The Puppet In The Cage

I sat idling in the car for a few minutes outside the church, staring at it. It didn’t look special. It was a very plain looking church, bright white, average-sized steeple, sitting to the side of a town common. A shitty looking italian eatery lay about fifty yards to my rear. PIZZA, PASTA & SUBS. The place seemed busy, and why not? In a town like this, no one would know what real italian tastes like. This was the sort of town where a Chili’s would elevate the culture considerably.

The church was not busy.

I was raised Catholic and my church, like this one, had had perpetual adoration. People were always walking in and out. Mostly old ladies in kerchiefs. On a Sunday afternoon, like this, our church would have a visible stream of people coming and going. The OUR LADY OF THE BOUNDLESS CHALICE had no one walking through its big green door and the sidewalk in front didn’t seem as well-traveled as it did elsewhere around the common. Leaves clotted the mossy cement.

I got out, walked up to the door and hesitated there. I realized, standing there, that I hadn’t been inside a church since the funeral. Faith was a part of my upbringing, but I didn’t carry it with me into adulthood, and a death in the family will put the habit of attending church to a quick end if your faith isn’t behind it. I asked myself how I felt about walking in again. I was fine with it, but only because I had a job to do, an article to write. At peace with this I opened the door and went in.

Immediately I began listening. The stories all said that it screamed most of the time. The door clicked shut and I strained in the silence to hear anything. I began to hear it- a low hissing echoing from the church’s grand space beyond. Here in the atrium, you couldn’t hear what it was saying. You could only hear a voice, low and urgent, nattering things. I knew what it was saying in a general sense- the stories all agreed that what it said, endlessly, were unspeakable blasphemies. Bright, jangling sentences so tart to the ear that you would flinch to hear them retold by a friend.

“Steven?”

Startled, I gasped. A priest nearby had emerged from an office and held up a hand in friendly greeting. “I’m sorry,” the priest said. “Steven, was it?”

“Yes,” I said, composing myself. I shook his hand and he smiled. The noises from the church’s cavernous sanctuary had ceased. It was listening to us, now.

“I’m Father Callaghan. Let’s take this to my office, it’s through here. You remember my email, yes?” His eyes spoke the question he was really asking - do you remember my instructions? I nodded and swallowed. He smiled again and we walked.

It is imperative that you do not look at it, or give any indication that you have heard what it has said. It will say terrible things. It will say what seem to be deeply personal things. Ignore them. It wants you to react. None of my parishioners pay it any mind, or seem to. This is one rule I insist you follow while you are here.

We entered the large area that housed the worshiping area of the church, known as the sanctuary. Pews lined the walls and in them sat about a half-dozen scattered worshipers with heads bowed. I kept my eyes low as I followed Father Callaghan, but I let my peripheral vision scan the ornate far wall of the apse. I began to make out what may have been the thing’s cage, some twenty feet above the altar.

It began screaming. Filthy things, horrid things. I flinched. I don’t know if it saw me, but it kept screaming. Something thrashed about in the cage, and though I didn’t look, I had the distinct impression of a small thing with fabric for skin. Felt-like and green. White, flashing bulb-eyes. Most of its words were lost in the ferocious speed of its cadence, but it was screaming at me. Things about my family. Something about my sister. Something about “she’s in hell, she’s in hell.”

We turned left and entered Father Callaghan’s office. The thick oak door clicked and softened the screaming behind us to a dull mumble. An electric candle sat unlit in the middle of the office's one window. The priest turned on a radio and songs of worship played softly.

“It can’t hear us,” he said as he sat behind the desk. “All the same, let’s keep our voices down.” I nodded and sat. He smiled at me. “Shook you up a little, huh? It can happen. It’s been here for years and it still shocks me sometimes. Let it out if you need to.” He nudged a tissue box toward me.

I waved a hand and composed myself. I pulled out a notepad and stared at it. All of my questions seemed pointless. I decided to ignore them and looked up to the father. “It looks like a puppet.”

“It does, or it seems to. We don’t know why. We don’t know much about it. The Vatican has been silent on it, and doesn’t seem interested in collecting or exorcising it. There was a holy investigation once. I think they thought it may have been a hoax, that someone was controlling it from other side of the wall. When the cardinals hurried out some minutes later, they seemed satisfied that it was not a hoax. Now that word is beginning to creep out about our guest, we’re in a position of having to ‘defend’ our church from the curious. Which website are you here with again, Steven?”

“ParanormalExposé.com.”

“Yes. I googled you shortly after your email. You investigate and report paranormal frauds, am I correct? The reason I asked you to come today is that I would like to impress on you that you should not run a story on our church.”

I shifted in my seat. “Usually, the owners that ask you not to report are doing it to drum up interest.”

“Do you think that’s what we’re doing?”

“I... no. I don’t know if that thing is real, but a Catholic Church would have very little to gain from increased traffic. I especially can’t imagine why a priest would fake this.”

“There’s a not a lot in the take-home pay, I’ll give you that. I don’t make more if extra parishioners join us from week to week.”

“And if you were doing it to drum up parishioners for faith’s sake,” I added, “you wouldn’t add all the blasphemy. A garden variety haunting would do the trick.”

Father Callaghan smiled and touched his temple. “Smart cookie. Steven, I’m asking you to remain quiet on the ‘legend’ of our guest for a simple reason- it wants the attention. If people come in and start looking at it and listening to the things it says, instead of the things I say, it will take great satisfaction in that.”

I sat quietly for a moment, listening to the thing roar in its huckling voice outside the room. “I could say I investigated and found it to be a fraud. That would quell the interest.”

“You believe it’s a fraud?”

“No, I don’t.” It had yelled things about my sister. Awful, true things. And its voice... “It’s from hell. It’s from hell and it’s real.”

“That seems to be the consensus. I’d hate to encourage a soul to lie, but declaring us a fraud would really do us a favor. I’d like to head us off as an urban legend before this thing gets out of hand.” He thought for a moment and steepled his hands. “Would you like to investigate it? Close up? I can ask our parishioners to leave.”

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not. I’ll be going myself.” I stood up. “I’m sorry this got started. I don’t know how to kill a story like this. I may not be able to, but I’ll try.”

Father Callaghan stood with me and shook my hand. “Thank you Steven. I’m sorry to have put you in this state. Can I get you a cold drink before you go?”

“No, thank you.” I turned and faced the door to the sanctuary. The voice outside had ceased. It’s listening again. I no longer was in a rush and turned back. “Father, why is it here? I mean... here in the church, mounted in a cage above the altar?”

“Simple,” the priest said. “It’s a profane thing. Maybe a demon, maybe a devil. It hates God, it hates man and the fellowship of the holy church. We keep it here so that it can attend every mass, hear every blessing. It screams blasphemy and we go right on worshiping. This is its hell.”

That gave me strength enough to walk through the door. I kept my head high and didn’t react as it screamed about Sharon. As I left the church, it yelled something about my sister crying in hell as doll-eyed dogs laughed through the flames at her. I made it to my car before I threw up.

The next day I submitted a brief piece dismissing the OUR LADY OF THE BOUNDLESS CHALICE reports to be a hoax. I pray it helps stifle interest in the puppet.

I pray to God.