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A Visit with the Pastor

As the three amigos sat in the Genesis that was parked in the courthouse lot, the revelation of events they had experienced on that long-ago Thanksgiving seemed to take hours to recount. Though as noted earlier, a mysterious mind of immense power transmitted it to the amigos in just three minutes. More precisely, it required two minutes and fifty-four seconds.

Spencer, Rebecca, and Bobby needed twice that long to recover from the impact of what they had been made to remember and to share their reactions to it. Then they needed another three minutes—more precisely two minutes and forty-nine seconds—to steel themselves for a visit with Pastor Larry.

So much had happened on this second day of their return to Maple Grove that it seemed night should have fallen again. However, night had not fallen, and it would not fall until remaining events needed it to do so. The sun backlighted scattered clouds in the west, transforming them into golden galleons sailing on a cobalt sea—not literally, but metaphorically.

However, if the five-hour ordeal on Harriet Nelson Lane had not sapped their energy to the point of exhaustion, nothing would. They exited the SUV and gathered in front of it and stared south, toward the rectory, dramatically sunlit from their right, shadows falling to the left, Rebecca looking as determined as Heather Ashmont, Bobby looking stalwart, Spencer with his hat. They fearlessly crossed the street, not bothering to use the crosswalk at the end of the block.

After arriving alive on the south side of Winkler Street, they ascended the steps of the rectory, crossed the front porch, and considered the doorbell. The time had passed for using the lock-release gun, for breaking and entering, for a stealthy room-to-room search for evidence. In their crusade to recover their lost past and discover how to save Ernie from eternal suspended animation or worse, they now needed to take bold action, and quickly. Because they were not comfortable with interrogation techniques that drew blood and caused extreme pain, they would have to torture Pastor Larry with spoons, get him drunk on sacramental wine, tickle him mercilessly, or find some other way to make him talk.

The most formidable obstacle to the successful achievement of their goal was, of course, Hornfly. They could not be certain that the creature would disrupt their plan, though the likelihood of it was high. Should the beast appear, determined to fulfill the promise to destroy them, their only hope seemed to be somehow to induce the monster to eat Pastor Larry first, giving them time to escape the house.

With considerable courage, Bobby rang the doorbell. This does not mean that his courage was greater than that of either Rebecca or Spencer. Not a minim of difference would be found in the measurement and comparison of their courage. Bobby was the one to press the bell push only because he was nearest to it, and he beat the others when they all reached simultaneously.

Smiling his dreamy smile, the good reverend opened the door at once, as if he had been standing at it with his hand on the knob. “Come in, come in. All are welcome here.”

This smelled like a trap, but the amigos could neither say Sorry, wrong address as they beat it off the porch nor claim to know a lot more about Jesus than he did, not when they lacked supporting pamphlets.

They stepped into the foyer, and Pastor Larry closed the door, which seemed to make a sound like a three-thousand-pound bank-vault door slamming shut against its architrave. “Why don’t you young people come with me to the parlor?”

The parlor was stuffed full of heavy Victorian sofas and armchairs with crocheted antimacassars on the arms and backs. The lamps featured silk shades with tassels; the tables that held them were covered in tasseled and embroidered cloths. Flowered wallpaper. Draperies as heavy as theater curtains. Displayed throughout were fine porcelains of animals and prominent figures from the Bible. In a house with a parlor of this kind, it seemed the doorbell should have been answered by an elderly woman in orthopedic shoes, a granny dress, and shawl.

To be able to sit on a William Morris sofa covered in midnight-blue mohair, Rebecca and Bobby rearranged a collection of decorative pillows, while Spencer selected an armchair.

“Would anyone like a refreshment?” Pastor Larry asked. “Coffee, tea, hot chocolate? They’re always having hot chocolate in movies on the Hallmark Channel. I so enjoy the Hallmark Channel.”

The amigos politely declined a refreshment.

The reverend settled in an armchair. He smiled at them, and they found themselves smiling in return. Events were not proceeding in any fashion they had imagined.

Having played a prosecuting attorney in a story about a factory owner whose operation emitted a poisonous cloud that killed every resident of a small town with a population of 543, having destroyed him in cross-examination and shredded his claim that satanists had done it, Rebecca knew what demeanor to adopt and the right tone to strike, so she began the interrogation.

“Pastor Turnbuckle—”

“Larry. Call me Larry or Pastor Larry. I do not believe in clerical formalism.”

“Yes, I see. All right then. Pastor Larry, late on a summer night twenty-one years ago, my friends and I happened to see you running pell-mell through the graveyard, in a panic.”

“Oh, dear woman, it could not have been me. Running would be undignified for one in my line of work, and I have never owned a pair of Nikes or other shoes manufactured for that activity.”

“Pastor, I’m not saying you were running for exercise. You were in a panic, late at night, evidently running from something and—”

“Furthermore, I am sorry to say that my constitution does not allow me to run.”

“Constitution?”

“I have an enlarged heart, mitral valve prolapse, moderate stenosis of the pulmonary valve, angina, and a strange symptom the cause of which no cardiologist has yet been able to determine. In addition, I have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, periodic bouts of pleurisy, and a rare condition that can cause a dangerous overproduction of phlegm if I exert myself too much.”

