Chris chuckled with the others. "I thought I'd get the scoop on what goes on at Black Mass,"
she said, "Father Wagner said you were the expert." The group at the piano fell silent with interest.
"No, not really," said Dyer, lightly touching some chords. "Why'd you mention Black Mass?"
he askd her soberly.
"Oh, well; some of us were talking before about--- well... about those things that they found at Holy Trinity, and---"
"Oh, you mean the desecrations?" Dyer interrupted.
"Hey, somebody give us a clue. what' going on," demanded the astronaut.
"Me too," said Ellen Cleary. "I'm lost."
"Well, they found some desecrations at the church down the street," explained Dyer.
"Well, like what?" asked the astronaut.
"Forget it," Father, Dyer advised him. "Let's just say obscenities, okay?"
"Father Wagner says you told him it was like at Black Mass," prompted Chris, "and I wonderded what went on at those things?"
"Oh, I really don't know all that much," he protested. "In fact, most of what I know is what I've heard from another Jeb." "What's a Jeb?" Chris asked.
"Short for Jesuit., Father Karras is the expert on all this stuff." Chris was suddenly alert "Oh, the dark priest at Holy Trinity?" "You know him?" asked Dyer.
"No, I just heard him mentioned, that's all."
"Well, I think he did a paper on it once. You know, just from the psychiatric side." "Whaddya mean?" asked Chris.
"Whaddya mean, whaddya mean?"
"Are you telling me he's a psychiatrist?"
"Oh, well, sure. Gee, I'm sorry. I just assumed that you knew."
"Listen, somebody tell me something!" the astronaut demanded impatiently. "What does go on at Black Mass?"
"Let's just say perversions." Dyer shrugged. "Obscenities. Blasphemies. It's an evil parody of the Mass, where instead of God they worshiped Satan and sometimes offered human sacrifice."
Ellen Cleary shook her head and walked away. "This is getting too creepy for me." She smiled thinly.
Chris paid her no notice. The dean joined the group unobtrusively. "But how can you know that?" she asked the young Jesuit. "Even if there was such a thing as Black Mass, who's to say what went on there?"
"Well, I guess they got most of it," answered Dyer, "from the people who were caught and then confessed."
"Oh, come on," said the dean. "Those confessions were worthless, Joe. They were tortured."
"No, only the snotty ones," Dyer said blandly.
There was a ripple of vaguely nervous laughter. The dean eyed his watch. "Well, I really should be going," he said to Chris. "I've got the six-o'clock Mass in Dahlgren Chapel." "I've got the banjo Mass." Dyer beamed. Then his eyes shifted to a point in the room behind Chris, and he sobered abruptly. "Well, now, I thick we have a visitor, Mrs. MacNeil," he cautioned, motioning with his head.
Chris turned. And gasped on seeing Regal in her nightgown, urinating gushingly onto the rug.
Staring fixedly at the astronaut, she intoned in a lifeless voice, "You're going to die up there."
"Oh, my God!" cried Chris in pain, rushing to her daughter. "Oh, God, oh, my baby, oh, come on, come with me!"
She took Regan by the arms and led her quickly away with a tremulous apology over her shoulder to the ashen astronaut: "Oh, I'm so sorry! She's been sick, she must be walking in her sleep! She's didn't know what she was saying!"
"Gee, maybe we should go," she heard Dyer say to someone.
"No, no, stay," Chris protested, turning around for a moment. "Please, stay! It's okay! I'll be back in just a minute!"
Chris paused by the kitchen, instructing Willie to see to the rug before the stain became indelible, and then she walked Regan upstairs to her bates bathroom, bathed her and changed her nightgown. "Honey, why did you say that?" Chris asked her repeatedly, but Regan appeared not to understand and mumbled non sequiturs. Her eyes were vacant and clouded.
Chris tucked her into bed, and almost immediately Regan appeared to fall asleep. For a time Chris waited, listening to her breathing. Then left the room.
At the bottom of the stairs, she encountered Sharon and the young director of the second unit assisting Dennings out of the study. They had called a cab and were going to shepherd him back to his suite at the Sheraton-Park.
"Take it easy," Chris advised as they left the house with Dennings between them.
Barely conscious, the director said, "Fuck it," and slipped into fog and the waiting cab.
Chris returned to the living room, where the guests who still remained expressed their sympathy as she gave them a brief account of Regan's illness. When she mentioned the rappings and the other "attention-getting" phenomena, Mrs. Perrin stared at her intently. Once Chris looked at her, expecting her to comment, but she said nothing and Chris continued.
"Does she walk in her sleep quite a bit?" asked Dyer.
