Chapter Three

“Time for brekkie!” Darcy McGovern said, waking up Karl Schmidt, who was asleep on her couch. He had been staying with her since his return to Liverpool.

He sprang up and scooted over to the table like a child on Christmas morning discovering his gifts. Darcy served him a plate of bacon, eggs, sausages, baked beans, and black pudding. He pushed the black pudding to the side with his fork and began eating the rest. Darcy sat down across from him and swallowed a pill with her tea.

“How long will you be on those for?” Karl asked.

“Indefinitely.”

“Have you had any episodes recently?”

“Not in ages. I just get the odd headache now.”

“Stupid war injury.” Karl smiled.

“Stupid war injury.” She smiled back, pushed her plate up against Karl’s and dragged his black pudding onto her plate with her fork.

Though Darcy did take a bullet to the head in Afghanistan, it merely grazed her just above the ear and left no more than a scrape as an injury. However, since she was rather shaken by the event, and between tours, Karl and Dalton decided to take her on vacation to get her mind off things for a while.

They travelled to Florida, where they stayed far away from any major tourist destination or crowded place in general. They rented a cabin in a remote area, expecting no more than some peace and quiet. However, across the road from them was the most unusual and intriguing property. Large, black gates, about two stories high, surrounded the establishment, and it was impossible to get a glimpse inside. At night, blue sparks from behind the gates would light the sky.

Though they initially ignored their peculiar neighbour, curiosity began to rise among the group. One day, the three walked over to the property to determine once and for all what was going on behind those gates. Darcy gripped the metal slats and attempted to open them, or at the very least, shake them a little. A local man on a hike approached the group.

“You ain’t getting through those gates,” said the man.

“Why not?” Darcy asked.

“No one goes in, no one goes out. They say a mad man lives in there.”

“What kind of mad man?” asked Karl.

“Some say he’s a scientist. Others say he’s a sorcerer. But there’s no way to know for sure.”

“A scientist?” said Dalton, his eyes lighting up. “What do you suppose he’s up to?”

“Frankly, I don’t want to know.”

“There’s got to be a way in,” said Darcy. She pointed to a tall palm tree that stood a couple feet away from the gates. “I bet I could climb that and hop the fence.”

The man shook his head. “You can’t climb the coconut tree. It’s cursed.”

“Cursed? How?” asked Darcy.

“One man tried to see over the gates. He fell. Broke his leg. Another man tried to sneak over the gates. He fell. Broke his neck.” The man gestured a slicing motion across his own neck. “No one’s tried to climb the coconut tree since.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s cursed,” said Dalton. “I’m sure if I tried to climb the tree, I would fall as well.” Darcy nodded in agreement upon observing Dalton’s emaciated figure.

“It’s cursed. Haunted by a poltergeist; his sole purpose is to spook intruders away.”

“Nonsense,” said Karl.

“Believe whatever you want. But I’m telling you, you can’t get in there. You can only be invited in. If you try to get in, you’ll fail. Go ahead and try… at your own risk.”

The man turned away and carried on with his hike.

“Perhaps we should leave,” said Karl.

“No way! I want to get in there,” said Darcy.

“I must admit, if there is a scientist in there, I would be interested in learning what he’s working on,” said Dalton.

“It might be a sorcerer,” said Darcy.

The gates slowly opened before them. A heavily armed man stood on the other side. Behind him was another, slightly lower set of gates. Nothing was visible on the other side except for a few other palm trees.

“Cash,” said the man, holding out his right hand. A hunting rifle was slung over his left shoulder.

Karl looked at Dalton expectantly. Dalton reached into his pocket and handed the man a stack of American bills. He counted it, flipping through the money like he was dealing a deck of cards.

“Five hundred dollars,” he said with a frown as he pocketed the cash.

“Yes, I believe so,” said Dalton.

“This is an insult to Father Peter. Be gone.”

