#katherine dodd

[hotangrybruises]

señor bubalo and the little girl of dodd house, part vii (301/365)

Not long after Katherine Dodd had dwindled, the McCallum’s returned home from the Diocese, joined by Bishop Coady and Father Poyle. The official visit to determine possession had been decided upon after Bishop Coady’s talk with Cynthia, and since both he and Father Poyle had the time, Bishop Coady thought they should look at Dodd House straight away. It was the first relief Erin had felt since the whole ordeal began, which also relieved Brian, but Cindy just wanted to go home to play with her best friend in their room.

As soon as they walked through the front door, Cindy knew something was wrong. She couldn’t feel Katherine at home and it frightened her. If Katherine was gone, she’d be lonely again. Her eyes spilled tears, and she pulled away from her mother’s grip, running up the stairs in the hopes of finding Katherine.

She went straight to the bathroom where Katherine had lost her parents and yanked aside the curtain surrounding the old tub. No Katherine. She went to their room and again no Katherine. She tried her parents room. She even crept past the dining room so that her parents and the old men in the black shirts and white collars couldn’t see her and looked in the dark basement where an ancient cat, invisible to Cindy, watched her from atop the boiler. Still no Katherine. There was only one more place Katherine could be, so Cindy went to the crawlspace, this time forgetting to hide herself from the adults, flung the door open and bent her head ever so slightly so she could go inside. Katherine was gone.

Just as they were all standing, about to go upstairs and examine the bathroom where the Dodd family had died, Erin saw Cindy run passed the archway towards the front door. She moved more quickly than the men, who were still discussing the details of what a full exorcism would entail (assuming it was deemed necessary), and followed her daughter out into the hallway. Cindy wasn’t there. Erin assumed she must be running up the stairs and couldn’t help the exasperation she felt at her daughter’s behaviour in front of these important clergymen. She intended to give Cindy a good talking to, but as she passed the crawlspace she heard the gurgled heaves of Cindy’s sobbing coming from the shadows. Her frustration was replaced by concern. She knelt down and crawled in to join her daughter only to find herself wrapped into the tightest hug Cindy had ever given her.

“What’s wrong, Cindy? What is it?” asked Erin

Through choking gasps, Erin could just make out that Katherine was gone.

“Gone? Where did she go? Cindy? Where did she go?”

“I....Don’t....Knowwwww!”

Erin released one of her arms from Cindy’s wiry grip and wiped away her daughter’s tears.

“Are you sure she’s gone?”

All Cindy could do was nod between gasping breaths.

“That’s okay, Cindy. It’s okay. It must have been her time to go,” whispered Erin, trying to hide the hope of relief in her voice.

Cindy didn’t seem to pick up the muted pleasure in her mother’s voice, and her sobs began to give way to sniffling tears. She let go of her own grip and leaned back in her mother’s embrace, touching Erin’s cheek with her little hand, asking, “What’ll I do, Mommy?”

“What do you mean, Cindy?”

“She’s my only friend. What’ll I do?”

“Oh, Cindy,” said Erin, her heart aching just a little as she pulled her daughter close again. “School starts soon. I promise you’ll make friends just like you did in Masamee.”

“How do you know?’

“I just know, sweetheart. Believe me. You’re going to have so many friends. I promise.”

In that second, for the briefest moment, Erin was going to tell Cynthia that she would forget all about Katherine once she made new friends, but she knew from personal experience that wouldn’t be so. Her decisiveness took over and she gave her daughter, Cynthia MacCallum, exactly what she needed: “You can tell all your friends about her, about all the fun you had, and we can even have them over for lunch like the lunch we had with Kathy. How does that sound?”

Erin’s answer was a smooch on the cheek, an even tighter hug, and the passing of Cindy’s tears. They left the crawlspace and said goodbye to the Bishop and the Priest. The next day, the Diocese closed the case of the Dodd House, recording it as “an unsubstantiated case of potential haunting.”

