Fall In Love With A Ghost

Chapter I | Murder and Mayhem, Standard Procedure

Chapter I | Murder and Mayhem, Standard Procedure

We’d always had a ‘normal’ family.  Normal by 21st century standards.  Four brothers, a dad and a mum.  Normal.  We just lived in a very, very Anglican community, complete with chapel and families attending it.  Oh, and my father was the parish priest. 

   Okay, we’re not really normal to a lot of people.  We had grown up in a very religious household.  While other families in our community often visited amusement parks or national icons for their summer vacation, we went around America to religious sites.  My father would visit as many chapels and cathedrals as he possibly could, and every time we went in, he would tell us to ask whoever was watching over the church – Saint Luke, Saint Matthew, Saint Mary – to ask for a favour.  We would always light a candle to the watching saint, and my father would make all of us kneel down around the statue found in the chapel to say prayers.  Those prayers would go on for what seemed like forever, and throughout it, I would always try to make my brothers laugh when they were meant to be solemn.

   To say my parents were Anglican was an understatement.  It defined who they were.  First they were Anglicans, then Americans then spouses and then parents.  They didn’t hide the fact that they had met at a mass when they were teenagers, and their first date was a Bible study.  I could only sit there with my mouth agape as the two of them told that story for the millionth time thinking, Oh sweet heavenly Lord, I have the squarest parents in the universe.  My mother had no problem swishing her blonde curls and proudly announcing to anyone who would hear her that her husband was a priest.  And they made no secret of their love of God either.  Our house was decorated with every crucifix and saint statue imaginable – it was like stepping into those religious shops you sometimes find at a parish.  My father would continually bring home the surplus from the store in his parish, and whenever he did, there was a huge blessing of the idol to be done before it could be welcomed into our home.  We followed many rituals such as this, and one of them included the prayers before mealtime; while some children had to wash their hands before the first bite, we had to say grace – “Blessed our Lord and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, amen.”  I had had no idea what these words meant, and to this day, seventeen years later, I still have close to no idea, but I know if I don’t say them, I don’t eat.  When I was young, I would always try to make one of my brothers laugh through this, as well.  One memorable one was when Lucas was saying the grace that night, and I decided to cross my eyes and twist my mouth to make the strangest look ever.  At the wrong moment, his eyes had darted to me, and he had exploded into laughter.  It was then seen that he got in trouble, not me, which made my victory of making him laugh that much sweeter.

      Despite my pranks, my brothers and I were very close.  From Christopher to Jacob to Lucas to me, Donovan, we were the best of friends.  Lucas was the one in age closest to me, so I suppose for that reason we got along best.  Lucas was my best friend, and we spent almost all our time together.  When he was six and I was five, we begged and pleaded our parents to let us share a room.  They were reluctant at first, but then gave in once they made sure we wouldn’t keep each other up at ungodly hours.  We were brothers, though we looked absolutely nothing alike; he was tall, solid, built like a soldier with sleek blond hair, while I was thinner in stature, my wiry hair a shocking colour of crimson.  It didn’t matter on our looks.  Whenever the bullies came for me at school, picking at my hair or criticising my lack of athletic stature, Lucas would step in and sort them out.  He looked like he belonged in high school, so they always backed off.  “I’m always here for you, little brother,” he had promised me.

   He broke it when he turned twelve.  He was ready to go to Year 8, though the school was considering sending him right to Year 9 for his good grades.  All my brothers had good grades, and so did I, just in different areas.  They were all into the humanities, while I enjoyed Maths and Science. My parents had this uncanny way of choosing a golden child.  First it had been Christopher, but then he decided not to go to university, or something.  Then Jacob when he won that award for media and communications and school.  He then started smoking.  Lucas was next in line.  And boy, did Lucas make them proud.  His report cards were framed and hung up, even though I pointed out that he would need it for his résumé and his future bosses were not going to come home and see them that way.  He won awards, he was in line for head boy at our all boys’ school.  Me?  They gave up on me when I announced that I no longer believed in Adam and Eve and the Creationist teachings, taking interest in the Big Bang Theory and evolution.  My mother had done a sign of the cross and prayed to God to retrieve my soul from whichever demon had taken it.  Lucas didn’t care, and when I was down about being left behind, he would ruffle my hair and say, “It doesn’t matter.  I still care.”  He made me happy, but then it all changed.