The guard gripped his rifle and fired a few warning rounds on the ground between himself and the group as the gates slowly closed in front of him. They began running across the road. Dalton stumbled and fell over, and Darcy turned to help him get on his feet. They looked back at the gates. With the loud metallic grinding sound of the gates coming to a halt, they were shut out. Never again would the gates open for the group.

“Fuck, Dalton, you blew it for everyone. Always so cheap,” said Karl.

“Don’t get mad at me. You didn’t even want to go inside,” said Dalton.

“Let’s all just calm down,” said Darcy. “I bet I could climb the coconut tree.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” asked Karl, while avoiding actually advising against it.

“I’m sure I could manage,” she said, walking over to the tree with a hand over her eyes to block out the sun. “I have a feeling there is something special about this place.”

Darcy turned around, waiting to see if anyone would try and stop her. The two stood right behind her, saying nothing. She observed how red and freckled they were from the Floridian sun and wondered whether she looked the same.

“Do it,” said Dalton.

Darcy gripped the tree with both hands, hopped up, and her feet landed on either side of the trunk. She shimmied up the jagged tree bark without too much trouble until her eyes were nearly level with the top of the gate. While craning her neck to look over, the bark under her left foot broke off, causing both of her feet to slip. She hung on to the trunk only with her arms.

“You’re doing great, Darcy, get your feet back on the tree and keep going,” said Dalton.

“No way, it’s much too dangerous,” said Karl. “Darcy, get down from there.”

Darcy clasped her legs around the trunk and strengthened her grip.

“I’m nearly there, I can almost see above the gate.”

She shimmied up a little higher, and the tree trunk bent slightly forward under her weight. She raised her arms and pulled herself up. The trunk swayed forward even more. She hugged the trunk desperately, fearing now that she would become another victim of the cursed tree. The trunk bent forward until it rested against the gate, stabilizing it. She peered over.

She saw a white, square-shaped mansion with Romanesque columns in front. Antebellum architecture, Darcy thought, thinking of all the classic American films set in the Deep South she’d seen. Nothing she’d seen in those films, however, prepared her for the goings-on in the backyard.

She gasped audibly. Hundreds of naked people were milling about, drinking, smoking, and snorting everything imaginable. Guests brought empty champagne glasses over to the fountain and filled them up. Pot plants encircled the estate. The guests began making their way over to something Darcy couldn’t quite see.

“What do you see?” Dalton called up.

“Naked people! Plenty of them, partying.”

“Brilliant!” said Karl. “We have to find a way inside!”

“Why are they partying?” Dalton asked.

“I’m not sure… they… they seem to be gathering around for something… hang on, I’ll try to get a better look.”

Darcy shimmied higher until she could see where the guests’ attention was directed. A young, surprisingly attractive priest wearing nothing but his collar stood under an altar. On either side of him was a man and a woman, both naked, holding hands. The woman had a large white flower in her wavy, brown hair.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in sinful but holy matrimony,” said the priest.

“It’s a wedding! A naked wedding!” said Darcy, looking down toward Karl and Dalton. She looked back up to continue viewing the wedding, but the gesture shook the tree trunk a little, causing a coconut to fall into the yard. Captivated by the ceremony, she ignored it.

“I could go on and on about God and love and the afterlife and shit,” said the priest, putting an arm around the maid of honour. “But I think the Prince classic, ‘Let’s Go Crazy,’ says it best. Hit it.” The song blasted through massive speakers set up around the estate.

The guard who was patrolling the grounds came across the fallen coconut. He looked up.

“Hey, who’s there?” he said. He turned his gun toward the coconut tree.

He fired a shot and Darcy jumped straight down from the tree. Karl and Dalton attempted to catch her, but when she landed in their arms, they all fell to the ground with her and ended up with minor to moderately severe injuries. Worst of all was Darcy’s concussion, which had her bed-ridden for weeks in a darkened room. From that point on, she would be cursed with migraines.

After the incident, every time she heard so much as a balloon pop, she would remember the Floridian guard trying to shoot her down from the coconut tree. In her dreams he would look for her, tracking her back to Liverpool to punish her for trying to get past the gates. Worse, she could no longer go to church without thinking of the naked priest. It was mortifying when she had to suppress giggles throughout her mother’s funeral.

