Lillian

My father was an exorcist. And his father before him, and his father before him. My dad died when I was ten years old. That's when I decided I wouldn't end up like him. Never at home with his children, enraptured by the idea that he was a savior. A god. I thought it was a huge, steaming load of shit. An excuse for him to spend years hanging us out to dry, leaving our mother to scrounge for ways to feed us, always returning with a new perfume on his collar. 

So, when I graduated high school, I went straight to college and studied law. I became a lawyer years later, and worked primarily in family court. I forgot what my father did and didn't do, what he claimed to be. I left all of that behind miles and miles away. I had a job, a wife, two twin sons, and a dog. My life was the antithesis of my father's life. Exactly as I had planned it. I found comfort in the mundane, safety within the predictability. Each day was nearly the same, all the way down to Josephine's meatloaf and potatoes for dinner every other night. I was happy. Well, happy enough. I suppose a better way to put it would be not miserable. I was not miserable, and that was something to be proud of. Until that night. 

I rolled over and looked at the clock, ticking away on our bedroom wall, mounted up high above the window. It was nearly four AM and I hadn't gotten much sleep at all. It was the middle of summer, and our air conditioning was busted. Everyone in town was praying for rain, to break the overwhelming humidity... but we hadn't seen a drop yet. I rolled over and then swung my legs over the side of the bed, careful not to wake Josephine, who laid without the covers on, perched on her side, her breasts outlined by shadows as moonlight spilled in from the cracked curtains. I reached out to her and moved a strand of hair out of her eyes. She didn't move a muscle.

Wiping sweat from my brow, I stood, my boxers sticking to my thighs. As if on command, the phone on our bedside table began to ring. I reached out and picked it up, holding it against my ear with one clammy hand. 

"Hello?" I whispered, my eyebrows furrowed in confusion. A call this late?

"Cassius?"

My heart shriveled in my chest. Nobody had called me by my full name in years. It was a name only my father used for me, he'd picked it when I was born. Without a second thought, I picked up the entire telephone, snaking the cord behind the nightstand and against the wall until I was in the bathroom. I flicked the light on and shut the door behind myself, though it remained slightly ajar due to the spiral phone cord. I knew exactly who's voice was on the other end, though I dreaded confirming it. 

"Megan?"

I almost felt her relax. 

"Yeah," she sounded defeated, "It's me."

I swallowed the stitch in my throat and sucked in a deep breath. The house had been hot for days, but at that moment it felt like I was standing in a sauna. I tore the phone from my ear and wiped the back of my hand across my forehead to catch the sweat trickling toward my eyes. I heard her voice again as soon as I repositioned. 

"It's happening again."

My knees wavered, like I was suddenly in deep flowing water. I set the telephone down on the counter and sank to the linoleum floor, which actually felt pleasantly cool. Well, cooler. 

"How bad is it?" I asked, sucking in a breath although it felt like my lungs would not fill. A beat passed, which told me enough already. 

"She's pregnant," Megan said, her voice coated with anguish. I stared at the floor, as if it might tell me what to say. Nothing showed up. Nothing came to mind, except for anger. Resentment. I’d left this life in the past for a reason.

"Why would you call me?" It came out harsher than I meant it, and I could hear Megan was taken aback.

"Don't act stupid, Cass."

Her tone was even more firm than mine, which I wasn't expecting. 

"You know who you are. Despite who your father was at home... he saved people's lives," she said, her voice filling with yearning, and mixing with fear, "Think about Lillian."

Lillian. 

The sound of her name ignited a flame in my stomach and I almost felt like I might vomit, tearing the phone away from my ear and squeezing my eyes shut. I sat on the bathroom floor, but suddenly I was sitting in my sixth-grade classroom, Megan next to me, Lillian across the way. Doodles on the chalkboard, birds chirping outside the window, notes passed back and forth hidden away in my book bag pocket. I picked one out and scribbled. 

Want to sit outside for lunch?

I passed the slip of paper over the table to Lillian, who smiled when she saw the message. She answered with a small nod, tucking a piece of her white-blonde hair behind her ear. I'd thought she was the most beautiful person in the world back then. 

"Lillian is dead."

I said it without thinking, but knew as soon as the words flowed through the air that I'd made a mistake in bringing it up. My free hand moved up to touch the small, golden star pendent that hung around my neck. I'd never taken it off. Not in twelve years. It had gotten considerably tighter as I grew, but I'd never altered it. 

"I'm sorry-"

We both said it at the same time, our voices overlapping, emotions jumbled up. Another beat of silence passed, as I once again stared blankly at floor, searching for what to say. But this time, it didn't take me so long. I knew. 