[hotangrybruises]

señor bubalo and the little girl of dodd house, part vi (292/365)

Katherine Dodd was in the house alone for the first time since her friend Cindy had moved in, and she missed her Mommy and Daddy more than she had in years. She had no sense of time, however; years really meant nothing to her. Their deaths were as new to Katherine in every moment as they had been when she watched them die in the bathtub – only her new friend Cindy had given her pain respite, so the sudden loss of Cindy felt almost as bad as the loss of her parents. Katherine couldn’t understand why her friend was gone. She had been in their bedroom this morning, but now Katherine couldn’t feel her anywhere in the house. She had searched every room, every corner, she’d even gone down to the dark basement where the ancient cat, the one who moved through the house like she did, chased imaginary mice around the basement holes and tunnels and gaps in brick. Nothing. She was here now. In her crawlspace. Watching the bead bracelet her Mommy had given her dangle from the nail in the dark. It was a wonder no one who had lived in that house had found the bracelet, but Katherine didn’t know that. Katherine brushed the bracelet with her ethereal fingers and began to cry her ghostly tears.

“Little Katherine?” asked a rich, soothing voice from the door to the crawlspace.

Katherine jumped a little inside her ghostly form, shocked by the sound of the voice, confused that she hadn’t felt him in her house. But there he was, crouching in the afternoon sunlight outside her hidey-hole. Whatever fear should have been in her surprise drained away when she saw the kind eyes of the beautiful man. His white linen suit gleamed in the sunlight. His hair was perfect. And his smile told Katherine that he was here for her.

“You miss them,” he said kindly, “Don’t you, Katherine?”

All she could do was nod and swallow in that imaginary way that mimicked her living self.

“Would you like the hurt to go away?”

“Yes,” she squeaked with mingled hope and fear.

“It is very simple, Katherine.”

“How? I miss them so much.”

“Can you still see them?”

“Uh huh.”

“You see them when you close your eyes, don’t you?”

“Every time.”

“Then come here, Katherine. Take my hands.”

Katherine had been drifting over to Señor Bubalo as he talked, but now she edged those last couple of inches forward so that her knees were at the edge of the crawlspace, on the verge of entering the hallway where he still crouched, showing no signs of fatigue. He held out his strong hands, palms up, elbows on his knees and waited. She hesitated, keeping her hands to herself.

“It is scary isn’t it, Katherine?”

She nodded and looked at his hands.

“When you are ready, just reach out.”

She looked over her shoulder to the bracelet hanging in the dark, then she looked up into the deep brown of this man’s eyes: “Will you give my bracelet back to my Mommy?”

“I can do this for you, Katherine. I will. I promise.”

She said nothing. She simply put her tiny, insubstantial hands in his and crinkled her forehead in concentration, the ghost of herself remembering all the things her body had once been and done.

“Close your eyes, Katherine. You will be lonely no more.”

She did as she was told and closed her eyes, and Señor Bubalo watched her fade away. There was nothing dramatic in her fading. She was there, then she drifted away, not even leaving a chill in the air or a trace on Señor Bubalo’s hands. She had left the Dodd house forever.

[hotangrybruises]

señor bubalo and the little girl of dodd house, part v (291/365)

Two weeks later, the McCallum’s sat on a couch in the Rectory beside their Church and drank tea with Father Poyle and Bishop Coady (the Bishop unrepentantly tipping a small amount of liquor from a flask into his mug before taking his first sip). The McCallum’s had been expecting swift action. They’d been expecting belief from Father Poyle and an urgency in the church’s response. They hadn’t expected the skepticism they’d run into. Father Poyle had promised to look into the situation, and followed much the same path that Erin had followed when tracking down the Dodd deaths. He had also spent three separate days interviewing Cindy that first week right here at the rectory. He did think the story was strange, and agreed with Erin that there didn’t seem to be a way that Cindy could know the details she knew, but he also told the McCallums that he saw no signs of possession, suggesting that there could be another explanation that none of them could see. Another week passed, and on the second Sunday, Erin stayed behind after mass and confronted Father Poyle about the fact that nothing was being done. The father, however, assured them that he’d sent their case to the Diocese, and that as soon as he had an answer he would let them know. Now they were in the Rectory being stared at by a box headed old man, with the face of a pugilist and the steely eyes of an tall ship captain.    