   I had come home excitedly one day, wanting to go to the park with him to walk our dog, when I stepped into our abode and found him pulling his bed.  I stopped at the door way.  “Where are you going?” I questioned him as he started to push the frame out.

   He looked up at me with his matching emerald eyes, and his brow furrowed.  “I’m moving to the spare room.  Move?”

   Lucas had been harsh to me for a few months now, and when I had asked dad about it, he shrugged it off, having no sympathy, saying, “He’s just growing up, Donovan.  He’ll be back to normal before you know it.  We just have to pray to the Lord that he will return."

   He might have been growing up, but that didn’t warrant why he was leaving our room.  “Let me through, Don,” he repeated.

   “But this is our room!” I protested.

   I could tell by the way his jaw set that he was ticked off with me.  He stood up straighter, standing about ten inches taller than me, and at this time he still hadn’t had his growth spurt.  “We didn’t agree to live together forever,” he said, “We’re not Bert and Ernie.”

   I watched, stunned, shocked by the whiplash of his words.  “You’re mad at me,” I whispered.  “What did I do?”

   “You did nothing, I just want privacy, okay?  I’m just next door.”  But I didn’t want him next door, I wanted him with me.

   Lucas had been different ever since high school started for him.  He was ruder, meaner.  As all of us boys grew up, there was an aversion to the strict doctrines we had been told to abide by.  Of all my parents’ dreams for their children, that they would be successful and all that, this one was immutable – that we would grow up devout, lifelong, practicing Anglicans.  I suppose though, if you pushed a child one way, they were bound to go another.  Despite their best efforts, our lives as practicing Anglicans got off to a rocky start, but it was most prevalent in Lucas.  As he grew into his teens, he was changing drastically from the good son of the priest to something, in my parents eyes, unworldly.  He had grown his hair long and started to listen to music dubbed by my parents as ‘Satan worship’.  He stopped attending Mass regularly, and brought home girls who apparently dressed strangely.  I didn’t see what was strange about it, but apparently skirts and tank-tops didn’t cut it for my parents.  Whatever had happened, Lucas had been disappearing quickly from the religion and he had no intention of going back. 

                                                                      ♡

I wasn’t the best Anglican myself, either.  I told lies – white ones.  I didn’t always pay attention in church.  I just didn’t understand what was so great about God and Jesus.  I didn’t understand that thing called substantiation, where pieces of bread and wine could suddenly be transformed into the body and blood of Christ.  And if God was so giving, why was it that our church was so divided?

   Our parish was on the outskirts of New York.  Our town was separated into two areas – the classier, uptown called Fairmont and the dirty, impoverished downtown, so much so that it wasn’t given a proper name.  It was just called ‘Downtown’.  When the two joined at church, you could see the differences.  My family was part of the classier suburbs, and we were always dressed in our suits and ties, our hair slicked back, all ready for talking to God, and many of the parishioners were the same.  But then there were a few families that came from Downtown.  They always dressed as best they could, but if one looked closely, they could see lose threads, some stitching of holes here and there, and worn out shoes.  My father welcomed them all, and seemed to pay no attention to their differences as he said goodbye to all of his flock after the service, but some of the sheep turned their noses up at the ones with not-quite quality wool.  However, they were expected to be nice, so they gave phony smiles.

  I stood beside my father always as people filed past, taking his hand and saying thank you.  “Thank you, Father Fillion, it was a wonderful sermon”, or “Magnificent, just magnificent.”  Something along those lines.  My father would always graciously smile and shake their hand, and for the little children he always had a basket full of Dairy Milk individuals to give to them.  It was a quaint town, and even though we had our differences sometimes, we all managed to get along.  It was the perfect, untouched Eden.

   Until a girl was murdered and her body left in a ditch.