"Who is it?" 

She paused, as if she didn't want to tell me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, despite the sweat glistening on my forehead.

"Megan," I pressed. 

"Agnes," she finally said, her tone desperate, pleading, "Agnes Finch.”

That was all I needed to hear to make up my mind.

"Quickest I can be there is tomorrow afternoon."

"I'll see you then."

---

The flight was hell. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so anxious. Josephine could tell something was wrong when I told her about my sudden 'work trip' but I didn't have enough time to explain everything to her. We'd been together seven years, and she knew nothing of my father's work. Or Lillian. I had never planned on telling her anything, I didn't want her to worry about me. So, she thought my father had been a lawyer too. What good would it do her to know the truth?

When I got off the plane, Megan was standing outside the airport. She looked exactly the same as she always did, brown hair pin straight, French tips on her fingernails, pink purse on her shoulder. Minimal makeup, she didn't need it. Never had. And that same kitschy style she always had. Pink plaid skirt, pink tank, green blazer, matching pumps. What I wasn't expecting was what she said to me when I finally reached her.

"You look different."

I'd never thought I changed very much, but I had grown out my blue-black hair to around my shoulders and started running four out of seven days a week to keep in shape. I guess I looked different than I had when I was eighteen. And she hadn't seen me in over ten years. 

"Don't take this the wrong way," I said, "but you look exactly the same." 

I could tell she didn't, because as we walked to the car she smiled.

---

An hour or so later, we arrived at Agnes's house. As soon as we stepped out of the car, a wave of nostalgia came over me like a thick fog. I could tell just from how I felt outside of the house how bad it was. Beside me, Megan was slipping a blue and white mask over her mouth and hooking it behind her ears. 

"You'll want to put one of these on," she said, handing one over to me, "It's just like Lillian. She sits in one spot. Doesn't move."

In other words, she'd lost all human faculties. This was farther along that I originally thought. 

Once they forget they're human, they're already too far gone.

My father's voice in my head. I hadn't heard him so clearly in years. Being back in town I felt the pull of all my memories tugging at me, like a child at my feet, begging for my attention. I struggled as I stood on the front walkway of the home to feel confident in my abilities to help Agnes. But I thought of her unborn child… and Lillian. That pushed me forward. 

Megan followed behind me, matching my pace. Each singular step closer churned my stomach, like I was going through the loop of a rollercoaster over and over and over and over. I swallowed hard as I stared down at the porch steps, pulling my mask on. I turned back to Megan and gave her a soft look, knowing how afraid she must be. Agnes had been my childhood friend… but Megan… they’d been inseparable. Like sisters. I could see the pain behind her hazel eyes, shaking as she realized again what she was about to walk into. 

“Do you have a—”

I didn’t get to finish my sentence before she pulled a pearl beaded Rosary out of her skirt pocket and flashed it at me. A bit of ease came over me. She knew what she was getting into. These things rarely worked at protecting, but better to have it and not need it than the other way around. I stepped up onto the first porch step, mindlessly fingering the star pendent around my neck before closing the space between myself and the front door with three quick strides. 

“Something goes wrong. Even the tiniest bit wrong, and you run,” I said firmly, my hand on the doorknob. Megan scoffed gently. 

“I’d never leave you in there.”

“Stop. If anything happens, you leave and you don’t come back. Got it?” My tone was icy cold, though I continued to sweat in the humidity. I didn’t feel far from home at all, my button up polo sticking to my chest ever so slightly. She must have been able to tell I was serious because she didn’t fight me.

“Okay. I will.”

With that, I sucked in one final breath and cracked the front door. The smell hit me immediately. The type of smell you catch a whiff of once and never forget. Something like shit and piss and vomit and death all at once, times one thousand. I coughed gently, despite my mask, but ducked through the doorway into the front room. 

I spotted Agnes easily, just down the corridor in the kitchen. She sat uncomfortably still at the table, her back to us. 

“She doesn’t move. Doesn’t talk. But her eyes follow you,” Megan whispered to me, standing closer than she had before. I nodded slowly, noticing the hair on our arms had begun to stand up. 

Each step toward the kitchen caused the smell to grow more lethal. Four steps in I gagged on my own tongue, placing one hand on the wall of the hallway to try and steady myself. Megan laid a hand on my shoulder. She seemed used to it. It was obvious to me then that she had probably tried to fix this herself, after probably begging the police to intervene. But in this town, these things went ignored. Swept under the rug. My father had been seen as a town hero. I swallowed and finally entered the kitchen. 

