Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow (14 page)

Tharcia alone in moonlit gardens, graceful bells of oversized blossoms hang from high in forest canopy. Evening air is warm, she walks the paths softly barefoot in her filmy gown, looking in wonder at the beauty of the night. She hopes to join again the whales, longs for their knowledge. Now serene in dream, memories of songs they sang nearly surface, closer than breath. But the voice that speaks her name from the dark garden is no whale song, it is a woman’s whisper.

“Tharcia, come here
.”

F
ollows voice to secluded clearing. Warm wind strokes her legs. There. Bathed in silver light, the loveliest woman she has ever seen. Tall, a flowing gown and long dark hair, motioning her closer.

Face to face
now, the raven and the blonde. Slightly taller, about her mom’s height, the woman’s eyes are young but deep in wisdom. Tharcia, entranced, raises a hand. Her fingers brush the outstretched palm, clasp and hold. Warmth of a woman’s breasts.

“Your mother caused you great pain
,” the soft voice says. Warm breath strokes her cheek. Tharcia is not surprised that another person says this, senses only recognition. She receives the enfolding of being known, of being held, seen clear through as purest crystal.

“
Even now she causes pain,” Tharcia replies, “but how do you know that?”

“I am
a reflection of yourself. I support you in your journey. We will keep each other safe, my secret twin.”

She notices behind the woman a dim shape,
a male, tall.

“This is
Raziel,” the woman says. “A special friend. He wanted to meet you.”

The smiling face comes near
. “Tharcia,” Raziel says. It is but a single word, her name, full and rich and toned with secret knowing of everything she is.

H
er new-found twin whispers, fading like smoke, “You need a larger pentagram, my Tharcia. You are prepared to seek your mother.”

Tharcia
opens her eyes. Curled in her sleeping bag in the middle of Clay’s bed, Clay long gone. The window is bright with afternoon. Tharcia lies still, holding tight to visions of dream, the lovely garden, the woman speaking of secret twins.

A
s she gets up, the cherished words stay with her. She looks at the clock. She has to get ready, that priest is coming today, Althea’s friend. Spends a few moments checking her phone messages, texts and tweets. Something weird at the 41st Street mall down in Capitola. Macy’s closed due to people who can’t stop laughing. She grins.
Someone punked Santa Cruz
.

Father Gary Tilt
on guides his late-model car through the shaded curves of Highway 9, leaving the Felton town center and responding to spoken turn commands from his in-dash GPS navigator. Of the 43 exorcisms he has carried out, Father Tilton thinks fewer than seven have been genuine demonic possessions.

The chief exorcist of the diocese of Rome
had, during Tilton’s training four years ago, mentioned much higher numbers in his own experience, running into the thousands of actual cases. The priest understands that most modern Catholics see the Devil as a persona, a label, which the Church overlays on the evils people experience in daily life. Within the Church itself there is another view.

T
he solidly-built priest, in his mid-60s and with a face that looks ten years younger, is thoughtful as he follows the swooping bends. In some aspects, this appears a classic case. A young woman, still in her teens. Some presence or apparition in her bedroom. Twin symbols of sexual lust, the virgin female and the bedroom. What he often finds with women is a disturbance of the psyche more suitable to the realm of psychiatry, not demonology or witchcraft. These need not be cured with holy water and commands of out, out unclean spirit. Prayer, counseling, meditation are usually prescribed, in keeping with current mainstream Christianity.

However,
Father Tilton admits a small number of genuine possessions, outwardly-normal individuals living ordinary lives. And when he exorcises them, what exactly happens, what breaks the connection with the visiting spirit? Tilton does not actually know. It is the consciousness that controls reality, even creates it. But the person, and the brain it walks around in, is seldom in control of the mind.

He
drives up the short lane, stops in the clearing before the old wood-sided bunkhouse. On the porch, he casts his eyes around. The door of thick redwood planks bears the charcoal outline of a totemic Haida beaver, ready for carving. Tilton had learned through police database searches that a murder once took place here. The girl’s experience is possibly a simple haunting.

A
blonde woman opens the heavy door a crack, regards him levelly. She wears a lavender T-shirt with the words
Goddess Culture
on the front, white jeans that can most charitably be described as snug. Her feet are bare.

“Hello,”
the priest says with a smile, “I am Father Gary Tilton, from Sacred Heart Catholic Church, in Mountain View. I received a call from Althea Crasz, who helped us arrange this appointment. Are you Tharcia Harrison?”

“
I am. Please come in.” She swings wide the door. Tilton steps into the large room, furnished with old but comfortable furniture. A large long-hair cat sleeps in a patch of sun on the floor. The room looks like someone removed all the walls except for what is possibly a bedroom and bath. Althea had not told Tilton what to expect, which he appreciated. Always best to begin with an open mind. How the psychic tracked him down however is subject to further inquiry. She’s a lightweight palm reader, intelligent, who follows psychic trends enough to relieve confused women and a few men of their cash. A trained hypnotist. But how would she access his network, know of his shadowy second calling?

“Sit anywhere,”
Tharcia says. “I’m making tea. Would you care for some?”

“Tea
would be nice.”

Instead of sitting, Tilton follows her to the kitchen
area of the open room, watches her as she starts the kettle on the gas stove, sets out two cups.

“I have herbal, green, white, black, scented.”

“Green is my favorite, please.”

“
Milk and sweetener?”

“
Thank you, no. Ms. Harrison, may I ask a couple questions before we begin?”

She looks at him with a
smile. “That’s really beginning, isn’t it?”

