by Jan Stinchcomb

Jenn Ryan is in trouble. She’s in The Times today, dressed like Chris MacNeil from that disgusting exorcist movie. She must have scoured the thrift shops to find the clothes people wore back East in the ’70s: a thick wool coat with an ugly hat and scarf set, knits that no LA woman would own. She’s even wearing an auburn wig. I can picture her in the interview, reaching for her vintage purse, leaving coral lipstick rings on her menthol cigarettes. I can see her hands shaking.

I went to school with Jenn, so I remember everything, going all the way back to plaid skirts and volleyball tournaments. She was always drawn to the occult. Tarot cards and Ouija boards. Raising tables at slumber parties and then dragging us into the bathroom to chant Bloody Mary in front of the mirror. Shocking us with stories she insisted were true. I was halfway through college before I realized she was stealing plots from horror films. Still, when you were planning a party, Jenn was the first girl you invited.

She was obsessed with the devil, so it’s no surprise we ended up here. I heard the police questioned her for twelve hours.

I will say it’s not all Jenn’s fault. It’s the way we were raised, and I wish The Times would be more mindful of this. Jenn didn’t invent this stuff. I remember how one of our teachers, an old nun, told us demonic possession was possible but not probable. What a thing to say to a group of little kids. Another nun, the principal at the time, let slip that a child in the parish had been using profanity so shocking, so age-inappropriate, that the family in question had to display the Blessed Sacrament in their house. Those old women weren’t trying to scare us. They honestly believed what they were saying.

Every time I defend Jenn, Tim gets angry. “We still don’t know what happened to Natasha,” he tells me. “Where is Natasha?”

I was there when Natasha vanished, but Tim didn’t believe me when I told him what I had seen. I’m not the only witness. There was a small crowd in Jenn’s backyard that day and we’ve all been questioned.

Angela was there too, of course. She was the first mom I knew who got on board with the possession stuff. She was the first to host those exorcism parties. I heard the police confiscated her phone.

Angela goes to my church. I’ve known her since high school. Angela was the one who told me about willful possession, which sounded like something Gwyneth Paltrow would say, so I didn’t take it seriously at first. Apparently, teenage girls were choosing to be possessed, seeking out the devil, as it were. Convulsing, swearing, abandoning hygiene. Performing, if you asked me, but social media was flooded with it. Angela didn’t need any encouragement to share her story: She marched right up to me after mass and told me her daughter, Annabelle, was in the hands of the devil. This didn’t surprise me as Annabelle has always done things to get attention, including telling lies and pretending to be sick. It was just like her to jump on any bandwagon that would put her in the spotlight.

I barely had time to fake concern before Angela said something I did not expect. Her daughter had already been exorcised, not once but repeatedly. “Annabelle will probably always need this treatment,” Angela said, a little streak of pride lifting the corners of her botoxed lips. “Exorcism is a lifestyle, not a cure,” she went on, before inviting me to attend a session at her house.

“What? Isn’t it private?”

“Friends and family are welcome. I’m surprised you haven’t been to one of these before.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“An exorcism. It’s nothing like in the movies. The child’s community should be involved. Lots of people are having them. It’s so much better than all the secrecy we grew up with.”

“Wow. You’re brave. I would be kind of nervous.”

“Why should I be nervous?” Angela asked. “You need to understand. I have to do this. I have no choice.”

I went alone, one Saturday, to Angela’s stately house in Hancock Park. Inside, a group of rich people had gathered for what looked like a book club, with coffee and almond cake laid out in the fake-Tuscan kitchen, but the atmosphere was solemn. Jenn was there. It was the first time I had seen her dressed as Chris MacNeil in her wig and retro slacks. I wanted to grab my phone and update Tim, but nobody was texting. They were all acting like they were in church.

“Why are you dressed like this?” I asked Jenn. “Were we supposed to wear costumes?”

Her eyes filled with tears. I took her by the arm and walked her a few feet away from the others. “How are you, Jenn? Where’s your lovely daughter?”

“Natasha is unwell. She’s a lot worse off than Annabelle.”

Someone shushed us and then everyone moved to Angela’s living room, which looks like the great hall of a hacienda, all white walls and polished beams, with enormous black metal chandeliers.

The priest could have passed for a college student. I wanted to ask about his training, but the exorcism began immediately. I was prepared for dramatics. Profanity. Puking. Physical violence. I was expecting to be frightened.

