in knee-high boots and some sort of cargo vest, and drinking what looked suspiciously like a cappuccino. “Uh. Good morning.”
“Good morning!” Charlotte said. “Do you want a coffee? I was just showing Barry how to do some latte art.”
“She’s so talented!” Janine said from her spot in a nearby armchair.
“I found the espresso machine,” Father Barry added, and then trotted off. Sherry made strained small talk with Charlotte until he returned in triumph with a foamy little drink in a dainty little cup, and there was a bit of collective exclaiming over how well he’d made the foamy little tulip on top.
“Well,” Sherry said, after the excitement had died down. “I’m glad to hear that you’ve all been enjoying yourselves.” It came across, she was afraid, less than entirely sincerely. “Are we all ready to get started?”
“Oh, definitely,” Charlotte said. “I’d like to call this meeting of the Village Library Demon-Hunting Society officially to order!”
Barry waved his hand a little. “Shouldn’t it be theRectoryDemon-Hunting Society?”
“Definitely not,” Charlotte said. “We’re a nondenominational organization. And, anyway, our fearless leader’s the librarian.”
Everyone looked at Sherry.
“Er,” Sherry said, suddenly self-conscious. “Right.” She sat down on the couch next to Charlotte and went digging into the bag of doughnuts for a moment to buy time. She picked out a chocolate glazed. Then she said, “Well. I guess—the problem is that we have a demon in town. Or an…ancientspirit, I guess. My cat has been calling it justher. I think I’ve bought some time with her by promising to investigate Alan’s death, but that’s not really a long-term solution to a demon infestation. I thought that maybe if we all got together, we could come up with some ideas about how to stop her.”
“Honestly,” Janine said, “I’m only here because I’m worried about you, Sherry. I know that you’re upset about Alan, of course you are, but you can’t let yourself get sucked into some wild conspiracy theory.” She looked at the other two for confirmation. “Right?”
There was a moment of silence. Janine frowned. “You two aren’t in on this, too, are you?”
Father Barry cleared his throat. “I know that I might be, uh, expected to take a certain stance, professionally. But I was with Sherry when she went to see the sheriff the other day. I guess that there could be some other explanation for what happened, but I’m not sure what the explanation couldbe.” He looked unhappy. “I do trust that God won’t give me anything that I can’t handle, but I definitely wasn’thopingfor demons. It just…looks like it might be demons.”
“I believe her, too,” Charlotte said abruptly. “I’ve been thinking about it since Sherry called yesterday. There’s been weird stuff happening to me for a while now. Like right after John died. I found his body, and the cops came, and the next thing I knew I was at the library asking Sherry for help. I guess I just thought that I blacked out for a second from the shock. But—no offense, Sherry—why would I go to some lady I’ve only met a few times before I called my own mom to tell her what happened? It was like something was making sure I followed the script. And my lawyer friend I called hasn’t beenable to make it here this whole time. Every time she tries, something crazy happens to keep her away. Last night hercarcaught on fire. Like, it just blew up in the parking garage. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“That’s not evidence of anything,” Janine said. “This is all just a bunch of confirmation bias. I believe you that you can’t remember much after you found John’s body, Charlotte, but I think that your gut was probably right originally when you thought that it was just the shock. Our memories areincrediblyfallible, especially when it comes to trauma. And your friend not showing up when you needed her is awful, but sometimes people are just flaky. I know someone whose fiancé left her at the altar in 1987, and as much as I’m sure she would have preferred thinking that the devil made him do it, I’m pretty sure that he was just a jerk.”
“Wow,condescending!” Charlotte said.
“Janine,” Father Barry said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but you have three completely sane people all suddenly telling you that they think that we might be having”—he flushed—“demon problems. Couldn’t you at leastconsiderthe idea that we could be right?”
“No,” Janine said. “Come on, Father. This isexactlyhow people join cults.” Then she swallowed. “There has to be a logical explanation.”
“So we’llfigure it out,” Sherry said. “Let’s say that this is some sort of—mass psychosis that’s making people in Winesap kill each other and also making the three of us think that maybe it’s because of some evil spirit. Do you know anyone who might be able to help figure that out? Call them up! If we can solve this mess with therapy and medication, then I’drather have that than try to play Van Helsing. I can barely bend over far enough to weed my tomato beds. I’m not exactly prepared to fight the armies of darkness.”
“I don’t know if any therapists are qualified for this situation, Sherry,” Janine started.
“Why not?” Charlotte chirped. “Because it’ssupernatural, maybe?”
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,” Father Barry murmured.
“I’m Jewish,” Janine told Father Barry, in the same tone of firm but polite warning that she usually used to tell waiters that she was a pescatarian. Then she sighed. “I have a colleague who wrote his dissertation on culture-bound syndromes.”
“Great!” Sherry said, triumphant. “Give him a call. He can study us!”
“Not if the demon is keeping people out of Winesap,” Charlotte said. “If it wants Sherry solving the murders, then it makes sense that it would keep my friend out, right? Like, if I was a demon trying to do my demon thing in a town, I would do it like inThe Truman Show. Put a big bubble over the whole place. Otherwise you’d get people wandering in and going, like, wait a second, what’s going on here? What’s with all of these murders? Why hasn’t anyone gotten the FBI up here? Shouldn’t there be a Republican running for governor talking about how he’s going to crack down on the upstate violent crime wave? It doesn’t make any sense that we’ve got a murder rate like the apple farmers have been forming cartels to ship coke over the Canadian border andno one’s noticed.”
“Hm,” Sherry said, and then looked toward Father Barry. “Has the bishop gotten back to you?”
