Possess

the floor. Most hadn’t been touched.
    The desk was pressed into a corner, jutting out at a diagonal like an afterthought. The only other furnishings were two chairs: the one at which the priest sat and another in front of the nearest bookcase.
    And Father Santos.
    He sat forward in his chair so the tips of his toes just reached the ground. His writing pace was frantic, as if he was afraid his thoughts would disappear if he didn’t get them on the page fast enough. She wondered if he was writing about her, about what had happened with Mrs. Long. She wondered if his account of what she and Monsignor had been doing would end up on some cardinal’s desk back in the Vatican, or worse, the pope’s. Could she get excommunicated for practicing unlicensed exorcisms? Her mom would kill her.
    Father Santos paused, scratched his upper lip with the cap of the pen, and scrunched his eyes, trying to capture some fleeting detail before it escaped. She thought maybe he’d notice her then, but with a quick intake of breath, he dove back into his writing. He reminded her of Sammy when he was fixated on a problem, his little genius mind utterly incapable of multitasking.
    Bridget cleared her throat. “Father Santos?”
    She might as well have shot a gun off in the office. Father Santos let out a shriek like a twelve-year-old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert and knocked a large pile of books off the corner of his desk.
    “Bridget!”
    Why was he surprised to see her? “Yeah.”
    “What time is it?”
    Bridget glanced around the office, quickly registering the lack of clock or window. “Seven thirty. Like you said.”
    “Really?” He pushed back his chair and fumbled around with the pile of books on the floor. “Already?”
    Sheesh, how long had he been there? “Yeah.”
    “Come in, come in,” he said, wiping his brow with a dirty handkerchief. “Sorry about the mess.”
    With a heavy sigh, she closed the door behind her, edged her way past piles of ancient tomes, and dragged the empty chair to the desk. Bridget clutched her backpack to her chest and stared at a spot on the wall.
    Father Santos cleared his throat several times while he shoved his notebook into a drawer. “So,” he said at last. “I suppose you know why I asked you here?”
    What did that mean? “I take it you don’t want to talk to me about my history grade.”
    A wry half smile sprung from the side of his mouth. “That was a joke, right?”
    “Yeah.” Was he for real?
    “I thought so,” he said with a wink.
    Lame.
    Father Santos took a breath, then exhaled on a whoosh and blurted, “I, uh, want to discuss what happened with Mrs. Long.”
    Bridget had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes. Yeah, like it took a brain surgeon to figure that one out. Was he going to give her an official scolding from the Vatican? Or accuse her of being a witch? Did they still do that? She said a silent prayer that she was in no danger of getting burned at the stake in twenty-first-century California.
    She stared at him blankly.
    “What you did,” he continued quickly. “W-with Mrs. Long and the, uh, the entities. That was highly unusual.”
    This time Bridget couldn’t suppress a laugh. Father Santos raised an eyebrow. He clearly didn’t see the humor.
    “Sorry,” she said, drawing her backpack closer to her chest.
    “Like I said, it was highly unusual. I’ve been scouring the histories for two days trying to find a similar case of divine grace, and I must say that I’ve—”
    “Of what?”
    Father Santos did a double take. “Divine grace. A touch from the hand of God, usually bestowed on those of exceptionally pure and vigorous faith. But I’ve been unable to find any cases involving someone so . . .” He paused, grasping for the correct adjective. “So young.”
    “Oh.” Bridget doubted very much that was what he was thinking. “Is that what I have?”
    Father Santos dropped his eyes. “Perhaps.”
    Huh? “Perhaps?”
    “I . . . I, uh, I thought Monsignor would have discussed this with you.”
    Bridget shook her head.
    Father Santos pushed his chair back from his desk and laced his fingers together around his belly. “Hmm. So he didn’t give you any explanation for your unique abilities?”
    Bridget shrugged. “He just said I had a gift and that I had to be responsible and use it to help people.”
    “Very good.”
    “And then he started teaching me the Rules.”
    “His rules of engagement during an exorcism?”
    Bridget cringed.