"Maybe Willie," Chris murmured as she stared at the book. Soft thrills of surmise rippled through her. Were the doctors at Barringer Clinic right? Was this it? Had Regan plucked her disorder through autosuggestion from the pages of this book? Would she find her symptoms listed here? Something specific that Regan was doing?

Chris sat at the table, opened to the chapter on possession and began to search, to search, to read:

Immediately derivative of the prevalent belief in demons was the phenomenon known as possession, a state in which many individuals believed that their physical and mental functions had been invaded and were being controlled by either a demon (most common in the period under discussion) or the spirit of someone dead. There is no period of history or quarter of the globe where this phenomenon has not been reported, and in fairly constant terms, and yet it is still to be adequately explained. Since Traugott Oesterreich's definitive study, first published in 1921, very little has been added to the body of knowledge, the advances of psychiatry notwithstanding.

Not fully explained? Chris frowned. She'd had a different impression from the doctors.

What is known is the following: that various people, at various times, have undergone massive transformations so complete that those around them feel they are dealing with another person.

Not only the voice, the mannerisms, facial expressions and characteristic movements are altered, but the subject himself now thinks of himself as totally distinct from the original person and as having a name--- whether human or demonic--- and separate history of its own....

The symptoms. Where were the symptoms? Chris wondered impatiently.

...In the Malay Archipelago, where possession is even today an everyday, common occurrence, the possessing spirit of someone dead often causes the possessed to mimic its gestures, voice and mannerisms so strikingly, that relatives of the deceased will burst into tears. But aside from so-called quasi-possession--- those cases that are ultimately reducible to fraud, paranoia and hysteria--- the problem has always lain with interpreting the phenomena, the oldest

interpretation being the spiritist, an impression that is likely to be strengthened by the fact that the intruding personality may have accomplishments quite foreign to the first. In the demoniacal form of possession, for example, the "demon" may sneak in languages unknown to the first personality, or...

There! Something! Regan's gibberish! An attempt at a language? She read on quickly.

...or manifest various parapsychic phenomena, telekinesis for example: the movement of objects without application of material force.

The rappings? The flinging up and down on the bed?

...In cases of possession by the dead, there are manifestations such as Oesterreich's account of a monk who, abruptly, while possessed, became a gifted and brilliant dancer although he had never, before his possession, had occasion to dance so much as a step. So impressive, at times, are these manifestations that Jung, the psychiatrist, after studying a case at first hand, could offer only partial explanation far what he was certain could "not have been fraud"...

Worrisome. The tone of this was worrisome.

...and William James, the greatest psychologist that America has ever produced, resorted to positing "the plausibility of the spiritualist interpretation of the phenomenon" after closely studying the so-called "Watseka Wonder," a teenaged girl in Watseka, Illinois, who became indistinguishable in personality from a girl named Mary Roff who had died in a state insane asylum twelve years prior to the possession...

Frowning, Chris did not hear the doorbell chime; did not hear Sharon stop typing to rise and go answer it.

The demoniacal form of possession is usually thought to have had its origin in early Christianity; yet in fact both possession and exorcism pre-date the time of Christ. The ancient Egyptians as well as the earliest civilizations of the Tigris and the Euphrates believed that

physical and spiritual disorders were caused by invasion of the body by demons. The following, for example, is the formula for exorcism against maladies of children in ancient Egypt: "Go hence, thou who comest in darkness, whose nose is turned backwards, whose face is upside down. Hast thou come to kiss this child? I will not let the..."

"Chris?"

She kept reading, absorbed. "Shar, I'm busy."

"There's a homicide detective wants to see you."

"Oh, Christ, Sharon, tell him to---" She

stopped.

"No, no, hold it." Chris frowned, still staring at the book. "No. Tell him to come in. Let him in."

Sound of walking.

Sound of waiting.

What am I waiting for? Chris wondered. She sat on expectancy that was known yet undefined, like the vivid dream one can never remember.

He came in with Sharon, his hat brim crumpled in his hand, wheezing and listing and deferential. "So sorry. You're busy, you're busy, I'm a bother."

"How's the world?"

"Very bad, very bad. How's your daughter?"

"No change."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I'm terribly sorry." He was hulking by the table now, his eyelids dripping concern. "Look, I wouldn't even bother; your daughter; it's a worry. God knows, when my Ruthie was down with the--- no no no no, it was Sheila, my little---" "Please sit down," Chris cut in.

"Oh, yes, thank you," he exhaled, gratefully settling his bulk in a chair across the table from Sharon, who had now returned to her typing of letters.

"I'm sorry; you were saying?" Chris asked the detective.

"Well, my daughter, she--- ah, never mind." He dismissed it. "You're busy. I get started, I'll tell my life story, you could maybe make a film of it. Really! it's incredible! If you only knew half of the things used to happen in my crazy family, you know, like my--- ah, well, you're--One!

I'll tell one! Like my mother, every Friday she made us gefilte fish, right? Only all week long, the whole week, no one gets to take a bath on account of my mother has the carp in the bathtub, it's swimming back and forth, back and forth, the whole week, because my mother said this cleaned out the poison in its system! You're prepared? Because it... Ah, that's enough now; enough." He sighed, wearily, motioning his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "But now and then a laugh just to keep us from crying."

Chris watched him expressionlessly, waiting....

"Ah, you're reading." He was glancing at the book on witchcraft. "For a film?" he inquired.

"Just reading."

"It's good?"

"I just started."

"Witchcraft," he murmured, his head angled, reading the title at the top of the pages.

"What's doin'?" Chris asked him.

"Yes, I'm sorry. You're busy. You're busy. I'll finish. As I said, I wouldn't bother you, except..."

"Except what?"

He looked suddenly grave and clasped his hands on the table. "Well, Mr. Dennings, Mrs.

MacNeil..."

"Well..."

"Darn it," snapped Sharon with irritation as she ripped out a letter from the platen of the typewriter. She balled it up and tossed it at a wastepaper basket near Kinderman. "Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized as she saw that her outburst had interrupted them.

Chris and Kinderman were staring.