Chapter 11: THE PERSISTENT ONE
Six lectures in six weeks.
I learned their patterns. Ed liked to arrive thirty minutes early, unload equipment from the station wagon himself, arrange the projector just so. Lorraine preferred tea before speaking—Earl Grey, one sugar, no milk. They alternated who spoke first, who handled questions, who worked the crowd.
I showed up before they did. Every time.
The first lecture after Yale, Ed found me already stacking chairs in the back of the room. He stopped in the doorway, briefcase in hand, and stared.
"What are you doing here?"
"Helping."
"I didn't ask for help."
"I know."
He stood there for a long moment. Then he set down his briefcase and started unloading the projector.
The second lecture, I carried their equipment from the car. The third, I stayed late to clean up. By the fourth, Ed had stopped asking what I was doing. By the fifth, he'd started giving me tasks.
"Chairs in rows of eight. Make sure the aisle's wide enough for wheelchairs."
"Yes, sir."
Lorraine watched me the way she watched everything—quietly, with that intensity that made me feel like she could see through my skin. But she didn't say anything about the Morrison house. Didn't ask about my "differences." Just accepted my presence the way you accept gravity.
I didn't push. Didn't ask for recognition. Just showed up, did the work, and disappeared when it was done.
"Thomas Brennan would be proud," I thought during the fifth lecture, watching Ed explain the dangers of Ouija boards. "The first ghost I helped—he taught me patience too. Waiting for something to change."
The sixth lecture was at Hartford Community College. Mid-June. The auditorium was smaller than Yale's, packed tighter. I'd set up the chairs myself that morning, skipped lunch to make sure everything was perfect.
Ed was fifteen minutes into his presentation—a case from 1964, a family in Rhode Island—when it happened.
A woman in the third row started convulsing.
At first, people thought it was a seizure. Someone screamed for a doctor. Ed stopped speaking, moved toward the edge of the stage.
But I could feel it.
[ENTITY DETECTED: TIER 1 ATTACHMENT]
[THREAT LEVEL: LOW — CONTAINABLE]
Not a medical emergency. Something had latched onto her. Weak, opportunistic, drawn to the crowd's energy and the supernatural discussion. The kind of bottom-feeder that fed on fear and chaos.
I was closer than the Warrens.
The woman was thrashing now, knocking over chairs, making sounds that weren't quite words. Her eyes had rolled back. Foam flecked her lips.
People were backing away, clearing space, creating exactly the kind of panicked energy the thing wanted.
I moved.
My rosary was in my hand before I reached her. I placed it on her chest—gently, not forcing—and leaned close.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Latin came next, prayers I'd memorized from Mancini's books, words that meant something because I believed they meant something.
The entity recoiled.
I could feel it thrashing against my presence, trying to dig deeper into the woman, but my faith was stronger. My resonance burned brighter than its hunger.
[FAITH RESONANCE ACTIVE: +15% EFFECTIVENESS]
"You don't belong here." I kept my voice low, meant only for the thing. "Leave. Now. Or I'll make it hurt."
Something ripped free.
The woman went limp. Normal limp, not possessed limp—just exhausted, confused, wondering what had happened.
The Warrens reached us as she started to come around.
"What happened?" Ed looked at the woman, at me, at the rosary still on her chest.
"She's okay now." I stood, tucking the rosary back under my shirt. "Just overwhelmed, I think. Might have hyperventilated."
Ed's eyes narrowed. He didn't believe me. But the woman was sitting up now, embarrassed, accepting water from a concerned student. The crisis was over.
"What did you do?" Ed asked quietly.
"Just prayed, sir."
He stared at me for a long moment. Then someone called his name—the lecture needed to continue, the audience needed reassurance. He turned away.
But he looked at me differently after that.
After the lecture, I was folding chairs in the back when Lorraine appeared beside me.
"You haven't eaten all day."
I paused. "I'm fine, Mrs. Warren."
"You skipped lunch to set up the chairs. And breakfast, I suspect, to get here early." She held out half a sandwich, wrapped in wax paper. "Take it."
My face heated. "I couldn't—"
"You can, and you will." Her tone brooked no argument. "We don't let our volunteers starve."
I took the sandwich. Ham and cheese, nothing fancy. It tasted like the best thing I'd ever eaten.
"Thank you."
She studied me while I ate. That intensity again, the sense that she was looking at something beyond my face.
"What are you doing Sunday?"
The question caught me off guard. I swallowed too fast, nearly choked.
"Nothing, ma'am."
"Come to dinner." A small smile—the first I'd seen from her. "We'd like to talk to you properly. Not after a lecture. Not in a crisis. Just... talk."
My heart hammered.
"I'd like that."
She gave me an address in Monroe, Connecticut. A time. Then she walked away to join Ed.
I finished the sandwich standing alone in the empty auditorium, staring at the address written on a napkin.
Dinner at the Warrens'.
"Don't screw this up."
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