Finding Alice (5 page)

“I don’t want to see Pastor John,” I complain. I feel like I am about six years old and going to see the dentist.

“You need to, Alice. He can help us.”

As much as I want to resist, to simply leap from the car and run for my life, I submit to her. I am too tired to do anything else. Like a lamb to the slaughter, I allow my mother to lead me into the brown boxy building that used to be an auto parts shop. We stand like timid shadows in the small, dark foyer that still emits the faint odor of old motor oil. I glance around, expecting that everything should look familiar since nothing has changed here for years, and yet it all feels strange and foreign to me. Evil even. I believe I am being taken straight to hell, and Pastor John is the devil himself. I tell myself this is crazy and absurd, but I don’t believe me. I look around for Amelia, but she doesn’t seem to be here just now.

My heart pounds furiously as we sit on the frumpy plaid couch and wait. The receptionist, Mary Cates, has gone to “speak to the pastor.” It is several years before she finally returns with a smile that is either sympathetic or gloating. I can’t be sure. “He’ll see you both now.”

I am seated in a folding chair, and I can feel the chill of the icy metal seeping through my jeans. I think I’m beginning to shiver, but I try desperately to listen as my mother whispers to Pastor John. But once again her words get all mixed up, turning themselves inside out and sideways, and I am baffled that Pastor John can understand a single thing she has said. But he nods from time to time, causing the loose skin in his neck to wobble like a turkey. In fact, I’m thinking he truly does resemble a turkey with his beaklike nose and thick glasses.
Wobble-gobble-wobble-gobble
. These sounds run in circles through my head, almost like a song, and I giggle. Suddenly I notice that Pastor John and my mom are no longer talking, but instead
they are both looking at me with curious expressions. And I am thinking that I may have actually said those words aloud. It’s plain to see that they both think I’m bonkers, or worse. Although I am certain I’m the sanest one in this room at the moment. Not to mention the
chosen one
.

Now Pastor John begins speaking to me, but his words are coming out backward too—it sounds a bit like when you play a tape in reverse. I wonder if he knows how ridiculous he sounds. And that’s when I start laughing. I can tell he’s getting quite irritated at me now, especially when I can’t seem to stop. He doesn’t look like a turkey now so much as a scolding parent.

Suddenly I know he is the Queen of Hearts—they look quite similar with their big, puffy red faces. I remember how the queen cornered Alice and shrieked, “Off with your head!” And I honestly believe this is what the “good” pastor is saying to me right now. And although I should probably be frightened, for some reason this strikes me as totally hilarious. I know I am embarrassing my mom, but I can’t help it. Everything just seems so funny right now. Am I hysterical? Or maybe I’m simply experiencing some sort of reverse reaction from having shed so many tears earlier. How am I supposed to know? It’s too hard to think about.

“I’m sorry,” I finally manage to say, gasping slightly. I am really trying to make myself sober up. I can tell by their faces that this is a very serious situation. Indeed.

Pastor John clears his throat. “That’s better. Now, tell me what’s going on with you, Alice.”

I shrug, a little surprised that I can actually understand him now, but then it occurs to me that it must be God interpreting for me.

“Come on, now, Alice. What seems to be the trouble?”

“I’d tell you, but you wouldn’t get it.”

He smiles, but I suspect that it’s a fake smile. Although I’m not certain, since I’m not certain of much of anything at the moment. “Oh, you’d be surprised what an old guy like me can understand.”

For one moment I actually feel myself starting to trust him. It’s as if I want to trust someone and have someone understand my mission. Why not him? My mother certainly seems to think he’s God’s gift to her church.

“Well.” I take a deep breath. “God has been telling me things … important things … and I’ve been writing them all down.”

“What does God tell you, Alice?” Pastor John leans back in his chair and folds his hands as if he’s really listening. But suddenly his superior smile makes everything crystal clear to me. I know that this man cannot be trusted. He is clearly the enemy. Then suddenly the words all come to me, like an inspiration.

“You are like King Zedekiah,” I say with the authority of the one given the golden key.

“Who?” He sits forward now, adjusting his thick glasses.

“The prophet Jeremiah warned King Zedekiah that God was going to use his own weapons against him and his kingdom—to destroy them. And that’s what God is going to do to you, Pastor John.”