            “Mr. McCallum. Mrs. McCallum,” began Bishop Coady, his wispy voice belying his looks. “Father Poyle has shown me his interviews with Cindy, and I would like to ask her a couple of questions if I may.”

            Erin and Brian nodded in sync just as Cindy said, “Sure.” Erin gave Cindy’s hand a little squeeze of support, and Bishop Coady smiled benevolently at them all, softening his imposing countenance and putting them all at sudden ease.

            “Tell me all about your friend, Cindy. What do you love best about Kathy?”

[hotangrybruises]

señor bubalo and the little girl of dodd house, part iii (288/365)

Twenty minutes later, Cindy had been forbidden to play with Kathy ever again, and she was told to stay in her room until her father came home. She didn’t worry for a second that she might be overreacting. She had taken decisive action, and Erin’s entire life had been about taking decisive action. Once Cindy was gone, back in the safety of her room (where Katherine Dodd was sitting on the end of her bed waiting for her), Erin pulled out her phone and started checking into the story of the dead parents, starting with the real estate agent who had said nothing about a double suicide in the home he’d been selling.

Their  conversation went well enough, mostly because Erin was a professional in all things, and her practiced calm wasn’t in any way inflammatory or aggressive. She discovered that the double suicide was news to him. The last owners had been in the house for just over a decade, and they had simply retired to Florida. They’d put the house up for sale and there hadn’t been any cause for concern. The local police, the local newspaper and a call to a Dodd family relative three counties over confirmed Cindy’s story.

It was only then that Erin’s fear actually set in.

[hotangrybruises]

señor bubalo and the little girl of dodd house (282/365)

            Cynthia McCallum met Katherine Dodd in a place most adults would find unusual, but to a 5 year old girl going on 6 like Cindy, finding Kathy in front of the crawl space beneath the foyer stairs seemed fortuitous.

            Cindy had been lonely since they moved to the big house over the creek. It was summer and school seemed terribly far away with all of ther friends back in Masamee. To make matters worse, they’\d left Vanessa behind, the nanny Cindy had spent all her days with for as long as she could remember, and now her Mommy, who was usually off at work but was now trying to “sort out” their new home and do “everything on her own” before the new baby came, had no time for her. So Cindy was understandably lonely, and Kathy’s appearance, the appearance of a ready made friend, seemed perfectly reasonable to Cindy.   

            It took Cindy’s mother days to realize there was something odd about Cindy’s “new friend” Kathy. When Cindy first came to Erin and asked, “Can I show Kathy to my room, Mommy?” Erin’s distracted response (she was busy reading the instructions for her new breast pump) was, “May I.” Not wanting to disappoint her mother, Cindy corrected her question. “May I take Kathy up to my room?” Erin finally looked up at Cindy and saw her daughter standing beneath the archway to the kitchen holding her stuffed monkey. She said, “”Sure, Sweety,” without a second thought and went back to reading.

            The next day, Cindy asked if she could bring Kathy to lunch. Erin set a place at the table for Cindy’s friend, fully expecting Cindy’s stuffed monkey to take a seat behind the extra sandwich and apple juice, but the seat remained empty. Instead, Cindy spoke to the thin air, relating to Kathy’s conversation to her mother as though Kathy was really there.

           At first Erin had found the whole thing delightful. Cindy had never had an imaginary friend, and Erin had always wondered if this lack was a deficiency in Cindy’s development. She listened, asked playful questions and laughed at all the right places until Cindy started asking Erin about Kathy’s parents....