I was bored instead. Annabelle, who was sweaty but otherwise appeared completely normal, sat tied to a wooden chair in a corner of the room while the priest chanted in Latin and flicked her with holy water. She wept, she sighed, she twitched. Occasionally she would growl. Every once in a while, she would look around and sneer at the assembled people, who crossed themselves knowingly. I wondered how many of them were Catholic. I tried to make eye contact with Annabelle, but she avoided my gaze. I scanned the room. Aside from the priest and Jenn, I was the only person looking directly at the girl.

Let’s see her levitate, I thought.

I fought the temptation to pull out my phone and check the time. As soon as there was a break in the ritual, I tiptoed toward the kitchen, where a couple of fashionable older moms with perfect hair were drinking coffee. I stood in the doorway trying to hear their conversation.

I could only make out certain words: sorry, support, teenager. Serious. Depressed. Family.

I escaped to my car. As I was pulling away, Angela tapped on the passenger door. I lowered the window as I tried to think of an excuse for my departure.

“I used to be like you,” she said. “Now I’m a believer.”

“What? No, really—”

“You’re so lucky you don’t have daughters.”

“Is that what this is all about?”

I had twin boys I had sent to different schools for years because, when they were little, they would only talk to each other. We tried different classrooms at first, but then they would stick together like glue at recess. By the time high school rolled around, we stopped caring about what the experts said and let them enroll at the same school. I didn’t know where they would go to college, but I wanted them to have that experience, as much for my sanity as their freedom. Was Angela right about having girls? Was it that much harder for her? I still had to guide my boys through the thorny forest of misogyny, though perhaps I didn’t have to worry as much about physical assault. On the other hand, I didn’t want to raise twin bullies. And I had a hard time imagining either of my sons providing for a household one day, not that they seemed to be interested in that.

“I used to be in denial, like you,” Angela continued as I stared at her. “You have no idea. My life is a nightmare. I am trying my hardest and I don’t need your judgment.”

“I’m sorry. I want to support you. It got a little intense in there for me, that’s all.”

“I’ll pray for you,” she said, turning away from my car.

I couldn’t say what I thought: Annabelle was faking it. The whole possession, the silly exorcism, felt like a performance. I was angry and sad at once and wished I had grabbed a piece of that almond cake to take with me. As I drove away I noticed Jenn walking back to her car, alone. I waved but she didn’t see me.

In the rear view mirror I saw her take off the wig and shake her head under the autumn sun.

• • •

“You’re not even friends with those people anymore,” Tim said. “Why do you care?”

“We grew up together.”

It wasn’t really an answer.

I baked some pumpkin bread before texting Jenn, whose house was a short walk away from ours in Larchmont. I didn’t know why I was going. Perhaps I was drawn to the devil. I certainly wasn’t the only one, given what I’d seen at the exorcism, and I needed to follow up on the Natasha situation. I was much more worried about her than I was about Annabelle.

Jenn, wearing a dowdy old bathrobe I later realized was part of the Chris MacNeil wardrobe, looked surprised to see me. She didn’t say anything but took the pumpkin bread and moved aside so I could enter.

“I didn’t get a chance to talk to you yesterday. How’s Natasha?”

“Do you want to see her?” she asked in a tone so hopeful it touched my heart.

Jenn lives in a modest three-bedroom she inherited from her parents. It can’t be more than 1200 square feet, but I swear the temperature dropped ten degrees in the few seconds it took to reach Natasha’s bedroom in the back of the house. I could hear her wheezing even before Jenn opened the door, and then a cold mist hit me in the face.

Natasha looked like a porcelain doll someone had dropped on the floor. A spiderweb of fine lines covered her white face. Her pupils were dilated. Snot stuck to her nostrils. Her lips were cracked and peeling, and there was dried blood in the corners of her mouth and all over the bed. Her smell, a blend of everything humans usually try to cover, made me wince. She was stick-thin, covered in bruises, wearing only a pink camisole and matching underpants.

My first impulse was to grab a washcloth and clean her off, but I was afraid to touch her. I wondered why Jenn stood there doing nothing. The usual checklist ran through my mind: drugs, domestic violence, psychosis. I didn’t know where to begin.

Natasha hissed and I jumped. I heard a deep, mocking laugh, but I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. I rushed out to the living room and Jenn followed.

“Now do you believe me?” she asked.

“I’m trying to understand what I’m seeing here.”

“Jeff moved out a few days ago. I’m all alone with this. It’s funny because he’s the one who first noticed something was wrong. He saw Natasha in the park one day having an animated conversation with someone, but she was all by herself.”

“What do the doctors say?”

“The doctors are no help at all.”