My mother gasps, but I keep my gaze directly forward and continue to speak. “God is going to demolish both you and your church … by fire.”

Pastor John scoots back his chair with a loud screech, then rises to his feet. “If you will both excuse me for a few minutes.” He moves
toward the door, glancing toward me. “Stay right here, both of you. I will be back in a just a few minutes.”

He is barely out the door when my mother turns to me and grabs me by the arm. “What on earth are you saying?” Her eyes are wide and filled with real fear.

“The truth.”

“The truth? You actually believe that God is going to burn this place down, Alice? And everybody in it? Including Pastor John?”

“
Especially
Pastor John.”

She sighs and shakes her head. Her shoulders crumple forward as if her muscles have all gone slack. “Oh, Alice.”

Pastor John returns just then with his reinforcements in tow. Before I know what is happening, I am surrounded by four men and one woman, and they’re all putting their hands on me—even my mother—and they are praying, loudly and with vigor. Their words and their breath come down on me like the heated stench of a garbage pit. I try desperately not to breathe. I am certain the air in this tiny room will poison me.

“We cast you out, O demon spirits,” cries Pastor John in his low, theatrical voice that he usually reserves for sermons. “In the powerful name of Jesus, we bind you and cast you out into the fiery pit of hell.”

“That’s right, you false prophet spirits,” chimes in Deacon Bolder. “You have no right to inhabit this child. In the name of Jesus we rebuke you and send you crawling back to wherever it is that you slithered from. Satan, Prince of Lies, you are not welcome here. Depart from her!”

I hear other voices praying too, but it’s not long until they all blur
together in a mind-splitting cacophony. Everyone presses in so close that I can recognize them by their smells. The mothballs from Pastor John’s wool jacket mix with the body odor from Deacon Bolder’s work shirt, and even the familiar almond aroma of my mother’s Jergens hand lotion makes me want to gag. I cannot breathe, and my head is going to burst, or perhaps I am simply having a heart attack. Then everything just goes hazy, smoky, then dark, like the screen fading at the end of the movie.

When I awake I am at home, stretched out on the old tweed couch in the living room with the harvest colored afghan spread over me. I can tell it’s dark outside, and I have no idea how long I’ve slept. But it’s clear that I haven’t escaped the praying fanatics yet, because sitting directly across from me, in my dad’s old leatherette recliner, is Mary Cates. Her plump arms remind me of pink water balloons as they rise and fall to her soft snoring.

“How are you feeling, Alice?”

I slowly rise to a seated position and turn to see Mrs. Knoll looking at me with her arms folded neatly across her front. She’s sitting in the old wooden rocker that’s been passed down on my dad’s side of the family for three generations. She’s partially hidden by the shadows, which makes her angular face look even more menacing than usual. Mrs. Knoll is a childless widow who’s in charge of the women’s ministry at Salvation Center, a formidable woman who supposedly served as an army nurse long, long ago. As a child I used to imagine that she’d murdered her husband since there seemed to be some sort of mystery attached to his untimely death. But tonight she is the one who looks like a ghost.

I hear my mom calling from the kitchen. “Is Alice awake?”

“Yes,” answers Mrs. Knoll, and Mary Cates suddenly snorts loudly, then sits up straighter in her chair.

“Time to pray again?” asks Mary with bleary eyes.

“She needs to eat first.” My mom emerges from the kitchen with a bowl of something that’s steaming, and I desperately hope that it’s not chicken noodle soup, her regular standby for whatever ails you. The mere thought of eating a chicken’s flesh makes me want to hurl.

Mom sits down next to me and tries to give me the bowl, but I can’t force my hands to take it. With some relief, I see that it’s only oatmeal, but even so, I am afraid. I know there is milk on it, and the idea of ingesting milk is grotesque. I do not want to put that cow secretion into my mouth.

“Come on, Alice.” My mom holds the spoon to my lips. “Just a bite or two, please?”

I shake my head.

“It’s them demons,” mutters Mary. “They’re trying to starve her—want to drive her right out of her own malnourished body.”

I sigh and look down at the familiar white bowl trimmed in blue cornflowers. Suddenly I wish that I could take at least one bite, if only to show them. Either that or spin my head around a few times, but that doesn’t seem likely.