“How terrible for you,” Rebecca said with a subtle note of scorn. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

“It is indeed. But the love of the Lord sustains even when it doesn’t cure.”

“Can I assume you have a doctor who can confirm that you suffer from these conditions?”

The reverend’s dreamy smile acquired a sly edge. He failed to answer her question. “Oh, I refuse to suffer. I embrace my pain and limitations, because it is the journey that God wishes me to take.”

Bobby and Spencer were gaping at the reverend. During two days in Maple Grove, they had had an extraordinary number of occasions requiring them to gape.

Drilling forward, Rebecca said, “On that summer night, you made your way to the church and went down to the basement. When you came out of there, you seemed even more greatly distressed than when you had been running through the graveyard. What caused that distress, Pastor Larry?”

“But that couldn’t have been me running, as weak as I am. And if ever I exited the basement in distress, it was because in those days the heating system included an unstable boiler. I was always concerned that it would blow up.”

“Did it ever blow up?”

“Thank the Lord, no.”

“Larry, what were those half-formed men in the basement, ten creatures connected like paper dolls?”

“I have no idea what you mean. What a strange question. You seem troubled, child. Have you consulted a therapist?”

Bobby said, “We all saw them that night.”

Pastor Larry had a diagnosis. “Mass psychosis. Will you pray with me right now for your mutual recovery?”

Scowling and scooting forward on the sofa, Rebecca said, “That isn’t going to happen, Larry. One way or another, we’re going to dig the truth out of you.”

The reverend’s fey smile became beseeching as he turned his attention to Spencer and changed the subject. “Forgive me, son, but I can’t help being dismayed that you’re wearing a hat here in the rectory. I regret to say I find it disrespectful. Would you please remove your hat?”

“No,” said Spencer.

“I would be most grateful.”

“No.”

“In your heart, son, you know it’s the right thing to do.”

“No.”

“The Lord himself wants you to remove your hat.”

“ No! No, No, No ! I don’t hear the Lord asking for any such thing.”

“Your anger is sorrowful, son. I will pray for your soul.”

Defensively, Spencer said, “It’s my hat.” When he repeated those words, his emphasis shifted. “It’s my hat .”

Sensing some deep psychological need, Pastor Larry tried to upend the situation, seize the advantage. “In the end, son, when your time comes, everything belongs to the Lord.”

“The Lord admires my hat? The Lord God wants my hat ?”

“He doesn’t want it, son. He can’t want what is already His. All things are His. He already owns your hat.”

The color of Spencer Truedove’s face was approximately like that of a Delicious apple. More precisely, it was nearly the color of a luscious but not overripe tomato. “I paid for this hat, me , not anyone else. It was my idea to make it part of my image. I’ve bought a dozen hats like it. A dozen! I take care of them. Nobody takes care of my hats but me. I have a cleaning kit I take everywhere I take my hat, which is everywhere . God gave me life, and that’s a big deal, but no one’s ever given me anything else, not even the people who had a responsibility to take care of me when I was a child. I was left to live alone without resources. I had to sell off the furniture, the appliances, the dishes, the draperies! I felt like such a thief, but there was nothing else. I sure would like to sell the furniture here. This is prime stuff. This stuff would bring in some real cash.”

From the mohair sofa, Bobby gaped at Spencer as, earlier, he had gaped at Pastor Larry.

The reverend’s dreamy half smile had become a smug full smile. “Son, my best advice to you—the thing you most need to do to find comfort—is honor thy father and mother.”

Rebecca erupted from the sofa. Her eyes were the searing blue of natural-gas flames, and her hands were curled into fists, and her face was set in an expression that even dull-witted people should at once see meant stand back if you value your life .

Looming over Pastor Larry’s armchair, staring down at him with venomous contempt, she said, “You little worm, you cockroach, you snake, you liar, you pathetic excuse for a human being, you’re going to tell us the whole truth, everything you know, you reeking lump of animated sewage. I once killed a man, planted the blade of a pickax in his shoulder, shot him with a dozen two-inch steel spikes from an industrial nail gun, set him on fire with an acetylene torch, and while his face burned like candle wax— like candle wax— I blew him up with an entire boxful of dynamite. There was nothing left of him but bloody sludge and one intact ear. If you screw with us anymore, you piece of shit, I’ll start with you by pulling down your pants and tearing off your tiny little testicles and feeding them to you with one of your eyes.”

Such withering fury expressed by anyone would be intimidating; for whatever reason, when coming from a beautiful woman, it was flat-out terrifying, especially when she had won two Emmys and knew how to deliver her lines.

During Rebecca’s tirade, Pastor Larry shrank in his armchair until he could shrink no further, whereupon he began to cry. Sobs racked him. Tears flooded down his cheeks. His face was pasty white and looked as soft as bread dough. He bawled, blubbered, ululated, begged for mercy, until strings of snot hung from his nostrils.

As Pastor Turnbuckle subsided to mere weeping and soft pleading noises, another voice arose in the house. Somewhere upstairs a woman began to sing a pleasing melody but not the words that went with it. She lah-lah-lahed and nah-nah-nahed and otherwise hummed through John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The singer seemed to be descending the stairs. While the tune was recognizable, it was performed in a voice so eerie that the three amigos turned to stare at the parlor archway beyond which lay the ground-floor hall, their expressions suggesting that they expected a ghost to manifest.