Стивен Кинг - Later

“No,” he said, but something—probably my expression of relief—caused him to raise a warning finger. “This is not to say I believe your story, at least not without corroboration from your mother, which I have agreed not to ask for. But I will go this far: I don’t necessarily disbelieve . Mostly because of the rings, but also because that last Thomas book does indeed exist. Not that I’ve read it.” He made a little face at that. “You say your mother’s friend— ex -friend—could also corroborate the last and most colorful part of your story.”

“Yes, but—”

He raised his hand, like he must have done a thousand times to babbling students in class. “You don’t want me to speak to her, either, and I quite understand. I only met her once, and I didn’t care for her. Did she really bring drugs into your home?”

“I didn’t see them myself, but if my mom said she did, she did.”

He put his pad aside and fondled his go-to cane, which had a big white knob on the top. “Then Tia is well rid of her. And this Therriault, who you say is haunting you. Is he here now?”

“No.” But I looked around to be sure.

“You want to be rid of him, of course.”

“Yes, but I don’t know how to do it.”

He sipped his tea, brooded over the cup, then set it down and fixed me with those blue eyes again. He was old; they weren’t. “An interesting problem, especially for an elderly gentleman who’s encountered all sorts of supernatural creatures in his reading life. The gothics are full of them, Frankenstein’s monster and Count Dracula being just the pair who show up most frequently on movie marquees. There are many more in European literature and folk-tales. Let’s presume, at least for the moment, that this Therriault isn’t just in your head. Let’s presume he actually exists.”

I kept myself from protesting that he did exist. The professor already knew what I believed, he’d said so himself.

“Let us go a step further. Based on what you’ve told me about your other sightings of dead people—including my wife—all of them go away after a few days. Disappear to…” He waved his hand. “…to wherever. But not this Therriault. He’s still around. In fact, you think he may be getting stronger.”

“I’m pretty sure he is.”

“If so, perhaps he’s not really Kenneth Therriault at all anymore. Perhaps what remained of Therriault after death has been infested—that’s the correct word, not possessed—by a demon.” He must have seen my expression because he hastened to add, “We’re just speculating here, Jamie. I’m going to speak frankly and say I think it far more likely that you’re suffering from a localized fugue state that has caused hallucinations.”

“In other words, crazy.” At that point I was still glad I’d told him, but his conclusion was maximo depressing, even though I’d been more or less expecting it.

He waved a hand. “Bosh. I don’t think that at all. You’re obviously operating in the real world as well as ever. And I must admit your story is full of things that are hard to explain in strictly rational terms. I don’t doubt that you accompanied Tia and her ex-friend to the deceased Mr. Thomas’s home. Nor do I doubt that Detective Dutton took you to Therriault’s place of employment and his apartment building. If she did those things—I am channeling Ellery Queen here, one of my favorite apostles of deduction— she must have believed in your mediumistic talents. Which in turn leads us back to Mr. Thomas’s home, where Detective Dutton must have seen something to convince her of that in the first place.”

“You lost me,” I said.

“Never mind.” He leaned forward. “All I’m saying is that although I lean toward the rational, the known, and the empiric—having never seen a ghost, or had a flash of precognition—I must admit there are elements of your story I can’t dismiss out of hand. So let us say that Therriault, or something nasty that has inhabited what remains of Therriault, actually exists. The question then becomes: can you get rid of him?”

Now I was leaning forward, thinking of the book he’d given me, the one full of fairy tales that were really horror stories with very few happy endings. The stepsisters cut off their toes, the princess threw the frog against a wall— splat!— instead of kissing him, Red Riding Hood actually encouraged the big bad wolf to eat Grandma, so she could inherit Grandma’s property.

“Can I? You’ve read all those books, there must be a way in at least one of them! Or…” A new idea struck me. “Exorcism! What about that?”

“Probably a nonstarter,” Professor Burkett said. “I think a priest would be more apt to send you to a child psychiatrist than an exorcist. If your Therriault exists, Jamie, you may be stuck with him.”

I stared at him with dismay.

“But maybe that’s all right.”

“All right? How can it be all right?”

He lifted his cup, sipped, and set it down.

“Have you ever heard of the Ritual of Chüd?”

Now I’m twenty-two—almost twenty-three, in fact—and living in the land of later. I can vote, I can drive, I can buy booze and cigarettes (which I plan to quit soon). I understand that I’m still very young, and I’m sure that when I look back I’ll be amazed (hopefully not disgusted) by how naïve and wet behind the ears I was. Still, twenty-two is light years from thirteen. I know more now, but I believe less. Professor Burkett would never have been able to work the same magic on me now that he did back then. Not that I’m complaining! Kenneth Therriault—I don’t know what he really was, so let’s stick with that for now—was trying to destroy my sanity. The professor’s magic saved it. It may even have saved my life.

Later, when I researched the subject for an anthropology paper in college (NYU, of course), I discovered half of what he told me that day was actually true. The other half was bullshit. I have to give him credit for invention, though (full marks, Mom’s British romance writer Philippa Stephens would have said). Check this out, and dig the irony: my Uncle Harry wasn’t even fifty and totally gaga, while Martin Burkett, although in his eighties, could still be creative on the fly… and all in service of a troubled boy who turned up uninvited, bearing a casserole and a weird story.

The Ritual of Chüd, the professor said, was practiced by a sect of Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhists. (True.)

They did it to achieve a sense of perfect nothingness and the resulting state of serenity and spiritual clarity. (True.)

It was also considered useful in combating demons, both those in the mind and the supernatural ones who invaded from the outside. (A gray area.)

“Which makes it perfect for you, Jamie, because it covers all the bases.”

“You mean it can work even if Therriault’s really not there, and I’m just crazypants.”

He gave me a look combining reproach and impatience that he probably perfected in his teaching career. “Stop talking and try listening, if you don’t mind.”

“Sorry.” I was on my second cup of tea, and feeling wired.

With the groundwork laid, Professor Burkett now moved into the land of make-believe… not that I knew the difference. He said that chüd was especially useful when one of these high-country Buddhists encountered a yeti, also known as the abominable snowman.

“Are those things real?” I asked.

“As with your Mr. Therriault, I can’t say with any surety. But—also as with you and your Mr. Therriault—I can say that the Tibetans believe they are.”

The professor went on to say that a person unfortunate enough to meet a yeti would be haunted by it for the rest of his life. Unless, that was, it could be engaged and bested in the Ritual of Chüd.