Darcy was eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. However, when she told the story to the psychiatrist, she attributed the gun-related trauma to her close call in Afghanistan. It was far less embarrassing to say she was scarred by war than a coconut tree altercation.

She took Karl’s empty plate, piled it on top of her own and brought it over to the counter. They both laughed, recalling the incident.

“I wish I’d seen it for myself,” said Karl.

“I don’t know. It nearly killed me.” Darcy washed the dishes. Karl thought of helping her, but didn’t particularly feel like it. He felt good about having had the thought, though.

“I still don’t think it was a legally valid wedding.”

“Why not? There was a real priest and everything.” Darcy dried off the dishes and put them away.

“What sort of priest would perform a naked wedding ceremony quoting Prince?”

Darcy smiled and replied, “All I remember is the guard mentioning someone named Father Peter.”

* * *

Pope Clement XV hated Father Peter.

Born and raised in the town of Shawinigan, in the French-speaking Canadian province of Québec, the Pope believed in a great deal of things. Strong faith was a necessary quality in a Pope. One thing he believed very strongly was that Québec’s French and historically Catholic population was almost entirely doomed to Hell, and worse, assimilation, because of American cultural and economic imperialism.

And that was one of the reasons the Pope hated Father Peter: he was American. Not just American, but Californian. The heart of America’s morally corrupt cultural industry.

But the Pope had other reasons to hate Father Peter. Father Peter was a smug bastard that deserved to be excommunicated ages ago. Father Peter made the Pope wish he could bring back burning heretics at the stake, just for him. But since Father Peter was the Church’s best exorcist, the Pope tried his very best to be friends with Father Peter.

He made the mistake of introducing Father Peter to his niece, Ève-Marie.

Now, Ève-Marie and Father Peter were raising a bastard child together and maintained a long-distance, polyamorous relationship between Shawinigan and wherever Father Peter was off to next, performing exorcisms for the Church. The Pope had to endure entire family dinners with the unbearable Father Peter. Ève-Marie even had the audacity to say that Father Peter’s bastard resembled His Holiness! Il serait trop mignon habillé comme le Pape, avec le beau p’tit chapeau et la belle grande robe, she would say, bouncing the drooling creature on her lap.

How the Pope hated Father Peter. And there he sat, looking smug as ever, in the Vatican’s reading room, carelessly flipping through pages of ancient scripture, laughing at the illuminated manuscripts to which generations of monks had dedicated their lives. The Pope walked under the golden archways of the great room, surrounded by some of the finest works of art in Europe. A stream of light burst through one of the arched windows and shone upon Father Peter, who was seated in the back of the empty room at one of its many long, wooden tables. The Pope sat down across him, waiting to see if Father Peter would so much as look up from the manuscript. Father Peter laughed some more.

“Look, Your Holiness. Clearly this monk had never seen a naked chick.” He turned the book towards the Pope, inadvertently tearing out a page. “My bad.” He crumpled the page in a ball and tossed it aimlessly over his shoulder.

The Pope grabbed the book and slammed it shut. The violent echo stunned Father Peter briefly, but shortly after, he laughed some more. The Pope stared into Father Peter’s comical blue eyes until he felt he had his full attention. It was taking a while. He glared. Father Peter smiled. Smug bastard. The Pope reached forward, grabbed Father Peter by the throat and stood up slowly, pulling up Father Peter with him. The Shawinigan handshake.

Once Father Peter was sufficiently purple, he let him go. The Pope sat back down as Father Peter massaged his neck. The two burst into laughter.

“Your Holiness, I suppose you summoned me here for a specific reason, and not just because you enjoy the pleasure of my company so much.” Father Peter fixed his collar and ran his hand through his golden curls. The Pope found him terribly effeminate.

“I was going over a report that you did,” said the Pope, his thick Québécois accent emphasizing his broken English. “Now I remember how you are saying that a proper exorcism is not really so easy to do, because you are not on the same ‘spiritual dimension’ as the demon?”