“Demons are trying to destroy you, Alice,” says Mrs. Knoll in a voice that sounds as if it’s coming at me in surround sound straight from the depths of hell. “They don’t want you to eat. They want you to suffer and die.”

I try to swallow, but my throat feels like sandpaper. I look at my mother and notice her eyes, once again, are filled with tears. I know I must take a bite … for her. Even if it kills me, and it probably will.

“Okay, Mom, just one bite.” I close my eyes and open my mouth and wait. I taste the metal of the spoon on my tongue, and I feel the warm lumpy texture of the oatmeal in my mouth. But it’s the smelly taste of cow’s milk that gets to me, and I begin to gag. I can’t help it. The stuff just shoots out of me like an explosion—all over my mother’s face and plaid woolen dress.

“It’s them demons,” says Mary in a matter-of-fact voice.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

She dabs at her face and dress with a paper napkin. “It’s okay, Alice; it’s not your fault.”

“You’re right, dear,” agrees Mary. “It’s them demons making her act this way. They’ve taken over her body and soul. She’s helpless to fight them.”

“Not entirely,” says Mrs. Knoll. “Alice has something to do with this.”

Then Mrs. Knoll slowly stands and walks over to me. She peers down at me with her dark, narrowed eyes. “What did you do to invite this evil into your heart, Alice? What sin have you partaken in that’s opened you up to this wickedness?”

I don’t answer her but simply look down at the orange and yellow stripes of the afghan, sticking my fingers through the holes like I did when I was little. I don’t want to talk to these women. More than anything I wish these churchwomen would vanish and just leave me alone.

“You must’ve done something,” continues Mrs. Knoll. “Satan doesn’t come into our hearts uninvited, you know. You got to give him some kind of leeway. You open the door and say ‘come on in.’
Is there some hidden sin in your life, Alice? Something you need to confess to us?”

I still don’t look up, but I can sense her face close to mine, and I can smell her breath just as sour as a nasty old dishrag. She peers down at me now, looking as if she can actually see into my soul. Suddenly I am not entirely sure that she can’t. And why shouldn’t she? After all, she is part of the church leadership, the church that God is going to destroy.

It becomes perfectly clear to me. Mrs. Knoll is in cahoots with Pastor John. They’re the ones behind this whole thing. The real enemies. I am absolutely certain that they are the ones who hired my neighbor to spy on me, told her to poison me.
They want my journals. They’re jealous that God didn’t choose them to receive the golden key
.

“Where’s my backpack, Mom?” I ask suddenly.

“In your room.”

“You hiding something sinful in your backpack?” continues Mrs. Knoll. “Some drugs maybe? Or pornography? Tools of witchcraft?”

“Oh, Mrs. Knoll!” My mother looks scandalized. “Alice is a
good
girl.”

“No one is
good
, Susan!” snaps Mrs. Knoll. “Don’t be deceived by sin’s folly. We are all evil by nature. It’s only when we repent of our evil that we can be saved by the blood. But I can sense that Alice has fallen from grace. She’s not under God’s protection anymore. She has made herself an enemy of God. That’s why she’s demonized now. Plagued with demons. Why, I can feel it in my very spirit.”

“We can’t help you, Alice,” Mary agrees. “Not unless you’re willing to be helped.”

I suspect they’re playing good cop–bad cop now. I simply sit and watch, like a first offender in the squad interrogation room.

“That’s right, honey.” My mother nods. “We can pray for you, but you have to cooperate with us if we’re going to get the demons out.”

I just look at her without speaking. I am confused, and I wonder where I am and who these women really are. I long for Amelia to come and explain what is going on—she’s the only real friend I have left—but she seems to have vanished completely. I don’t understand what’s happening.

My mother reaches out and takes my hand. “Trust me, Alice. We only want to help you.”

I look into her eyes and realize she is not really a stranger. She’s my mother, and I’m thinking maybe she’s right. Maybe they are all right. Perhaps I am demonized. It’s obvious that something is terribly wrong. I certainly feel like I’m stuck in some sort of hell. I finally shrug. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You just need to agree with us when we pray for you, honey.” My mom places her other hand on my shoulder. “Are you ready?”

“I guess so.”

“You’ve got to
want
them to be gone, Alice.” Mrs. Knoll’s voice is stern and fierce.