A
t this moment Tilton registers her face. The skin so flawless, features perfect, angelic symmetry that makes his breath catch. He nods. “It is. Our friend Althea, whom I have known since college, tells me you have had an
appearance
. Would you agree with that description?”

“
Or an appurtenance. What I have, Father, and please call me Tharcia, is a bedroom that thinks it’s a deep freeze.”

“Ah. It is cold in your room?”

“As of this morning, the walls were two inches thick with ice.”

“Actual ice.”

She pulls an ice cube tray from the freezer, holds it under his nose. “Ice like this, transparent, bluish. I’ll show ya whenever you’re ready.”

Tilton sees no trace of
self-conscious guile in her speech, decides he can move the interview right along.

“
Ms. Harrison, Tharcia. Are you a virgin?”

Tharcia looks
at him straight, as though she’d found an amusing curiosity at a flea market. She doesn’t blink. Takes a moment to consider, decides the Church does not believe in lesbians, therefore he must be referring to penis-vagina sex, as in screwing. “Yes,” she says. No trace of qualifying smile.

Father Tilton watches carefully her eyes. This young woman shows no
obvious signs of possession, yet claims her bedroom is inhabited. They will get to that in due course. Tilton has studied the connection between sex and Satan, older than Christianity. He needs to find out quickly if she sees herself as copulating with demons or with Satan himself. Some who claim this show signs of pregnancy, or predict they will birth Devil spawn. At no point does Tharcia’s gaze waver. Tilton refers to the small notepad in his hand, questions he had thought of earlier, which seem fuzzy now and meaningless to apply. Tilton’s eyes are captive to her smooth flanks as she bends to pick up a dropped spoon.

“Why do you suppose this presence has joined you?”

Tharcia thinks about this. Tilton watches her swift movements pouring from the kettle, selecting tea bags. She hands him a steaming stoneware mug.

“I think I invited it. By mistake. I was trying for something else.”

“Something else.”

“Shall we sit? Last year I lost my mother. Suddenly.
”

Ah. Severe psychological shock. Check.

“After months went by, I found myself feeling anger. First it was at my bad luck. Spent some time with self-loathing. Now it is directed at her. And anyone who gets in the way. What I have wanted since then is to talk to her.”

“Talk to her,” Tilton
echoes. Repetition his usual quiet mantra, to urge petitioners along.

“What I wanted,” she says, folding her legs under her on the rumpled sofa.

“What you wanted.” Tilton watching the white fabric grip tightly her legs, eases himself into a comfortable leather armchair.

She decides t
his priest sounds like a parrot. “I want to talk to her. I want to say how she hurt me then send her back to hell. By the way, do you capitalize hell or not?”

Tilton grins
at the question. “We use it lower case.”

“Good to know.”

“Are you a writer, then?”

“I was studying Journalism and New Media before Mom died.
”

“
You’re a writer.”

“You might say I enjoy writing,” she
admits. “Reading, especially. Anyway, as I worked through all the grieving stages, I spent time with anger then lately began hearing a message of redemption, not retribution. It was Althea who schooled me on conjuring.”

“Conjuring.”

“Yeh. She doesn’t know spells herself, but she got me started. I got this idea in my head I could summon my mom, cuz she must be a full-on demon by now, and get everything out with her.”

“And be done with it?”
Does this girl know how peculiar she is? How lovely and how very peculiar?

Tharcia sips
her tea, gazing at the priest through the steam. Tilton finds her eyes inquisitive, feminine. “Father, you ever lose anyone? Family?”

“Both parents, in the
ir proper season. Several good friends.”

“Then you know there is
no ‘be done with it’ to be had.”

Tilton nods. Tharcia goes on.
“At least I want to get stuff on the table with her, let her know how I feel.”

“What
would be your top-of-mind message for her?” The priest’s voice is warm.

Her eyes water.
“That I so love and miss her.” Tharcia’s voice breaks, she excuses herself, goes for a tissue. Dabs her eyes and blows her nose quietly, back turned to the priest.

“Do you need to summon her, as you put it, to accomplish that?”

Tharcia turns, speaks firmly. “There is a lot more she needs to hear.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the abandonment. Such as the weird boyfriends. Such as keeping me quiet about the abuse.”

“A
buse. But you said you are a virgin.”

“It
’s not what people always think.” Tharcia’s mind drifts back to the time she’d first told Clay these things, in this very house, opening her confidence to him, only a bit. It was the moment their friendship dawned. “It was all her, turning into a goddamn loony about wealth and power. My shrink tells me there is no cure for narcissism.”

Father
Tilton watches her face, tracks her body language. It comes clear to him, this girl is the furthest thing from possessed. Many of the young people he encounters are attention-seekers with psychic wounds, using shameless exaggeration and play-acting as a cry of loneliness. She admits to being hurt, but meets it directly. If in peculiar fashion.

Tilton’s
schedule today is full. He needs to see for himself whatever staging the girl may have created to draw special attention from the Church, get permission to contact her psychologist, and be on his way. He sets down his cup.

“Thank you for the tea.
By chance, might we see your room now?”

She leads him to the stairs. As he follows her up, his eyes track
the swing of her snug-fit white jeans. He sighs inwardly. Since attending the Vatican exorcism school, working with dozens of demonic possession cases down the years, it is his celibacy that has been most under attack from the world of dark spirits. And this girl is seductive without being a seducer. He envisions an instant wish-fulfillment fantasy, the earth yawning wide beneath them, an apocalyptic moment that allows him, as they plummet screaming into the fires of hell, a final guilt-free opening to possess her himself. For her own good, of course. The Devil has special training for virgins. Tilton shakes it off.