A puddle of urine, among other things, surrounded the chair where Agnes sat, staring blankly out of the kitchen window. I stepped around the table until I could see her face, and Megan was right. Her eyes followed me immediately, unwavering. Megan watched from beside me, noticing as Agnes’s facial expression twisted with disgust. She gasped quietly.

“She’s never done that,” Megan noted aloud. I met the thing’s eyes and stood still, crossing my arms, shoulders back. 

“You know who I am.”

Agnes nodded eerily slow, her brown hair falling in frizzy ringlets around her ivory face. She was pale, and obviously malnourished, and her stomach… She was very far along. I felt a bead of sweat snake down my temple but held strong. 

“What do you want with Agnes?” I asked then, my tone firm. 

Megan, standing next to me, seemed doubtful that this tactic would get us anywhere. But then it spoke.

“I don’t want her.” It was Agnes’s voice, but raspy, broken down, “I want YOU.”

Its hand rose ever so slightly and Megan went flying back against the wall, knocking her out on contact. She slid down the wall until she sat on the floor, blood flowing down her forehead between her eyes, her green heels knocked off of her feet, scattered across the room like a doll missing its pieces. I turned on instinct to go to her, but as soon as I broke Agnes’s gaze, my neck felt hot. I reached up and felt my pendent. It was burning like I’d left it in the sun. As soon as I met its eyes again, the sensation cooled.

“Well, I’m right here. Take me then.”

It’s taken her son. She’s gone.

My father in my ear again, causing my heart to beat even faster. This house, these walls, that devilish look in Agnes’s eyes. It all took me back, back to when Lillian was alive. If you could call it that. 

I watched from the window as my father tried to expel Lillian of her demons, save her from whatever darkness had captured her. But he couldn’t. She was too far gone, their claws were in her and in her deep. She stood against the glass of the window as the house burnt down around her, mouthing my name over and over again, tears running down her blank face. I knew part of her was still in there. My father didn’t see it, but I did. 

I snapped back to reality when my necklace began burning my skin again, causing me to tug it off without thinking. Before I could react, Agnes was on her feet then, snatching the chain out of my hands. 

“What do you want with that?” I growled, staring at the thing across the table, as we both walked round it, eyes locked. 

“It’s the only thing protecting you,” Agnes giggled heinously, her lips spreading out into a sinister smile. 

I stared her down for a moment.

“So why haven’t you killed me yet?” 

Still smiling, she lunged for me, taking me to the floor in one swift movement, her hands on my neck, her nails digging into my skin. The edges of my vision darkened immediately, completely unable to get a breath. I struggled uselessly against a being that had come and gone from this town for centuries, tearing families apart. Who was I to think I could be anything like my father? Who was I to bring Megan here.. to almost certain doom? While my eyes brimmed with tears, I stopped struggling and reached for the necklace still within Agnes’s fingers. All of my remaining strength went into pulling it free, just wanting to keep Lillian close to me in what I assumed were my last moments. Despite its fervor to strangle me, I got the pendent loose, and clutched it in my fist one last time. 

As my vision finally went black, I felt the pressure lessen and then completely lift from my throat. I wretched, coughing as I gasped desperately, blinking in an attempt to clear my vision. My vision remained cloudy, but I could see a figure, outlined in bright white light, engulfing Agnes. I tried to wipe at my eyes to get a better look, but it was no use. I’d probably busted every blood vessel in my eyeballs. They ached so intensely it felt as though they’d been scooped out and put back in. Still clutching the necklace, I watched the glowing figure float over to where I laid, my other hand on my throat. I had to close my eyes as they grew closer, the brightness causing a burning sensation in my brain. 

I felt warmth cradle my cheek, flowing over my jawline. 

“I want you to leave. Never come back here.” 

That voice. Do I know it? My whole body felt like it was being rubbed with sandpaper, the presence of this being far too intense. Though I felt I was in no danger.

“I’ll never let anything happen to you. Or anyone here. When I died… I promised him that.”

I felt my eyes brim again, trying to open them again and failing. Too bright. 

“Your father. He may not have saved my body.”

The tears began to roll down my cheeks, but I relaxed under her touch. That familiar warmth.

“But he saved my spirit.”

He did? 

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed, with Megan asleep in her own a few feet away. My throat was bruised. But my windpipe, which should have been crushed, had not a scratch on it. The only injury left behind, was an L shaped scar on my collarbone, right next to the star pendent. The only piece of Lillian that had been recovered from the fire. 

Agnes’s baby was born that same day, just hours later. Though she hadn’t planned to, she named her Lily.