“Look, Jenn, I don’t know how to say this. I’m not sure what’s going on. I still go to mass sometimes, but I really need you to know that I don’t believe in all this possession stuff. I think Annabelle is pulling another stunt—she’s always done this—but it looks like Natasha is in real danger. Where did those bruises come from? Don’t you think she should be in the hospital?”

“I remember a relationship tip someone gave me once: Each time you fall in love, you’re either going to marry the person or you’re going to break up.”

“I’m lost.”

“Then try to understand. When Natasha wakes up, whenever she’s conscious, all she talks about is him. You can’t tell her anything. It’s not possession, it’s more like obsession. She’s head over heels for him. There is no possibility of exorcism, and besides, I would never subject my child to that indignity. That violence. I would never do that to her.”

Before I could ask who “he” was, she added, “Natasha thinks he’s going to make her the Queen of Hell.” Jenn smiled, improbably, and it made her look like her old self again, the girl telling stories in someone’s darkened living room, a child lost in her imagination.

Then she took me by the hand and led me over to the kitchen. Handwritten invitations stood in a neat stack on the table. There was a three-tiered dark chocolate cake next to a garland of dried rosebuds. White anemones with blue-black centers filled Jenn’s collection of crystal vases. In the center of the table sat a basket. I leaned in and saw little coffin-shaped boxes stuffed with tiny charms. Pentagrams, pitchforks, devil’s horns, and billy goats.

“Those are the wedding favors. I made them myself.”

I nodded and forced a smile. My mouth went dry.

“I was just about to distribute the invitations when you showed up,” she said, pressing a crisp card into my hand. “You’ll be here, I hope? Angela’s coming too, of course, and our closest friends. I’m only inviting the neighbors I can trust.”

Jenn gently guided me back to the front door. My gift of pumpkin bread sat forgotten on a side table.

“I’ll see you in a few hours then.” Before she shut the door on me, Jenn whispered, “You know what? I’m going with them.”

“Where? What are you saying?”

“It’s the only way. I’m going with Natasha and her groom. Why not? I’ve already done everything I can to prove my loyalty. I burned the crucifix. I shattered the Mary statue in the backyard. I found my first communion picture and decapitated my image with my sewing scissors. I’m going with my daughter. She’s all I have left.”

I stumbled home in a state of mourning for both Jenn and Natasha. I knew if I started to cry, I would never stop. I don’t remember putting on my black dress, but I know everybody else had the same idea, because when I returned to Jenn’s for the outdoor wedding, everyone was in black. Nobody smiled. I recognized a few people from school and church. I stood next to Angela.

Jeff had come home to help carry Natasha out on a velvet chaise. Jenn was wearing a wig of auburn curls and a high-necked blue evening gown. Mother of the bride.

Natasha, too weak to rise, was wearing only a bloodied white slip and the garland I had seen on the kitchen table.

The rest of us stood and waited in tense silence. I remembered the birthday parties we had celebrated in that little garden. I could see all our children, laughing and running around, when they were still toddlers. Jenn raised her arms to the setting sun, and at that moment, the garden gate opened with a metallic shriek.

What happened to Natasha? Where is she? Nobody knows because nobody saw. After the garden gate opened, it was suddenly too bright to see, as if someone had pointed a searchlight directly at our faces. My eyes watered as I took in the tall stature, the dark robes, and then I stopped at the exposed black heart.

His heart.

He swept in and scooped Natasha from the chaise and then, in a blaze of flame and smoke, they were gone. The police have asked me, again and again, to describe his face. His clothing. How tall was he? What ethnicity? Did I know? Could I tell?

I could not bring him into focus. It was impossible. Something kept me from seeing. I thought I heard wings.

There are rumors of murder and sex trafficking. They’re calling us liars. Some say we suffered a mass hallucination, or they accuse us of making a pact. The papers are calling us a cult, which is absurd. You’re not in a cult because you went to a few gatherings. Like Tim says, I’m not even friends with those people anymore.

We are united in one respect: We don’t know what to report. We can’t find a name for this crime, and we don’t know who to blame. We believe Natasha went willingly. We think we saw a smile on her face. Perhaps we’re mixing up different memories from when our kids were little. Perhaps we’re thinking of a different party, a different child. But how can we talk about what we saw when we were blinded by that searing light?

When the light faded, after Natasha was gone, it took a few seconds for my eyes to focus. I looked around at the other confused, hopeless faces. Despair reigned. I felt like I had failed at something, though I still don’t know what. Like a coward, I slipped away without talking to Jenn. I squeezed her hand and told her I would call, but I haven’t. Tim says it’s for the best, given the investigation, but that’s not why I haven’t reached out. There’s nothing I can say to her now. I can’t even look her in the eye.