“Correct, Your Holiness. It’s not impossible or anything, but it’s a bit like fighting blind.”

The Pope grunted. “So, you are seeing better the demon if you are also a celestial being?”

“Yeah, exactly. That’s why in my report, I suggest that the ideal exorcist would be someone capable of detaching his soul from his body.” As much as he loved his body, Father Peter knew this would make his job much simpler.

The Pope pushed his phone over to Father Peter. “I got some good news. I saw it in Tweeter,” he said, pointing to the screen.

“Twitter,” corrected Father Peter.

“Shut up and listen, you smug bastard. There is this… crazy guy… in Liverpool saying to everyone he can upload a person’s ‘consciousness’ in an ‘afterlife’ he is making up in his computer games.” The Pope and Father Peter laughed together. They both knew perfectly well that the conscious mind was merely the manifestation of the soul. “At first, I say, whatever, this crazy guy. But then I see that he is doing it to a rat and it work!”

“How does he do it, exactly?” asked Father Peter. “I know in the past, mind uploading seemed doomed to fail, that the human mind couldn’t survive such a transfer of information. You and I know that’s because separating a person’s soul from their body kills them. So, how did he do it without killing the rat?”

“You know when a person die, their soul sort of floats a little before moving on? He trap it then with some computer shit and put it in the computer,” the Pope explained.

Father Peter nodded approvingly. “He sounds like a smart dude. Of course, trapping souls in a computer program sounds like something that would piss off the Heavens. Should we do something?”

The Pope shrugged. “At first, I think, we cannot let this crazy guy do this shit. But then I remember your report, and I am thinking, we can maybe use this technology instead. I want you to try it, see if once your soul is detached, it is easier to do an exorcism.”

Father Peter began biting his fingernails. He was deeply ashamed of this particular habit, but luckily his manicurist was most forgiving. “I would need to break out of the computer system to be free to go around performing exorcisms. And I would have to be dead for him to trap my soul in the system.”

The Pope smiled at the thought of Father Peter being dead. “You know how the Heavens can be. I think anyone who puts that thing in his head will die soon after. And then I bet the Heavens will fight the computer system to get the souls.”

“But then I would just go to Heaven.”

The Pope laughed at the idea of Father Peter going to Heaven. “I think it will not be so simple. You know better than anybody how determined souls can be to stay put when they have some weird death. This is the weirdest death I can think of, so I think it will give you some room for manoeuvring.”

Father Peter nodded, remembering the last soul he’d exorcised. Hiding in the child, then the dog, then the oven… that last host was particularly dangerous.

“But! You must keep it a secret since it is all so weird,” the Pope continued. “Officially, you will go to Liverpool for a traditional exorcism. There is some stupid murderer guy who got this old man spirit attached to his neck while he was in prison and he took it home with him. The doctor is saying he is not crazy, and the local bishop is saying it is a real possession case. So, officially, this is why you go to Liverpool. Then, you go see the crazy guy and sign up for his experiment.”

Father Peter and the Pope shook on the plan with the secret Holy Handshake, a gesture more binding than any legal contract. After their meeting, they headed out for some gelato and a walk around the Vatican gardens. A visiting cardinal spotted Father Peter and dropped to his knees before him. “Tu eres el! You are the one!” he said, holding out his arms to Father Peter. The priest smiled and gave him a wink.

The Pope snapped his fingers and members of the Swiss Guard dragged the cardinal away.

“You cannot suppress the truth forever, Clement!” cried the cardinal, his voice fading away.

Father Peter ate his gelato and carried on. It wasn’t uncommon for such things to occur in his presence. He didn’t stop to question it; he figured his stellar reputation as an exorcist had earned him some kind of cult following.

The Pope looked at Father Peter eating his gelato and observed that the smug bastard didn’t even question such outbursts of veneration. Somewhere, Father Peter was beginning to grow on him. The Pope loved to hate Father Peter.