Free The Story of Her Holding an Orange by Milos Bogetic

first time in his life.
    You know the rest of the story. He denied me the baptism at first, only to change his mind and do it. When my dad came to visit him twenty years later, he claimed that he couldn’t deny one of God’s children a way to Jesus. 
    The priest said that for two weeks after the ceremony, the woman would show up in his window every night. She wouldn’t say a word; she would just stare at him with her head tilted to the left. Then, his sheep started dying. There were no signs of fighting or foul play, they’d just be found dead in the morning. Finally, the priest claimed that the number of exorcisms skyrocketed at the church.
    Now, I believed everything Father Srdjan said to my dad up to that point. I think it’s safe to assume that the woman who visited him was Rose. Sure, she may have come to his window to harass him for disobeying. And all right, she may have killed his sheep even. But exorcisms? As soon as my dad mentioned that, I told him that the man was being overly dramatic. My dad said that he thought that as well, until the priest showed him a VHS of one of the exorcisms. Apparently, the church had cameras installed to record every such ritual. My dad says that there was this 13-year-old girl in the chapel, and the priest was saying all the prayers. But when he sprayed holy water on her, she started talking nonsense and walking in circles. Srdjan called for two guys from the staff to hold her down, but they couldn’t. Dad said that it was surreal watching a little girl dragging two large guys across the chapel.
    My father was overwhelmed with all the information, and he wasn’t sure what to believe. He wanted to leave, but he needed to find out who the woman was. Srdjan claimed that he initially thought that the woman was a demon, but her lack of fear when he prayed and her freedom on the holy ground suggested differently. He then went on with theories of her being a part of a cult, or maybe even Morana, the goddess of death. He claimed that he still occasionally sees her, most often on February 13, the day he baptized me. This whole experience apparently made Father Srdjan lose faith in God, who he claims should’ve protected him, and he retired not too long after the woman started coming to him.
    I personally took most of this story with a grain of salt, as did Dad. We couldn’t really be sure how much of it was true and how much was a fabrication of an old, probably senile mind. One thing I was sure about though: my patience was running out.
    Imagine the amount of information running through my brain at the moment. I had to be on a constant lookout for Rose and her company. I had to try and figure out what she wanted from me. I had to dig into my and my family’s history for answers, which only lead to more questions. I had to worry about Trish and her well-being. It was rough, man.
    As my tolerance for stress ran dangerously low, I made a decision: The next time I saw Rose, I was going to take the fucking orange.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    TEN
     
    I Took It
    Trish had returned from visiting her friend, and I could tell she looked much better. She had regained some color, her mood had gotten better, and she didn’t appear as scared. I chose not to tell her about my baptism story or the bike trail incident since I didn’t want her to worry over things she couldn’t influence. I told her that my days went by uneventfully and that the whole horror was most likely over. I don’t know if she could tell I was lying or not, but she accepted my words with a warm smile, and we had a joyful day together for the first time in two months, since the Rose events restarted. 
    You would expect my next sentence to start with “but,” wouldn’t you? Well, there wasn’t a “but.” As a matter of fact, the next day was even better than the previous one. I got a call from a company I applied to work for, and they told me that I had gotten the job. My first real world, grown-up job. The only thing