Walking Through Walls by Philip Smith Page A

good in life. These are things that a priest does.”
    If standing over some smelly naked girl with spit all over her face is what it takes to find God, then I wanted no part of it. “Why was that girl acting that way, all crazy?”
    â€œBecause she was possessed by the devil.”
    â€œI didn’t see the devil there. Where was he?”
    â€œYou couldn’t see him because he was inside of her.”
    This didn’t make any sense to me. “Inside of her? How did he get inside of her?”
    â€œThe devil likes to find people who are weak or have problems; this way he can take advantage of them and make them do things they don’t want to do. When that girl bit her mother, she didn’t mean to do that; she didn’t know she was doing it. It was the devil acting through her.”
    â€œI didn’t think the devil was real. I thought it was just some sort of cartoon thing to make people scared.”
    My father laughed. “The devil is indeed real and causes people to do things against their better judgment. I don’t think he looks like some red man with horns and a pitchfork. That is definitely a cartoon. But there are powerful dark forces out there that can make people do evil.”
    â€œHow can I keep the dark forces from taking over my body?”
    â€œAt all times you need to keep yourself surrounded by the white light of protection. Imagine yourself enveloped by a bubble of white light that can repel any type of negative energy that tries to attack you.” As he said this, my father drew an arc over my head with his finger. “This will keep you safe. You have no idea of the number of people I see who are possessed and have a dark entity making them do things against their will. We are all surrounded by possessed people. It’s a real problem because you can’t easily tell who’s possessed and who isn’t. And now with so many young people taking drugs, this creates just the type of environment that these lost souls are looking for. The other thing you can do is to say the exorcism prayer, which will instantly get rid of any possession.”
    â€œWhere do I get that prayer?”
    â€œI’ll give you one when we get home. But you don’t have to worry. I’ll always watch out for you and keep you safe. If you have any problem, I’ll be able to fix it.”
    â€œWhen Mom gets mad at you, is she possessed?”
    â€œNo, she’s just mad. But there are angry people who are possessed.”
    â€œMaybe all of us should say this prayer so that nothing happens to any of us.”
    â€œI don’t think Mom would be interested in this. In fact, I don’t think you should discuss what happened today with anyone. Let’s just keep it as one of our little adventures.”
    â€œWait till I tell Mrs. Lincoln that I saw the devil,” I said. “Tomorrow we’re having show-and-tell; I’m going to tell them all about this.” Mrs. Lincoln was my ninth-grade teacher. I imagined she would be suitably impressed that my father beat back the devil. Perhaps this story might help improve my homeroom grades, which were somewhat lackluster. I only hoped she didn’t have one of her spells when I got to the part about the naked girl rolling around on the floor. Mrs. Lincoln, a good woman who also taught Sunday school, was prone to getting dizzy when things upset her. She was not meant for the modern world. I knew all the boys were going to start to laugh when I told them about the girl with the devil inside of her. I was going to score big points with this story.
    â€œPhilip, you can’t tell Mrs. Lincoln about what happened today.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œYou can’t tell anybody about this. What happened today is a secret. Would you like someone going around telling everybody that you had the devil inside of you?”
    â€œNo, but you fixed her. So now that the devil’s gone, it’s